Althouse: "So what happened to all those candidates embodying the spirit of Egypt’s modern progressive democratic youth movement..."

May 28, 2012

"So what happened to all those candidates embodying the spirit of Egypt’s modern progressive democratic youth movement..."

"... that all those Western media rubes were cooing over in Tahrir Square a year ago? How are they doing in Egypt’s first free presidential election?"

24 comments:

The Crack Emcee said...: "Western media rubes"

There's never a shortage of them around.

What I don't get is how they keep their jobs. Reynolds has a link to a critique of Paul Krugman and, seriously, as often as he's wrong, I can't imagine why ANYONE would listen to him anymore. Actually, I can - because, for a lot of people, there's very little connecting anything to reality.

Krugman can be wrong because he's a libby who won a Nobel prize. Someone else can be wrong because they're "nice" and everybody likes them. True, they both may be selling us all straight down the river, but nevermind - that's how it "works." Being right counts for nothing in Wonderland, and you lose further points if you show frustration at watching us unnecessarily sliding further into trouble. Then the liberals ain't so liberal anymore and the "nice" folks ain't so nice.

And I'm finding conservatives ain't no better. I guess being idiots and assholes is just human nature. Pity that.

I'm settling for being an asshole,...; 5/28/12, 8:14 AM
pm317 said...: They never existed?; 5/28/12, 8:20 AM
Carnifex said...: Yes. Idiots and assholes is the human condition. That's how I know God loves slapstick comedy.

And as I've stated over and over...there is no such thing as a moderate muslim. Ask one... they will look at you like you have 2 heads they can cut off. There is only Islam to these people. There is no moderation.; 5/28/12, 8:33 AM
roesch/voltaire said...: I read Juan Cole on the issue and he reflects a better understanding of the issues. The progressive movement is still there, some women are removing their head coverings in protest of the Brother Hood, but the youth are in the minority so far, and as Cole points out: "Ironically, the preference for a law and order candidate after a period of social upheaval in Egypt mirrors what happened in the United States in the 1960s and after. The anti-war protests of the counter-culture and the damage done Southern Democrats by the Civil Rights movement contributed to President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to step down (a la Mubarak)."; 5/28/12, 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Actually, what I found more surprising, living in Egypt for the past year, was not how many people were willing to vote for the Brotherhood. That the Brotherhood has done well is hardly surprising to anybody who has read even half a book about politics Egypt.

What surprised me more was how willing some Egyptian secularists were to vote for ex-Mubarak old-regime candidates on the idea that they had proven ability to rule.

Nobody is entirely surprised that the top 5 were the top 5. It's a little surprising the way they lined-up in that top 5.

For the past few weeks I've gone around asking almost everyone who they are voting for and why. Generally, I heard Egyptians say they were deciding based on something that is entirely understandable: a candidate's track record and experience.

I don't think it's surprising they went for big, known names over small, "who's that?" candidates. That's the way it usually works in elections.; 5/28/12, 9:04 AM
Mark O said...: Those brave souls are busy posting pictures of kitties on Facebook.; 5/28/12, 9:05 AM
Humperdink said...: Mark Steyn labeled the Facebook IPO "flat". Others labeled it a "dud".

Where's Michael?; 5/28/12, 9:22 AM
Humperdink said...: Mark Steyn labeled the Facebook IPO "flat". Others labeled it a "dud".

Where's Michael?; 5/28/12, 9:36 AM
Humperdink said...: Sorry for the double post. The hieroglypics, now in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Greek and Swahili threw me off.; 5/28/12, 9:49 AM
edutcher said...: The Arab Spring is working out about as well as the rest of Zero's foreign policy reset.

The worst part is they shut down the belly dancing channel.; 5/28/12, 9:50 AM
Penny said...: The Arab Spring was successful in building unrealistic expectations among the Egyptian people.

There will be no winner in this election. Just a "Biggest Loser".; 5/28/12, 10:30 AM
Jason said...: roesch/voltaire:

THAT load of absolut bullshit reflects a 'better understanding of the issues?' Really?

Steyn nailed it. Cole's a fucking joke of a public intellectual.; 5/28/12, 10:45 AM
Jerome said...: Muslims have a religion that prescribes a particular form of government. Not surprisingly, when adherents of that religion are asked what form of government they desire, that is the one they choose. Which is why we should not let any more of them come here.; 5/28/12, 10:45 AM
granmary said...: I knew from the beginning that Obama's call to overthrow Mubarrack would end as badly as Jimmy Carter's call to overthrow the Shah of Iran. Egypt will be another Iran, if not worse.; 5/28/12, 11:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Muslims have a religion that prescribes a particular form of government.

As I've said time and time again, this is not true. What form of government? One that respects religion?

If you read a large percentage of Islamic political discourse these days it's all about the same sortof stuff we in the West like - rights, government accountability, the will of the people, etc. PLEASE PEOPLE do not suggest that the answer is so obvious. Especially when you have not read the staples of modern Islamic thought. As I've said before, most Islamists talk about a parliamentary form of government with electoral politics operative. On the issue of which laws to enact and apply, they see very little as actually required by Islam other than the enforcement of broad principles like doing what it in the public's welfare.

Even the Brotherhood have admitted one of their main concerns is economics. Again, that's hardly surprising.

The Arab Spring is working out about as well as the rest of Zero's foreign policy reset.

What a pessimist. We don't know how it is working out 1 and 1/2 years down the road. Just like 1 1/2 years after the Declaration of Independence it was HARDLY clear that America was going to work out as a unified stable nation. That took 25 years at least, and even then we eventually had to fight a civil war over the slavery issue. It's just too early to call. Just like it was too early for Oliver Stone to make a movie about W without waiting to look back over history.

The ability of the Egyptians to go out on the street and for the first time talk about their own opinions and vote in real elections is definitely a step up. And I saw it in their faces every day. Some questions and nervousness about the future, yes. But overall, this is MUCH better than closed-mouthed despair.; 5/28/12, 11:06 AM
Tibore said...: "May 28, 2012
"So what happened to all those candidates embodying the spirit of Egypt’s modern progressive democratic youth movement..."

"... that all those Western media rubes were cooing over in Tahrir Square a year ago? How are they doing in Egypt’s first free presidential election?""

Nothing "happened" to them. The problem is that everyone appears to have misperceived those candidates as being modern and progressive to begin with.

Michael J Totten had this exchange in one of his threads talking about this exact topic:

"E: "It worries me that he's being perceived as moderate only in comparison to other candidates. So my conclusion is that he's not really "moderate" at all, he's only perceived as so."

Yes, you're right.

No genuine moderate would have anything to do with an Islamist political party."

(The "he" being Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, candidate #3 in Steyn's linked article.)

Just saying the right things doesn't mean anything. It's in the "Doing" that people's true stripes are revealed.; 5/28/12, 11:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Egypt will be another Iran, if not worse.

There is zero evidence of this at this point in time.

Not to mention that an extremely important (and interesting) factor in Iran is their Shi'ism, which has a more hierarchical clerical and legal structure than Sunni Islam. This led to the Ayatollah being able to write about the concept of Vilayat-i-Faqih, which morphed into the structure of the Islamic Republic.

Egypt has a bunch of different groups, but not the same hierarchy. Even the Brotherhood is split into factions, many of which are fighting each other. No leader has as of yet been able to gather the support Khomeini did, and most of the big clerics in Egypt don't want to. They simply aren't in it for that. Al-Azhar, the main clerical body in Egypt, is actually trying to gain MORE independence from the government, not any control over it. Making the situations simply not comparable.; 5/28/12, 11:14 AM
cubanbob said...: Partridge said...

Iran actually has reasonably legitimate elections and a parliament which is more than can be said for most Arab countries. But it has parameters of what is permissible in an Islamic State. So will Egypt.; 5/28/12, 12:08 PM
bagoh20 said...: I had great faith in the power of western culture to pull people toward freedom, but as the culture becomes even less serious and values rooted every day, I see now why it has lost the potency it once had. How do you argue that if people make sacrifices and risk their lives, that they too can post pet photos uninhibited.

We used to just be able to stand there with our freedom and respect for the individual backed up with fiscal strength and great achievement to entice those wanting a better life. We were a shining city, but now? What are we proud of? What do we now have to say: "See, this is the way you want to go."

We can't build anything, we can't do anything. We need a committee, a 1000 page law, and an environmental impact statement to fill a pot hole.

Our philosophical enemies in the middle east are having an easy time making westernization look like a poor choice. We are doing that ourselves. We have abandoned our own spirit so much that now our "free world" can't clearly compete with local appeal to tradition and religion like it once did.

This is why what we vote for is more important than who. Obama might be a fine father, husband and even a nice guy, but what he represents politically, culturally, and fiscally is most important. That might have been enticing in the last century, or the 60's generation, but since then that experiment has had decisively and dramatically bad results.

As Crack put it today in another post, "We are a dream in some starving kid's mind, so, Goddamnit, we'd better make it a good one,..."

We had the tradition, and the culture to be a great model once. The model was not an easy life free of expenses or tragedy, but a life of liberty that made everything else possible.

Lately, I think that over there they just see us as another starving kid under an imposing government, but with his dog dressed like a pirate.; 5/28/12, 12:43 PM
n.n said...: It was a setup and they were exploited in order to effect a regime change to suit a special interest group. It happens, periodically. The only question is who motivated this change and are their interests compatible with our own. So far, this does not seem to be the case; but, the dynamics surrounding this event are certainly not clear and, in fact, rarely are.; 5/28/12, 1:02 PM
bagoh20 said...: I don't blame the media rubes for hoping that the Arab spring would really be a new season, but I do blame them for believing that just because there was a Democrat in the White House. Most of them thought it a ridiculous idea when Bush was actually making it happen in Iraq the only way possible: though a militarily imposed relatively safe environment for opposition to the well-armed forces of the Islamists.

In Egypt, it appears that the people are voting for Islamists in sufficient number that you have to accept that this is what they want for themselves.

Hell, look what we vote for ourselves. Democracy is a dangerous game. You can only hope that in the long run it's self-repairing. The problem in the middle east is that it never gets a long enough run.; 5/28/12, 1:15 PM
frank said...: Partridge said...
Muslims have a religion that prescribes a particular form of government.

What drivel. Ask President Thomas Jefferson what the American response to Islamic political leaders of his time should be. "To the shores of Tripoli" is not just some random word collection, born in the early years of our republic to Muslim thinking. America has been at war with Islamic thinking since 1801---2001 should not have been a surprize. The only question is what amount of our resources should be allocated to keeping Islam in the 7th century,where it belongs.; 5/28/12, 3:26 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: This is the whitest of white swans.

Leave it to Juan Cole to compare what's happening in Egypt to the election of Richard Nixon. Mind- blowingly inaccurate.

The Muslim Brotherhood isn't the Republican party, it's a radical revolutionary movement dedicated to an Islamic state. They are more like the Bolsheviks or the Fascists than anything else. Their core beliefs go far beyond law and order, but the radical remaking of society in the image of sharia law. This is an anti- Western radical modernizing ideology, not a conservative movement.

Liberals do poorly in a revolutionary environment, as we've seen since at least 1789. Once the old regime is dead, there's chaos until a new order is erected, usually on a pile of bodies. The Brotherhood has been consciously fomenting chaos in the hope of winning the election. If they somehow lose, they won't accept the result. Then we'll have the October revolution.

Liberals don't organize coups and don't have secret police (that's against the whole point of liberal government) so they tend to get run over by more ruthless opponents.

Writing about revolutionary Egypt as if it's something akin to a US election is deceptive. What's happening is 1917 Russia or 1923 Italy or 1933 Wiemar. Anyone who thinks the new republic will continue to have elections is naive or willfully blind.

The 20th century was full of these movements. Liberalism causes a reaction, and the Arab Middle East is only now going through what the West encountered in the years after World War One.; 5/28/12, 5:18 PM
damikesc said...: Writing about revolutionary Egypt as if it's something akin to a US election is deceptive. What's happening is 1917 Russia or 1923 Italy or 1933 Wiemar. Anyone who thinks the new republic will continue to have elections is naive or willfully blind.

As good a description as I've seen. Even if a "Progressive" ends up in charge, we can pretty safely guess what the end game will be.

The Brotherhood will end up running Egypt. And they know what to say to the international press to make people believe what they say --- but they still express their true beliefs at home in their native languange.

...and some still believe that what they tell the press is more true than what they tell their followes. What level of insanity is that?

The Brotherhood is almost certainly going to rule. If not this year, then relatively soon.; 5/29/12, 7:48 AM