Pay No Attention to the Million Men Behind the Curtain
- First Posted: Feb 01 2011 11:50 AM
- Updated: 35 minutes ago
How can a Sun Media pundit write about Egypt with his head so firmly stuck in the sand like that?
Watching the media coverage of the events unfolding in Egypt, Sun Media’s Ezra Levant makes the somewhat stunning declaration that “the ‘democracy’ protest there is fake.” He thinks the number of people on the streets is closer 50,000 but Al Jazeera, “the Arab satellite TV channel known for its sympathy for Islamic terrorism,” has overblown the demonstrations. Perhaps Levant has heard there’s a job opening to be Hosni Mubarak’s press secretary.
In the Globe and Mail, Marina Nemat and Clifford Orwin rain on the Egyptian parade and remind us that while the scenes on the street are heartening, it takes much more than passion and courage to create a democratic society, and that the forces of oppression are ready to leap into any power vacuum. “The people of … Egypt have unleashed their power, and they believe they’re in charge,” writes Nemat. “Yes, maybe for a while. But for them to remain in charge, they need a leader, someone to guide their explosive energy in the right direction ... in the absence of such a leader, power is up for grabs.” That warning is particularly poignant coming from Nemat, who as a youngster lived through both the euphoria of the early days of the Iranian revolution and the horror of the oppressive regime that arose from it.
The Toronto Star’s James Travers and the Globe’s Lawrence Martin believe it’s hypocritical for Stephen Harper to call for democracy in Egypt. Travers thinks so because Harper helped nullify free and fair Palestinian elections in 2006 that resulted in victory for reviled Hamas, and Martin thinks so because Harper’s presided over a striking deterioration of democracy here at home.
The National Post editorialists suggest the erosion of West’s influence in the Middle East might not be a bad thing, even for the West itself. “One of Islamists’ and terrorists’ main recruiting slogans in the region is the (admittedly legitimate) claim that the West has poisoned Arab political culture by propping up dictators such as Mr. Mubarak,” argues the Post. “Following a free and fair election, that argument vanishes.”
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