{"id":2547,"date":"2012-06-14T17:58:19","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T21:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tremblethedevil.com\/?p=2547"},"modified":"2013-08-14T21:43:19","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T01:43:19","slug":"get-your-pita-bread-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tremblethedevil.com\/?p=2547","title":{"rendered":"getcha pita-bread ready"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(read the book free online<\/a>\u00a0–<\/strong>\u00a0read the Reddit AMA<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>)<\/strong><\/strong>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unrest and instability plague a predominately Muslim nation after an economic recession creates growing swells of social upheaval, street demonstrations, and violence. \u00a0Islamists are poised to fill a growing power\u00a0vacuum, but right as their\u00a0scraggly grasping fingers are closing in on control of the state, the military steps in to prevent them from gaining control.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar?<\/a><\/p>\n

But what’s going down in Egypt isn’t by any means unique, the description at the top of this article was cribbed from the Wikipedia entry on the 1971 Turkey coup d’etat<\/a>, the second coup in what ended up being a half-century of repeated military interventions that were each enacted to preserve a\u00a0democratic\u00a0Turkish state.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing though. Almost 50 years before the first coup Turkey’s supreme leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, began the process of ripping Islam from the national fabric in a series of reforms that did everything from get rid of the Islamic calendar and the Arabic alphabet to banning the veil and any public religious iconography. \u00a0This secularization was meant to forcefully modernize Turkey and bring it as close to lockstep with the West as quickly as possible, and surprisingly enough it was accepted by the majority of Turks… at least in the long run.<\/p>\n

It’s not that Islam was totally removed as an influence on Turkey’s culture and government, but its influence was drastically curtailed. \u00a0The final step was a series of legal reforms which removed sharia,<\/em>\u00a0or Islamic law, as the primary source of\u00a0judicial\u00a0precedent. \u00a0Which brings us back to Egypt.<\/p>\n

Given the excitement in most Western media outlets about the\u00a0possibility\u00a0of “democracy” coming to Egypt, you might expect that Egypt is on the verge of becoming a progressive state that embraces Liberalism, Justice, and Freedom as they’re all understood through our red-white-and-blue colored glasses. \u00a0And so it would probably surprised you to learn that when Muslims in\u00a0Egypt, who account for almost 95% of the population<\/a>, were polled by by Pew Research about two months before Mubarak’s ouster<\/a>:<\/p>\n

– 82%<\/strong>\u00a0 supported stoning to death as punishment for\u00a0adultery<\/p>\n

– 77%<\/strong> supported hand amputation as punishment for theft<\/p>\n

– 84%<\/strong> supported the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam<\/p>\n

Contrast that with Turkey, whose support in those respective categories was 16%, 13%, and 5%. \u00a0Now unless you’re going to argue that Pew Research is part of some vast Zionist Conspiracy, it’s pretty apparent that Egypt is a really long fucking ways away from anything even beginning to resemble a nation where liberalism and civil rights, as they’re understood in the West, are embraced. \u00a0Or even awkwardly patted on the back.<\/p>\n

And that same poll had another telling statistic, 85% of Egyptian Muslims polled responded that\u00a0Islam’s\u00a0influence in politics is positive, while only 2% answered than it was in fact negative. \u00a0Why is this so notable? \u00a0All of the above punishments come directly from shariah<\/em>, all of them are intrinsically tied to allowing Islam into the political realm.<\/p>\n

If those poll results seem antithetical to the interviews you’ve been seeing on cable news, as\u00a0John Bradley explains in his bracing and honest book\u00a0After the Arab Spring<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Most Westerners understand these countries through their own journalists and pro-democracy activists, who obsessively home in on an English-speaking liberal elite. \u00a0There is no great conspiracy at play. \u00a0It is just that most of them do not speak the local languages and, whenever possible, understandably\u00a0prefer\u00a0to avoid government appointed minders and translators. Even if they do know better, they have little choice but to provide the \u201cthey want to be free like us\u201d copy their editors back home demand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What you see, especially on your television, is very rarely what you in fact get. It’s only a matter of time until Egypt’s revolution enters the nasty,\u00a0vicious, “you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs”<\/a>\u00a0Robespierrean stage. \u00a0Exactly what comes next is anyone’s guess, but given the average Egyptian’s penchant for publicly removing a wrong-doers limbs or even lives from their bodies in a\u00a0gratuitous\u00a0display of public justice, it’s hard to imagine that it’ll make for\u00a0pleasant\u00a0television viewing.<\/p>\n

But odds are, it ain’t gonna be boring. \u00a0So if you’re into watching history drift into snuff film territory, hunker down in front of your television and get ready for the worst side of humanity to rear its all-too-often-forgotten head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(read the book free online\u00a0–\u00a0read the Reddit AMA) Unrest and instability plague a predominately Muslim nation after an economic recession creates growing swells of social upheaval, street demonstrations, and violence. \u00a0Islamists are poised to fill a growing power\u00a0vacuum, but right as their\u00a0scraggly grasping fingers are closing in on control of the state, the military steps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[95,78,93,99,91,6,97,96,71,72,100,90,94,9,92,98],"tags":[167,155,39,166,168],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-the-arab-spring","category-arab-spring","category-attaturk","category-civil-rights","category-egypt","category-islam","category-islamist","category-john-bradley","category-news","category-politics","category-reform","category-revolution","category-shariah","category-terrorism","category-turkey","category-you-cant-make-an-omelette","tag-egypt","tag-islam","tag-militant-islam","tag-revolution","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\ngetcha pita-bread ready - 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