this is not an essay
Jan. 28th, 2011 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanWatching the news coming out of Egypt this week, I keep being struck by one phrase, over and over again. "30-year rule."
I am a citizen of the United States. I was raised with the idea of a peaceful democracy, where every four years there is a more-or-less orderly transition of government. It is, I suspect, one of the reasons why we tend to take a lot of things we should protest against - because we know, sooner rather than later, we will get a voice in what comes next.
[how well that voice is heard, and the limitations of a majority voice vs a sizable minority voice, are things for another think]
The idea of a government - one leader, specifically - continuing for a decade, or several decades... I am a creature of my upbringing. I cannot think this is a healthy thing.
No matter how perfect a leader at point A, things change. Countries change, worlds change, people change. And the isolation/idolation of long-term leadership seems almost inevitably to lead -- if not to corruption, than certainly to disconnection. And then, near-inevitably, a refusal on the part of the people to be ignored.
If the two conflict, as they will... violence.
And, after so long a rule, a sense of the unknown, the unknowable. If the structure is broken down, where does the new structure come from?
I am, by training and preference, a historian, not a political theorist. I can't comment with specific accuracy on what's going on outside my own political surroundings, and I am hesitant to make comments about someone else's government when my own is hardly perfect. That's not only arrogant, it's rude. But history tells us that revolution - the disorderly change of a political structure -- is an unpredictable beast. Sometimes it leads to a better day, a stronger country, a healthier and vital nation.
Sometimes, it doesn't.
I have no idea what will come out of Egypt - indeed, the entire Middle East, in the immediate future, after this week. Perhaps nothing will change. Perhaps everything will. I hope that it will be healthy change. I hope that it will be peaceful, focused on bettering the lives of the people who birthed it in positive ways, creating a structure that will give them a voice, and a means to express their will, whatever that will might be.
Do I hope that it is also friendly to the western nations? Of course. I am tired of hate, I am tired of war, and I am tired of Us vs Them at a personal and a global level. (I am, I discover to my amusement, that much of an innocent). But I have also seen what happens, historically, when one government attempts to install a "friendly" regime somewhere else. Better to let the people choose.
I wish you good luck, Egypt. Good luck, to all of us.
EtA: Egypt is taken off-line by its government
The NYT updates the situation, as best they can
I am a citizen of the United States. I was raised with the idea of a peaceful democracy, where every four years there is a more-or-less orderly transition of government. It is, I suspect, one of the reasons why we tend to take a lot of things we should protest against - because we know, sooner rather than later, we will get a voice in what comes next.
[how well that voice is heard, and the limitations of a majority voice vs a sizable minority voice, are things for another think]
The idea of a government - one leader, specifically - continuing for a decade, or several decades... I am a creature of my upbringing. I cannot think this is a healthy thing.
No matter how perfect a leader at point A, things change. Countries change, worlds change, people change. And the isolation/idolation of long-term leadership seems almost inevitably to lead -- if not to corruption, than certainly to disconnection. And then, near-inevitably, a refusal on the part of the people to be ignored.
If the two conflict, as they will... violence.
And, after so long a rule, a sense of the unknown, the unknowable. If the structure is broken down, where does the new structure come from?
I am, by training and preference, a historian, not a political theorist. I can't comment with specific accuracy on what's going on outside my own political surroundings, and I am hesitant to make comments about someone else's government when my own is hardly perfect. That's not only arrogant, it's rude. But history tells us that revolution - the disorderly change of a political structure -- is an unpredictable beast. Sometimes it leads to a better day, a stronger country, a healthier and vital nation.
Sometimes, it doesn't.
I have no idea what will come out of Egypt - indeed, the entire Middle East, in the immediate future, after this week. Perhaps nothing will change. Perhaps everything will. I hope that it will be healthy change. I hope that it will be peaceful, focused on bettering the lives of the people who birthed it in positive ways, creating a structure that will give them a voice, and a means to express their will, whatever that will might be.
Do I hope that it is also friendly to the western nations? Of course. I am tired of hate, I am tired of war, and I am tired of Us vs Them at a personal and a global level. (I am, I discover to my amusement, that much of an innocent). But I have also seen what happens, historically, when one government attempts to install a "friendly" regime somewhere else. Better to let the people choose.
I wish you good luck, Egypt. Good luck, to all of us.
EtA: Egypt is taken off-line by its government
The NYT updates the situation, as best they can
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 05:17 pm (UTC)It's worth pointing out that this is precisely what's up in Egypt today. Mubarak's a dictatorial scumbag, and people there have hated him for twenty-odd years. Thing is, like the Saudis, he's 'friendly' (despite street-appeasing empty anti-Western rhetoric) to 'our' interests. So guess who's been giving him the $ for his secret police for 20-odd years?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 07:00 pm (UTC)Your semingly willful misunderstanding of my comment (or the assumption that I am too dumb to know the many governments that play that game) make your comments seem less like discussion and more like an attempt to throw shit for your usual political rant.
I respectfully decline to participate.
[edited to fix smartphone typos]
no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 12:47 pm (UTC)My point isn't that *you* don't get it - it's that while
many govts play dirty pool, ours has the world's greatest disjunction between our constantly stated ideals and the reality of the kinds of govts we set up worldwide in order to benefit a corporate economy. No other people on earth are as loud about being champions of freedom - and yet no other govt on earth spends close to what we do on military aid to repressive foreign regimes. We don't do this *hesitatntly* or in spite of our ideals - we do it as a central principle of our foreign policy. I think any discussion of what's going on in Egypt has to talk honestly about what the brave people there are up against - it's not just a homegrown dictator, but hundreds of billions of dollars in secret police and army funding from the biggest funder of such things around. As Americans, we have an obligation to go beyond being inspired or hopeful to telling our govt to stop this shady nonsense.
...and of course, you can call me 'thrower-of-shit' anytime and I'll still know you're awesome :P
no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 04:23 pm (UTC)Is it okay if YOU think the cause is right? Or when I think it's right? Or when someone in the White House thinks it's in our political interest?
The reason I did not want to engage with Saladin on this is that he has a long and vocal history of "American government bad! Western civilization corrupt!" in almost any scenario, and he tried to use my words to back that up - when what I had actually said was "WE (the world) NEED TO STAY THE HELL OUT OF THIS AND LET THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE DECIDE."
That's the definition of a sovereign and democratic nation.
Yes, we should stand up and say "it's time to tear down that wall," as it were. And y'know something? People are doing exactly that. I did exactly that. The government, in its own self-protecting way, is doing that. Hell, even Israel, which has more to lose, at at a much higher risk, than anyone, is doing that.
So being lectured in my own 'living room' about what's going on? No, sorry. That's not discussion, and I don't have the desire to feed that particular troll.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 04:24 pm (UTC)