Guest post by Dan Fejes
Dan Fejes is a blogger at Pruning Shears. He lives in northeast Ohio.
(Ed. note: This is Dan's second guest post at The Reaction. You can find his first, on the Arizona shooting, a response to the stupidity of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, here. -- MJWS)
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Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have pretty quickly settled on an ideological basis for the unrest in Egypt. By doing so, it has ignored a more compelling -- and prosaic -- explanation.
There appears to be a yawning chasm between what ishappening in Egypt and elite opinions in D.C. Consider thisexchange between Chris Matthews and NBC News chief foreign affairscorrespondent Richard Engel:
Matthews comes across as somewhat surprisedthat the Muslim Brotherhood could play a legitimate role in a newEgyptian government. The assumption, apparently widespread in Washington, is that a populist Islamic movement is necessarily violent.(In fairness, they might just be extrapolating from America's ownexperience with religious extremists.)
In fact, he mighteven be something of an outlier in his mildness. Tom Friedman, whousually -- but notalways! -- hides his anti-Islamic fervor well, hadthis to say: "For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had allthe leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt's economy andbuild a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void betweenhis authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood."
He simplypostulates that the Muslim Brotherhood is the opposite pole of anauthoritarian state. He does not appear to have done any analysis toarrive at that conclusion. He has not spoken with anyone in theorganization (my God man, are there notaxis in Cairo?) (Also seethis, just because.) He just assumes that everyone intuitivelygrasps exactly what he does.
That seems to be roughly thecenter of conventional wisdom. To find the far edge of fear andloathing, seethis from Richard Cohen: "The next Egyptian government -- or the oneafter -- might well be composed of Islamists. In that case, the peacewith Israel will be abrogated and the mob currently in the streets willroar its approval." His entire misanthropic screed throbs with themessage: these savages cannot govern themselves. It isn't even subtextat this point. It's right there on the surface.
There doesnot appear to be any appreciation that very ordinary concerns might bedriving the protesters. What was toutedas an economic miracle wasdisastrous for those on the lower end of the economic scale; NomiPrins calledthis "the appearance of enhancement." Robust economic growth wasoutpaced byinflation, which lead to widespread hunger (I refuse to use theeuphemism "food insecurity"). Food riots have killedpeople. The marvels of globalization have been decidedly lesswonderful for many.
Do the anti-Islamic commentators in Washingtonhave any sense that such workaday issues might just be front-and-centerin the protester's minds? And that any party that begins to addressthem will thereby enjoy the consent of the governed?
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As acoda, those of us in the West might want to consider the followingthoughts William Gambleshared about Tunisia:
Dan Fejes is a blogger at Pruning Shears. He lives in northeast Ohio.
(Ed. note: This is Dan's second guest post at The Reaction. You can find his first, on the Arizona shooting, a response to the stupidity of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, here. -- MJWS)
**********
Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have pretty quickly settled on an ideological basis for the unrest in Egypt. By doing so, it has ignored a more compelling -- and prosaic -- explanation.
There appears to be a yawning chasm between what ishappening in Egypt and elite opinions in D.C. Consider thisexchange between Chris Matthews and NBC News chief foreign affairscorrespondent Richard Engel:
ENGEL: The Muslim Brotherhoodis telling the army that it can be a reasonable, rational organization.I did an interview tonight with one of the senior leaders of the MuslimBrotherhood. He was telling me to tell the American people that theMuslim Brotherhood can be reasoned with, wants to be a player, isn't aradical group. So you're trying -- you are seeing the Muslim Brotherhoodlegitimize itself, much in the same way you saw Hamas try and legitimizeitself during the elections in Gaza.
MATTHEWS: Does thatsurprise you, as someone who really grew up over there as a journalist,living among the Muslim Brotherhood? Does it surprise you that theycould be copacetic with the military?
ENGEL: Not at all. A lotof them are truly patriotic Egyptians. They don't necessarily want tooverthrow the military regime. In the belief structure and thepolitical structure that the Muslim Brotherhood has, which is common inIslamic moments, they believe in a strict hierarchy. There can be aruler. There can be a military ruler. But as long as that militaryruler doesn't impede on the ability of the Muslim people to worship,then they have no problem with that. So they could live verycopacetically with the military. It's not that it is a Taliban kind ofmovement that wants to take over...
MATTHEWS: I getyou.
ENGEL: ...and tell everyone what to do and how to do it.They're very patriotic. They have lot of supporters. You mentioned Ilived with a lot of them. They were nice people. I mean, If you felldown in the street, they would come and help you out. If you didn'thave enough money for the bus, they would give you money. There was acommunity feeling that a lot of people are nostalgic about in thiscountry that is still present in the poorer, more Muslim -- more Islamiccommunities here.
What people are so upset about is prices havegotten so high, there's become this elite class of Egyptiansthat...
MATTHEWS: Right.
ENGEL: ...no longer reflects alot of the traditional cultural values here. And the Muslim Brotherhoodstill does embrace those values very close to itschest.
Matthews comes across as somewhat surprisedthat the Muslim Brotherhood could play a legitimate role in a newEgyptian government. The assumption, apparently widespread in Washington, is that a populist Islamic movement is necessarily violent.(In fairness, they might just be extrapolating from America's ownexperience with religious extremists.)
In fact, he mighteven be something of an outlier in his mildness. Tom Friedman, whousually -- but notalways! -- hides his anti-Islamic fervor well, hadthis to say: "For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had allthe leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt's economy andbuild a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void betweenhis authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood."
He simplypostulates that the Muslim Brotherhood is the opposite pole of anauthoritarian state. He does not appear to have done any analysis toarrive at that conclusion. He has not spoken with anyone in theorganization (my God man, are there notaxis in Cairo?) (Also seethis, just because.) He just assumes that everyone intuitivelygrasps exactly what he does.
That seems to be roughly thecenter of conventional wisdom. To find the far edge of fear andloathing, seethis from Richard Cohen: "The next Egyptian government -- or the oneafter -- might well be composed of Islamists. In that case, the peacewith Israel will be abrogated and the mob currently in the streets willroar its approval." His entire misanthropic screed throbs with themessage: these savages cannot govern themselves. It isn't even subtextat this point. It's right there on the surface.
There doesnot appear to be any appreciation that very ordinary concerns might bedriving the protesters. What was toutedas an economic miracle wasdisastrous for those on the lower end of the economic scale; NomiPrins calledthis "the appearance of enhancement." Robust economic growth wasoutpaced byinflation, which lead to widespread hunger (I refuse to use theeuphemism "food insecurity"). Food riots have killedpeople. The marvels of globalization have been decidedly lesswonderful for many.
Do the anti-Islamic commentators in Washingtonhave any sense that such workaday issues might just be front-and-centerin the protester's minds? And that any party that begins to addressthem will thereby enjoy the consent of the governed?
**********
As acoda, those of us in the West might want to consider the followingthoughts William Gambleshared about Tunisia:
All authoritarian governmentseverywhere, by definition, are not limited by any legal restraints. Thisallows elites to become rent seekers often through state-owned companiesand monopolies. Without legal limits, the percentage of the GDP thatthey take for themselves will constantlyincrease.
[snip]
The main impact of an economy ofcorruption is on investment, the investments necessary to create jobs.For Tunisia and many other emerging and frontier markets, this is amajor if not the issue. The unemployment rate in Tunisia is officially13%, but it is probably twice this for younger people. Even universitygraduates face an unemployment rate of over 15%. This is not unusual forthese markets where unemployment rates among younger workers can rise ashigh as 40%. According to the IMF, the Middle East needs to grow 2%faster every year to avoid its present chronic and high unemployment.
Worsening inequality, impunity for those at the top,reduced investment leading to high unemployment: a multi-party democracyin which a governing majority is persistently unresponsive to publicopinion is functionally similar to a one-party state. And prone tosimilar expressions of dissatisfaction.
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