How's that belief in free speech going then?

Whilst many of us took heart from the 1.5 million + who turned up in Paris in defiance of the Islamist thugs, the following also happened:

- Over 2,000 dead in Nigeria, as Islamist terror group Boko Haram goes on a pogrom against those who resist it in one town. The five-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.   Nigeria is increasingly losing the battle against the group, meanwhile Michelle Obama presumably thinks she has done enough by endorsing the hashtag #bringbackourgirls

- Brunei introduces the death penalty for blasphemy and apostasy from April and expect absolutely no diplomatic or trade reprisals.

- Saudi Arabia inflicts 50 lashes on a blogger for blasphemy and its ambassador to France had the audacity to turn up to the Paris "Je Suis Charlie" rally on Sunday.  Again, expect no serious diplomatic or trade reprisals.

- ex. quasi-dictator of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad blames the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for provocation saying "we respect their religion".  No you don't you prick, they were atheists.

- In Egypt, the government imprisons student Karim al-Banna for three years for saying on Facebook that he is an atheist.   You thought the Muslim Brotherhood had been ousted didn't you? "Al-Banna's father testified against his son saying "[he] was embracing extremist ideas against Islam. Al-Banna had been facing neighbourhood harassment ever since his name had appeared in a local daily under a list of atheists". Remember, Barack Obama who offered his "support" for free speech, runs a government which gives the Egyptian Government billions of dollars in aid.

Egypt's problems wont be solved by elections

You see in Egypt the problem comes from the politicians and they arise from the culture.

Unfortunately Egypt has a culture of  kleptocracy, corruption and favouritism. 

When he was President, Hosni Mubarak enriched himself to the tune of US$42 billion.  This is scandalous but hardly unexpected, because politicians in absolute power will both use violence to retain power and will be thieving bastards one and all.  Yet this is what politics does.  By granting unlimited power to people elected or otherwise, they do violence to others, they collect money through violence and can use it to corrupt, and can be corrupted to change laws, grant contracts and the like. 

It is what politics can do and does, and liberal democracy doesn't contain it, culture does.  In the US, politics is corrupted because people seek favours from politicians in the forms of money or privileges granted by the state.  However, there is an independent judiciary and free press, so there are institutions in place that can contain this.

In Egypt this doesn't exist.  It is stuck between the kleptocratic authoritarian culture of the army, which has deep roots in business and the economy well beyond what should be its core role.  

However, Islam also has deep roots that mean that a significant plurality of Egyptians are quite happy for the state and religion to be as one, meaning non-Muslims in Egypt face serious risks of oppression and discrimination by the state.

So when foreign observers call for free and fair elections, that's all very well, but what is the reason for this?  What do they want for Egyptians?

The problem of Egypt

Egypt has no tradition of respecting individual liberty or secularism.

Nasser was widely admired, as he took over the Suez Canal and lost the war he was about to launch against Israel (and lost the Sinai Peninsula).

Anwar Sadat bravely made peace with Israel, gaining back the Sinai, and was assassinated for his efforts (and is largely forgotten).

Hosni Mubarak set up a massive military led corporatist state of rent-seeking self-aggrandisement, whilst simultaneously suppressing Iranian style Islamists.  The same Islamists who bombed hotels, tour buses and killed foreign tourists, until Mubarak's secret police authoritarian state put enough of them in prison.  Meanwhile he appeased a moderate form of Islamism, allowing for the occasional hassling of Christians and implementation of Shariah law.

So he gets overthrown, and elections are held. The world quietly condones it and lo and behold, a plurality of Egyptians choose theocracy, as the alternative is a patsy of Mubarak.

The USA, EU and the rest of the supposedly freedom loving West celebrated democracy, not individual freedom and rights.   Not separation of religion and state.

So how could any Western politician oppose a government led by the Muslim Brotherhood?  How could it oppose that elected government trying to change the constitution?  

Indeed.  Egyptians who supported Islamism were happy.  Egyptians who supported secularism, the small Christian minority and Muslims who keep their religion in the private sphere, were not.

Neither was the Army, which has a large network of businesses which keep many of the senior officers well fed and watered.   

So Egyptians who don't like Islamism, and Egyptians with a vested interest in the Army's own corporatist enterprises, protested.

The Islamists were less than happy as the Army overthrew their authoritarians, to reimpose their own.

Now the Army is killing those who resist it, but don't be fooled.  The Islamists would do the same, given their predilection to terrorism, their predilection to criminalising apostasy, to harassing those who are not of their faith, to censoring views, cultural expressions and humour they don't like, to constraining the role of women.   Then of course there is the widespread anti-semitism, which is far more widespread.

So whilst the philosophy, politics and the motives of the Islamists are thoroughly despicable and the anti-thesis of individual freedom and the secular liberal democracy that Western civilisation is supposed to be based on, the ends - the political defeat of Islamism - do not justify the means - opening fire on civilians.

The problem is that the Army is led by a man, who believes it is ok for women to have their virginity checked by men, to protect them.  

Egypt needs rulers who will allow people to live ascetic Muslim lives, by choice, or not to.  It needs rulers who believe in freedom, and who believe in separation of religion from state.

However, it doesn't have a majority of citizens who share those values...

Egypt's new dawn or a new dark age

For many years, there has been much concern expressed in the Western world about the consequences of letting the Muslim Brotherhood take over in Egypt.  After all, it was the justification for providing oodles of financial support for Hosni Mubarak’s regime, after he succeeded Anwar Sadat (who dared to make peace with Israel and was assassinated as a result), who himself succeeded the warmongering personality cult figure of Nasser.   Egyptians have been under the jackboot of dictatorship for decades, and as much as US Administrations have appeased Mubarak and Sadat (given both have maintained peace with Israel and kept the Suez Canal open), their opponents have long deified Nasser.  Egyptians who dared cross with any of the regimes would face a police, secret police and military ably dishing out summary justice, engaging in imprisonment, torture and summary executions.  

There were two comforts casually taken by Western supporters of the Mubarak regime.  One was that he wouldn’t wage war against Israel, back Islamists in Iran, Israel or elsewhere.  The value of having an ally who is peaceful in an area that has been volatile, is considerable, especially when it can have its hands on the throat of one of the great shipping routes between Europe, the Persian Gulf and Asia.   The second was that Egypt appeared to modernise.  It could be seen in the malls and shopping centres in Cairo, where young Egyptian women would walk around in jeans, hair uncovered and look little different from those in Europe.  It could be seen in the relative vitality of a country that welcomes tourists, has many fluent in English and had a semblance of a civil society.   However, underneath that entire facade were multiple pressures.

The first was the tired nature of living under a tired corrupt regime that had last more than 30 years with one president.  A regime where wealth and success could come to the well connected, the relatives, the friends and those willing to share with those in power the booty of contracts, trade and business.  A regime where the victims of such corruption, victims of the extra-legal use of authority by the regime would be ignored, at best.  A seething resentment that a country that was becoming wealthier, more connected, with an increasingly younger population, was sitting atop something rotten.  

The second came from those who resisted the modernisation, who saw the wealth and success of fellow Arab regimes to east and west, and would spread resentment at the dependency of Egypt on the succour of the United States (Egypt being, until recently, the second biggest recipient of US taxpayer funded aid after Israel).  They would prey upon the fact that most Egyptians are Muslims and see the hope in dealing with corruption, crime and what they perceived as moral decay, in dumping the quasi-secularism of the Mubarak regime, in favour of Islamism.  They did not think of the 10% Christian minority, or the tiny Jewish minority, nor did they think women should be anything but “equal, yet not bearing duties against their nature and role in the family”.  They would also prey upon the strong anti-Israeli sentiment, which harks back to the families whose sons were victims of the wars Egypt had waged against Israel in the past, and the strong fraternal sense of injustice many Egyptians felt with Palestinian Arabs.

So when Egyptians threw off the Mubarak regime and held elections, the inevitable binary result was that the top two candidates would represent the old regime, and the organisation best organised and longest protesting about it – the Muslim Brotherhood.

With Mr. Morsi becoming President, in a land that no longer has a working Constitution, the stage is set for a new battle.  Given the Parliamentary elections have been ruled null and void, these will presumably be held again, but he faces the army first and the smaller mass of Egyptians who support modernity.  The women who deep down fear new laws about what they wear, who they marry, their rights to divorce, their treatment if abused, their employment and their work.  The Christians who fear new laws about worship, about free speech, about education and about equal treatment under the law.  The Egyptians more generally who want a society where the state protects everyone’s rights, as individuals, including the right to apostasy (which has, at best, been controversial and difficult in Egypt).

For now, it is likely that Egypt will not become the new Iran.  It is still receiving US government largesse, which is largely benefiting the military.  Any shift in policy that results in this ending will risk a military coup, given the sheer size of the Egyptian military.  However, it is difficult to envisage how a man who belongs to an Islamist organisation, which espouses Sharia law as definitive, which seeks to restrict the role of women, which supports the abolition of the state of Israel and considers jihad and martyrdom as glorious, is going to ever represent a step forward.

If his colleagues get elected in the Parliamentary elections (along with Salafists who are more extremist), then one can envisage a new constitution.  Not one that separates religion and state, nor one that prioritises individual rights.

The intellectual bankruptcy of supporting democracy as the measure of freedom will then be revealed. Egyptians will be deemed to have “supported” an Islamic state, and it will be “better” than the Mubarak regime.

Those who would protest in the streets for civil liberties, for the rights of women and the rights of minorities would appear to be willing to surrender those, for the victory of a man who represents rejection of Mubarak, and implicitly, the United States which backed him.

It may be that fears of an Iranian style Islamist revolution are wrong, it may be that Mr. Morsi is in fact willing to support a secular Egypt, that respects religious and individual freedoms, that fights the scourge of corruption that has long infested that land and takes only token steps towards embracing the long held agenda of an Islamist state.  

However, it is clear that being allowed to vote for a President is not freedom.  Individual rights are not protected when people who do not belong to the dominant religion, live and worship in fear, and when laws are enforced to prohibit people abandoning the dominant religion with the death penalty.

State religion, deep cultural misogyny, suppression of “blasphemous words and deed” and death worship are not compatible with individual freedom (including the rights and equality under the law for women), freedom of religion, freedom of speech and embracing of life.  

Like a train that has escaped one tunnel, had a brief smattering of daylight and may now be about to enter another…

Three elections - freedom's not the winner

Greece

I've never seen so much televised election coverage for a Greek election, with BBC News, Sky News and CNN all providing dedicated coverage yesterday.  This was an election about remaining in the Euro - Greek voters, more often than not, wanted to play it safe.

The Greek election result is clear - a country divided amongst those who are scared of losing their savings in Euros to those who want to demand other country's taxpayers support a bloated socialist state, and then a who lot of others who variously want either the government to take over and steal from the rich, steal from the foreigners, or the 1.59% who actually want less government.

So for now, Greece will live off of the back of hundreds of billions of Euros of money from taxpayers in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Estonia, Slovakia and other solvent parts of the Eurozone, and will attempt to survive with some spending cuts and tax rises - although the former wont be enough, and the latter will choke off the economy even more.  The optimist in me hopes that Greece can actually cut its deficit, balance its budget, open its economy, cut costs and move forward.  However, I suspect Greece will be racked with strikes, mass protests and continued exodus of the best and brightest, whilst the coalition between the two parties that led Greece for 30 years into this mess in the first place fractures as the vested interests both have protected fight for their cut of the borrowed bankrupt pie.

I can only hope that since New Democracy now includes a few elements in favour of less government and not increasing taxes, that the concessions that this government can get from Germany are to not increase taxes more.  That at least will stop choking the private sector more (as cutting government spending is not the same as increasing taxes).   Meanwhile the far left reality evaders, whose xenophobia about foreign capital doesn't extend to foreign taxpayers propping up socialist states, will continue to portray all of this as some grand conspiracy to make foreign bankers rich.  Those "foreign bankers" (Golden Dawn would be proud of that rhetoric) took a 110 billion write off of Greek debt so far, meanwhile foreign taxpayers have effectively restructured most of Greece's private debt into new lower interest rate loans.   However, Syriza and the leftwing xenophobic haters of capitalism just blank this out - and none have any answer as to how to bridge the gap between the Greek government's spending and its tax receipts.   The newly elected Greek government must close that gap, or will face yet another judgment in a couple of years.   The only way it might even hope to do that, and rescue the economy, is to let the private sector flourish by getting out of the way (and doing its proper job when it is expected to do so).

France

French voters have snubbed Sarkozy's party and have voted for the fancy funny land of the Socialists. The party that helped decimate the French stockmarket and chase businesses away when it was last in power in the early 1980s (as Francois Mitterand - the man who instigated the Rainbow Warrior bombing - sought to nationalise major businesses).   France will now either follow the path of Greece, in strangling its already fairly stagnant economy some more, chasing its best and brightest to London, some more, or will actually face reality and introduce reforms that hitherto were too hard for the vain git Sarkozy to introduce.

France is full of myths, one is its great manufacturing sector - which as a proportion of GDP is no greater than the UK's - another it how its mixed economy staved off the worst of the financial crisis - when in fact France has parts of its economy (agriculture and the space sectors in particular) largely propped up by EU subsidies.  

Higher taxes, more regulation to protect those already in jobs at the expense of those without them, and a head in the sand attitude to fiscal balance, will help ensure France continues to lose competitiveness relative to Germany and the world.  It is probably a decade away from its final decisive crisis, as France's generous welfare state and corporatist monstrosity of an economic policy finally collapses in on its own contradictions.  Not much liberte, not so much fraternite, and perhaps egalite of poverty.

Egypt

How's this for a choice?  Want an Islamist President who has vowed to respect other religions, the rights of women and the new freedoms Egyptians went on the streets for?  Or do you want a President from the old guard, the old corrupt militarist regime that kept a lid on freedom of speech and ensured that its cronies were wealthy and comfortable?  Half of all Egyptians chose neither.  It appears that a narrow majority of the rest chose Islamism.

Some on the left in the West who rail in favour of womens' rights, secularism, tolerance, liberal values, peace for homosexuals and the like will celebrate this, to their shame.  Others will share the concern with those of us elsewhere on the political spectrum.

The overriding of the parliamentary election by the judiciary may be worrying, but if the Islamist has won the Presidential election, it may give some impetus for others to vote for a new Parliament that isn't so dominated.

However, I am not hopeful.  The simple reality is that democracy in Egypt is more likely than not to create a state run by those who think religion and state are the one and the same, who hold views of women (let alone gay people) as being subordinate and whose views on Jews, Christians and others who don't hold their religion are less than flattering.   

The result wont be clear until Thursday, but let's be clear - it wont mean more freedom for people in Egypt.

Egyptian democracy and majority views

There are good reasons to support democracy.  For any fully functioning liberal democracy (not nonsensical "people's", "Islamic" "traditional" or other fake versions) a country needs free speech, free and independent media and for key state functions (justice/law and order) to be relatively free of corruption.  Those are all good things in and of themselves.   Free and fair elections cannot exist unless all political views can be expressed, and media outlets and options are not controlled, censored or monopolised by the state or ruling parties.   Free and fair elections also cannot exist if electoral authorities are corrupt, courts are corrupt or biased politically and most of all police and other forces of law and order are used as personal thugs by politicians.   Again, it is a good thing for the courts, police, electoral officials and the state as a whole to be politically neutral.

In that respect I like liberal democracy because with it comes some rather important foundations of a free society.

The other positive is that it gives people a peaceful means to debate and discuss politics and public policy, it provides a way to ration political power that provides A check on politicians.  I say "a" check, because it is far from adequate.  The best that can be said is that it provides a means to remove politicians from power.   Yet, without the most basic constitutional limits it is itself threatened by politicians who can be elected and abolish liberal democracy, free speech and the foundations that make it all work.  That is what happened in Germany when the Nazis got elected.   Unfettered majoritarian rule can destroy itself, let alone what it can do to the minority.

That's why advocates of freedom talk of constitutionally-limited government more than democracy.  Democracy is useful, but inadequate.  Constitutionally-limited government has a residual use for democracy to debate the role of the state within the limits of that constitution.  

So what this means for Egypt is that democracy, based on the majority will of Egyptians may not mean freedom.

Amy Peikoff points out in this article, the results of a Pew Research Center poll, conducted of Egyptians last year, paints a negative picture of this new "freedom" if politicians are elected to embrace the following:

95% prefer religion play a large role in politics.  Consider what that means for those not of the majority religion, or any religion.  A non-secular state doesn't exactly leave room for views not of the dominant religion.

84% favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim faith.  This is the situation already in Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.   Nice.

82% support stoning adulterers.  Great.

54% support a law segregating women from men in the workplace.   Modern.

54% believe suicide bombings that kill civilians can be justified.  Comforting.

Without a constitutionally-limited government which guarantees some minimum individual rights, Egyptians wont have freedom, because so many of them want to vote away the freedoms of others.

What is astonishing are those on the left who rightfully damn the dictatorship under Mubarak, but who are completely non-chalant and don't give a thought to freedom in Egypt as long as they have some form of democracy - like Iran's witless idiot in New Zealand, a man who think if Egypt becomes an Islamist state "so what".   That's right Bomber, fuck the people who get executed for leaving Islam, fuck the people who get imprisoned for insulting Islam, fuck the people who get beaten up, imprisoned and summarily executed for political protests.  Look forward to the cheering on of a Syrian revolution as well, except that doesn't have the hated USA backing the current regime, so it doesn't really matter does it?

Egypt - Now what?

Mubarak resigns.  Millions cheer.

Iran is joyous.

Hamas says it is "beginning of the victory of the Egyptian Revolution".

I am pleased, cautiously.  I am slightly optimistic on balance.   Let's look at the overall picture.

Mubarak gained power at a critical time when Islamists had assassinated Anwar Sadat, because he made peace with Israel.   The real risk was that Egypt would fall into Islamist hands, but Hosni Mubarak took charge and maintained the status quo.  That was a good thing at a time when the USSR was actively seeking to use the Muslim world to wage war against the West and Western allies like Israel.

Egypt had already been rewarded by the US for peace with Israel in the form of aid.   However, Mubarak's first priority was to avoid another Iran.  Islamist backed terrorist actions were sporadic in the 1980s against Christian and tourist sites.  Tanzim aj-Jihad was led by Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (most recently convicted of seditious conspiracy to commit terrorism in the US and now serving a life sentence), who called for attacks on Christian Copt targets including robberies.   Israeli tourists were also targets in the 1980s and 1990s, as were foreign tourists more generally.   1993 being one of the bloodiest years with over 200 killed.   Gama'a al-Islamiya was responsible for the infamous 1997 Luxor massacre where 62 tourists were murdered by Islamists.

In short, Egypt has spent much of the past three decades under siege from within by Islamists.  Let's be clear, the Muslim Brotherhood itself has not been the instigators of these attacks, but it has not been unsympathetic.  Mubarak's regime has been authoritarian because of its response to attempts to destroy Egypt's tourist industry through terrorism.

Only blind anti-Americanism would ignore the good done by maintaining confrontation against such thugs.

Yet Mubarak himself and his cronies have been politicians, and with that comes corruption, nepotism and theft.  His family's reported wealth of US$42 billion is scandalous.  Whilst he did open the economy, it is strangled by privileges, monopolies, a sclerotic bureaucracy and a judicial/police system that is barely independent.  I say barely because it outdoes most others in the Arab world which tells you how bad it is elsewhere.

In other words, he acted as a politician.  He wielded power to benefit those he liked, took it from those he didn't, and enriched himself, his family and friends like a mafia don.  The best that can be said is that he stopped far far worse outcomes for many years.  The worst is that he ran an authoritarian state, with strict press controls (although next to none on the internet) and a rabidly cruel and random police force that would use torture and brutality against whomever it wished.  It is no excuse that he is not even in the same league as Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Hafez or Bashar Assad, or the oil rich Wahhabi royal kleptocracies.

The problem with any such authoritarian rule is that at the same time as suppressing the forces of darkness of Islamism, it suppresses legitimate criticism, public debate and discussion.  It protects the inept and incompetent.   It protects those who thieve, bully and sideline other citizens. 

Without an independent judiciary, a police force that is remotely accountable for its actions and a thriving independent press, politicians and their lackeys could act with impunity.  Mubarak's downfall is of his, his family and his supporters' making.  Egyptians do have legitimate concerns with the misrule that has suppressed accountability and has brought much injustice to so many of them.   It is the way of any authoritarian administration, and also the way of politicians who are above the law, and politicians who are given the power to act in ways private citizens never could.

That is the problem not just of Mubarak, but unfettered government.   Politicians have only one set of tools that make them special - the ability to use force.  Unless that is kept in check to only be used to protect citizens from force, it ends up being used against them.

So for now Egypt will have a transition.  It is probably more free now that it will be for some time, as the screws are removed from the press and political discourse.  The main goal of many will be elections, but what matters more is civil society, discussion, debate and the freedom of expression that is so rare in that part of the world.   May Egyptians keep that, but they need more.

A rewritten constitution must defend the rights of all Egyptians to freedom of speech, including freedom of religion and for the state to not discriminate on the basis of religion (or no religion).  Alas, this mere guarantee of a secular state is unlikely.   What is likely is for Egyptians to get perhaps free and fair elections, and select a new set of politicians, seeking to enrich themselves and wield power over people.

Yet there is no alternative likely.  It is likely that no single political group will win an election, so a coalition will emerge that will seek compromise, that may erode the freedoms that now exist.  Yet the priority must be to clear out corruption, raise the performance of the judiciary and police to levels of accountability, balance and objectivity.   This wont happen quickly.

As much as Israel is not popular in Egypt, the appetite for war will also be low.  The army is dependent on US aid, and knows that will end if there are any attempts to take on Israel.  Of course Israel does possess the ultimate deterrent.

So I suspect Egypt will muddle along, get an election and have a government of compromises, coalitions with a strong Islamic tinge to it.   Egypt is not Turkey, but it may be more like Indonesia.

As for the rest of the Arab world, there have been protests in Algeria, which already suffered a civil war with Islamists in the 1990s.  Yemen faces the same, with Al Qaeda waiting in the wings.

Political freedom is always to be welcomed, as is free speech.  However, some want to use that freedom to gain power then shut it down.  That must be the great fear.  For now strength must be given to liberal minded Egyptians who do believe in secularism and do believe in maintaining that freedom, and peace.

Just some kind of democracy, not freedom, not peace for Egypt

That's what the Greens want for Egypt.

Well you'd think that if you believe the Green Party official blogger "Toad" with its comments, after I called for secular liberal democracy in Egypt that doesn't wage war with its neighbours.   This was the response (10.19PM 4 February):

@Libertyscott 9:58 PM

I will welcome an open free secular liberal democracy in Egypt, as long as it does not wage war against its neighbours directly or by proxy through terror.

How about just a “democracy”, without the qualifications. Not necessarily secular, not necessarily liberal (I suspect you probably mean libertarian). You know, one where the people decide!

And if the people of Egypt (as determined by genuinely democratic process) want to wage war, that is their democratic right.

But I would counsel anyone anywhere, including in Egypt, that war should be a last resort in resolving international disputes and should be engaged in only in response to serious human rights violations.

Read that again "not necessarily secular" so a theocracy is "ok" for the Greens?  OK if a religion takes charge and the only thing you can vote for is whatever shade of religion is ok?  Who'd have thought!! The Greens think religious based government is ok, better than dictatorship, though you might wonder what the real difference actually is when one sees Iran.

Not necessarily liberal?  Really?  Presumably the Greens don't mean "people's democracy" where a single party represents the "people", like North Korea.  Surely not, although the Greens have more than a couple of MPs who have been sympathetic to such regimes in the past.  Do they mean "third world democracy"? A patronising self serving justification of dictatorship based on traditional values that means societies are unified, not competitive, and work together in a grass roots party.  Like Zanu-PF likes to think itself as being.  No, surely not.   It has to just be Toad being ignorant of what "liberal democracy" means.

However it is clear freedom isn't important as long as people get to vote.

Moreover, Egyptians are allowed to wage war as a democratic right.  I thought the Greens believed in peace, and the UN Charter.  Hardly very peace loving is it?  On top of that war should only be in response to serious human rights violations.  On that basis Britain should not have declared war on Germany because it invaded Poland (but when?), but presumably the US could have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq if only to improve human rights.

However, we know what this is code for.  Egypt could invade Israel, because of human rights violations committed against Palestinians.  That would be ok.  As would Hamas setting up an Islamist democratic theocracy in the Palestinian Territories. 

Peace?  No the Greens think a theocratic democracy can vote to wage war, but only to address serious human rights concerns in another country.   Quite what a theocracy knows of rights would be a fascinating question.   It's simpler than that, the Greens have never believed in freedom, have no real belief in secular liberal western style democracy and so their belief in human rights is vacuous. 

For the rights of those who don't belong to the religion of a theocracy by definition will be neglected.   However, far more sinister, is the belief that as a last resort, democratic theocracies can wage war, but not in self defence, but rather to remedy "human rights".

US can't win with Egypt according to the left

Let's be clear, there is absolutely NO foreign policy option available to the US that would satisfy its detractors.  It doesn't matter if the US intervenes or stays apart from what happens, it will do wrong.  For its critics offer no real options at all.  

The US has previously engage in armed intervention to overturn dictatorships and to institute a form of democratic rule, and was damned for it.  What regime has been more vile in recent history than the stone age Taliban, which explicitly wanted girls kept as uneducated chattels for men, and which banned music?  Yet overthrowing that regime and allowing more moderate, yet Muslim forces to come to power in Afghanistan is damned and condemned.  The USA was meant to take 9/11 as a moment to reflect, except for those 3,000 or so murdered in that attack.   It was meant to let Al Qaeda operate freely, and indeed fold to its demands to get out of the way of it imposing its deathly will upon the Middle East.  The US did provide support for Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s, as a failed proxy against Iran.  That was criticised and still is, as if Reagan was still in power.  Then the US overthrew the regime, and it was criticised, because dictators shouldn't be overthrown by external force.

So the US ought not to overthrow Mubarak.

Yet supporting Mubarak, a policy which, to be fair, Obama inherited, is also unacceptable to its critics.  Mubarak is a kleptocratic authoritarian bully, so should get no support at all.

So should the US simply withdraw aid from Egypt and not care what happens?

No.  That too would be criticised.  If Mubarak remained, it would be the fault of the US for... having supported him before.  

Should the US say Mubarak should go and there should be free and fair elections?

No. That would be interference in Egypt's internal affairs.  

So what should the US do?  Rather simply, it should ignore the vacuous hypocrisy of those who appease dictatorships they like, and look after its national interest.

That interest is to defend the security of the US and its allies.  At the moment, preserving as much of the foreign policy status quo of Egypt is that.  Maintaining peace between Egypt and its neighbours is paramount.   A free secular liberal democratic Egypt is likely to be the best way to ensure this, but the likelihood of this happening spontaneously is fair less certain.

As Janet Daley wrote in the Sunday Telegraph:

Democracy consists of more than elections (even if they are “free and fair”, as everybody keeps saying): it is freedom under the rule of law. That involves institutions such as an independent judiciary (which Egypt does have a semblance of), mechanisms for holding government to account after it has been elected, and disinterested agencies of public order which rely on an abstract idea of justice rather than loyalty to the ruling elite. All of this relies on the vigilance of a citizenry that has been specifically educated in these principles and in the quite complex system that embodies them.

The absence of this is not a reason to leave Egypt to dictatorship, but it is enough reason to promote more than just elections for Egypt to have a peaceful future.

Labour allegiance to Mubarak's party

Having read the vituperative and somewhat nonsensical hatred expressed by a couple on the left about John Key's comments on the situation in Egypt, I thought I'd do a little digging and found a slightly more substantive link between the New Zealand Labour Party, Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party, with the ruling (at time of writing) National Democratic Party (NDP) in Egypt.

You see as much as the left now rage against Hosni Mubarak, the truth is that the NDP has been aligned with all three Labour Parties since the NDP was allowed to join Socialist International in 1989.

You see, until 30 January 2011, they all shared membership of Socialist International, the international non-government organisation that allows socialists to network.  It is dominated by leftwing parties from democracies (it doesn't have Chinese or North Korean membership), but they are all expected to share philosophies and political alignment.  So there you go, time to label Phil Goff, Ed Miliband and Julia Gillard as all leading parties that have provided warm camaraderie between Egypt's dictatorial ruling party and themselves, for it is true.

Time for a loud rant about how disgusting and despicable it has been that these parties have all provided succour to the NDP?  Philosophical comrades for over 21 years.

Of course that doesn't fit the leftwing monologue about Mubarak being a dictatorial tool of neo-cons, when his politics have actually been aligned with centre-left parties.  

Now a bit of rational reflection will tell you that this link is rather tenuous, but if you belonged to a political party, which belonged to an international organisation that invited the NDP to speak, what would YOU think?

Maybe Lianne Dalziel needs to be asked, since she attended Socialist International's last Congress in Athens in 2008, with Mohamed Abdellah of the NDP of Egypt.

The NDP being expelled from Socialist International 30 January doesn't make up for the 21 years of friendship, during which time Egyptians were getting imprisoned, tortured and harassed for objecting to this party.

The simple truth is that the parties of Socialist International can't begin to claim the moral highground given they were parties to giving the Egyptian NDP and effective one-party state legitimacy and moral authority, by allowing it to be associated with them.

Stepping back from this you need to look at the history of the NDP, which was created by President Anwar Sadat, but was essentially a partial reformation of the previous Arab Socialist Union, Nasser's own party which has its origins in the third world anti-colonialist philosophy that developing countries only need one political party to unify the people - in other words a ruse for dictatorship.

The philosophical parent for Egypt's dictatorial and corrupt ruling party is socialism.  It was embraced by liberal democratic socialist parties across the world.  So let's not pretend that Mubarak, the NDP and indeed Egypt's entire post-colonial political history are all nothing to do with the left and socialism, when they most decidedly are, as inconvenient as that truth is.

Left reaches new heights of hysteria on Egypt- NZ relations

Various commentaries I have seen from those not on the left have expressed either cautious optimism or cautious concern about the events in Egypt.  Either Egypt will unshackle itself from its authoritarian leadership and be more free, or it will walk from one largely secular authoritarian regime into an Islamist one.

I have yet to see anyone who has anything particularly good to say about Hosni Mubarak,  more a case of "he kept the peace" which for those with long memories, is worth something. Certainly the utterings from the US and UK governments have been calling on the Mubarak to move towards liberal democracy and political freedom for Egyptians.

Let's bear in mind a little of Egypt's post-colonial political history.  With independence in 1922 Egypt had a monarchy with an elected Parliament, but still had considerable British influences.  However between 1922 and 1952 it would be difficult to say it was liberal, secular and free, although it probably was more free than any other time in modern history.  Of course in 1952 Nasser and the military staged a coup, and with his combination of nationalism and "Arab socialism", he ruled with an iron fist.  He forcibly nationalised the Suez Canal, waged a wholly unsuccessful war against Israel (not called the Six Day War for nothing), and imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands of political prisoners.  He had extensive Soviet backing because the US refused to sell him arms to wage war with.  In 1971 he was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, who also waged a largely unsuccessful war against Israel (Yom Kippur War) and then made peace famously at Camp David.  Sadat engaged in economic liberalisation, abandoning many of Nasser's failed socialist policies, and banned torture and extrajudicial arrests, until a significant break down of law and order saw authoritarian methods return.   Still, he was far more liberal than Nasser.  Sadat paid for peace with Israel with his life, and was succeeded by his deputy, Hosni Mubarak.  Egypt was rewarded by the US for effectively switching sides, with significant amounts of aid.  It became the new intermediary between the US/Israel and the other Arab states/PLO.  Mubarak engaged in further economic reforms, liberalising the economy and staging heavily slanted elections.   Political freedom was limited though, as Mubarak focused on suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood, which for some years waged a terrorist campaign against tourist sites, and locations frequented by US and British tourists that damaged the Egyptian economy.

So Egypt has little tradition of serious political freedom and individual rights.  What Mubarak has today is not a situation he created, but one he inherited and did rather little to reform.  He inherited it from Sadat, who inherited it from Nasser.

Not that you'll hear much of that, because Nasser was a great hero of the left.  Taking the Suez Canal from the British, instituting socialist economics and waging war to destroy Israel.  His hardline police state and Soviet style repression of the press are mere details.  

Yet the best that can be said about Mubarak is that he kept the peace between two countries that had four wars in less than thirty years.  Not that the so-called peace movement cares about peace when it is with a country that it hates.  He came to power when Egypt was under risk of being overrun by Islamists who would have wrecked that peace, and would have sought to oppress Egyptians still further.  Now I would never be one to be an apologist for the oppression, use of torture, political imprisonment and media censorship under Mubarak's regime.  All of that should and must go.  Yet, Mubarak is not the only one who should go.

Libya's Gaddafi has spent much of his career not only suppressing and brutalising his own people, but also arming and funding terrorism, murdering innocent civilians across Europe. Syria's Assad also runs a brutal police state, has invaded Lebanon and provided arms and funding for terrorists in the Middle East.  All of oil-rich sheikhdoms maintain strict political oppression, Saudi Arabia has a brutal police state, all of these regimes are also sexist and not without a strong thread of racism as well.

In other words, Arab politics are full of autocrats, men who will imprison, torture and execute opponents, who will suppress free speech, and in some cases flagrantly apply sexist and racist laws or practices in their regimes.  Mubarak is no different, except in making peace with Israel, he was rewarded by the US.

Arab politics are a sclerotic brand of paternalism. I'm of the cautiously optimistic school that says that there can be a peaceful transition to secular liberal democracy in Egypt, but that it will require forces of secularism, freedom and support for peace to fire themselves up more than the Muslim Brotherhood.  That is the challenge, and it is that freedom supporters of all shades should be promoting for Egypt.  The Mubarak regime is nearly over, but the new fight is just beginning - and it is the serious one.  For Egypt to remain at peace with Israel, to not sponsor terrorism and to allow its people to be free.

Who in the West disagrees?  Well some on the left are constructing a different dialogue.  A false belief that the "right" is somehow protecting Mubarak, by not openly calling for his resignation.  The same left that tends to want the West to withdraw from the affairs of other countries, wants it to actively demand the overthrow of a President.  Of course if it did say so, and then the Mubarak regime started mowing people down in their hundreds, then the West would be to blame for not providing military cover.  Then the West would be accused by some of occupying a country.  In other words, there is really little out from the criticism of the haters of liberal free open capitalist democracies.

Take some of the comments on the left in NZ.

Bomber on Tumeke and Eddie on the Standard says John Key supports Mubarak.  Why? Because he said on TV "no" to whether he was calling on Mubarak to go.  

The Standard says "I wonder who he has been talking with to form this view – presumably some American far right-wingers, no-one else is so reflexively pro-Israel and paranoid about Muslims.

I would have hoped we had a Prime Minister who supported democracy and the overthrow of dictators first and foremost. It seems we don’t."

Really? So the Prime Minister should be in the business of calling for leaders of distant countries to step down when it isn't clear what is going on?  

Bomber says it more crudely "We are supporting a Dictator that the people of Egypt are trying to over throw.."

Well no. There is a difference between expressing support and simply saying New Zealand is not calling for Mubarak to step down.  Not calling for something is not support, it is merely neutrality about the outcome.  To have said yes would have been decidedly non-neutral, but what could it have meant?  If Mubarak remains in the short term, it will have harmed relations and trade, but the implications are well beyond Egypt.  It suggests New Zealand provides support to those wishing to overthrow regimes.  The implications of that are not inconsiderable.

The subtlely on this is lost on Bomber:

"This Government have sold out our independent foreign policy to side with our 'allies' at any given moment, even when siding with our 'allies' now puts as at odds with the rest of the world.

Apparently NZ only supports freedom and democracy when our Dictator wins."

What allies is New Zealand siding with? Hilary Clinton has said "We want to see an orderly transition to a democratic government" and

"the people, who have legitimate grievances and are seeking greater political freedom, a real path to democracy, and economic opportunity"

"We also don’t want to see some takeover that would lead not to democracy, but to oppression and the end of the aspirations of the Egyptian people"

Fair enough I would have thought, but as I said before, the left couldn't care less if Egypt became an Islamist dictatorship because it would be anti-US and anti-Israeli. The blood of apostate Egyptians, Jewish Egyptians, Christian Egyptians and secular Egyptians who oppose this are besides the point.  Supportive of Mubarak? Not really.  However, the US knows if it did call for his overthrow that it may be counter-productive, because so many opponents of the US would see it as weakness, and interference in Egyptian politics.  The US could never win if it was more interventionist.

The UK has been similar, with Foreign Secretary William Hague saying "genuine reforms [are] needed and [a] clear path towards an open society based on democratic values."

The only country calling for Mubarak to be overthrown is Iran.  However, the NZ left bloggers just think NZ foreign policy should be about blatantly telling leaders of other countries to stand down if they face mass protests.  Did they call for that when Iran blatantly forged the results of its elections? No.


Funny how only US backed dictatorships really get the blood boiling about the need for, um Western intervention.

Finally, Idiot Savant not only parrots the "John Key supports dictatorship" fabrication, but claims "Mubarak is a dictator and a torturer. The only difference between him and Saddam Hussein is that he's (still) a US ally, and pro-Israel"

The only difference?  This sort of statement demonstrates either a wilful disregard of history or the rather disgustingly cheap view that Mubarak must be as bad "because the US backed him".

Let's look at some facts.

Hussein waged war against Iran and Kuwait, Mubarak has maintained peace with its neighbours under his entire Presidency (yes I know the US supported Hussein invading Iran, but that's hardly Mubarak's fault).  Hussein used chemical weapons against his own population, Mubarak's Egypt has never had chemical weapons, let alone used them on its population.  Hussein banned all foreign media and the internet, making it criminal to receive foreign broadcasts.  Mubarak restricted domestic media, but never banned satellite dishes, shortwave radio listening or the internet (until the past week).  Hussein ran a personality cult on a grand scale, following the model of Stalin.  Mubarak can barely be said to have had one, largely consisting of his image and the occasional quote being seen in streets.  Hussein was personally (as was his family) a megalomaniacal killer, who purged his colleagues, those surrounding him in murderous style, who let his sons engage in rape, murder and theft, and who ruthlessly staged brutal executions.  Whilst Mubarak's regime has engaged in political executions and has had poor accountability for police brutality and torture, there have not been reports of him being sadistic or engaging brutality for the sake of it.

It is pure dishonesty to equate the two.  Mubarak is a dictator, but on the light end of the scale, Hussein is full blown war-mongering, sadistic, murdering, megalomaniac.  It is like equating Castro with Pol Pot. 

Finally, Mubarak is not pro-Israel by any means.  He took a harder line with Israel than Sadat, he has often criticised Israel.  Egypt has annual military exercise in the Sinai, aimed at defence against Israel.  Domestic Egyptian media has had little restrictions on criticising Israel, with anti-Israeli sentiment freely expressed.  The term "cold-peace" is not being friendly, just tolerating and recognising each other.

Such nonsense, such hysteria, spouting venom and hatred, filled with exaggerated fabrications.

However, anything is on if you're trying to smear your political opponents isn't it?  

UPDATE:  Syria's Ba'athist dictator, Bashar al Assad has said that the events in Egypt wont be repeated in Syria.  Why?  Because "he maintained his own country was stable because of its "cause", opposition to the pro-Israeli agenda followed by the US and its regional allies, such as Cairo and Amman".  It wouldn't be because his father, Hafez al Assad (note the hereditary succession) bequeathed him a brutal police state that was only rivalled by Saddam's Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran.  No.  It wouldn't be because Syria has been under "emergency rule" or martial law since 1963. It's because his people are united, in hatred at a common enemy.  Nothing Orwellian about that in a one-party police state with an all encompassing personality cult at all is there?  Of course, there are regular tirades about Syria,  its torture practices, executions and how children are abused in its schools from those who damn Mubarak.... or maybe that's just been neglected given how Syria has always been anti-Western and anti-Israeli?  Funny that...

Why does the left ignore Islamism?

Noticed how so many on the left are, understandably, pleased about the imminent downfall of the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt, but completely nonchalant about whether it becomes an Islamist dictatorship?

How the rhetoric and thinking, almost childlike in its simplicity goes like this:

What government does Egypt have? A dictatorship

Where does most of Egypt's aid come from? US government. 

That means the US supports dictatorship.  Dictatorship is bad.

What should Egyptian have? Democracy, like "we" in the West have.  Egyptians deserve the same rights we do.

Do you believe in human rights?  Yes

Do you believe women, gay and lesbian people, ethnic minorities and religious minorities deserve equal rights to everyone else? Yes

OK so far but then...

Does it matter who gets elected? Up to Egyptians.

Does it matter if Islamists arm and fund terrorists to wage war against Israel? Silent (but we think Israel deserves it).

Does it matter if Islamists arm and fund terrorists to wage war against the West? Yes, but it would be our fault for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, backing Israel.  They will stop when they have justice.

Does it matter if Islamists get elected who then restrict democracy to be the same sham it was under Mubarak?  Silent

Does it matter if Islamists suppress free speech, shut down competing media, arrest protestors, use the police and army to suppress dissent?  Silent

Does it matter if Islamists execute political opponents, adulterers, rape victims, gay and lesbian people? Silent

Does it matter if Islamists institute laws and enforce laws discriminatory against women? Silent

Does it matter if Islamists get nuclear weapons? America has them, so what?

See in a blind leftwing hatred of the USA, there is a total blindspot about Islamism.  For people who apparently espouse a love for women, desire for equal rights for gay and lesbian people and who hate torture, suppression of free speech and the like, their willingness to tolerate and appease Islamism is absolutely disgusting.  

It is the mindless view that anyone who challenges those they hate (the Republican Party, Israel) are to be thought of generously.

Well no.

I want Egyptians to be free, to have free speech and an open secular society and government.  I want Egypt to progress.  On balance I do not think it will become Islamist, but the risk is there.

For those on the left, whose hatred of the Mubarak regime is so thorough they will accept any alternative, are completely betraying the beliefs they purport to hold.

Want to see why? Look at how often they criticise the regime of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. A socialist Baathist dictatorship, led by a man who got his position through hereditary succession, whose father was a warm friend of the Soviet Union, who runs a secret police and torture network that rivals Hosni Mubarak. Who has invaded Lebanon twice to overthrow liberal secular regimes that were not compliant with it.

No, you wont hear quite the same hatred of Assad as you will Mubarak, because he didn't have US support.  He had Soviet support, so he isn't as bad.  I mean he has not made peace with Israel, he has not promoted peace in Iraq and continues friendly relations with Iran, so who cares?  After all, nothing gets the left more upset that the US backing a dictatorial regime - not because it should know better, but because the US is the embodiment of what they hate.

It completely robs them of credibility.  Particularly when nobody on the political opposite is saying "save Mubarak, he's good". Nobody is saying that.  All that is being said is that Egyptians deserve the rights and freedoms we all expect.  That is consistent, because it rejects Mubarak and Islamism.

However, for some on the left Islamism is implicitly ok because American is bad.

Where do you get this sort of thought? Try here, here or here for starters.