Rashid Khalidi: The Promise of Real Democracy in Egypt
[Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and the author of six books on Middle Eastern history, including "Palestinian Identity," "Resurrecting Empire," and "Sowing Crisis." Khalidi is a former advisor to Palestinian negotiators at the Madrid and Washington peace talks and is the editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.]
As revolutionary events sweep Egypt, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stubbornly insists yet again on staying at least into September, the United States is today dealing with the fallout of decades of unstinting support for an authoritarian Egyptian police state. The heavy American legacy is manifest in the American tanks parked in Tahrir Square and the made-in-the-USA tear gas canisters security forces fired at demonstrators. Egyptians know that the U.S. provides over $1.5 billion in aid, of which some $1.3 billion is military aid (all of which by law must be spent on American goods and services), yet significant amounts of U.S. assistance went into the pockets of the country’s rulers, and not to bettering the lot of Egyptians.
Dramatically, conventional opinion in Washington has begun to shift in the past two weeks. This is in part because of the increasingly intensive and accurate U.S. media coverage of the size and tenor of the huge demonstrations against Mubarak, the ferocity of police repression, and the unleashing of the regime’s brutal secret police thugs.
Many Americans have realized that the Egyptians simply want democracy and a better life, and that their regime was repressive and brutal. It is now easier for them to see Egyptians' struggle as part of a larger narrative that includes recent democratic revolutions in many parts of the world, a narrative that they understand as having roots in the American Revolution. Whatever the realpolitik arguments for sticking with the status quo in Egypt, this is a harder position to defend politically in the U.S. than it once was....
Read entire article at Salon
As revolutionary events sweep Egypt, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stubbornly insists yet again on staying at least into September, the United States is today dealing with the fallout of decades of unstinting support for an authoritarian Egyptian police state. The heavy American legacy is manifest in the American tanks parked in Tahrir Square and the made-in-the-USA tear gas canisters security forces fired at demonstrators. Egyptians know that the U.S. provides over $1.5 billion in aid, of which some $1.3 billion is military aid (all of which by law must be spent on American goods and services), yet significant amounts of U.S. assistance went into the pockets of the country’s rulers, and not to bettering the lot of Egyptians.
Dramatically, conventional opinion in Washington has begun to shift in the past two weeks. This is in part because of the increasingly intensive and accurate U.S. media coverage of the size and tenor of the huge demonstrations against Mubarak, the ferocity of police repression, and the unleashing of the regime’s brutal secret police thugs.
Many Americans have realized that the Egyptians simply want democracy and a better life, and that their regime was repressive and brutal. It is now easier for them to see Egyptians' struggle as part of a larger narrative that includes recent democratic revolutions in many parts of the world, a narrative that they understand as having roots in the American Revolution. Whatever the realpolitik arguments for sticking with the status quo in Egypt, this is a harder position to defend politically in the U.S. than it once was....