mustang19 posted:Mubarak, who was actually a secular liberal.
eh its a lot more complicated. see this eg:
http://countrystudies.us/egypt/122.htm
The Islamic mainstream, possessed of increasing cohesion, organization, and mobilizational capability, rapidly took advantage of the legitimate channels of activity opened by the regime under Mubarak. The mainstream Muslim Brotherhood and its conservative cousins were incorporated into parliament; they infiltrated the parties, the judiciary, and the press; and they generally put secular forces on the defensive. The more the secular opposition proved impotent to wrest a share of power from the regime, the more dissidents seemed to turn to political Islam as the only viable alternative. A dramatic indicator of this was the substantial representation Islamists won in the professional syndicates, especially the doctors' union, traditionally bastions of the liberal, upper-middle class; only the lawyers' and journalists' unions resisted their sway. Victories indicative of Islamic influence included the reversal of Sadat's law of personal status that gave women some modest rights, a decision by certain state companies to cease hiring women so they could take their "proper place in the home," and a constitutional amendment making sharia the sole basis of legislation. Islamic sentiment and practices were widespread in the 1980s. Filling the vacuum left by the withering of state populism, the Islamic movement constructed an alternative social infrastructure--mosques, clinics, cooperatives--to bring the masses under Islamic leadership.
The Islamists have had a noticeable impact in Egypt since the 1980s, in part as a result of the policies pursued by President Mubarak in the early years after he came to power in October 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. With the aim of easing the tensions that had been created by Sadat’s policies in September 1981, as well as consolidating the legitimacy of the new regime, Mubarak set out to create a broad national front against the threat posed by Islamist extremists. This he did by tolerating the moderate Muslim Brothers (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, also translated as the Muslim Brotherhood) and other political forces. As a consequence social spaces, such as syndicates, university campuses, charitable and voluntary organizations, and so on, were given a considerable degree of autonomy. The Muslim Brothers took control of such spaces and, by providing their constituencies with services that superseded and surpassed those supplied by the state, were able gradually to gain the support of these constituencies and to build up an informal legitimacy. The legitimacy of the Islamists was thus derived from society rather than from the state, which continued to deny them official recognition. Ironically, the spaces that had been initiated and maintained to legitimize the regime had turned into a source of legitimacy for its competitors.
eh its a lot more complicated. see this eg:
It's not complicated, Mubarak yielded a bit of power to maintain stability.
The only "islamist" policy he pursued was not clamping down on islamist dissent completely.
its all to do with the disenchantment w/ soc-populism/arab nationalism in the end
Edited by prohairesis ()
mustang19 posted:http://theheartisanorganthatpumpblood.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/baby-jane-wears-a-burqa/
So, little brother is back from Egypt. Did my mother have to wear a burqa? No, but apparently our cousin Khalid has grown up to be a total religious nut and made my mom eat in another room with the “females” as he and Ameer ate together and discussed important matters, like Allah, oil and penis length. Now, while I consider my mom a psycho, I actually felt a twinge for her when I heard what happened. Apparently, she was really hurt. This led to some discussion. I heard two comparisons this weekend. Egypt is becoming Medieval England. I was also told that it’s become like (or worse than) Victorian England. Medieval England wasn’t actually that bad for women. I think the Victorian comparison is somewhat better, as the religious fervor of that period was driven by wide-spread nostalgia and a similar paranoia about the secular and scientific modifying religious subjectivity.
Did my brother do the right thing in humoring Khalid’s stupid little “cultural tradition,” one which wasn’t practiced when my mom was growing up in the family nor when we used to visit as kids (I remember when that brat, Khalid, was only two feet tall)? Or would the appropriate behavior been to have laughed in Khalid’s face, as I would, naturally, have done? It’s sort of a tradition in our family for me to get into a fight, verbal or fist, in the first five minutes of encountering any of my Egyptian born cousins, therefore I’m not exactly neutral. What would you have done? Would you have bowed out and said, “we’re going to go eat and then we’ll come back?” Would you have respected the new-fake cultural traditions even though you are “part of the culture?” I invite readers to judge my brother’s complicit actions.
ameer adds:
Actually, the main issue was Khalid’s wife. She was in the apartment the whole time he was there–a couple of hours–and I never saw her once. When I was in the living room, she was hidden away in the kitchen, and she only came out when we were in the other room eating. If I had insisted on eating in the living room, she would have had to stay hidden in the kitchen the whole time, since it was apparently not okay for me to even see her.
He never mentions Mubarak, who was actually a secular liberal.
ohhhh shit how many of HateCuresLiberals' other brilliant posts do you think were stolen
im deeply sorry everyone
prohairesis posted:actually its bc i posted a link to the rhizzone on 420chan's /pol/ board when he was still a naive transhumanist/liberal thing mystified by internet communism & maoist slogans.
im deeply sorry everyone
capitalism's many crimes pale in comparison to what you have wrought upon us
deadken posted:I WROTE THIS THING ABOUT RICHARD DAWKINS GOING INSANE ON TWITTER AND FRENCH ARISTOCRATS WALKING ROUND WITH THEIR DICKS OUT AND NATIVE AMERICANS RITUALLY MASSACRING THEIR HOLY MEN CHECK IT OUT
http://samkriss.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/richard-dawkins-and-the-ascent-of-madness/
Good shit
