really? that is very interesting I got to look it up. I don't follow hong kong news for along time because it's so lame and miniscule I don't have the patience for it. I applaud the pro-establishment camp for this. nothing pleases me more than seeing them 'fake' thugs getting their *ss kicked in a good old fashion fist fight. hong kong police must be laughing their *ss off of this. they should let them have their fun and then after they are done book them all including the 'fake' thugs (they got to be fair right?). fist fights without weapons is just a minor offence in hong kong, let them have their fun with these 'democrats'.
Arab Spring II in Egypt. The potential Civil War.
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really? that is very interesting I got to look it up. I don't follow hong kong news for along time because it's so lame and miniscule I don't have the patience for it. I applaud the pro-establishment camp for this. nothing pleases me more than seeing them 'fake' thugs getting their *ss kicked in a good old fashion fist fight. hong kong police must be laughing their *ss off of this. they should let them have their fun and then after they are done book them all including the 'fake' thugs (they got to be fair right?). fist fights without weapons is just a minor offence in hong kong, let them have their fun with these 'democrats'.
i agree with most of this but it is actually the egyptian domestic media that is spinning the muslim brotherhood and pro-morsi supporters as "terrorists." most of the international media i've seen has been more sympathetic to the pro-morsi camp.
yes the morsi government was ineffective and corrupt, yes it also supressed criticism and journalists, but the things that have happened after the coup have gone above and beyond the evils of the morsi regime.
however public opinion in egypt (partly as a result of sisi's media control) is now strongly against the muslim brotherhood, so maybe this is more "democratic" haha.
i don't know how american news is portraying the situation (they barely cover international events anyway) but the u.s. government is not saying much while implicitly supporting sisi. makes sense, sisi is more likely to play ball than a bunch of islamists is what they figure in washington.
The news media in the US has reports , news and videos etc from Egypt & Syria & World events EVERYDAY.
Here's a few links;
Kurt
Junior Member
Democracy is not the same thing everywhere. In Egypt the voting is supervised by the judges. Because there are so few of them, voting takes place in one third of the districts at a time. This is complicated by winner takes all approach in voting districts. This allows to shift a considerable amount of resources into each voting district at the participation time, giving small parties a better fighting chance to have a few local wins. In a politically fragmented society such as the Middle East, this system leads to massive feelings of non-representation by large parts of the population. When such a system does work (UK or USA), there are two major competing parties with very different wings. It would wreak havoc for a democracy such as Israel () and that just happens in Egypt.
That the environment has never been considered stable can be seen by the overblown Central Security Forces of 450,000 armed personnel. If the US instituted something similar it would be an FBI with SWAT teams of 2 million agents (outnumbering the US armed forces)! Egypt's military and paramilitary mix is more similar to Iran and Saudi Arabia than to a democracy.
The wars with Israel more than once showed how inept the Egyptian military was despite British heritage. That's small wonder, because its officer class has better things to do than military training by running business in a very corrupt country. "Officer" is rather a distinction of being member of an exclusive club that forms the upper class of this country. The Tahrir protests erupted when the leader of the pack, Mubarak, tried to make it hereditary by a power transfer within his family.
Global perceived corruption index
The major fault of each an every gouvernment of Egypt will be: "It's the economy, stupid." The Mursi policy realignment was just cheap rhetorics that doesn't help in a dysfunctional country of cronism deeply entrenched in armed forces (losing each and every war they ever fought since independence). The street won't rest until they have a real chance of pursuit of happiness by hard work in a much less rigged economic environment. And the officers and professional security forces are at the core of the rigged economic chances.
Turkey and Egypt are structurally similar in their problems and the Egyptian elite learned a few lessons on how not to handle the MB (like the similar AKP).
That the environment has never been considered stable can be seen by the overblown Central Security Forces of 450,000 armed personnel. If the US instituted something similar it would be an FBI with SWAT teams of 2 million agents (outnumbering the US armed forces)! Egypt's military and paramilitary mix is more similar to Iran and Saudi Arabia than to a democracy.
The wars with Israel more than once showed how inept the Egyptian military was despite British heritage. That's small wonder, because its officer class has better things to do than military training by running business in a very corrupt country. "Officer" is rather a distinction of being member of an exclusive club that forms the upper class of this country. The Tahrir protests erupted when the leader of the pack, Mubarak, tried to make it hereditary by a power transfer within his family.
Global perceived corruption index
The major fault of each an every gouvernment of Egypt will be: "It's the economy, stupid." The Mursi policy realignment was just cheap rhetorics that doesn't help in a dysfunctional country of cronism deeply entrenched in armed forces (losing each and every war they ever fought since independence). The street won't rest until they have a real chance of pursuit of happiness by hard work in a much less rigged economic environment. And the officers and professional security forces are at the core of the rigged economic chances.
Turkey and Egypt are structurally similar in their problems and the Egyptian elite learned a few lessons on how not to handle the MB (like the similar AKP).
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