I wonder if something else can be said.<p>Egyptians are almost twice as wealthy as Pakistani's or Indians. Either of these directions would terrify the Egyptian people who are not used to that level poverty. Egypt's own fiscal cliff is worrying many residents. I think the winner will be the person who can promise stability - and stability is not possible without concessions to secular forces within Egypt.<p>I see something like Mubarak reappearing, it is not unreasonable to say that Egyptians aren't ready for western democracy - especially considering the grievous financial condition of their government.<p>A successful politician in Egypt will unite stabilizing and not revolutionary forces to solve the economic discontent.
Well, this is crap.<p>I live in Tunisia and we have the equivalent political party in power (Renaissance party). It turns out they used religion to attract voters.<p>It's clear, a year later, that they are here for power and money. For instance, they are putting around $1bn in indemnity for former prisoners. I admit they should be compensated for their losses especially if it's caused by the former regime injustice, but I don't believe the economy can handle that much. So we might end up breaking the whole economy for a bunch of jerks.<p>What amazes me about the new gov. is how economically illiterate their members are. You can see them driving us straight into the wall. For instance, you can't find milk or potatoes in the stores. And also, there are no available new cars in the market. Next availability is 6 months later.
Author has no clue about what is Democracy and what is secularism. A country can be democratic but not a secularism. Democracy means people chose their own govt(Pakistan is also same). Secularism means religion does not matter for the jobs.
This article seems calculated to cause maximum distress on HN.<p>1) Involves both religion and specifically both India and Muslims, and Arabs
2) Written by an abject moron (Thomas Friedman)
3) Speculates vacuously about the future, with no actual facts, inviting arbitrary speculation and axe-grinding.
4) Includes references to both terrorism and politics.<p>He should have worked in a Python vs. Rails vs. Haskell vs. PHP thing, and a bootstrapped vs. VC funded argument, though.
I am an Indian woman and have actually lived in Cairo for 3 years. Lovely people, lovely time. However let us face it, neither Pakistanis nor Egyptians would like to be compared to India because a) belief in their racial superiority (Egyptians"we are white") (Pakistanis -they are darker than us). B. the news about India;s growth has not trickled into these countries, with a very repressed media. Once we take this away, it boils down to the question: will the Egyptian revolutions end up in dictatorship and religious fundamentalism like Pakistan or will it strive towards democracy for the next 100 years and so on...Remember the democratic movement in the UK started 600 years ago. And by the way, the poverty and lack of opportunity I have seen in Egypt was worse than India, because there was practically no mobility. The districts were no go zones. Cairo was a show case as were the tourist areas, other than that, people are trapped economically.
Egypt has oil, very thin water supply and enormous population growth rate. Corruption is massive. It is similar to Arab countries not to India and Pakistan. Go and see for yourself.
India has ~0.83 billion Hindus (~1.2 billion total population), the rest of the ~0.4 billion people are Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsis, etc. As such we have always had people of different faiths (not just Islam) in various positions of power and responsibility. I don't see (from the article) what democracy in India has anything to us electing a person of Hindu/Muslim/any other religion faith into a position of power.
Egypt has one of the most educated populations on the planet, thanks to an old and large education system. I'm very optimistic of their future as a country.<p>This article reads like someone transcribed talk radio.
Judgemental comments are not very well received on HN, still there's just one thing I've to say about this article - "the author has no idea wheat he is talking about".<p>He seems to be ignorant of India[1] has a democracy, a republic and he also seems to be a regular reader at those forums which often churns out hate comments and incorrect and whimsical outbursts.<p>[1]I cannot say the same about Pakistan as I do not live there.
I think it is the British who deserve credit for the 1937 The Muslim Personal Law Application Act which simply confirms existing Islamic/Koranic traditions, while they also insisted that the Hindus would finally agree to unambiguously codifying the Dharmasastra. Even though I am definitely not a fan of colonization, I must admit that the British administration did a superb job in preemptively demining the situation well in advance.