Egypt is a country that has always lacked accountability. No denying it. In the Mubarak era, as in the Sadat era, as in every era of Egypt's history there was no moderate or productive concept of accountability. There was either no accountability or the nuclear option. Activists of the January 25th "revolution" believe they are introducing a novel concept to Egyptian society, a concept of accountability comparable to that in Western countries. They believe, as usual, that any objection to their view of how accountability should work stems from fear, ignorance, corruption, and/or misinformation among their opponents. But as usual, what they are selling just happens to be a rehashed version of Egypt's extremist approach towards its officials.
One of the main thesis behind January 25 is that Egypt had no concept of accountability. Accountability in this context was translated as firing (or demanding a resignation from) any official in office when anything ranging from an accident to a disaster happens. Once the official resigns we then proceed to take him to court where we exact "vengeance" upon them. The word vengeance might sound shocking in English, but it is a central idea in the Arab spring, qasaas or blood vengeance is a pillar of all the Arab revolutions.
Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than with the ministry of interior. The revolution itself was based on a demand that Mubarak's minister of interior resign. As soon as the minister of interior was relieved, the revolution morphed into something else. Why and how it did is beyond the scope of this post. But what matters is that demands that he resign changed into demands that he be tried, or that he be executed as a means of attaining justice and vengeance for slain "protestors." When he was imprisoned and presented to trial, the chaos resulting from the revolution resulted into more rioting and street clashes in which more "protestors" were killed. Demands then moved on to executing the new minister of interior and holding him and SCAF accountable. This kept happening through perhaps half a dozen cabinet reshuffles in three years, with each new MoI almost immediately being labelled a butcher, his resignation almost immediately being demanded, and his execution as a means of achieving "justice" soon to follow.
The very same happened with transport ministers. In fact, it has been happening with transport ministers since Mubarak. Transport minister after transport minister has resigned as a result of demands they be held accountable after train accidents. Yet train accidents keep happening just as street clashes keep happening. So why is accountability not working? The theory is that once you force an official to resign and then drag them through the mud and take them to court, the following official would not make the same mistakes.
The reason is that Egyptian activists completely lack understanding of accountability. Accountability means that one is held accountable to perform within expected parameters given the resources they have been provided. And the resources any official is provided in Egypt are meagre. The minister of transport could completely eradicate train accidents, but he has two options to do so, raise fares so they are comparable to European trains, or completely stop train services. The leftist demand that essentially unpaid and accident-free train transport is provided in a country as poor as Egypt is simply not going to happen. We can change dozens of transport ministers a month, we can execute hordes of officials a week, trains would still crash. It is a simple matter of economics and physics.
In a brilliant tweet, a well known anarchist commented on the death of a man under a subway train by stating that thousands of people die under subways or of Hepatitis C without us taking their rights from those who killed them. The guy turned out to have committed suicide by jumping off a pedestrian bridge. Who killed him? Who should we "take their rights" from? Who exactly are we supposed to demand resign then demand they be "tried fairly then executed?" Who is accountable for the Hep C endemic in Egypt? An endemic blamed squarely by the Egyptian left on Mubarak, but in fact one almost entirely caused by Nasser's contaminated Bilharzia shots. What is a priority, spending time, money, and effort on looking for someone to blame for Hep C; or spending the same informing people about methods to stop the spread of the infection?
And speaking of accountability, why so sensitive about holding activists and major political figures of the revolution accountable? Why should we consider policy differences with Mubarak crimes but not consider recorded evidence of fomenting chaos, vying to compromise national security, and misleading millions of youth potential crimes?
One of the main thesis behind January 25 is that Egypt had no concept of accountability. Accountability in this context was translated as firing (or demanding a resignation from) any official in office when anything ranging from an accident to a disaster happens. Once the official resigns we then proceed to take him to court where we exact "vengeance" upon them. The word vengeance might sound shocking in English, but it is a central idea in the Arab spring, qasaas or blood vengeance is a pillar of all the Arab revolutions.
Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than with the ministry of interior. The revolution itself was based on a demand that Mubarak's minister of interior resign. As soon as the minister of interior was relieved, the revolution morphed into something else. Why and how it did is beyond the scope of this post. But what matters is that demands that he resign changed into demands that he be tried, or that he be executed as a means of attaining justice and vengeance for slain "protestors." When he was imprisoned and presented to trial, the chaos resulting from the revolution resulted into more rioting and street clashes in which more "protestors" were killed. Demands then moved on to executing the new minister of interior and holding him and SCAF accountable. This kept happening through perhaps half a dozen cabinet reshuffles in three years, with each new MoI almost immediately being labelled a butcher, his resignation almost immediately being demanded, and his execution as a means of achieving "justice" soon to follow.
The very same happened with transport ministers. In fact, it has been happening with transport ministers since Mubarak. Transport minister after transport minister has resigned as a result of demands they be held accountable after train accidents. Yet train accidents keep happening just as street clashes keep happening. So why is accountability not working? The theory is that once you force an official to resign and then drag them through the mud and take them to court, the following official would not make the same mistakes.
The reason is that Egyptian activists completely lack understanding of accountability. Accountability means that one is held accountable to perform within expected parameters given the resources they have been provided. And the resources any official is provided in Egypt are meagre. The minister of transport could completely eradicate train accidents, but he has two options to do so, raise fares so they are comparable to European trains, or completely stop train services. The leftist demand that essentially unpaid and accident-free train transport is provided in a country as poor as Egypt is simply not going to happen. We can change dozens of transport ministers a month, we can execute hordes of officials a week, trains would still crash. It is a simple matter of economics and physics.
In a brilliant tweet, a well known anarchist commented on the death of a man under a subway train by stating that thousands of people die under subways or of Hepatitis C without us taking their rights from those who killed them. The guy turned out to have committed suicide by jumping off a pedestrian bridge. Who killed him? Who should we "take their rights" from? Who exactly are we supposed to demand resign then demand they be "tried fairly then executed?" Who is accountable for the Hep C endemic in Egypt? An endemic blamed squarely by the Egyptian left on Mubarak, but in fact one almost entirely caused by Nasser's contaminated Bilharzia shots. What is a priority, spending time, money, and effort on looking for someone to blame for Hep C; or spending the same informing people about methods to stop the spread of the infection?
And speaking of accountability, why so sensitive about holding activists and major political figures of the revolution accountable? Why should we consider policy differences with Mubarak crimes but not consider recorded evidence of fomenting chaos, vying to compromise national security, and misleading millions of youth potential crimes?
No comments:
Post a Comment