The coup against the tyrannical/power-hungry/naive – take your pick – rule of un-elected + elected majority of religious heads in egypt has turned into a full blown bloodbath. The army shoots demonstrators, blames demonstrators, and casts fog as to what on earth is going on, and how come over 500 people get in the way of sniper bullets without noticing it.
Where are the voices of democrats now?
Where are the voices of democracies now?
The silent voices about egypt open the space for people like erdogan – who very recently didn’t hesitate to have a go at people in turkey – to posture as a friendly person concerned by civilian deaths and killing.
The meek voices that call for “calm” deprive the future moralistic ground of saying “stop!!” when the killers are not west’s bestest of friends..
The continuous tacit support for egypt’s new rulers might also pave a way for claiming democratic ways are not so very pan human. Here we have a group of murdered religious psychopaths that I, and possibly many other democratic minded people, utterly disagree with. However, is this disagreement more important than their right to live?
Is this disagreement more important than the ability to continue the dialogue around it?
We do not normally have much dialogue with dead people, and grieving communities, people who share a sense of responsibility for others who died for their cause, find it even harder to converse because of the possibility that friends died for a mistaken cause..
If we can not argue energetically for democratic processes in every human society, perhaps indeed democratic processes are not as important as we might have thought..
Do we have others?
If our democratic processes are not as important as we thought. If such processes that helped bring a culture of ever greater emancipation and equality among various social elements, if such processes that helped sorting issues among ourselves via words rather than sticks, are not relevant any more – what is there as a replacement?
I think that if we stop arguing for the pan-human – perhaps even pan-entity – bases of democratic processes, then we’ll slowly realise these processes and the culture that come with them, will shrink at home.. A bit like Kafka’s observation that 1st they go for the migrants, then the “jews”, and so, until it is You. Or a bit like the way we can witness how drones have been used upon “enemies” and are slowly being introduced in police domestic activities – I think that democratic processes erode 1st in our links with the “outside”.. Just like such links can feed greater energies when democratic processes are indeed pressed ahead with..
<!NotE!> I do think that our democratic processes are all too minimal and lacking many elements that we should do for, perhaps, better evolving them. However, just because the element is organic and evolving, does not mean the element/entity has to be killed off..
9 replies on “egypt and the beginning of our democratic endings?”
attempting to find information about the bloody events in egypt, I attempted to get into http://english.daralhayat.com/ (al hayat magazine? tv?) anyway, I got uk block initially, as if the site has some copyright issues.. that block was not there after 30 mins or so..
this link http://arty.li/ZNV is to a robert fisk view regarding muslims and ballot box democracy. while i think the idea of west not being able to accept power that it disagrees with, I think it should also be mentioned that in many such cases, the parties voted in, seem to have stopped democratic processes, or inhibit them.
In egypt, the constitution was more focused on islamic laws than enabling democratic processes such as civil society, separation – or even dispersion – of power, enabling free choice, fearless critique and so on..
a q&a re egypt situation on the guardian: http://q-and-a.theguardian.com/qanda/1421001 might be interesting to keep an eye on?
from somewhere in egypt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCgsh5HfctQ – apart from the clear overwhelming brutality and disregard to human lives, I think this (towards the end) shows soldiers not being concerned about hiding from supposed guns shot by citizens, but to hide behind a bulldozer as to mount a surprise attack on people..
Some egypt related ideas, some of which, might prove my main splurge a bit wrong – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201381414224611663.html
Towards the end of
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/19/ahdaf_soueif_amidst_egypts_bloodshed_we where they talk about discussions within families, I think the attitude towards torture indicates the importance of culture over direct ideas..
Has the usa decided in yet another questionable way to suspend aid to egypts army? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/19/senator-obama-administration-secretly-suspended-military-aid-to-egypt.html
When in egypt some folk talk about zionist israeli plots against them, the egyptian state etc., there tends to be some scoff and accusation of “antisemitism” and the well knowns illness of “jew hatred”. Infact the zionist state of israel, the entity that tags its self “the only democracy in the middle east”, claimed to have supported Mubarak long after his stock fell even in american rhethorics, as a way of not intervening in egypt’s internal affairs. When the israeli state of jews – as it wishes to be thought of – did not condem the killings of demonstrators in 2011 revolution’s tahrir sq killings – it was the non intervention and the sacredness of neutrality that were of top importance. Instead of showing – and being – in some solidarity with plight of people in its neighbouring state, the israeli government, egged by an understandable wish to be popular at home, declared it does not intervene, not even in rhetoric. imho, that was a very good example of the israeli state of colonianisation, of it being in an area it fails to belong to in actions, and manages to be at via words and brutality to back them.
Now, when israel jewish section has a chance to make amends and support, despite reservations – very understandable/agreeable ones – of the muslim brotherhood, the democratic aspirations in egypt; we get to see how power, brutality and killing does not deter the zionistas:
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/.premium-1.542403 (sorry re capitalistic link, but the headline.. “Sympathy for the devil: Israel’s efforts on behalf of Cairo’s generals “)
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Israel-warns-US-Alienating-Egyptian-army-might-risk-peace-talks-323642
another example of israeli intervention of help-the-butality in egypt is in assuming that a is 1 and forgetting that you made that assumption via the use of fear:
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Ben-Eliezer-Sisi-is-preventing-Egypt-from-turning-into-Iran-323578
(the ben eliezer guy is part of the israeli jew section top brass, following being a generalisimo in the army and some top dog government jobs)