Egypt's Revolt is Closer to East Europe's than Iran's
"Before
the fall of the Berlin Wall, in a symbol of East European democratization, weekly
public meetings at Leipzig's churches played a major role. The popular
revolt in the Middle East follow in the footsteps of its predecessor with huge
rallies held after Friday prayer services. Every sermon expanded the scale of
the 18-days of Egyptian protest."
Egyptians in Bahrain celebrate the triumph in Tahrir Square, Feb. 11. Now Bahrainis, Libyans and others are in revolt. What hath Facebook and Twitter wrought?
One wonders what the Egyptian
people anticipated before the collapse of the Mubarak dictatorship. Whatever
the case, this trend of revolution is likely to influence the global community
as nations grope toward a new international order.
Whole nations are being
reshaped. While we should refrain from making simplistic comparisons, in the
eyes of the international community there is a tendency to see Egypt's
revolution as unfinished, and to compare it to past revolutions in East Europe
and Iran. The revolutions in East Europe caused a widespread domino effect of
democratization across the continent, while the Iranian revolution advocated
Islamic fundamentalism.
Egypt's Internet Revolution
"This revolution was
brought about because of the Internet. You could call it 'Revolution 2.0,'"
said Wael Ghoneim, a member
of Google's local Egyptian staff who was arrested after the revolution began. Shortly
after the revolt in Tunisia, Ghoneim began building a Web site and network to
support Tunisia's citizen uprising, which managing to elude the country's
online surveillance.
The revolutionary drama that
took place in Tahrir Square was a result of pent-up anger and the
ever-expanding number of young people on the Net, which culminated in
wide-ranging popular anger at the dictatorship.
The Internet is playing the
role satellite television did during the revolts in East Europe and video
cassettes did during the Iranian revolution.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei likens this revolution to an extension of the Islamic Revolution and an
"Islamic awakening," yet during Iran's presidential
election two years ago, he responded to mass criticism of his regime with a harsh
crackdown. Assuming that current trends toward global information sharing continue,
one would imagine stiff headwinds [for Khamenei] in the future.
Before the fall of the Berlin
Wall, in what can be said to be a symbol of East European democratization, weekly
public meetings at Leipzig's churches played a major role. The popular
revolt in the Middle East follows in the footsteps of its predecessor with huge
rallies held after Friday prayer services. Every sermon expanded the scale of
the 18-days of Egyptian protest.
The New Walls of Globalization
Although both Christianity
and Islam are strikingly different, the people of both religions seek democracy.
In fact, democracy forms a foundational layer of Islamic tradition.
The confrontation between the
East and West Germany, which was also a confrontation between capitalism and
communism, resulted in the Berlin Wall's collapse. However, the continuing
international trend of globalization has resulted in a new and invisible wall
that has sharply divided the world. The economic disparities between the
Northern and Southern hemispheres and the spread of anti-Western Islamic
fundamentalism are two prime examples. And both were intertwined with Egypt's
popular revolt.
In his many books on the
topic of terrorism, Princeton University Professor Bernard Lewis states that,
based on post-9/11 findings, the total GDP of all Arab countries amounts to
less than one mid-sized European nation.
[Editor's Note: The 2005 CIA World Factbook gave the
total Arab GDP in 2004 as $1.515 trillion. Spain's GDP for the same year was
$937.6 billion.]
At an emergency Arab League
summit called after the revolution in Tunisia, the question of the need for economic
growth was raised, and it was agreed that more work to improve living standards
was needed, and that the issue was a trigger of the current crisis. While
neighboring countries grasped at straws for some kind of response, the Egyptian
government settled on raising the wages of both government workers and those in
the private sector. In retrospect, this wasn't a viable solution.
In a statement, President
Obama praised Egypt's non-violent democratic transformation and alluded to the
fall of the Berlin Wall. Yet the Western world, which continues to support dictatorial
Middle East regimes, must keep in mind the deep-seated hatred and animosity such
regimes elicit.
While the premise of
Professor Lewis' book, The
Roots of Muslim Rage, centers on the backdrop of religion, he also traces
the genealogy of anti-American sentiment within Arab Islamic thought. He passes
from anti-American ideology among the Nazis, under Soviet socialism and in East
Europe, and moves on to post-war theories in the third world ... but ultimately,
according to Lewis, anti-American sentiment today is directly attributable to "Western
secularism and modernization."
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
For Islamic extremists, both
Western secularism and modernization are evil and should be repudiated. The
Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt's largest opposition party. Should it be permitted
to participate in Egyptian democratization given its anti-American sentiment? In
addition, will Middle East democratization lead to solutions to many of its most
destabilizing problems, such as its conflict with Israel?
In a recent paper,
Islamic scholar and grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Professor
Tariq Ramadan of
Oxford University, stated that, "The Muslim Brotherhood has begun to
diversify and the new generation is much more open to the world, anxious to
bring about internal reform and fascinated by the Turkish example."
Where will Egypt's revolution
lead? That's something that Egyptians will have to decide for themselves. Will
they manage to build a model Arab democratic state that not only renounces
terrorism but is able to coexist with secular Western society? All we can do is
watch with bated breath as this global revolution enters its second act.
