I was listening to some wet-behind-the-ears politician on the radio yesterday morning trumpeting on about democracy, as if it was the panacea to all Egypt's ills. Democracy is just what Egypt doesn't need at the moment - it needs a firm, non-aligned dictator to take control and restore order, on both sides of the divide.
Reinstating Morsi in the name of democracy will just lead to the anti-Morsi brigade taking to the streets again and the whole process repeating itself with a slightly larger bunch.
The population is polarized between two diametrically opposed entities - it's a no-win game if democracy is invoked as the cure, as that will just mean civil war, and that has to be avoided at all costs.
Any politics where religion is involved is a recipe for disaster, as theocratically biased movements are basically fascist at heart and totally uninterested in democracy, unless as a means of gaining initial control. Politicians in the western tradition only think they're right and are open to reason and persuasion by argument (unless a union boss); the fault of religious politicians is that they know they're right, even if demonstrably wrong. Religion has no room for doubt or reason - it's based on unquestioning and beatific faith (and a lot of ignorance).
The Egyptians have had their experiment with democracy, and they screwed it up. However, I'd guess if there was another election there'd be far fewer Muslim Brotherhood votes cast. In any case, I doubt Morsi's lot would abide by a re-run, claiming they won the first time.
It's bad politics to impose a western solution on a middle eastern problem. There are times and places for democracy, and this isn't one of them.
We should count ourselves lucky that there's only a fag paper between the policies of our political parties. The only way you can tell the buggers apart is by the colour of the rosettes they wear when coming to your door.
Any politics where religion is involved is a recipe for disaster, as theocratically biased movements are basically fascist at heart and totally uninterested in democracy, unless as a means of gaining initial control. Politicians in the western tradition only think they're right and are open to reason and persuasion by argument (unless a union boss); the fault of religious politicians is that they know they're right, even if demonstrably wrong. Religion has no room for doubt or reason - it's based on unquestioning and beatific faith (and a lot of ignorance).
The words democracy and Islamist sit as comfortably together as Trabant and Grand Prix and in any other circumstance there would not be a single western politician giving credence to a government having the word Islamist in its name.
It's bad politics to impose a western solution on a middle eastern problem. There are times and places for democracy, and this isn't one of them.
We should count ourselves lucky that there's only a fag paper between the policies of our political parties. The only way you can tell the buggers apart is by the colour of the rosettes they wear when coming to your door.
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