3 Feb 2011

A Modest, But Of Course Insanely Crazy Proposal

Why didn’t Obama just say the truth?

Silly, I know. It’s diplomacy we’re talking about. But still.

Or rather, let me be more precise. I’m not pretending I know what the truth is in this case. There might be millions of aspects to this thing I know nothing of. But still, I cannot help to wonder what would have happened if Obama’s reaction to the protests in Egypt went something like this:

“Look, guys, we know Mubarak is a jerk. We know there’s no democracy and little freedom in your country, and that you’re poor. And we’re honestly, sincerely sorry about it. But we’re scared. Not just for our own necks, for yours, too. We know that there’s a real possibility of an extremist party getting to power, a party which will gain your sympathy by telling you they’ll make the country heaven on Earth and declaring they’re not that radical and conservative after all, and that will, then, after rising to power, be much worse than Mubarak ever was, and it won’t be what you voted for. Or in a slightly better scenario, it will be what you voted for, but some 40% of you, and the rest – the rest we necessarily sympathise with, because it’s the people closer to us, more liberal and secular – will suffer for the decision of the said 40%. I know it sounds like we don’t trust you at all. But the thing is, we know it’s partly our own fault – by supporting the regime for years, we’ve basically pushed you in the arms of any anti-Western party out there. And they’re often rather unfriendly in general.

So, we’re really afraid. Mubarak is an egoistic jerk, but he’s reliable, pragmatic and not that terrible. We’re well aware that somebody much worse might be in store – worse for us and for you. Plus, there’s the danger of war. A war in which people would die, and it wouldn’t be our people – not in the first place, anyway – so this isn’t about us either. All this makes us scared. So can you really blame us that we aren’t as thrilled by your emancipation as we would love to be?”

Because the point is, this is what everybody believes anyway. What harm could it have done if he’d really said it out loud? It would have been less hypocritical and embarrassing than what he actually did. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s the truth at all.


/Thanks to my husband for inspiration for this one./

1 Feb 2011

Just a few fragments on Egypt (what else)

Mainly just bits from the media that I considered nice or interesting in some way. Unless stated otherwise, the quotes are from Reuters live coverage.