Egypt is Condemned by Democracy

Who in their right mind could possibly have believed that democracy stood a chance of working in a country whose population elects religious leaders to improve their economic fortunes and protect the interests of minorities?

Two years ago, some 52% of Egypt's electorate voted for the Muslim Brotherhood... There's a clue in the name. What in the world possessed the educated world, let alone poor, brainwashed, uneducated Egyptians, to expect that a bunch of beardies muttering incantations while banging their heads on little carpets stood the slightest chance of creating jobs let alone hospitals, education, roads, communication infra-structures, fair justice, and robust transparent finance systems. All these jibbering deluded fools care about are drumming the words written in ancient books into the malleable and frightened minds of children and their parents who have no intellectual weapons to use in defence. Words that teach nothing about IT, food production, medicine, media, transport and everything else today's citizens deserve by right. They want to return their societies to stone-age existences, to a time when holy books were the only authority available to answer complicated questions. Explaining things without evidence requires a nonsense called faith - unwavering belief in things that can't be proved or defended by logic and reason. Faith and Reason are diametrically opposed by definition. Faith is Unreasonable. How can unreasonable people be expected to run a country fairly and successfully?

Darwin once wrote "Ignorance breeds confidence much more than knowledge does." The less religious leaders know, the more certain and intransigent they become. The less education (about real things) they provide, the more their followers will believe their leaders know best. It's how the god thing works. Fundamentalism is fuelled by the perpetuation of ignorance.

What did we (and the Egyptian people) expect the Muslim Brotherhood would do with Egypt? What was likely to be their priority? Education for all, infra-structure, healthcare, and an economy to pay for it, or more mosques, madrassas, sharia courts and religious police?

So now the 52% of the country who voted for these deluded mystics have found out it probably wasn't such a good way to deliver the former set of priorities. 48% already knew this - as did the army who are now in a lose/lose situation. Having taken control of the streets and arrested Morsi together with his chums, they have 2 options: Deliver fresh elections but with stricter rules on who can and can't stand for power, or maintain a puppet administration. Either way it's not democracy, or at least not the one sponsored and promoted by the USA. The Egyptian generals have found out they can't trust the uneducated, brainwashed population they're paid to protect, to elect a government that stands a chance of giving their kids a future amongst all the other fiercely competitive global economies. And they might not continue to get paid by the USA if they do trust the population - although the USA will be quietly relieved an Islamic state wasn't successful.

And they can't choose to adopt that other system of government we're all jealously beginning to admire - China (and Vietnam, Singapore etc), where a meritocracy or perhaps a benevolent despot decides what's good for future generations. That takes far too long, and is brutal in the way it deposes existing power bases and other irritations of their mission. It also risks the appearance of power-crazed dictators seeking wealth and adulation instead of selfless saints who are periodically replaced by the constitution - which in turn is underpinned by the army.

So what's the future for Egypt (and Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey perhaps, not forgetting those other wonderfully successful religious 'democracies' of Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia)?

Meltdown. If they insist on pushing fairy-stories instead of a proper education for all (men and women... oh and stop FGM!).

They're in a Catch 22 where the only way to break the cycle is to abandon irrational and unreasonable religious leadership and adopt uncensored education rather than antiquated thinking based on the forced perpetuation of ignorance. If populations want vibrant economies with great healthcare and happy contented individuals fulfilling their lives, they can't live in the past and pray for their gods to deliver it. Wise up or give up. You get the leaders you deserve.