Home > posts > Egyptian Democracy Derailing?
February 3rd, 2011 6:40 pm
Egyptian Democracy Derailing?
Posted by Print

Earlier this week, I wrote that the uprising taking place against the Mubarak government in Cairo raised troubling questions about the regime that would succeed the departing president. Now, writing in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick makes a disquieting prediction — and she’s got the data points to back it up:

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

WHAT ALL of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US’s greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel’s peace partner will again become its gravest foe.

Food for thought. We shouldn’t be thinking of Cairo as Philadelphia in 1776 until it proves that it’s not Paris in 1793.

Tags:
Comments are closed.