In those respects, the government of Mohamed Morsi differed little from those of Juan Perón in Argentina, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand. However, its excesses fell well short of those of Chávez, or Chile’s Salvador Allende; unlike Shinawatra or Perón, Morsi did not set up militias or establish death squads. Although his government failed to compromise with opponents and sought to concentrate its power, it made only modest attempts to impose its Islamic ideology on the country and did not seek to alter Egypt’s capitalist economy, which was slowly sinking but not imploding. It preserved crucial foreign relationships with the United States and Israel. Cairo’s secular middle class consequently had far less cause to take to the streets last weekend than did the pot-bangers in Allende’s Chile, the general strikers of Caracas or the yellow shirts of Bangkok. They can, however, expect much the same results — which will be anything but the liberal democracy they say they support.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 00:04:55 +0000
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