[lbo-talk] Why Egypt’s Liberal Intellectuals Still Support the Army

Doug La Rocca douglarocca at gmail.com
Sat Jan 11 18:39:02 PST 2014


The handwringing over whether or not to call Morsi's defeat a "coup" is mostly due to incorrectly thinking by analogy to the 20th century coups. It would be more pertinent to ask whether it represents a Restoration, but this would involve an evaluation of the Morsi dictatorship, which is apparently not something the Left likes to meditate about much less speak on.

What is promising about the downfall of theocratic Islamism in Egypt is that there is still room to develop a new political form of democracy for the Arab world that can surpass what came out of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, especially now that the parameters of global politics are essentially different following the collapse of the USSR.

-dl


> On Jan 11, 2014, at 5:06 PM, Bill Bartlett <william7 at aapt.net.au> wrote:
>
>> On 11/01/2014, at 11:42 AM, martin schiller <mschiller at pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>> The argument seems to be that the military is protecting the people from a usurpation of culture.
>
> Its valid to try to argue that. Its valid to try to argue that a military coup is not necessarily a bad thing. Hey, I remember years ago someone who had come from Chile arguing that Pinochet had done lots of good things for their country. It was troubling to listen to, to tell the truth. because the fellow arguing it seemed such a decent person otherwise.
>
> But not as troubling as someone trying to tell you that black is white, that a clear-cut military coup is actually not a military coup. That is troubling on a whole different level, because it implies a level of deranged fanaticism that history teaches us can lead to the most horrific atrocities. One can not - must not - tolerate such blatant denial of reality.
>
> Whether a military coup is a good thing or a bad thing is really a matter of opinion, whether a military coup is a military coup is a matter of fact.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
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