We now have some idea of the strength of Egyptian discontent, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal: “22 million …—a large number considering Egypt’s estimated population of 93 million people.” The numbers are derived not from a poll, but from revelations about a “signature-gathering campaign called ‘Tamarod’ or ‘Rebel.'”
Needless to say, this does not constitute good data about public opinion in Egypt—which only a few months back trended toward the Muslim Brotherhood—although the size of the petition and the corresponding demonstrations give an idea of the groundswell across the country.
Some Westerners worry about lack of power-changing political mechanisms in such backward places as Egypt. The worrywarts are deluding themselves that the stagnant politics of the Euro, Anglo-American hemispheres and their protectorates provide these mechanisms.
Delusions of democracy …
When “Vlaamse Blok” (Flamish block), Belgium’s largest party, became too much of a threat to the powers that be in that country, the Belgium Supreme Court declared Belgium’s largest party (“Vlaamse Blok”) a “criminal organization” and ordered its dissolution.”
Lawmaker Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom, has been similarly assailed in The Netherlands, except that he and The Demos stand up to and outfox The Establishment that wishes to bring them into compliance.
An entire book was written about what mobocracy has wrought on the minority of South Africa, now that a dominant-party state has been blessed as free and democratic by the West.
A point made in said book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot, is that South Africa’s authentically liberal party in all its permutations has always been more classical liberal than left-liberal. Thus the Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille is never as contemptible as a left-liberal American Democrat. We won’t insult the woman! I’d sum-up Zille with these words: She tries her best with the few powers she has retained. These powers have been subsumed in the national government, which will always and forever be a social-democratic black affair that represents the needs of tax consumers.
Ultimately, there is not much Zille can do for the whites (and colored) who vote for her, and who pay the lion’s share of the country’s taxes. There is near no devolution of powers to South Africa’s provinces. “The province’s powers are shared with the national government.” Like in the US. We still whimper about states’ rights but we’ve lost these as well as many of our individual liberties.
The tiny racial minority that constitutes the tax base of South Africa has no representation in a country that votes strictly along racial lines, and in which there is no veto power or meaningful devolution of powers to the provinces in which the assailed minority might prevail politically. The aforementioned book points out that the great Zulu chief Dr. Mangosuthu Buthelezi was one of the good guys of South Africa; the Mandela’s mafia—the ANC—is the bad element. Buthelezi, being a free market man, fought for the devolution of power rather than its concentration in a dominant-party state (the endgame of the ANC and its Anglo-American buddies). He was tarred as the bad guy by the same axis of evil, with the New York Times in the lead.
In any case, we should not look down on the Egyptians from the dizzying heights of our despotic democracies. Can we in the US dethrone our emperor du jour? Not really. Not with any meaningful consequences. Impeachment mechanisms don’t work, and neither do “democratic” elections, because the Democratic and Republican parties have each operated as counterweights in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging in perpetuity from the one entity to the other. As my fellow libertarian Vox Day once observed, no sooner do the Republicans come to power, than they move to the left. When they get their turn, Democrats shuffle to the right. At some point, the zombie John McCain reaches across the aisle and the creeps converge.
“Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn almost got it right when he said, ‘Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic.’ Correction: All that can be achieved with only 51 percent of the vote, making the slogan ‘freedom begins at the ballot box’ a very cruel hoax indeed.
At least the Egyptians have stumbled upon an effective way to make their sons of 60 dogs (an Egyptian expression for politicians) tremble in their palaces. Game. Set. Match, Egyptian people.