We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Western media and the Brotherhood: Secrets behind the love affair

Click here to access article by Hani Shukrallah from Ahram Online. 
Egypt was once again making world history; millions of Egyptians across the country were engaged in open popular revolt against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, almost literally the mother of all modern political Islamist movements, not least the dread Al-Qaeda....

So remarkable was this new wave of the Egyptian revolution, its reach extended from the heartland of Brotherhood-support in Upper Egypt to Mediterranean Alexandria....

It was, moreover, the first ever popular uprising against a ruling Islamist movement, much wider in scope, intensity and social composition than any of the revolts we’d seen hitherto against the Ayatollahs’ rule in Iran.

And yet, the Western media seemed unmoved and uninterested. “They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see.”
The author offers two reasons for this blindness. The second reason should be easily understood by anyone following events rather closely in the Middle East. But, the first one was, for me, eye opening.
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