The only test for me of any western writer right now is, Are you not deeply deeply moved by what has taken place in Cairo and willing to acknowledge western prejudice? Do you have a heart? Yes, history says this will take years to work itself out. Yes this is messy; and the youth of Tahrir may get muscled. But are you not deeply moved? In the “Republic of Tahrir Square,” Roger Cohen addresses the racism at the heart of our old ways of looking:
To accept the Mubarak-or-chaos argument is a form of disrespect to the civility and capacity of Tahrir Square . It is an expression of Western failure before the exploding Arab thirst for dignity and representative government. It reflects the old conditioning which sees in an Egyptian culture that was, after all, deep enough and realistic enough to accept peace with Israel, no more than a disaster waiting to happen if the iron fist is removed….
The Western fiction, [ElBaradei] said, is “that somehow Arabs are not really ready for democracy, that maybe they have horns.” It is time to overcome that fiction and look at what Tahrir says about culture emerging, technology-sped, from a deep sleep.
There is a better way forward. It begins with Mubarak’s departure. It involves the installation of a three-member presidential council, including a representative of the army, and a caretaker government of respected figures to oversee constitutional and other reforms needed for free elections a year from now. How can credible political parties emerge by September in Mubarak’s wilderness?
