On the 4th of July, Considering Egypt.

[jingsaw]

I am inspired today, while we are celebrating US independence, to post a few thoughts on what is going on in Egypt. I have a few connections to Egypt - people I know who live there - although I have never been myself. That makes the political power struggles more personal to me than other struggles -- even Syria which, I acknowledge, is in a state

Comments

[mindways]

One of the things often forgotten is that even once democracy is established legally, it takes much longer to establish *culturally*.

(And the cultural norms of societies are a huge factor in things like "Will there be riots in the streets?"; "Will the army overthrow the government?"; "Will the government descend into corruption and cronyism?"; etc.)

As Samer Shehata said in his NYT op-ed

[goes and reads] Thanks for the reference! :)

[arachne8x]

An interesting and thoughtful post. I read this and the article you referenced yesterday but didn't have a chance to comment.

[weasel2000]

Of course Morsi was in a no-win position, he has to balance the dictates of his party (who were oppressed for decades under Mubarak by the military and the judicial system...for good reason mind you but still it colors the way the Muslim Brotherhood had decided to govern) and the rest of the populace that are demanding better economic conditions and fear a hard-line Islamic social government making changes to the Constitution. The only saving grace (as I have said for awhile now) is that NO ONE in Egypt wants this to become another Syria.

[the_smith_e]

Oh, you are using NYT, what did you think about Al-Jazeera and their coverage? I have been away on vacation and am still catching up.

[jingsaw]

I haven't been following as much on Al-Jazeera, but I do know that they had 22 reporters resign on Monday over perceived bias in the network's coverage in favor of the Brotherhood. I can't really comment on the actual presence or depth of such a bias. It seems like influence of Qatar has had in recent years is abating somewhat, and certainly it has lost leverage with the US, but the new Emir also has a different style of ruling and so we should expect some changes.