A Facebook acquaintance mentioned how it's pretty miserable that the West has refused to take a firm stand on Egypt.
What would we have the West do, though? The worst thing we could possibly do is send in troops or something like that. A declaration of unequivocal support for the protesters would certainly be a great gesture, but there is the obvious problem that a)unlike Tunisia, the old leadership has not actually been driven out of the country, and b)it does not seem like the protesters have an organized leadership structure of their own that the West can recognize.
Economic sanctions against Mubarak's regime - like the Lukashenko travel ban and asset seizure - are probably the most viable active measures Europe can take at the moment.
The consideration that the Mubarak regime is more or less secular and the protesters' emergent ringleaders are fervent Muslims is not necessarily a deterrent for European support. It would be useful for Europe to show that it stands not against Islam, but against fundamentalism, zealotry and oppression; that it is willing to back a moderate, progressive force that uses Islam as its uniting ideology. Such a force, backed by Europe and therefore forced to adopt a large chunk of European values, would certainly be a great (additional) precedent in the region.
More than anything else, though - and I'm saying this as a New European from the Baltics - Egypt needs to complete its revolution without outside interference. Without either the West or the rest of the Middle East getting involved. However flawed the next regime is, however much of an improvement or a regression it may turn out to be, the people of Egypt need to own it. They need to see that they can affect their own destiny, so that even if they get it wrong this time, they will be inspired to try again.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
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20 comments:
This case shows how I dislike politics of interests. The whole foreign diplomatical and governmental bunch (big countries) in politics does not play always along the democratical values. That sucks. Wether it might be necessary or not. Later you have to pay the price anyway.
The West has refused to take a firm stand on what's going on in Egypt because Mubarak is an important ally in the Arab world, and the West (or more precise, the US) supports his regime financially and logistically:
"Yet the Americans wield influence over a regime that depends on them for $1.5 billion a year of aid and almost all its modern weaponry."
(http://www.economist.com/node/18065673?story_id=18065673&CFID=155532327&CFTOKEN=23328251)
It would be quite hypocritical to suddenly condemn a regime that you have supported for the last 30years.
"I seduce your mind to fear your dreams
And read your thoughts to keep you blind
From harmful truth and the open skies
Of the outside world before your eyes
I will protect you from your visions
To save you from illusions
I will protect you from ideals
To save you from defeat"
about what European values are you talking about, Antyx? your values of social darwinism and neoliberalism are not the values of Europe and will never be. they have nothing to do with Europe. These are just the values of some wanna-be elites and may be some blinded people in some small Eastern European Countries like Estonia. And even in Estonia there are a lot of people who strongly refuse your "values" because they see to what kind of perverted society they are leading to. So please, do not tell others something about values before cleaning the own house.
One of the main reasons for the outrage of the people in Egypt was not some facebook or twitter shit but just pure political content: they just had enough from a regime that took them political AND social rights. longing for Social stability and poverty reduction were main topics in Egypt, not facebook, twitter and a bigot western elite policy who has supported Mubarak. because for them stability has been always been more important than democracy and social rights. that has been bigot indeed. And it is also bigot of some neoliberal Estonians who normally care a damm shit about poverty reduction and social rights to celebrate now.
Why are you calling me Antyx? That's just the name of the blog. My name is Andrei Tuch, like it says right there next to my picture.
What's your name?
are you a robot always repeating the same? I already told you - its about content not about names.
I'm not a robot, I'm a real person who takes responsibility for his words. How about you?
well Antyx, I would guess that I take a lot more responability for my words than you have ever done. Apart from a social responsibility which for you neoliberal dude is something that probably doesn not exist at all. I already told you: people in western Europa differ a lot from you, they care about privacy and many of them as me also refuse commercial shit like facebook and twitter.
There are alternatives like disapora, identi.ca etc. but whatever: Only very stupid people can really believe that shitty products like facebook have to do something with revolutions in the third world.
I would guess you take no responsibility at all, but then I can only guess that you exist at all. For all I know, you're a Turing script that someone at Ambient Sound Investments wrote in a weekend and you're running on an old PDP-11 in a basement somewhere.
come on, Antyx, this was very poor. try it with arguments once in a while. Or don you have any more substantial arguments to defend your neoliberal world view?
I'll use arguments when I talk to a real human being. What's the point of arguing with a spambot?
you should really visit a place called moevenort once in a while as a tourist. a nice and calm place at the East German Baltic Sea coat, far away fro consumist world views like yours. unfortunatly you would probably not find the place even if you search for it. too small, to hidden and not on the landscape of mass tourism;)
you would not make use of arguments in any case. for a simple reason: you have none. people like you want to believe instead of using arguments. its the tragedy of all ideologies. including the neoliberal one.
Oh, we have excellent arguments, and I take every opportunity I can to present them to humans.
oh I feel a lot of pitty for all the poor people who have to listen to your neoliberal propaganda-show.
Well spambot, you keep coming to my blog to read my posts, so you're feeling a lot of pity for yourself... which makes sense, I suppose.
well, its more or less sociological interest in a species that does not exist here anymore. you know, like antropology or watching animals in the zoo.
http://www.quartetbooks.co.uk/bookpages/
timeforoutrage.html
just in case you wanna do something for your education, a literature recomendation from a real European.
moevenort,
European values. Hm. In the case of the Arabic countries you could read comments on major German paper websites like: In Egypt the poorer getting poorer now and rich richer. And alot of scepticism. There is not always a hurray. And the politicians have acted like this. Calling for a slow transition process. Ignoring the will of the protestors. Stability as a Western value per se. I am dissapointed again. The same happended1988-1991, many liked to talked to the SU government but were cold hearted toward the civil movements.
for your education little antyx:
"revolution against neoliberalism?
If rebellion results in a retrenchment of neoliberalism, millions will feel cheated.
‘Abu Atris’
“The political economy of the Mubarak regime was shaped by many currents in Egypt’s own history, but its broad outlines were by no means unique. Similar stories can be told throughout the rest of the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Everywhere neoliberalism has been tried, the results are similar: living up to the utopian ideal is impossible; formal measures of economic activity mask huge disparities in the fortunes of the rich and poor; elites become “masters of the universe,” using force to defend their prerogatives, and manipulating the economy to their advantage, but never living in anything resembling the heavily marketised worlds that are imposed on the poor.”
source: aljazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net
/indepth/opinion/
2011/02/201122414315249621.html
so you should be more afraid of the development in the arabian world, antyx, the people there act
against your own neoliberal dreamworld.
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