dear juan cole
while reading your article on the referendum in egypt I want to share with you some of my thoughts on this article. Generally I appreciate your work very much. but this text makes me a bit wondering, I dont agree with your analysis.
you are writing obviously this referendum cannot be certified to international standards as a free and fair election. but then you are undermining this estimate by taking the statements of the putschists and the state-controlled media as facts. there was a harsh repression in the weeks and months leading to the referendum, many protesters were arrested and much more intimidated. you are mentioning theses things. but do you really think their effect can be ignored ? people have been arrested because of showing the symbol of the `no´- campaign. even pupils have been arrested because they had been possessing an image of this symbol – and their teachers were interrogated (and perhaps punished) because they did not intervene. this was not a fair election. and it was not a secret one. open ballot papers had to be put in transparent ballot-boxes. (video on this fact: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/15/345792/final-day-of-voting-underway-in-egypt/)
and – last but not least – there was no impartial persons or institution in the voting-rooms [or, as we have it in germany and you in the us, where members of both camps or parties are present at the voting-scene], nor was there an objective, transparent or impartial counting of the vote. so why do you take these numbers as facts and build upon them your political analysis ? this seems to me to be a kind of free hovering analysis.
what begun in january three years ago was a revolutionary and democratic process. and this process led to the victory of the muslim brotherhood in the parliamentary elections in the end of 2011 and then to the victory of mohamed mursi as president in summer 2012. and this democratic process was aimed at improving the living conditions of the vast majority of the egyptian society. and it was aimed at strengthening the islamic tradition of the society resp. country. this was an other goal than that of the middle and upper class in the cities, of course. and of course it was a radical change to the politics of the country and a challenge to the old, military backed system – which now is again in power. the coup 7 months ago stopped this democratic process and reinstalled the old authorities – a goal which they had been pursuing since the beginning of the revolution.
we in the west do have some difficulties to understand this – to understand the fact that a democratic process can be islamic too. because this contradicts our domestification that we ve got in school, in nearly all the media, and in the – rassistic – society as a whole.
but noone – who really looks on the matter – can claim that the undemocratically fabricated constitution is a civil one, or even `free´ one. its in fact pre-civil, by immunising the state apparatus against any elected body. (much more than the constitution of 2012 that, too, installed great impunities for the military)
Although the unfair and ridiculous character of the election and its result – 95 % - is not a secret, its widely ignored by the mainstraem media, because the new/ old tyrants are OUR TYRANTS. and so we are reading: `Egypt´ said yes to the constitution.
but if we begin to look deeper on the character of this perspective and this perception, we find that it is a rassistic one. and a perspective that is full of a blind and unreflected islamophobia.
behind the rural – urban conflict you are mentioning there is a class conflict, and both are hidden or transformed or clothed in a religious one, or a conflict between so-called `secularists´ and so-called `islamists´. but this is the surface.
you are mentioning that a `gallup poll´ in 2012 and in 2013 showed that the support for muslim brotherhood fell to 19 percent in june 2013. dear juan cole, its not possible that you seriously think that gallup is able to conduct a profund survey in egypt that is reliable, valid or representativ. such a survey – probably conducted from the us via telephone – neither is reliable, nor valid, nor representativ. its, in contrary, led and inspired by political interests, not by objectivity. a more scientific survey on the attitudes of egyptians of various walks of life in june and july 2013 you can find here: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/6543-report-shows-that-most-egyptians-oppose-morsis-removal
okay, its late now here in my country and I m tired.
I wish you the best
dear juan cole
while reading your article on the referendum in egypt I want to share with you some of my thoughts on this article. Generally I appreciate your work very much. but this text makes me a bit wondering, I dont agree with your analysis.
you are writing obviously this referendum cannot be certified to international standards as a free and fair election. but then you are undermining this estimate by taking the statements of the putschists and the state-controlled media as facts. there was a harsh repression in the weeks and months leading to the referendum, many protesters were arrested and much more intimidated. you are mentioning theses things. but do you really think their effect can be ignored ? people have been arrested because of showing the symbol of the `no´- campaign. even pupils have been arrested because they had been possessing an image of this symbol – and their teachers were interrogated (and perhaps punished) because they did not intervene. this was not a fair election. and it was not a secret one. open ballot papers had to be put in transparent ballot-boxes. (video on this fact: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/15/345792/final-day-of-voting-underway-in-egypt/)
and – last but not least – there was no impartial persons or institution in the voting-rooms [or, as we have it in germany and you in the us, where members of both camps or parties are present at the voting-scene], nor was there an objective, transparent or impartial counting of the vote. so why do you take these numbers as facts and build upon them your political analysis ? this seems to me to be a kind of free hovering analysis.
what begun in january three years ago was a revolutionary and democratic process. and this process led to the victory of the muslim brotherhood in the parliamentary elections in the end of 2011 and then to the victory of mohamed mursi as president in summer 2012. and this democratic process was aimed at improving the living conditions of the vast majority of the egyptian society. and it was aimed at strengthening the islamic tradition of the society resp. country. this was an other goal than that of the middle and upper class in the cities, of course. and of course it was a radical change to the politics of the country and a challenge to the old, military backed system – which now is again in power. the coup 7 months ago stopped this democratic process and reinstalled the old authorities – a goal which they had been pursuing since the beginning of the revolution.
we in the west do have some difficulties to understand this – to understand the fact that a democratic process can be islamic too. because this contradicts our domestification that we ve got in school, in nearly all the media, and in the – rassistic – society as a whole.
but noone – who really looks on the matter – can claim that the undemocratically fabricated constitution is a civil one, or even `free´ one. its in fact pre-civil, by immunising the state apparatus against any elected body. (much more than the constitution of 2012 that, too, installed great impunities for the military)
Although the unfair and ridiculous character of the election and its result – 95 % - is not a secret, its widely ignored by the mainstraem media, because the new/ old tyrants are OUR TYRANTS. and so we are reading: `Egypt´ said yes to the constitution.
but if we begin to look deeper on the character of this perspective and this perception, we find that it is a rassistic one. and a perspective that is full of a blind and unreflected islamophobia.
behind the rural – urban conflict you are mentioning there is a class conflict, and both are hidden or transformed or clothed in a religious one, or a conflict between so-called `secularists´ and so-called `islamists´. but this is the surface.
you are mentioning that a `gallup poll´ in 2012 and in 2013 showed that the support for muslim brotherhood fell to 19 percent in june 2013. dear juan cole, its not possible that you seriously think that gallup is able to conduct a profund survey in egypt that is reliable, valid or representativ. such a survey – probably conducted from the us via telephone – neither is reliable, nor valid, nor representativ. its, in contrary, led and inspired by political interests, not by objectivity. a more scientific survey on the attitudes of egyptians of various walks of life in june and july 2013 you can find here: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/6543-report-shows-that-most-egyptians-oppose-morsis-removal
okay, its late now here in my country and I m tired.
I wish you the best
stefan schmitt