{"id":4467,"date":"2011-07-01T05:17:49","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T11:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonapollovoss.local\/?p=4467"},"modified":"2018-09-21T02:05:46","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T06:05:46","slug":"egyptian-revolution-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2011\/07\/01\/egyptian-revolution-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Egyptian ‘Revolution’ Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 15 February, 2011 I wrote a post entitled, “Archetypes Are Obscuring the Understanding of Egypt<\/a>” that was about the unrest in Egypt that was then unfolding.\u00a0 My specific focus was about how people’s, including the press’s, obsession with archetypes was obscuring an understanding of the reality on the ground in Egypt.<\/span><\/p>\n

I stressed that to understand what was really happening in Egypt required ignoring the archetypal story and actually paying attention to what was taking place there.\u00a0 I said:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Former President Hosni Mubarak is a man in his eighties and in failing health.\u00a0 For several years he has been trying to prepare Egypt for his death or health problem induced retirement.\u00a0 Mubarak\u2019s efforts were to try and substantiate his son Gamal Mubarak for the presidency.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This choice was strongly objected to by the military establishment of Egypt, and for many reasons.\u00a0 One reason is that Gamal Mubarak is not a military man.\u00a0 Therefore, his allegiance to the ruling institution of Egypt was less than the military wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Let\u2019s review Egypt\u2019s political power history going back to the last century.\u00a0 Egypt was under the rule of a monarchy until Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser led a military coup to topple the monarchy.\u00a0 Nasser eventually became a civilian leader \u2013 but his power was maintained by his connection to the military establishment.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Nasser\u2019s successor, Anwar el Sadat, was also a military man.\u00a0 When Sadat was assassinated, his successor, Hosni Mubarak, was also a man of the military.\u00a0 Egypt\u2019s continuity, its secularism, its potency resides in its politics having been institutionalized by the military.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Who is in control of Egypt now?\u00a0 The military.\u00a0 Over the weekend you may have heard that the Egyptian military has dissolved parliament and suspended the Egyptian constitution.\u00a0 Frankly, it remains to be seen if the military is truly interested in sharing its power democratically, or if it really supported the Egyptian demonstrators as a means to an end.\u00a0 That end \u2013 the disposal of the Mubarak clan \u2013 was something the military had publicly been advocating for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is the real Egypt, not the archetypal Egypt.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, I published this same analysis as a part of my contributions to Forbes and several folks in the comments section said that my analysis was cynical.\u00a0 So what is happening in Egypt now that the rest of the world has focused its electronic eyeballs elsewhere?<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening in Tahrir Square protesters violently clashed with Egyptian security forces and Reuters reported that over 1,000 people were injured in the clashes.\u00a0 Why, if the ‘revolution’ in Egypt was such a success and an archetypal “Oppressive Dictator” was ousted by archetypal “Democratic Revolutionaries,” are there still widespread protests?<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps things didn’t change as much as was at first believed by the people and press obsessed with the archetypal story.\u00a0 In fact, the opposition has been publicly demanding that elections be held in Egypt before<\/em><\/strong> a new constitution is written.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because if elections are held then elected leaders will craft the new constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the constitution is written first then the Egyptian military, which is serving as a Protectorate, gets to dictate the future course of the nation.\u00a0 Any election held after the constitutional process will be subject to that constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike the ouster of ex-President Hosni Mubarak when the Egyptian military supported the protesters, the military is now clashing with those same protesters.\u00a0 Have the demands of the protesters changed dramatically?\u00a0 No.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sans the ability to look behind archetypes an analysis of Egypt would have missed the reality of Egypt.\u00a0 Beware the archetypes!<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 15 February, 2011 I wrote a post entitled, “Archetypes Are Obscuring the Understanding of Egypt” that was about the unrest in Egypt that was then unfolding.\u00a0 My specific focus was about how people’s, including the press’s, obsession with archetypes was obscuring an understanding of the reality on the ground in Egypt. I stressed that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}