Thoughts on Egypt, and elsewhere

Almost a decade ago, one of the rationales for the U.S. move to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was to spread democracy.  Conventional wisdom has long held that democracy must be seized from within a country, not imposed from the outside.  Iraq is not now, and may not be democratic for a very long time.  On the other hand, looking at Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East, it would appear that homegrown democracy movements are taking root.

I’ve been following the events in Egypt, holding my breath as the people removed their support from the regime.  It has been apparent to me for over a week that Mubarak could not survive the change long-term.  It was only a matter of time before the regime fell.  The only question was whether the people could be deterred with sufficient force coming from the regime.  When the goon squads were sent in, I feared that wholesale violence would break out, and had the army not remained neutral, it could have.  But with the military’s commitment not to fire on the demonstrators, it became obvious that Mubarak’s hold on power was evaporating.  The only questions were how long he might try to hold on and whether he would leave with any of his dignity intact.

Yesterday, all indications were that he would be resigning.  But he had one last surprise up his sleeve.  I held my breath as the crowd realized that Mubarak had not resigned.  The crowd was primed for a massive celebration, and they were understandably shocked and angry.  Would their anger turn to violence?  What would the army do?

This morning, when discussing the fact of Mubarak’s resignation, NBC’s Brian Williams may have hit upon something profound, perhaps without realizing the implication of his words.  He mentioned that yesterday, the official statement from the Egyptian government was that Mubarak had turned over his powers to Vice President Suleiman, while retaining his titular role as President of Egypt.  That sentiment was echoed in interviews given by the Egyptian Ambassador to the U.S.  Yet, this morning, when VP Suleiman made his announcement of Mubarak’s resignation, he indicated that it was Mubarak (the titular but supposedly impotent president) who transferred power to the military.  Hmmmm.  If Mubarak had transferred power to Suleiman, how could he be the one to transfer power to the military today?  Was yesterday a shell game?  A “man behind the curtain” event, whereby Mubarak would still be controlling the levers of power while in theory Suleiman held them?  Or had the military in effect staged a coup, forcing Mubarak out, giving him the option of “resign or be fired.”

It remains to be seen what Egypt’s future will look like.  President Obama set out several markers in his statement — fair and free elections, revocation of the hated 30-year-old emergency law, and a transition to civilian rule with an open political process.  There will be a lot of work to do before those free and fair elections can be held.  Meanwhile, with Parliament having been dissolved and the entire cabinet sacked, much remains uncertain.

What will be most interesting will be to watch the response of both the leaders and the street in the other Middle Eastern countries.  Will there be another revolution?  Will the powers that be respond with violence?  Or might they try to get ahead of the street and institute meaningful reform?  No one knows.  Yet.  The temptation of the military will be to place stability ahead of democracy.  That’s what Mubarak did.  That’s what governments do in general.  It will take time and much lively discussion and negotiation to bring true democracy to Egypt.  There are many voices, many opinions, many dreams for Egypt’s future that will need to be heard and considered if true democracy is to prevail.  And a time of rising expectations can be unpredictable.

To the Egyptian people, I wish you well as you enter this new and exciting time in your history.

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Democracy as a contact sport

We’ve heard for years that all politics are local.  My community will be electing city council and school board members next week.  But once again I feel I don’t know much about the candidates.  Our local paper has, not surprisingly, endorsed the status quo.  I’m not satisfied with the status quo, but getting information about the other candidates can be a challenge.  One is a perennial candidate who runs largely self-funded campaigns just about any time there is an election.  Once elected, he tends to play the role of agitator — not necessarily a bad thing — but his tactics are such that his ability to influence changes is limited.

As a “small blue light in a sea of red,” I find local elections particularly depressing events.   In recent years, the school board in a neighboring community was convinced (as a result of a young man attending a single school board meeting!) to add intelligent design to the science curriculum. While a depressing events, this can also be seen as the ability of a single voice to effect change.  So that’s the focus of this post.

We progressives need to recognize democracy as a contact sport.  Unlike our opponents, we tend to think in terms of national elections.  We need to get active at the local level.  Naomi Wolf, in “Give Me Liberty,” lays out a road map of how to effect change.  President Obama, during the campaign, reminded us that we are the change we’ve been waiting for.  That means we need to be at least as active as our opponents have been.  And, if democracy is a contact sport, we need to engage at the local level.  It’s not enough to vote every four years and think that will do it.  Conservatives get it.  They’ve been active at the local level — attending city council meetings, planning commission meetings, and school board meetings.  If that single young man could make a difference, so can we.

It’s scary to speak up.  I understand how much easier it is to write our Congressional representatives.  We can be relatively anonymous that way.  There’s a certain amount of safety firing off an email or even a hand-written letter or a phone call.  Showing up at a local meeting means we have to claim our beliefs.  We might get booed, or even shouted down.  But in speaking up, we provide evidence that there are other views — not only to the powers that be but also to the others in attendance.  If we can make our case intelligently and with conviction, we can have an effect.  We need to remind our local representatives that we are watching and voting.  And we may affect the others in attendance — showing them an alternate viewpoint and challenging to rethink their views.

Now, have I done this in the past?  No.  But I’ve become convinced that it is necessary.  It’s difficult and time consuming.  And it becomes all the more difficult when we have family obligations — dinners to fix, homework to supervise, etc., especially after a long day at work.  But here are a few suggestions that will make juggling those obligations a bit easier.  Find someone who shares your views and tag team at meetings — divide them between you, take notes and share them.  Find someone who can’t attend meetings but who will research the issues. Watch the meetings on your local access station and then follow up with letters and phone calls to local officials.  Make  your voice heard.  When election time comes around, host candidate meet and greet events so that you get to know where they stand on the issues.  Voter pamphlets, at least here in California, are notoriously poor at communicating much about the candidates.  Some states don’t even have them at all.  And there are organizations that will, for a fee, send out official-looking “endorsement” flyers that are meaningless when it comes to providing voters with useful information about the candidates.  Robo-calls rarely provide much information and are more often push-polls designed to damage the opponent or calls from someone in a higher office endorsing one or more of his cronies.

While there is gang activity here, like in many cities, it concerns me when the candidates for school board seem to be focused more on policing in the schools than on curriculum or figuring out how to reduce the dropout rate.  To be sure, schools need to be a safe place for our kids to learn.  But let’s not forget that most kids will rise to meet expectations that challenge them to be better and to learn more.  And engaged kids are less likely to be disruptive.  This band-aid approach to treating symptoms is endemic in many areas of society.  Rather than doing the hard work, the hard thinking, about what causes a particular problem, it’s easier to apply a band-aid, regardless of whether that will do anything to remedy the situation.

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