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Views from an Egyptian

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Re: Views from an Egyptian

#21

Post by jacquesm »

paganel wrote: post #19
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To break police torture, you MUST torture them. I hope you meant that in a figurative sense and not in a literal one, if you meant that literally then I'm sorry, but that's absolutely not the case. You break a bad regime by doing better, not by becoming like them. I sincerely hope that El Baradei will get his way and will be allowed to lead a transition government he seems like a decent fellow and has done a lot of…

> You break a bad regime by doing better, not by becoming like them. In theory, you're of course correct. In practice, think about the regicide of Charles I or about the French "Reign of Terror" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror ), they were both meant to break bad regimes. How well they've succeeded in doing that it's debatable, the undecidable question is if terror/violence was really necessary.

Violence against the head of state versus violence against police is a totally different story. Of course the one will hide behind the other and it may be hard or impossible to get the 'job' done without violence I'd still advice restraint and to use it as a means of last resort rather than the first choice as though there are no other options.

Romania and Albania are fairly recent examples of successful revolutions that had a relatively small amount of violence (compared to what could have been, and being in the middle of it certainly wasn't a pick-nick), Poland is an example of an even more successful one with almost no violence (not that they authorities didn't try to change that, but that didn't work out so well for them.).

The middle east has a long history of having violent revolutions only to return to a 'new boss, same as the old boss' situation, it's high time for some real improvement there and this is one very big opportunity to show how it is done. Make sure that you give your opponent something to lose, if they know they're going to die anyway then they have nothing to lose and will hold on to their power in the most irrational ways. Give them a way out with their hide in tact and who knows what might happen.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#22

Post by ajays »

jacquesm wrote: post #3
csomar wrote: post #2

I don't agree. It's not the whole population that will make the true revolution. They'll help, but are not the main stream of the revolution. Read my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2151468 Western Media has made false rumors that this is the Facebook revolution of young people. Yeah, Facebook played a major role, but wasn't the key. There is torture in these countries. To break police torture, you…

> To break police torture, you MUST torture them. I hope you meant that in a figurative sense and not in a literal one, if you meant that literally then I'm sorry, but that's absolutely not the case. You break a bad regime by doing better, not by becoming like them. I sincerely hope that El Baradei will get his way and will be allowed to lead a transition government he seems like a decent fellow and has done a lot of…

>> Gandhi: "Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong"

Gandhi has a romantic allure to people in the west, but the reality is he won because the alternative was much worse.

It was the end of the WW. The British were tired. And there were 100s of 1000s of Indian soldiers, just returned from years of fighting, who were ripe to be recruited by the radical elements in India. This was enough for the Brits to throw in the towel.

>> You break a bad regime by doing better, not by becoming like them.

You must get out and experience the real world. I like how you think, and in an ideal world, this would be the way to go. But the reality is, dictators don't got away quietly; they are driven out by violence and threats of violence.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#23

Post by pnathan »

Consider the lessons of France, Russia 1917, and the former British Colonies. Also, the Athenian democracy.

One lesson is: wisdom must be found to bring a country out of a dictatorship into a just land. Another lesson is: untrammeled democracy is but mob rule and leads nowhere.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#24

Post by acqq »

brown9-2 wrote: post #15
acqq wrote: post #13

The OP mentions Muslim Brotherhood as the worthy opposition, but they don't appear as anything democratic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood "The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur'an and Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state""

I'm not sure the poster labels them as "worthy", just that they've been systematically excluded, used as puppets in sham elections, and are popular with the lower-classes.

The problem is if they can be considered to have party goals that are compatible with democratic society. If the goal of the opposition is to destruct the mechanisms by which they are to come to the power, should they be allowed to participate.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#26

Post by jacquesm »

ajays wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To break police torture, you MUST torture them. I hope you meant that in a figurative sense and not in a literal one, if you meant that literally then I'm sorry, but that's absolutely not the case. You break a bad regime by doing better, not by becoming like them. I sincerely hope that El Baradei will get his way and will be allowed to lead a transition government he seems like a decent fellow and has done a lot of…

>> Gandhi: "Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong" Gandhi has a romantic allure to people in the west, but the reality is he won because the alternative was much worse. It was the end of the WW. The British were tired. And there were 100s of 1000s of Indian soldiers, just returned from years of fighting, who were ripe to be recruited by the radical elements in India. This was enough for the Brits to throw in the towe…

> You must get out and experience the real world.

I'll bet you that I've seen more of 'the real world' than you have, from communist Poland before the wall fell to Colombia, and plenty of other places both in times of relative quiet and in times of unrest, living there, not holidaying.

If I count the countries that I've visited I come to 22 countries on 3 continents, I've probably spent more time outside of the country that I was born in than in it.

Unrestrained calls for violence and torture are simply stupid and will actually decrease the chances of success, violence is best applied with restraint by a steady hand and a clear mind pursuing concrete goals.

Gandhi played his cars very smart making the British look like murderers of innocents while at the same time showing a way out with their hide intact.

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#27

Post by stcredzero »

lkozma wrote: post #11

A quite interesting perspective: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/01/2011128...

Reminds me of a Raymond Smullyan quip about a friend on road-trips with his girlfriend and her young daughter. When it came down to deciding where the three of them would eat, there was often a difference of opinion -- the daughter always wanted McDonald's while the adults wanted to sample the local cuisine. One time, he proposed to decide by voting. The daughter decried: "That's not fair! I'd lose!"

I suspect the US government is afraid of the results of fair elections in Egypt.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#28

Post by yummyfajitas »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
patrickgzill wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is entirely possible that should the Egyptian police escalate (as it appears they have done), actual physical violence against them, even to the point of killing some of them, may be necessary. Dictators only lose when their underlings no longer do the dirty work for them.

It may be unavoidable, but to start off from the premise that that's how it should be done is simply wrong. The more people that are fighting the bigger the chance that instead of changing the regime you end up with civil war. The best bet in situations like this is on the regime having lost control over enough of their armed forces that they lay down their weapons, if it comes to violent confrontations between prote…

The more people that are fighting the bigger the chance that instead of changing the regime you end up with civil war.

Perhaps, but even if that occurs, it's probably a good thing.

A civil war is rapid, violent and photogenic - we see it on TV and we think "how horrible". Slow stagnation under dictatorship is quiet, the violence occurs behind closed doors and is spread out over many years, and we just don't see it on TV. But it's often far worse than a violent revolution would be.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#29

Post by jacquesm »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #28
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be unavoidable, but to start off from the premise that that's how it should be done is simply wrong. The more people that are fighting the bigger the chance that instead of changing the regime you end up with civil war. The best bet in situations like this is on the regime having lost control over enough of their armed forces that they lay down their weapons, if it comes to violent confrontations between prote…

The more people that are fighting the bigger the chance that instead of changing the regime you end up with civil war. Perhaps, but even if that occurs, it's probably a good thing. A civil war is rapid, violent and photogenic - we see it on TV and we think "how horrible". Slow stagnation under dictatorship is quiet, the violence occurs behind closed doors and is spread out over many years, and we just don't see it on…

Agreed.

If it has to be then let it be like Romania or Albania.

The best we can hope for is for the police and the military to be either restrained or to desert, if they continue to support Mubarak it could get extremely messy.

Re: Views from an Egyptian

#30

Post by presidentender »

csomar wrote: post #2

I don't agree. It's not the whole population that will make the true revolution. They'll help, but are not the main stream of the revolution. Read my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2151468 Western Media has made false rumors that this is the Facebook revolution of young people. Yeah, Facebook played a major role, but wasn't the key. There is torture in these countries. To break police torture, you…

I do not agree that torture is the solution to torture. Resistance to imprisonment need not take the form of imprisonment, and there's little value in torture.
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