On November Elections -- Egypt and the U.S.

Since emigrating from Egypt to the United States nearly two decades ago, our family’s traditions have become a syncretic patchwork of cultures. Some practices have made for complementary adaptations; falafels sit aside froot loops on the breakfast table, Friday afternoons at the mosque are followed by Friday nights at the football stadium, and conversational mix-ins of 'yani' and 'y'all' hint at Cairene Arabic and North Carolina drawl. Other American traditions we've embraced wholesale, like Fourth of July fireworks, little league baseball, and turning out to vote on Election Day.

November’s midterm races dominated discussions in our politically attuned household. Which is why I was surprised that my parents have made no mention of Egypt’s parliamentary elections slated for later this month. I wondered how they could switch off decades of civic engagement and neglect to editorialize those political stirrings happening across the Atlantic. When pressed, my mother emphasized that theirs is not a silence of apathy, but a silence of protest: to grant the elections even conversational mention is to dignify them beyond merit.

Democracy, writes contemporary political theorist Robert Dahl, "refers to both an ideal and an actuality". In Egypt, the democratic ideal lives strong in the hearts and minds of many, but the actuality of democratic life is sickly at best.

Dahl describes the attributes of successful, large-scale democratic government: elected officials; free, fair, frequent elections; freedom of expression; alternative information; associational autonomy; and inclusive citizenship. He writes that as a country kindles its democratic potential it moves from democratic arrangements, to democratic practices, then to democratic institutions. With censorship of media outlets, clampdowns against political opposition groups, and public boycotts of the election charade, ‘democratic’ arrangements underway for the November 28 races fall far short of Dahl’s enumerated criteria.

The editor of Al-Ahram, Egypt’s most widely circulated newspaper concedes that, “If necessary, democracy could easily wait another 20 years. We are not in any hurry.” That reality is not concealed; Election Day is rife with tales of abuse, violence, and harassment at the polling stations. Fear of radicalism is used to justify a repression of dissent, and emergency law is enacted by what is effectively a police state. Earlier this month, Egypt’s finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali boasted in the Washington Post, ‎"At no time in its modern history has Egypt faced a crisis of transition." True. But let's be real, at no time in its modern history has Egypt faced transition of any vaguely democratic variety. Mubarak and his National 'Democratic’ Party have been in power since well before I was born.

The ideal of democracy may animate the imaginations of the masses, but it enables the actions of few.

Back here in the U.S., November 2nd saw the tides turn towards Republican control of the House as well as many state legislatures and governorships. There is no crisis of transition, but there is an evident crisis of spirit. With the handoff of partisan control came vows of legislative obstruction and a prophesied downpour of subpoenas to rain out any parade of substantive policy development. Such obstinate partisanship combined with the unglamorous viscosity of change has dimmed the imaginations of many. Disenchanted voters are opting for self-imposed disenfranchisement; the spirit of our democratic ideal is waning.

'We the people' are entrusted with a constitutionally sanctioned power to choose our representative leaders and the direction of our country’s agenda. These privileges should not be taken for granted. We are the guardians of our democratic ideal and in that role we must be vigilant, because democracy is rarely felled in one swoop. When voters decide to stay home from the polls it is not an effective act of protest, it is a dangerous retreat.

The protest of silence is only fitting for those who have no other means. But we have our press, our assemblies, our associations and our elections. The actuality of our democratic institutions provides a resilient infrastructure for participation. Abstention from the tyrannical and abstention from the imperfect are not equal; one is exercised in the hope of establishing democracy while the other may be the very agent of its demise.

Many of us no longer harbor the utopian idealism that took hold in 2008. Mario Cuomo's dictum could not be truer, "You campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose." Over the past two years, a steadfast yet stilted prose from the left has been sparring with a vitriolic and xenophobic poetry from the right. All the while, an intrusion of corporate capital screams freedom of speech at decibels magnified far louder than those of the individual voice.

We can admit frustration, anger, impatience, but we cannot afford to be cynical. Silence is not our tool; we must be hopeful still, and we must be loud.

Open Letter to Juan Williams

Look, Juan, I’m not an apologist.  

But I am an American woman who chooses to wear that ‘Muslim garb’ on planes … and also at school, at work, to the grocery store, the library, the shopping mall, at the park, on the metro, in line to get lunch, or coffee, or a movie ticket.

When I enter an airport, or step out of my car at a gas station, or go jogging on the street, I’ve got to tell you, I realize that I am in Muslim garb and I think, you know, I am identifying myself first and foremost as Muslim, I get worried.  I get nervous. 

I realize that my identity-marker triggers a Pavlovian aversion among the public; conditioned by the right wing rants of FOX and friends and their attempts to incarnate a public solidarity through the shared experience of fear.  ‘First and foremost as Muslim’ has become linked to images of death, destruction, and apocalyptic doom.

But ‘first and foremost as Muslim’ is what gives meaning to my life devoted to truth, and mercy, and justice, what constantly affirms my commitment to the common good and the public welfare.

‘first and foremost as Muslim’ is what empowers a more expansive understanding of self, what confronts that self-interested rational actor in me and challenges it to be a loving actor.

‘first and foremost as Muslim’ is what holds the center together so things don’t fall apart – it is the call of the falconer drowning out echoes of nihilism amplified by the chamber of modern life. 

Your colleague at FOX, Megyn Kelly, came to your defense saying “a lot of Americans share Juan’s view and it doesn’t make them bigots, it makes them honest”.  Rather than devote airtime unpacking the substance of these fears in an honest way, our public servants and our media platforms instead choose to expend their influence defending the right to wallow in those admittedly problematic feelings.  I don't deny that the language of fear can effectively herd people together, but it does not empower them.

Your individual right to express feelings of fear cannot be challenged, and NPR’s decision to terminate your contract does not deny that.  What it does deny is the extension of a professional accreditation and a journalistic objectivity that makes those views seem legitimate, justifiable, or simply benign.  Your right to declare feelings that prop up xenophobic ideologies is stripped of the rhetorical force that would justify the feelings of ‘a lot of Americans’ by putting them in good company.

The truth is, in America today; in our country which protects our rights to life and liberty, our rights to equal protection under the law, your right to normalize the fears directed at me, and my right to write a response reminding of their abnormality; I still get worried, I get nervous.  Because even honest fears, left unchallenged, can embolden the voices and actions of bigotry; and my ‘Muslim garb’ makes me an easy target.  Surely you can appreciate the circular chase between our fears.

I know the kinds of books you’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country, and I recognize our shared aspirations for the future of our nation.  You write, 

“The American idea is unique: creating one nation out of so many people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, who speak different languages, who have different skin colors.  It is an experiment in how these people, often facing brutal discrimination, stand up to ask for equal opportunity and make their contribution to American life.  At the heart of this drama is a personal struggle: how to deal with the fear engendered by living in a country with people from all over the world.” (2004)

We can begin to deal with this fear by conceding that its legitimation does not strengthen us.  We must search elsewhere for common ground.  Only by approaching ‘the other’ and seeing his/her humanity, can we realize that beneath the outer garb that differentiates us, he/she shares our very dreams of the American promise.