In Egypt, as in most of life’s decisions, no pain, no gain
Published under Life, Middle East Feb 06, 2012So much of our challenges in life has to do with balancing short term and long term priorities. Do we accept some pain up front in order to be stronger in the future, or do we defer the necessary but painful steps, only to make the problem increasingly bigger?
A human being may face that tension in terms of a health matter that needs to be addressed (a painful treatment may be deferred, with potentially devastating repercussions if the disease ends up spreading), or in terms of a personal financial or business decision (ie, starting a business may take much longer to pay off than taking a job, but could in the long term be more rewarding).
In the international fora, much of what we are facing today can be framed in terms of those choices. Egypt, for example, presents enormous challenges. The repressive military regime is perceived to support the peace treaty with Israel, so both the Israeli and American Administrations support a strong alliance therewith. The perceived (and in some ways real) threat of an alternative is accentuated by the rise of Islamic parties and their dominance in the first open elections in Egypt. But those who rather promote the safety of the status quo ignore that military rulers are then incentivized to manipulate extremist parties and turn them into a bigger threat, as they help the military junta justify its existence and rally support for their continued control of the levers of power.
Representative democracy has a way of building accountability into the system, thereby moderating those doing the representation in the longer term. But that does not come overnight. It requires enormous patience and will most likely involve a lot of pain and a lot of wrong turns along the way.
Most worrisome, representative democracy can be used by authoritarian leaders to achieve power, only for them to cut the cord of representative government and cling on to power – as the Iranian Ayatollahs did after their revolution, as Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela and as many others tempted by absolute power often seek to do.
The beauty of the US Government system is not representative democracy on its own– but the checks and balances of the system – guaranteeing relatively fair transitions of power.
Below is an interesting article that discusses the challenges the US Administration is facing in balancing its support of Egyptian democracy with its desire for stability.
