Juan Cole writes on the ludicrous Egyptian vote on a new constitution, which led to a 98% yes vote! As he cannily says, when you produce such a ridiculous figure it reflects deep insecurity and lack of confidence -- on the part of the military regime now running the country. Tom What 98% represents is insecurity and of arrogance, at the same time. The constitution would have won without the repression that preceded the referendum. Indeed, since it was a referendum it is not even clear how it would lose; it wasn’t competing against anything else. To attempt to whittle the opposition down to 2% is a sign of deep insecurity and lack of confidence. Why have an election at all if you insist you have to win overwhelmingly? The officer corps could just have issued the constitution as a fiat. It is a sign of arrogance because it says the elite does not care if you think they look absurd. The do not care what anyone thinks, beyond the 40% or so of the public who approve of their coup, and beyond the majority that opposed the Muslim Brotherhood government. The opposition may not be huge, but it is a good fifth to a third of the population. Configuring it instead as 2% is an f-u gesture. But that arrogance had already been clear in the absurd declaration in December that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization and the passage of a law imposing 5 years in prison and heavy fines for so much as defending the Brotherhood. Abruptly declaring that the entire political basis for the previous elected government is now a thought crime is Orwellian. It resembles the sudden governmental shifts in 1984, which cause the past suddenly to be rewritten so that things had always been like that. -Erika
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 19:30:00 +0000
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