Two years after the revolution that toppled a dictator, Egypt is already a failed state. According to the Failed States Index, in the year before the uprising we ranked No. 45. After Hosni Mubarak fell, we worsened to 31st. I haven’t checked recently — I don’t want to get more depressed. But the evidence is all around us.
Today you see an erosion of state authority in Egypt. The state is supposed to provide security and justice; that’s the most basic form of statehood. But law and order is disintegrating. In 2012, murders were up 130 percent, robberies 350 percent, and kidnappings 145 percent, according to the Interior Ministry. You see people being lynched in public, while others take pictures of the scene. Mind you, this is the 21st century — not the French Revolution!
The feeling right now is that there is no state authority to enforce law and order, and therefore everybody thinks that everything is permissible. And that, of course, creates a lot of fear and anxiety.
You can’t expect Egypt to have a normal economic life under such circumstances.
~~~ The executive branch has no clue how to run Egypt. It’s not a question of whether they are Muslim Brothers or liberals — it’s a question of people who have no vision or experience. They do not know how to diagnose the problem and then provide the solution. They are simply not qualified to govern.
~~~ The Brothers are also losing badly because, despite all their great slogans, they haven’t been able to deliver. People want to have food on the table, health care, education, all of that — and the government has not been able to meet expectations. The Brotherhood doesn’t have the qualified people, who hail mostly from liberal and leftist parties. You need to form a grand coalition, and you need to put your ideological differences aside and work together to focus on people’s basic needs. You can’t eat sharia.
We are paying the price of many years of repression and strongman rule. This was a comfort zone for people — they didn’t have to make independent decisions. Right now, after the uprising, everybody is free, but it’s very uncomfortable. It’s the existential dilemma between the yearning to be free and the old crutch of having somebody tell you what to do. Freedom is still new to people.
Most of our challenges are a byproduct of the old dictatorship. We still have an open wound and need to get a lot of the pus out. We need to clean that wound — you cannot just place a Band-Aid on it. But that is what is happening — relying on the same worn-out ideas. The uprising was not about changing people, but changing our mindset. What we see right now, however, is just a change of faces, with the same mode of thinking as in Mubarak’s era — only now with a religious icing on the cake.
How bad could it get? Different scenarios, of course, present themselves if law and order continues to deteriorate. People are now saying something that we never thought was possible before: that they want the Army to come back to stabilize the situation. Or we might have a revolt of the poor, which would be angry and ugly. There are worse things than state failure, and I’m afraid Egypt is teetering on the brink.
The second statement about the executive branch reminds me of the US today.
Pre-Arab Spring there was a new ideal of beauty and marriagability among Muslim males in Egypt.
The more outwardly religious one looked, the better chance he got of getting a wife.
So, the zebiba became popular.
That’s the forehead ”raisin,” that rises up if men BANG their heads repeatedly on their prayer rugs hundreds of times a day every day.
Back in 2008, when this was getting its start a study of workday habits found that Muslim workers in Egypt spent only about 27 minutes WORKING during their 8 hour shift!
ALL the rest of their time on the clock was wasted in prayers, bathings (abulations) and changing clothes back and forth between work and prayer clothes.
HOW can a country survive when the top-down behavior is so wasteful?
And the few portions of the population that worked like dogs?
Those were the Coptics.
They ran clinics, barber shops, clothing stores, and most importantly they collected the nation’s trash then sorted it and recycled it.
But in 2009 the Muslim leaders in Egypt used the Swine Flu scare to eradicate the Coptic people’s pigs.
Without them eating all the organic trash sorting the rest of the trash is impossible, so it all piles up.
Morsi promised to clean it but has not kept that promise because….well… Egyptian Muslims won’t do the work.
And the Copts?
They have been leaving in droves.
Sharia…. it’s spreading because it makes such a mess where ever it is….that the people have to leave.
@Old Guy: #1.. YOU said…. “” The second statement about the executive branch reminds me of the US today. “”
The QUOTE: …..””The executive branch has no clue how to run Egypt. It’s not a question of whether they are Muslim Brothers or liberals — it’s a question of people who have no vision or experience. They do not know how to diagnose the problem and then provide the solution. They are simply not qualified to govern.””
You sir, hit the NAIL right on the head!! Obama, TODAY, still has ZERO IDEA.. how to be a Potus.. or GOVERN.. as the CONSTITUTION Authorizes…. And he and his administration, are as Corrupt as the WORST we have ever had…
@Hankster58 #3…What can you expect from a man that had so little experience in anything… he only held one “real world” job as a member of a law firm and then only briefly. He worked as a “community organizer” (read that as an agitator) and taught law part-time at the University of Chicago Law School (he was a guest lecturer not as reported a professor). He served 3 terms as a State Senator and a partial term as a U.S. Senator, not much experience in the real world or in politics. His background, especially his background in Chicago and in Illinois politics gave him a firm schooling in crooked politics, something he used in the last election but other than that, what experience has he had. In a different tack, where are all the records for his life, both personal and scholastic – the absence of them makes the specter of his not being qualified to be President loom over his entire administration!
And one more time with feeling, . . .
Which Administration? Either one. Doesn’t matter. Two countries just hovering in holding patterns awaiting someone with any talent to lead them. Any experience will do. Any talent will do. Any insight will do.
Oh, and deciding on another $100 million holiday aboard A.F.1 doesn’t count as a decision. That’s self indulgence because the office allows for it. He indulges because he can.
An imam from the great state of Tennessee can be seen here on You Tube preaching that Jews and Christians are filthy, so that their lives and property can be taken in jihad by the Muslims.
See, Islam can only create failed states. (Oil found under a few failed states has propped them up a long time but there are no underpinnings of sustainability under them, either.)
So, built right into their failed state philosophy is the RIGHT to simply take other people’s stuff!
Because, as the post rightly points out: you can’t eat Sharia!
This guy is preaching this INSIDE the USA!
His words are tough to understand…..so….
Qadhi says: “The life and property of a mushrik (one who worships others besides Allah) holds no value in the state of jihad….which means if they don’t say there is no god but Allah (la illaha illa Allah,) their lives and property are halal” — that is, permitted to be taken by the Muslims.
Christians and Jews are specifically called out for their filthiness by this ”scholar.”
Oh, yeah, he’s a scholar…..
He is Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute.
He is a hafiz — that is, he has memorized the entire Qur’an.
He has an M.A. in the Islamic Creed and a B.A. in Islamic Sciences from Islamic University of Medina.
He has a master’s and a doctorate in Islamic Studies from Yale.
Sounds more like a hate-monger to me.
I have heard it said that the term Moderate Muslim is an oxymoron. Do they really exist?
Another Western female reporter has been gang raped in Egypt.
Dina Zakaria, a journalist reporting for the “Egypt 25” news channel affiliated with the January 25 revolution, shared the incident on her Facebook page.
Her injuries were so bad after 5 men raped her that she required surgery.
However, sexual assault is NOT A CRIME under Morsi’s version of Shara law in Egypt.
Since the demonstrations started over 45 women have reported being sexually assaulted.
Why bother if it is not a crime?
According to a report by the UN, the Cairo Demographic Center and Egypt’s Institute of National Planning, more than 99% of the hundreds of Egyptian women who participated in the study reported some kind of sexual harassment or assault, from verbal abuse to rape.
Photo of man caught in the act:
http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/egypt-harassment.jpg?w=620&h=464