Egypt: The Next India or the Next Pakistan?

[Bang Galore]

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: December 15, 2012

I WANT to discuss Egypt today, but first a small news item that you may have missed.

Three weeks ago, the prime minister of India appointed Syed Asif Ibrahim as the new director of India’s Intelligence Bureau, its domestic intelligence-gathering agency. Ibrahim is a Muslim. India is a predominantly Hindu country, but it is also the world’s third-largest Muslim nation. India’s greatest security threat today comes from violent Muslim extremists. For India to appoint a Muslim to be the chief of the country’s intelligence service is a big, big deal. But it’s also part of an evolution of empowering minorities. India’s prime minister and its army chief of staff today are both Sikhs, and India’s foreign minister and chief justice of the Supreme Court are both Muslims. It would be like Egypt appointing a Coptic Christian to be its army chief of staff.

“Preposterous,” you say.

Well, yes, that’s true today. But if it is still true in a decade or two, then we’ll know that democracy in Egypt failed. We will know that Egypt went the route of Pakistan and not India. That is, rather than becoming a democratic country where its citizens could realize their full potential, instead it became a Muslim country where the military and the Muslim Brotherhood fed off each other so both could remain in power indefinitely and “the people” were again spectators. Whether Egypt turns out more like Pakistan or India will impact the future of democracy in the whole Arab world.

Sure, India still has its governance problems and its Muslims still face discrimination. Nevertheless, “democracy matters,” argues Tufail Ahmad, the Indian Muslim who directs the South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute, because “it is democracy in India that has, over six decades, gradually broken down primordial barriers — such as caste, tribe and religion — and in doing so opened the way for all different sectors of Indian society to rise through their own merits, which is exactly what Ibrahim did.”

And it is six decades of tyranny in Egypt that has left it a deeply divided country, where large segments do not know or trust one another, and where conspiracy theories abound. All of Egypt today needs to go on a weekend retreat with a facilitator and reflect on one question: How did India, another former British colony, get to be the way it is (Hindu culture aside)?

The first answer is time. India has had decades of operating democracy, and, before independence, struggling for democracy. Egypt has had less than two years. Egypt’s political terrain was frozen and monopolized for decades — the same decades that political leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh “were building an exceptionally diverse, cacophonous, but impressively flexible and accommodating system,” notes the Stanford University democracy expert Larry Diamond, the author of “The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.”

Also, the dominant political party in India when it overthrew its colonial overlord “was probably the most multiethnic, inclusive and democratically minded political party to fight for independence in any 20th-century colony — the Indian National Congress,” said Diamond. While the dominant party when Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak’s tyranny, the Muslim Brotherhood, “was a religiously exclusivist party with deeply authoritarian roots that had only recently been evolving toward something more open and pluralistic.”

Moreover, adds Diamond, compare the philosophies and political heirs of Mahatma Gandhi and Sayyid Qutb, the guiding light of the Muslim Brotherhood. “Nehru was not a saint, but he sought to preserve a spirit of tolerance and consensus, and to respect the rules,” notes Diamond. He also prized education. By contrast, added Diamond, “the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who have been in the driver’s seat since Egypt started moving toward elections, have driven away the moderates from within their party, seized emergency powers, beaten their rivals in the streets, and now are seeking to ram a constitution that lacks consensus down the throats of a large segment of Egyptian society that feels excluded and aggrieved.”

Then there is the military. Unlike in Pakistan, India’s postindependence leaders separated the military from politics. Unfortunately, in Egypt after the 1952 coup, Gamel Abdel Nasser brought the military into politics and all of his successors, right up to Mubarak, kept it there and were sustained by both the military and its intelligence services. Once Mubarak fell, and the new Brotherhood leaders pushed the army back to its barracks, Egypt’s generals clearly felt that they had to cut a deal to protect the huge web of economic interests they had built. “Their deep complicity in the old order led them to be compromised by the new order,” said Diamond. “Now they are not able to act as a restraining influence.”

Yes, democracy matters. But the ruling Muslim Brotherhood needs to understand that democracy is so much more than just winning an election. It is nurturing a culture of inclusion, and of peaceful dialogue, where respect for leaders is earned by surprising opponents with compromises rather than dictates. The Noble Prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen has long argued that it was India’s civilizational history of dialogue and argumentation that disposed it well to the formal institutions of democracy. More than anything, Egypt now needs to develop that kind of culture of dialogue, of peaceful and respectful arguing — it was totally suppressed under Mubarak — rather than rock-throwing, boycotting, conspiracy-mongering and waiting for America to denounce one side or the other, which has characterized too much of the postrevolutionary political scene. Elections without that culture are like a computer without software. It just doesn’t work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/o...the-next-india-or-the-next-pakista-.html?_r=0

 

[W.11]

totally wrong analogy and crap coming out out of american media as usual

 

[muslim282]

The title says it all.
Sh.t

 

[kobiraaz]

Egypt is better than Pakistan And India both!! Egypt is Egypt. Democratic Egypt will represent Her people, not western world!

 

[Zabaniyah]

Egypt is better than Pakistan And India both!! Egypt is Egypt. Democratic Egypt will represent Her people, not western world!

Yeah, but their economy right now isn't very good.

Democracy takes time to fully take form. I'm sure they can handle it.

 

[acid rain]

LOL, many people are quite confused with what's democracy and how difficult it is to maintain it against all odds.

 

[cyphercide]

How did India, another former British colony, get to be the way it is (Hindu culture aside)?

It's unfortunate that Friedman dismisses the biggest thing that India has going for it with one short stroke of the pen. It is a gross misappropriation to credit India's success exclusively to governance, civil society or it's judiciary. India works because the majority Hindu population chooses NOT to exercise it's significant dominance over the rest in any field of contention. This is the essential platform that lets the other functionalities of Indian society to operate in an egalitarian environment.

No written law or polity can bring that desired effect unless the spirit of the people is behind the move. Can the common Egyptian on the street(and not Egypt's leadership) handle the same is the question that needs to be asked.

 

[SQ8]

It's unfortunate that Friedman dismisses the biggest thing that India has going for it with one short stroke of the pen. It is a gross misappropriation to credit India's success exclusively to governance, civil society or it's judiciary. India works because the majority Hindu population chooses NOT to exercise it's significant dominance over the rest in any field of contention. This is the essential platform that lets the other functionalities of Indian society to operate in an egalitarian environment.

No written law or polity can bring that desired effect unless the spirit of the people is behind the move. Can the common Egyptian on the street(and not Egypt's leadership) handle the same is the question that needs to be asked.

There are arguments against that. Since it was this very attitude that led to the separation movement gaining momentum.
Moreover that very idea of NOT exersizing that initiative shows that there is an awareness of that potential and that exists as a Damocles sword. The fact that there are a substantial number of leaders in India who include such idea within their vote banks means that it is not a taken as an act of compromise, rather condescend to mercifully let them be.
At no point then is this a case of we are equal.. but rather a case of "we are better and merciful".

The Hindu Majority then ensures an integrated India and any semblance of a Majority by the other religions would disturb this balance and cause the Hindu majority to act beyond their civility against the other communities.

 

[Ayush]

nice article.lets see what happens.

 

[cyphercide]

There are arguments against that. Since it was this very attitude that led to the separation movement gaining momentum.
Moreover that very idea of NOT exersizing that initiative shows that there is an awareness of that potential and that exists as a Damocles sword. The fact that there are a substantial number of leaders in India who include such idea within their vote banks means that it is not a taken as an act of compromise, rather condescend to mercifully let them be.
At no point then is this a case of we are equal.. but rather a case of "we are better and merciful".

The Hindu Majority then ensures an integrated India and any semblance of a Majority by the other religions would disturb this balance and cause the Hindu majority to act beyond their civility against the other communities.

I wouldn't necessarily see it as mere condescension or the fear of political Hindutva gaining critical mass. The fact that the majority of Hindus can see past their religious affiliation and seek to form consensus singularly based on development is something worthy to cheer about. The ordinary Hindu finds himself in the same turmoil the rest of the Indians face and isn't given a leg up by way of any subsidy from the government. He forms the bulk of the recruits of the Armed Services and yet the idea of reservations in government or civil sector jobs seems foreign to him. He votes along the same lines as well.

I didn't write my previous post to gloat over Hindu benevolence but to highlight the fallacy behind the thinking that mere passing of laws or a secular leadership can lead to acceptance from the people.

 

[PakShah]

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: December 15, 2012

I WANT to discuss Egypt today, but first a small news item that you may have missed.

Three weeks ago, the prime minister of India appointed Syed Asif Ibrahim as the new director of India’s Intelligence Bureau, its domestic intelligence-gathering agency. Ibrahim is a Muslim. India is a predominantly Hindu country, but it is also the world’s third-largest Muslim nation. India’s greatest security threat today comes from violent Muslim extremists. For India to appoint a Muslim to be the chief of the country’s intelligence service is a big, big deal. But it’s also part of an evolution of empowering minorities. India’s prime minister and its army chief of staff today are both Sikhs, and India’s foreign minister and chief justice of the Supreme Court are both Muslims. It would be like Egypt appointing a Coptic Christian to be its army chief of staff.

“Preposterous,” you say.

Well, yes, that’s true today. But if it is still true in a decade or two, then we’ll know that democracy in Egypt failed. We will know that Egypt went the route of Pakistan and not India. That is, rather than becoming a democratic country where its citizens could realize their full potential, instead it became a Muslim country where the military and the Muslim Brotherhood fed off each other so both could remain in power indefinitely and “the people” were again spectators. Whether Egypt turns out more like Pakistan or India will impact the future of democracy in the whole Arab world.

Sure, India still has its governance problems and its Muslims still face discrimination. Nevertheless, “democracy matters,” argues Tufail Ahmad, the Indian Muslim who directs the South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute, because “it is democracy in India that has, over six decades, gradually broken down primordial barriers — such as caste, tribe and religion — and in doing so opened the way for all different sectors of Indian society to rise through their own merits, which is exactly what Ibrahim did.”

And it is six decades of tyranny in Egypt that has left it a deeply divided country, where large segments do not know or trust one another, and where conspiracy theories abound. All of Egypt today needs to go on a weekend retreat with a facilitator and reflect on one question: How did India, another former British colony, get to be the way it is (Hindu culture aside)?

The first answer is time. India has had decades of operating democracy, and, before independence, struggling for democracy. Egypt has had less than two years. Egypt’s political terrain was frozen and monopolized for decades — the same decades that political leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh “were building an exceptionally diverse, cacophonous, but impressively flexible and accommodating system,” notes the Stanford University democracy expert Larry Diamond, the author of “The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.”

Also, the dominant political party in India when it overthrew its colonial overlord “was probably the most multiethnic, inclusive and democratically minded political party to fight for independence in any 20th-century colony — the Indian National Congress,” said Diamond. While the dominant party when Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak’s tyranny, the Muslim Brotherhood, “was a religiously exclusivist party with deeply authoritarian roots that had only recently been evolving toward something more open and pluralistic.”

Moreover, adds Diamond, compare the philosophies and political heirs of Mahatma Gandhi and Sayyid Qutb, the guiding light of the Muslim Brotherhood. “Nehru was not a saint, but he sought to preserve a spirit of tolerance and consensus, and to respect the rules,” notes Diamond. He also prized education. By contrast, added Diamond, “the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who have been in the driver’s seat since Egypt started moving toward elections, have driven away the moderates from within their party, seized emergency powers, beaten their rivals in the streets, and now are seeking to ram a constitution that lacks consensus down the throats of a large segment of Egyptian society that feels excluded and aggrieved.”

Then there is the military. Unlike in Pakistan, India’s postindependence leaders separated the military from politics. Unfortunately, in Egypt after the 1952 coup, Gamel Abdel Nasser brought the military into politics and all of his successors, right up to Mubarak, kept it there and were sustained by both the military and its intelligence services. Once Mubarak fell, and the new Brotherhood leaders pushed the army back to its barracks, Egypt’s generals clearly felt that they had to cut a deal to protect the huge web of economic interests they had built. “Their deep complicity in the old order led them to be compromised by the new order,” said Diamond. “Now they are not able to act as a restraining influence.”

Yes, democracy matters. But the ruling Muslim Brotherhood needs to understand that democracy is so much more than just winning an election. It is nurturing a culture of inclusion, and of peaceful dialogue, where respect for leaders is earned by surprising opponents with compromises rather than dictates. The Noble Prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen has long argued that it was India’s civilizational history of dialogue and argumentation that disposed it well to the formal institutions of democracy. More than anything, Egypt now needs to develop that kind of culture of dialogue, of peaceful and respectful arguing — it was totally suppressed under Mubarak — rather than rock-throwing, boycotting, conspiracy-mongering and waiting for America to denounce one side or the other, which has characterized too much of the postrevolutionary political scene. Elections without that culture are like a computer without software. It just doesn’t work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/o...the-next-india-or-the-next-pakista-.html?_r=0

lol is that piece supposed to be a propaganda piece agianst Pakistan.

So what if the military is involved in the government and in making foreign policy. So what?

What matters to me the most in Pakistan is an Islamic state and good governance.

 

[SHAMK9]

lol is that piece supposed to be a propaganda piece agianst Pakistan.

So what if the military is involved in the government and in making foreign policy. So what?

What matters to me the most is an Islamic state and good governance.

stuff like taliban happens.

 

[PakShah]

stuff like taliban happens.

TTP has nothing to do with the government.

If the military of my country is pushing for an Islamic state, I am for them. In a country like Pakistan, people would want Sharia, whether its through courts and laws, or by the military pushing for it.

stuff like taliban happens.

I don't see being "NOT A DEMOCRACY" to be a negative thing.

There is nothing wrong in not being a democracy.

 

[Azazel]

lol is that piece supposed to be a propaganda piece agianst Pakistan.

So what if the military is involved in the government and in making foreign policy. So what?

What matters to me the most in Pakistan is an Islamic state and good governance.

Military's sole purpose is national defense not policy making.That's the job of elected representatives.That's how democracy should function.

 

[SHAMK9]

TTP has nothing to do with the government.

If the military of my country is pushing for an Islamic state, I am for them. In a country like Pakistan, people would want Sharia, whether its through courts and laws, or by the military pushing for it.

TTP has everything to do with past policies of the government and the army. I call it gift from Zia (hope he suffers)