Wednesday, February 02, 2011

talk like a Egyptian

Via Salon, here's a truly excellent post about how NOT to talk about events in Egypt.

My favorite faux pas: "I loved Sadat".

(Sadat WAS Mubarek with a worse hairdo)

Relatedly, Bill Easterly describes the double standard for democracy that seems to be operating.

2 comments:

John Thacker said...

My favorite faux pas:
"“I am so impressed at how articulate Egyptians are.” Does this sound familiar? Imagine saying this about a Latino or African American? You don’t say it."

Well, we can all imagine Vice President Joe Biden saying it about one African-American in particular, our president.

Pelsmin said...

The Salon article is the same "we're such dumb Americans" pablum that Europe and the American left love to dish out. Is Egypt's education system producing highly-educated spokespeople for representative government, or have the impoverished people been denied the opportunity to learn what's really going on in their world? (This is a country where the state press regularly informs the readers that Israel is rounding up the latest crop of non-Jewish babies for its Matzoh factories.) For an American to hear an informed, educated statement from the "mob" is outside of the expectation, not a sign of our idiocy. You can't have it both ways.

As for the other comments on what's happening in Egypt, is America the only country in the world that's not supposed to look out for its own interests, first and foremost? Mubarak is a tyrant, like most of the rulers in the middle east. His actions towards his people are on par with his colleagues, but he has done things that are more helpful for the US's interests than these other rulers, in Syria, Iran, etc. That means, in the world of real decisions, he's better for us than the alternative. (BTW, since democracy is recognized as the more benevolent form of government, there must be great love among the local people for the only democracy in the region -- Israel.)

As for the "moderate" nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, that lie isn't hard to disprove. Just read their own website.