(Credit: LEVINE/SIPA/Newscom)
Even though too few of us actually participate in our democracy, Americans love the idea of voting – so much so that we tend to get misty-eyed when long-oppressed people finally go to the polls to select their leaders.
As Egyptians go to the polls today, we should react with more sobriety.
YNet reports that “the vote promises to be the fairest and cleanest in Egypt in living memory.” That’s a pretty low bar. You could run a Soviet-style election and it would still be cleaner and fairer than past Egyptian “elections.” In 2005, Hosni Mubarak garnered 88% of the “vote” against a “reformer” who was thrown in jail months before the voting. The Egyptian army also recently announced that foreign election monitors would be barred from the country, raising concerns about possible fraud.
The most recent polls showed that the Muslim Brotherhood – running with other Islamist allies under the Freedom and Justice Party banner – expect to do well, as do a handful of other parties. But most polls indicated a substantial number of undecided voters (more than 50% in some polls) and the imperfections inherent in polling in Egypt make meaningful data difficult to gather.
For now, we will sit and watch and hope that Egyptians make a good choice. We are happy that more of our fellow human beings have won the right to self-determination. We marvel at the long-stifled joy that comes with freedom. We wish the Egyptian people nothing but the best.
But democracy doesn’t just come about because an election is held. Real democracy requires supporting institutions such as an independent judiciary and generally accepted legal code, a free and vibrant press, social and religious organizations, and an educational system that takes seriously its responsibility to produce citizens capable of preserving and expanding liberty. Egypt doesn’t seem to have an abundance of any of those things.
Democracy also requires individuals rising to leadership whose top priority is the building of a free and just society. Looking at Egypt’s current crop of candidates, we don’t see a lot of Jeffersonian democrats or Washingtonian statesmen.
With the outcome and impact unknown, this is not the time for sentimentalism. It is time for thoughtfulness and caution – and fervent hope and prayer for an outcome that benefits Egyptians, the whole Middle East, and the whole world.
What do you think?
1:15 pm
IN GOD WE TRUST!!!…WAKEUP AMERICA & GET RID OF THE 11 MILLION ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THAT ARE TRYING TO TAKE OVER OUR COUNTRY!!!…WAKE UP AMERICA & PRAVE TO GOD TO SAVE AMERICA!!!
8:41 am
AMEN N AMEN. CHARITY ALSO BEGINS AT HOME- LETS SUPPORT CAUSES 2 HELP AMERICA, AMERICANS, CHRISTIANS AND ISREAL
1:05 pm
IN GOD WE TRUST TO SAVE AMERICA & REMOVE ALL OF THE ii MILLION PEOPLE IN OUR COUNTRY WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY!!!
12:37 am
“Real democracy requires supporting institutions such as an independent judiciary and generally accepted legal code, a free and vibrant press, social and religious organizations, and an educational system that takes seriously its responsibility to produce citizens capable of preserving and expanding liberty. Egypt doesn’t seem to have an abundance of any of those things. … Democracy also requires individuals rising to leadership whose top priority is the building of a free and just society.”
Couple of problems: freedom is an issue of morality, and Egypt is lacking a moral foundation on which to build a free society. Their morality, sense of justice and their entire social and political structure is based on the Qur’an- one of the most insidious and amoral documents ever penned.
The second problem is that quote could have been made about the U.S. as well. We have no business trying to instruct the rest of the world in freedom and “democracy.” Democracy has been called “tyranny of the majority,” and it does not work. The U.S. was intended to be a representative republic, but we have forgotten what that is and replaced it with democratic principles, which are no principles at all.
Until the Muslim world learns respect for individual human rights and dignity, which are the hallmarks of a free and moral society, they will be slaves to radical leaders and hateful clerics; at odds with the rest of the world and with each other, as they are now. And unless America and the rest of the “free world” get their act together and figure this out, we are in danger of ending up the same way.
Shalom.