From my column in Inq.net "No EDSA in Cairo," Aug 13, 2013 During those heady Tahrir Square days in the spring of 2011, many of us thought—or hoped—the Egyptian uprising would turn out to be another EDSA Revolution, a triumph of democracy, a glittering example of successful non-violent political change. For those of us who had participated in different ways in the struggle to overthrow Ferdinand Marcos decades ago, there was a nice feeling of “déjà vu all over again,” to borrow Yankee catcher Yogi Berra’s immortal phrase. Over two years later, Egypt preoccupies us once more, and our thoughts are likely to be depressing ones. There is really something dreadfully wrong with this military-led alliance of Mubarak supporters, secularists, and oppositionists that deposed the democratically elected Morsi government. True, the Morsi government exhibited authoritarian predilections, but respect for the rules of the democratic game is usually not something innate but one that is forced by the rough and tumble of struggles that unfold in both parliament and the “parliament of the streets.” In the case of the Philippines, for instance, it took nearly a quarter of a century after the EDSA Uprising for the extreme left and the extreme right to be socialized to the rules of representative democracy, and the process remains incomplete. Democracy is a learning experience, and it was the cut and thrust of democratic competition that could have led to a pluralist democratic system that was cut short by the same military that sustained Mubarak.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 05:53:21 +0000
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