Intelligent and No Hopes
As we watch events play out in Cairo, the pictures show a young, western dressed group confronting the Egyptian Government’s police. The news tells us the demonstrators want an end to the Mubarak regime. They hope that will lead to a brighter future.
The demonstrators (at least some of them) carry cell phones and are said to have been regular visitors to the web (until the Government shut it down). This would imply these demonstrators are intelligent. Why is it they are intelligent and still have no hopes?
I do not know the answer in this case. I do know that information does not always make people intelligent or satisfied. All to often we learn things that widen our image of what could be. At the same time we know full well it is impossible or highly unlikely one would ever achieve the state of this new information.
Dictators have long realized that suppression of information (and even better, transformation of information into propaganda) is an invaluable aid in controlling a population.
Information requires the receiver to sift it through the sieve of past knowledge in order to put the information into perspective. Education, of course, is also an important ingredient. It provides knowledge and makes the sieve larger. If it were just this easy.
There are forces, however, that work tirelessly to render the sieve useless. Tyrants and dictators obviously work to replace information with “their” message. Other opportunists, both local and foreign, are on the ready to spread a message favorable to them. And, last but not least, the holy men come forth with their message from god.
While all three of these forces are dangerous, the holy men probably represent the greatest risk and danger. Religions have routinely aligned themselves with Governments without regard to whether they are dictatorial or tyrannical. The only condition religions make is the desire for a monopoly over access to god (and lest I forget, the right to extract money from their followers).
It is usually a good deal for the ruler. He gets the syphon off a cut of the nation’s economy while the religion keeps the masses paying and their eyes focused on the hereafter.
Maybe over the next week or two we will get to see how this charade plays out in Egypt. For sure there is much change necessary and the ending of corruption is a great place to start. Just remember, waiting in the wings, are new groups that will propose to give Egypt a new start. The odds are high (but not certain) that any non-secular group will fail to change that much. The odds are certain, however, that if the new group is a cleric lead government, life will remain hopeless.
This entry was posted on January 30, 2011 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: egypt, foreign policy, islam, world religions
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