Because of who I am, I am very sensitive when it comes to name calling and ethnic slurs. My hackles bristle, wrong metaphor, try “rise”, when somebody starts talking about dumb Polacks, greedy Jews, smelly Pakis, stupid Spics, Greasers and Beaners. There are a lot more, but there is no reason to list them all.
When it comes to ethnic slurs there is one that I do not condemn. That is the universal slight of “stupid” when applied to any country or people that deserve it.
Egyptians have just earned the Olympic Gold Medal for Stupidity, all 70 million of them. They deserve whatever the future holds for them, for they have surely screwed themselves royally even though most of them do not remember or were alive when King Farouk was sacked in ‘52. They have exhibited ignorance and stupidity. I don’t care what their IQ and SAT scores are, or those other indices of intelligence and knowledge we use to judge others. They are just plain dumb.
Here they are jubilantly dancing and a’prancing in the streets having forced a doddering 82 year old tyrant Hosni Mubarak from office, leaving in place all those others that enabled him to hold power. A dictator with jet black dyed hair as glossy as Italy’s Berlusconi’s. What a hollow victory, what a wasted effort, what a failed revolution!
Power was wrested from the hands of a criminal American backed and financed despot after 30 years. After enduring years of repression, torture and corruption, first under Anwar Sadat and then Mubarak, Egyptians took to the streets for three weeks of protest and a relatively peaceful revolution, even though a number of “martyr” deaths and casualties have been reported. What did this ruckus, this wasted effort, these sacrifices achieve?
Well, let me tell you, nothing, nada. Power first shifted from President Mubarak to Vice President Omar Suleiman. By the way, there was no Vice President for 30 years. An office recently created for a man who was the Chief of Mubarak’s General Intelligence Directorate to try to help Mubarak retain power. “Intelligence” in like the guy that ran the secret jails and helped us commit rendition crimes of torture. Change what change? Now the power has been vested in the “High Council of the Armed Forces” lead by Mubarak’s Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi. Democracy what democracy? No, the road to another repressive regime.
As the French are wont to say “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”. Or in this case the Egyptians, just when I thought they couldn’t be any dumber, they go and do something like this, to paraphrase Dum & Dumber, the movie, remember? Throwing out one dictatorship in exchange for another.