A Wind of Change down Arab Street?

toco

A disappointing piece Fraser.Given a choice the vast majority of Egyptians will support a democratic government possibly supported initially by the military in preference to a Tehran type administration which takes pleasure in stoning,raping and executing innocent women and young people.The idea tear gas canisters used by police were made in the US will change Egypt's destiny is both ludicrous and insulting to the Egyptian people.I suggest you just pop back to bed and have a good rest-it seems you need one.

victor jara 67

There is a false perception in the West mainly due to right wing and zionist propoganda that all Islamist groups are extremists. This is not so and certainly there are moderate elements within the muslin brotherhood similar to Hamas. Their biggest crime is not signing up to Pax Americana agenda.
The thing about democracy is a country is entitled to choose what ever leaders they see fit. God knows Britain in the last generation has chosen badly with the likes of Blair and Thatcher.

Wayland Smith

The 1989 European revolutions were unusual in their success

Some would say that the fall of the Berlin wall etc has led to Common Purpose. Isnâ™t it true that the Middle East is the only part of the world which has not yet been substantially infiltrated by Common Purpose?

paulg

Well, it no good second guessing what will happen, these people are free to decide what they want to do.

But if we look at the history of Egypt we can see that it has been for a long time a much more pluralistic society than that found in Iran.

It has been integrated into the Levant trading system for a long time, it relies on tourism and American subsides, any diminution of these revenues would see real hardship, and a real revolution.

When judging a situation you must look at the practicalities and feasibility of a change of regime.

Napoleon fell because the French could not enjoy a coffee just as much as the battle of the Nations.

daniel maris

What Fraser fails to do here, and what a lot of commentators fail to do is to ask why democracy fails. Because Fraser and others adhere to (whether they believe it or not is difficult to say) the doctrine that there is a moderate Islam, a religion of peace, and then there is Islamism, they fail to factor in the extent to which traditional, basic Islam as transmitted by mainstream clerics is virulently anti-democratic, and prevents a proper pro-democracy movement taking root. Teh people are subjected to this Islamic propaganda day and night all their lives in the shape of the Mosques. The defence of the Coptic churches while very welcome is very much the exception in the Muslim world and may have been orchestrated by Mubarak's NDP for spin purposes, for all I or you know.

The fact is that the Muslim Brotherhood are the political expression of what nearly all clerics in Egypt teach and what is taught in teh great Islamic university there.

Of the failed revolutions Fraser mentions Iran's failure clearly is also linked to the pervasive influence of Islam in that country.

justathought

"the citizens of the Arab world all too often have a choice between a Bad Guy and a Worse Guy"

Really ? Was it not us along with our American cousins who removed the democratically elected government in Iran and replaced it with the regime of the Shah of Iran? We arm these regimes to the teeth and ignore the repression of the mass population. Ditto Saddam in Iraq and now the drug lords of Afghanistan. It is hardly surprising that those who have toiled under these regimes turn their back on the main supporters of their tormentors.

We have extensive business interests in Egypt in excess of £60bn and have done much to develop them sending air miles Andy as our business ambassador to some of the most repressive regimes of the world including Egypt. Appropriate enough given his distaste of the SFO anti corruption investigations and his stated dismay at the british journalists hampering british business by daring to investigate bribery.

Time for plan 'b'

AY

"..The Ukrainian revolution, for instance, did not have a happy ending.."

At least Ukrainians had some sanity and didn't allow barbaric tribes sponsored by oil-rich Sharia promoters, to flood the country.

It is still not clear if British "diversity nose-rubbing" revolution will have happy ending or (most likely) not.

Magnolia

The people just went on the internet and facebook and didn't like what they saw at home any more. They won't want our decadent western values but they might even find something better in the end. They want freedom and I would support them in that however bad it gets. Governments everywhere can no longer ignore the people/electorate because they can't hide the lies any more. At some point the good people stop averting their gaze and proclaim evil to be evil and I will always believe that there are more good people than bad. Technology just opened their eyes and they lost their fear. They can now tell it to the world in the blink of a web posting. I hope there's more to come and that the Iranians get another chance to have a bite at the cherry.

Cogito Ergosum

Britain and Europe had our religious wars in earlier centuries. But eventually our people came to feel firstly, that religion was not a good enough reason to kill people, and secondly thatt religion has done little for people in contrast to the scientific achievements of the Age of Reason.

It was the philosopher John Locke, who spent some years in Holland as a refugee from religious extremism in England, who more or less invented the concept of the Reasonable Man.

I would like the Arab world to learn from all this; as indeed the Chinese appear to have done. But I fear too many people in the West will support any kind of religion, even the most aggressive Islam, rather than support a reasonable, rational, non-religious approach.

Holly ......

A fellow,being interviewed on ch 151,shows clearly the egyptian people have no desire to get rid of one 'bad guy' for a 'worse guy'.
Second guessing what other countries will do,may do or want,is likely to end up being part of their problem.
As so often has been the case.

Santorum

Good analysis.

btw, why is it that most articles on the Coffeehouse recently attract some nutty conspiracy link to the feintly risible, but essentially harmless Common Purpose?

Augustus

Industrial and technological development is conditional upon a free, modern, and enlightened culture. What the Poles, or the South Koreans have achieved was impossible for the Egyptians. Thanks to Islamic propaganda about procreation Egypt's population has increased enormously in the last few decades, and there aren't enough jobs and there isn't enough food to sustain
such increases. Fraser is right, this isn't a democratic revolution because there isn't
a democratic elite, or a middle class representation there to steer the people in that direction. Who can tell what the Muslim fundamentalists will do, or how their influence will be used? One can only
speculate that the more they wait and see the discontent of the young, the more their voices will be listened to.

Dimoto

Egypt has huge problems - population growth, mass unemployment, and grinding poverty. Mubarak doesn't even seem to be aware of these. The country has ossified under the US sponsored status quo (maybe that should be mummified).

Revolutions all have their own paths, some are short and sharp, some drag on for decades. Iran, France and China are three which took many years to settle down, and experienced severe after-shocks.

Iran is really still in a revolutionary spasm - does anyone believe it is stable ? It was the Iraq/Iran war, gleefully sponsored by the western powers, which entrenched the current regime.

AY

..there are several clips from RT on youtube. Here is one of the comments -

"..heres a good question - WHO IS THE ONE PERSON THAT STARTED ALL THIS?.."

Vandalized shops, burning buildings, looters, crowds shouting "Allahu Akbar".

Tanks, APCs captured by mobs. M113 burned. Army looses control over personnel. Therefore, weapons.

Impression is that the mobs on the streets are mostly criminalized lumpens and that sorts of social cattle. Clearly, these rioters neither deserve freedom nor democracy. Clearly, they will never ever get it.

Those idiots in the West who "welcome revolution", just open your eyes see it how it is, - monkey farms let loose.

Opprobrium.
Hopelessness.
Darkness.

PuppetMaster

It is the policy of the west to prevent democracy in muslim countries, in the case of Egypt the army gets $1.5 billion a year from the U.S., so if the army are taking control then it means that the U.S. is still in control. Are you saying that this policy is wrong?
Your comment about the nuclear showdown is a bit over the top for a Sunday morning.

Ricky

Good analysis and despite the usual nonsense from Victor Jara (BBC employee by any chance?) there are some reasoned posts.

Islam is a militant, anti-democratic force not disimilar to 1930s Japanese Shintoism - which invented kami kaze or self immolation.

We have every reason to be nervous. My advice to the hapless American government: be careful what you wish for. Hamas was "elected", then set about assassination and tyranny. So was the Thugocracy in Iran. In Turkey, the sinister Ergogan rounds up secular opponents and is steadily imposing Sharia.

Oil prices will rocket and the world will undergo dangerous instability similar to the Suez and Cuban missile crises, despite the excitement of the BBC's Revolutionary Guard and the Socialist Workers Party.

Austin Barry

From today's DEBKA Report - and it's not good news:

"Gunmen of Hamas's armed wing, Ezz e-Din al Qassam, crossed from Gaza into northern Sinai Sunday, Jan. 30 to attack Egyptian forces and push them back. They acted on orders from Hamas' parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, confirmed by its bosses in Damascus, to open a second, Palestinian front against the Mubarak regime. The Muslim Brotherhood is therefore more active in the uprising than it would appear. "

Baron

you right Fraser to dig up the guru Burke, for it was he who said in the Reflections “a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation”. Obviously, nobody told Mubarak, so it ain’t just some change, but a full Monty of it that has hit him hard. When he goes, as he must, it will be the army that takes over, there’s no other institution to fill the power vacuum, hopefully, its reign won’t be for too long;

if the generals allow it (they might, many must have drilled at Sandhurst), Egypt could follow the Turkish model fusing the temporal with the scriptural (hopefully again, the former gaining over time), the young Egyptians are many, are well educated, hungry, sufficiently inoculated with the values of multi-polar, secular thinking, it’s they who count, picking a Havel that fits the job will be less of a problem.

martin o'hara

'The only part of the world mad enough to use nuclear weapons'. Really? How about Pakistan, China (over Taiwan)? Or the Nuclear power that has already used them - the U.S? Either directly or through its proxy, Israel?

Adel Taher

No mention was made in your article, of why the people are protesting and what are their demands.
The fact that thousands of people have demonstrated in the streets and challenged the security services and the curfew is a significant phenomenon and reflects that Arab societies are changing; internet, twitter and facebook have certainly contributed to this...

Ottovbvs

Any measure of democracy is likely to bring Islamist a much greater measure of power. It's no use bemoaning this because like the success of Hamas, it represents reality. Egyptian populism is to put it mildy deeply anti American if not necessarily anti Western. The west's best hope is to get behind someone like Baradei and then fund economic expansion. It won't be pretty, we're probably going to see something like Indonesia emerge, but it's infinitely preferable to propping up people like Mubarak because ultimately the lid is going to blow and much better for a messy vaguely neutral polity than Iran II.

Framer

Getting rid of Mubarak is all well and good but the middle classes don't seem that keen and I suspect the Copts are very anxious, not that the BBC would tell us.

However the fact remains the truly tyrannical regimes like those of Libya and Syria are and will remain exempt from street violence. And the FO will not be bleating about elections in their case.

Fergus Pickering

Magnolia, you are an idiot or you are ten years old. Grown-up people have no RIGHT to be so stupid. Go and join the Greens.

JRR Catstrangler

The Irish Examiner reports that armed men have forced their way into four Egyptian prisons and released the inmates - including all the Islamist nutters.
I have a bad feeling about this.

David Ossitt

Fergus Pickering

“Magnolia, you are an idiot or you are ten years old. Grown-up people have no RIGHT to be so stupid. Go and join the Greens.”

I concur.

Tariq

"Where is the Egyptian Lech Walesa, or the Tunisian Vaclav Havel?" Or, for that matter, the Egyptian Mandela? Any political leader in those countries who could have assumed the mantle of leadership following the dictators' departure was jailed, driven into exile or otherwise sidelined a long time ago.

WetherspoonThree

I have to admit that I am embarrassed by the speed at which the United States and some other western countries have moved against their former Egyptian ally, Mubarak. I suspect our other allies in the region will be getting anxious too, fearing that the West will pull the rug from beneath their feet when it suits our purpose.
Why don't we just wish them well? Unfortunately though, we seem to have historic predilection for interference in middle eastern affairs.. Even our own foreign secretary has moved his position. Over the weekend he was voicing concern at the queues at Cairo airport, now he is trying to anticipate the outcome of political events. I do not recall our support for democratic reform over the past 30 years of the Mubarak regime, so in the circumstances a dignified silence might be more appropriate..

Baron

WhetherspoonThree @ 2.57:

well observed, I second it

Fergus @ 11.05:

one would be hard put to come up with better judgement except perhaps that however much one dislikes the Greens, it wouldn’t be fair to hoist the flowery one upon them, couldn’t he just go take running jump into oblivion?

Calling London

That would all depend on the direction of the wind and its source...of course.:0

Having sipped Persian Tea at Camden Town yesterday, I must say one is all for change and Tea doesn't always require milk to enlighten the palette...

On a positive note...at least the community have organised themselves and are protecting their neighbourhoods and shops from looting...Change comes when you least expect it and no shut down of communications is going to stop this Eastern wind hmmm...;)

Mary Porter

@ victor jara 67 (January 30th)

You said "there are moderate elements within the muslin brotherhood similar to Hamas".

The Muslim Brotherhood spawned Hamas.

Just curious but would you describe the Passover Massacre (The Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002. 30 dead, 140 injured) as moderate or extremist?