Little Egypt
Reading the headlines but not following the Egypt protests closely. I can't really deal with the "mania of the moment" aspect of the discourse. But everyone else is talking about it. A lot.
Of course, if I did feel like delving into it, I'd be reading Steve Hynd at Newshoggers. He's my go-to guy for unspinning the narrative on foreign policy.
[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
Of course, if I did feel like delving into it, I'd be reading Steve Hynd at Newshoggers. He's my go-to guy for unspinning the narrative on foreign policy.
[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
Labels: bloggers, Middle East, World politics
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:27 PM
4 Comments:
Well the idea that this is some move toward western democracy, friendly to America is still being chewed on by the media terriers, but when a mob broke into the Cairo Museum Friday and destroyed the remains of a couple of Pharaohs and looted the till, I had to question our tradition of seeing our own image in every mud puddle.
Sure Mubarak is an iron fisted bastard with the kind of "stability" we like to support around the world, but that doesn't mean the people who overthrow him will be "the people" much less have the ability to make things better. Politics abhors a vacuum and vacuums suck in all kinds of things. Popular uprisings have a reliable record of installing a new boss, just the same or worse than the old boss.
Certainly it's way too soon to be seeing a new, democratic and peaceful middle east.
I'm following it enough to get a sinking feeling that end of this story won't be a happy one. Lot of people jockeying to fill that void.
At the moment, I'm just avoiding the avalanche of ideologically motived instant analysis. Don't have the time or the heart to get emotinally invested in the outcome. But I did read somewhere that the looting is being done by Mubarak's operatives. That would make sense.
Also hearing on twitter that Americans there aren't seeing it as being as chaotic as the media is making it. That overall it's a peaceful protest.
And I'm taking it as a good sign that the government's army tanks didn't run the protesters down. That's something...
Another Rashomon replay - 7 observers, 7 different histories.
For the media, reality is just a mine where you dig out what supports your sponsors' assertions.
Exactly. It's sad and little scary that we can't really trust the media anymore to give a straight accounting. Maybe we never could.
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