Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Democracy after an Uprising?

    In Chapter 1 of Countries and Concepts by Michael G. Roskin we are introduced to the question of "Do revolutions against tyranny lead to democracy?" All the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria give us the answer to this question. I will take a specific example of an uprising to explain further the answer. 
   In 2011, the Egyptian Revolution took place. The Revolution was a diverse movement to protest and non-violently overthrow Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Unfortunately, the whole revolution could  not be peaceful. There were incidents and casualties all over the country. The results of the revolution ended up with Mohamed Morsy as the first democratically elected president. However, on July 2013, Morsy was ousted in a military coup. Egypt today is struggling to achieve democracy. A new constitution was just passed with 98.1 percent of voters approving it and 1. 9 percent against it. The people that strongly disapprove of the new constitution have said on twitter that "98.1 percent is not considered a real democracy but a solo dictatorship" and "If people are arrested for holding 'vote no' posters…should these results be counted?" Rights groups have also expressed concern on the repressive environment in Egypt. 2,200 people have been killed since Morsy was ousted. Even U.S Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed his opinion that there is: "Serious concern about the limits on freedom of peaceful assembly and expression in Egypt."
    As you can see the answer to the question "If after a revolution there is democracy?" is no. Roskin says it all with "Revolutions show a strong tendency to become chaotic and fall under a dictatorship. Few end well." 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/18/world/africa/egypt-constitution/index.html?hpt=imi_c2

2 comments:

  1. Revolutions don’t guarantee democracy. Even if it is the chosen political system of a nation, it isn’t always established. Egypt has gone through four presidents and still has not achieved the “ideal” version of democracy. I like the article you chose because it incorporates the use of social media that was used to gather the masses; it was effective in launching the revolution.

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