Thursday 4 July 2013

Working in Montréal today --Walk like an Egyptian

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Out of one pan into another or just right into the fire?  Egypt traded one dictator for another tin pot and then were surprised when they discovered they had a dictator although I don't know why.

Mubarak ran a secular dictatorship and apparently back in 2011 the most vocal of Egypt's citizenry thought that trading that for a theocracy would be a better idea.  It wasn't and I don't think that it ever is.

Now please don't misunderstand me, secular is not synonymous for good and pure, rather a dictatorship is a dictatorship is a dictatorship, although with a secular one you can generally at least count on the motivations to be good old fashioned greed and lust for control and power.  

The theocracies though are a handful. The motivations are still generally greed and power hunger, but they do it in the name of a giant invisible guy that lives in the sky with complicated and indecipherable rules, unclear motivation and a petty animosity towards gays and poets and women's hair.

The problem with all forms of gov't is that those in the execute office love to overstep their role and boundaries.  The executive branch of gov't is to execute the administration of the country.  Someone has to do it.  You can't ask the judiciary, they are busy interpreting laws and their application to events.  You can't ask the law makers, be it Parliament or Congress, House of Lords or House of Commons (every country tends to have some form of law proposing and passing) their job is to represent the districts to the gov't, the politics and ethos to the people and to pass laws, resolutions and regulation.

The executive is to go out and do it.  Unfortunately, the executive is also there to provide leadership which provides ample opportunity to lead a gov't and a peoples down  oppressive paths.

Damn.

So Morsi failed the people's expectations but totally satisfied mine.  I was as leery of a Muslim Brotherhood political party as I would of a Christian Brotherhood political party or a Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh or Flying Yogic(remember them?).

What remains to be seen is how Egypt moves forward.  The military coup had huge potential for disaster, always bad when a General takes the executive chair since they are used to dictating orders to the ranks and having them followed to the letter.  But in this case the military installed a non military interim executive, chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour.

Mansour has some immediate challenges before him, repair the constitution, bring about some calm to the conflicts that have escalated in the last day between local factions and see to a new election that hopefully will result in less theocracy and more good gov't.

Have a good day.

3 comments:

  1. I wonder, what would stop the military from yet another coup? Why wouldn't the military just run the whole show if it can topple a dictatorship whenever it feels like doing so? Is a politician simply a puppet for the military? What a mess.

    Sidebar. After Obama's dismal failure as the bright, shining, white (predominantly black son of mixed parents) hope for change, I consider all politicians utterly untrustworthy. Harper is equally as loathsome. 'Bunch of self-serving, lying [expletive deleted], the entire lot! Moving on.

    I wish Egypt well when it happens to elect its next self-serving, lying [expletive deleted].

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    Replies
    1. Gosh Bruce if you aren't going to tell us how you honestly feel then there isn't much point in reading your comments :)

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