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Six of one, half a dozen of the other; there is insufficient difference to merit preference. Joel Send a noteboard - 11/08/2013 06:40:00 PM

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View original postJust like Erdogan in Turkey, he seemed to think that a paper-thin majority was a mandate to push through lots of controversial changes that were pushing Egypt closer to a theocracy run by the Muslim Brotherhood.

I hardly think Morsi has earned the right to be compared to Erdogan. Regardless, the people protesting against his undemocratic tendencies is one thing; the army committing a coup against him is quite another, and if you ask me worse than the evil it's supposed to correct.

Besides, you would think that the Egyptian secular elite had learned its lesson back in 1966 when they turned Sayyid Qutb into a martyr. Not that I think they'd be crazy enough to try and harm Morsi's person, but a coup to overthrow his government is close enough to martyrization. Now that the MB finally and openly led a major Arab government, it might finally have dawned on its supporters that for all the corruption and mess of Mobarak and other secular dictators, it wasn't the secularism that was the problem so much as the dictatorship, and that the MB did not in fact have all (or arguably any) of the answers. But no, they had to go and overthrow them again.

View original postIn case it's not perfectly clear, I value secular governments above religious ones. "Political Islam" is just as bad as every other attempt to impose religion in the public sphere. In fact, the reason I'm so mad at Obama over Syria is that now I have to choose between a secular government that props up religious fanatics and rebels who have become religious fanatics.

I'm no fan of the MB, but in most countries around the world, the United States included, it would be very hard to prevent religion from playing a strong role in politics. An openly confessional party is not necessarily a problem in itself, see Germany's CDU and the many similar parties in Europe. Of course the Egyptian MB is a far cry from that, but then it wasn't as if Egypt had much of a tradition of democracy to build on, and those things aren't created out of thin air.
View original postIt's why I don't like Erdogan and why I don't like Morsi. They're part of the problem with Islam these days, not part of the solution.

I respectfully but very strongly disagree about Erdogan. His problem isn't Islam, it's his undemocratic strongman tendencies and the lack of people in his party who can put him in his place. The Turkey of the AKP as a whole and Erdogan in his moments when he has a tighter rein on his ego and temper both, however, are for the most part absolutely a part of the solution. An economically flourishing, politically confident Muslim nation that presents an example to the rest, that's pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered, although it's not Arab and as such doesn't have the same effect on the Arab nations that one might have hoped for.

The MB and Morsi are an entirely different story and I don't like them either, but I like military dictatorships still less, particularly in a region that has known very little else for decades and as such still is tempted to believe the old lie that "Islam is the solution". That sort of thing is handled by letting them try it out and fall flat on their face, not by making martyrs out of yet another generation of MB leaders.


Hence "letting them try it out and fall flat on their face" is how I would deal with the whole Mideast. In that sense I suppose this is a good thing because it does not have Western fingerprints on it. If even relatively modern Mideast states like Turkey (and, the Bosporus aside, it IS a Mideast state) can find no option but religious or military rule, I have little hope the rest of the region can any time soon, and as long as we continue practicing realpolitik there we will remain the convenient scapegoat for every real or imagined Mideast problem. After all, the Islamist battlecry has never been "down with the generals," but "down with the West;" the generals are only incidentally (and often fairly) targetted as corrupt quislings.
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They deposed Morsi! Finally! - 03/07/2013 08:28:29 PM 555 Views
How can you cheer at that? - 03/07/2013 09:10:12 PM 433 Views
Because he was an Islamist who suppressed basic freedoms, that's how. - 03/07/2013 09:52:52 PM 549 Views
So you prefer some general who suppresses basic freedoms? - 03/07/2013 10:34:39 PM 441 Views
Six of one, half a dozen of the other; there is insufficient difference to merit preference. - 11/08/2013 06:40:00 PM 533 Views
Easily - 03/07/2013 10:03:46 PM 537 Views
Why does the Right support dictators? - 11/08/2013 06:28:39 PM 376 Views

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