From one of the comments at http://mondoweiss.net/2011/01/biden-see-no-good-hear-no-good-speak-no-good.html :

"That reminds me of an Egyptian joke I heard back in the Bush era:

Bush is getting worried that he might lose to Kerry in the Presidential elections, so he asks his ally Mubarak for help: “You seem to have a knack for getting re-elected every time, maybe you can help me out.” Mubarak says: “No problem, I’ll just send my team of specialists to show your guys how it’s done.” The team arrives, sits down with Bush’s team and give them a three-week course on properly doctoring an election, after which they go back to Egypt.

A few months later. The preliminary results of the US Presidential elections are appearing on the TV screens:

5.3% for Kerry.

9.7% for Bush.

and 85% for Mubarak."

Do you think this spirit will touch off something in Iran again?

Maybe even Kyrgyzstan?

Egypt is a different kettle of fish. If the expressed dissatisfaction leads to results it may have significant repercussions for many of the Arab states.

If the day comes that the Arab dictatorships become democracies, things might get very interesting.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/76642.html

"We will not be silenced, whether you're a Christian, whether you're a Muslim, whether you're an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or the other! We will never be silenced!"

Freeedooommm!!!!! All they're missing are the claymores and blue face paint. :-) Thank God for cell phone cameras and youtube. Governments can't hide anything anymore.

That is, unless they shut down the internet and all cell phones.....

ENJOLRAS
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN,
IT IS THE MUSIC OF A PEOPLE
WHO WILL NOT BE SLAVES AGAIN!
WHEN THE BEATING OF YOUR HEART
ECHOES THE BEATING OF THE DRUMS

THERE IS A NIGHT ABOUT TO START WHEN TOMORROW COMES!!!!!!!

*life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvBJMzmSZI

While it would be great for these revolts to be the dawn of a new era of democracy in the Middle East, it's far too early to know whether a new and much worse regime will follow in Egypt and elsewhere (assuming the governments even fall). The Iranian people threw off the cartoonishly oppressive Shah, and what do they get in return? An authoritarian theocracy which imposes medieval religious law and scoffs at democracy.

I hope this is a transformative period like 1989 in Europe and all these Arab dictators make way for secular democracies. That would be amazing. But there's no guarantee at all that that is what's going to happen. If Mubarak and his regime go, will there still be peace between Egypt and Israel? You wouldn't even need a strict Islamic government there to destabilize the area, just a populist one which thinks rejecting the tons of American aid and embracing the more radical anti-Israeli positions is in its interest. Even without war, a more prickly Egypt will further complicate the already near dead Palestinian peace process. That's without even going into what could happen if Yemen goes, setting the stage for New Afghanistan on Saudi Arabia's border...

So stay hopeful that these movements truly are for freedom in the true sense of the word, and that these revolutions are not hijacked and used to impose a more entrenched dictatorship or a equally repressive theocratic government. It's far too soon to start quoting Les Miz.

Or we could quote A Tale of Two Cities - a now timely novel of another revolution in the early 19th century.

I agree with Invictus. We must watch this with a wary eye now that the Muslim Brotherhood has joined the protests. I wonder what Bask thinks about all this?

Yeah, don't count on it.

I think the most likely thing is the sort of democracy you see in the PLA and Iraq. Some secular parties, some not, none with a majority, and none with a dynamic leader.

Then they just squabble it out.

Like Turkey with its Islamists. In fact the only one of these democracies or wannabe democracies I can think of that doesn't have a sectarian thing going on is Tunisia - unless I'm not aware of it.

Egypt has Coptics, Palestine has Gazans, Turkey has Kurds, and Iraq has Sunni Shia. So yeah.

"The Iranian people threw off the cartoonishly oppressive Shah, and what do they get in return?"

The Islamic theocracy was able to propel itself in the name of nationalism. Had it not been for the US propping up the Shah this nationalist cause would have been much harder to harness.

Egypt does not have the same US influence. And the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt does not have the same political influence.

"Then they just squabble it out." - compromise...

And Turkey has been Secular for decades, and ruled by the military. There is little difference in my mind between the Turkish Islamists and the American Christians in terms of either political ideology or morals.

America has blacks, hispanics, and asians... but maybe they all want to be there, while Kurd separatists want their own state (a Kurdistan which Iraq, Iran and Turkey all oppose) Is that the significant difference?

I'm taking a class on Turkey right now, and it isn't just the Kurds who are the Islamists, if I am getting what you are saying. Secularism was forced on that country my Mustafa Kemal during the Turkish revolution, but was only really able to penetrate in the urban areas. Now we have seen a mass migration of the rural, religious people to the cities over the past 50 years, and now they have gained significant power, to the extent that the religious-democratic AKP won the elections in 2002. Plus, with the whole situation with the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2008 and on the aid flotilla most recently, Turkey is now in more danger than ever of losing its status as a secular state

It started in Iceland and spread to Greece and Tunisia. What we are seeing here will not going away. It will spread, for the good of freedom and to the detriment of tyrants everywhere.

orathiac, your little blurb there has very little to do with my quote. Sure the Ayatollah was able to propel clerical government in the name of nationalism, but that just lead to a new oppressive state. I doubt the people went out to the streets in 1979 so that they could be governed by unelected religious leaders rather than an unelected secular one.

If anyhting Egypt has more US influence since the US has been shoveling them money since Sadat agreed for peace with Israel. Egypt is a "Major non-NATO ally", a level of strategic cooperation that includes the likes of Australia and Japan. Egypt has been a rock of stability due to that aid, and while in principle we must celebrate a possible democratic change for the Egyptian people, there is no doubt that this will destabilize the region in a way not seen for thirty years. Egypt without Mubarak would be even more trans-formative than Iraq without Saddam. As the saying goes with regards to Israel: no war without Egypt, no peace without Syria.

As for Turkish Islamists = American Christians, please keep in mind that while there are a lot of Christian crazies, they don't represent a wide swath of the voting population. No Christian with a snowball's chance in hell of being elected coroner would advocate putting Old Testament Law into practice here, while even "moderate" Islamists demand the law of the state should be based on sharia. This is because that allegedly God-made law is seen as incomprably superior to man-made law from legislatures (aka democracy). I'm no apologist for the loonies who want to recriminalize sodomy or any other sort of limits on personal freedom some fundamentalist Christians want to impose, but creating a moral equivalence between a movement which at best guilts people into feeling bad and another which wants to negate the Enlightenment is absurd.

As for Darwyn, Iceland, Greece, and Tunisia are all very different situations. Iceland made its government call early elections after banks collapsed and people lost money. Apart from a new Prime Minister and a half hearted push to join the EU not much is different. Greece has unrest due to its sovereign debt and the cuts it is being forced to make. They didn't even have an election yet, and at the bottom of it the protests are about civil servants wanting to keep on retiring at 40. Hardly an oppressive system there. Tunisian was a police state in every sense of the word and the people threw off a dictator due to a wrecked economy and lack of opportunities.

For a good look at possible consequences of this Second Arab Revolt (my term, hope someone important starts calling it that soon, it's catchy right?) read this

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/28/the_new_arab_world_order?page=full

oh get a grip people! independant democracies are the last thing the powers-that-be want in the middle east. Aint gunna happen.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - George Bernard Shaw

@goldfinger - the Kurds were not a reference to the amount of religion in Turkey, check it, he said Sectarian, he's saying that as Iraq is divided between the Shia and Sunni, Palestine, Turkey and Egypt all have internal divisions. (i made my reference to blacks and hispanics in the US because the Kurds are a different ethnicity from turks)

@Invictus, in fairness i didn't compare US Christians to Afghan Islamists, the current ruling party in Turkey is a group of moderate Islamists and have not implemented Sharai law.

I don't know that they have even called for the implementation.

It seems a fair comparison when you admit that some US Christians call for a literal interpretation of the bible, and presumably application of the rules in leviticus as law. These are NOT a majority, but neither have the Islamists making calls for an implementation of Sharai law in Turkey become a big enough majority to do so.

@Fiedler, you are so cynical.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - George Bernard Shaw "

Sure, your observation may be accurate 'independant democracies are the last thing the powers-that-be want in the middle east' HOW and EVER the cynical bit was your prediction 'Aint gunna happen'

Which isn't an observation by a long shot, unless you claim to be clairvoyant!

I don't think myself a cynic, but I think fiedler is right. The Islamists have the money (Saudi Arabia, another US ally) and they will fund any Islamist uprising, especially as Egypt is generally seen as the 'moderate' country when dealing with Israel/Palestine.

That's still not fair, orathiac. The AKP, while certainly not the Taliban, is an Islamist party and that means basing the law on sharia rather than the democratic process of legislatures. Sharia to Muslims is the final, definitive law given be God, so an Islamist party worthy of the name would push for this supposedly inerrant set of rules to be the basis of the state, not a secular system as we understand it. Christians might make noise about putting the Ten Commandments in courthouses and affirming the US is a "Christian nation," but virtually no one would argue for the scuttling of all American law and legitimization of Congress in favor of Leviticus law. Even if these people did exist, they have literally zero influence on the political process.

These two movements come from radically different philosophical positions. To equate them misrepresents both.