Sunday, January 30, 2011

"Pharaoh out of Egypt"

This is my favorite bit out of Egypt so far:

In surreal scenes, soldiers from Mubarak's army stood by tanks covered in anti-Mubarak graffiti: "Down with Mubarak. Down with the despot. Down with the traitor. Pharaoh out of Egypt."

Asked how they could let protesters scrawl anti-Mubarak slogans on their vehicles, one soldier said: "These are written by the people, it's the views of the peopl
e."

Egypt is a military dictatorship, propped up by the United States and has been for over 50 years. The key here is not whether Mubarak stays or goes (pero, que se vaya ya!) but whether or not Egypt will cease being a military dictatorship, and I guess what that would mean for its relations with us.

I am not a scholar of the Middle East, but the people out on the streets don't seem to be Islamicists to me. They seem like they want what most people want; jobs, opportunity, a less corrupt government. I don't see reporting that they are chanting "death to Israel" or asking to have a theocracy.

In other words, while I regret the looting and loss of life, the events in Egypt seem unmitigatedly good. Perhaps the military will actually relinquish a chunk of it's power over everyday life. It happened in Brazil, Chile, & Uruguay; maybe it can happen in North Africa too.

1 comment:

John Thacker said...

Military dictatorship for over 50 years, propped up by the United States for only around 40.

Also, I'm not sure about your use of the word "unmitigatedly" there. You seem to be saying that the looting and loss of life are mitigating factors, simply not ones that actually diminish it enough to prevent it from being a net positive.