

Egypt: The Next India or the Next Pakistan? - yati
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/friedman-egypt-the-next-india-or-the-next-pakista-.html?_r=0

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frozenport
I wonder if something else can be said.

Egyptians are almost twice as wealthy as Pakistani's or Indians. Either of
these directions would terrify the Egyptian people who are not used to that
level poverty. Egypt's own fiscal cliff is worrying many residents. I think
the winner will be the person who can promise stability - and stability is not
possible without concessions to secular forces within Egypt.

I see something like Mubarak reappearing, it is not unreasonable to say that
Egyptians aren't ready for western democracy - especially considering the
grievous financial condition of their government.

A successful politician in Egypt will unite stabilizing and not revolutionary
forces to solve the economic discontent.

~~~
diminish
Iam afraid,d It is also likely that economic discontent will grow with
increased population and similarly competing neighbors. All those countries
will find equilibrium at a steady destabilized state.

~~~
Shyama
That is an example of delusional thinking aided by poor access to real media.
Egypt is and has been almost entirely dependent on foreign aid. India has
always been independent. And in per capita terms Egypt is not richer than
India. However, like Pakistanis you can continue to dream of the days when
your population was much smaller and people lived happily in poverty. Times
have changed.

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csomar
Well, this is crap.

I live in Tunisia and we have the equivalent political party in power
(Renaissance party). It turns out they used religion to attract voters.

It's clear, a year later, that they are here for power and money. For
instance, they are putting around $1bn in indemnity for former prisoners. I
admit they should be compensated for their losses especially if it's caused by
the former regime injustice, but I don't believe the economy can handle that
much. So we might end up breaking the whole economy for a bunch of jerks.

What amazes me about the new gov. is how economically illiterate their members
are. You can see them driving us straight into the wall. For instance, you
can't find milk or potatoes in the stores. And also, there are no available
new cars in the market. Next availability is 6 months later.

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nu2ycombinator
Author has no clue about what is Democracy and what is secularism. A country
can be democratic but not a secularism. Democracy means people chose their own
govt(Pakistan is also same). Secularism means religion does not matter for the
jobs.

~~~
nu2ycombinator
"For India to appoint a Muslim to be the chief of the country’s intelligence
service is a big, big deal." - This is not true. 6 years back Indian president
was a Muslim. So in India all it matters is talent not religion.

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daliusd
So please explain this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Mumbai_bombings> ?

~~~
nu2ycombinator
Indian intelligence failed to stop them. This is nothing to do with being
democracy or not. There is 9/11 in USA too.

~~~
daliusd
What democracy has to do with that sentence at all? We are speaking about
religious tension in countries and how it is handled in India and other
countries. As well noting that India is doing better here.

~~~
nu2ycombinator
Exactly my point. It is nothing to do with democracy or secularism, what is
your point in mentioning bomb blasts. Entire world is suffering with islam
terrorism, unless they are muslim states.

~~~
daliusd
My point is that author is correct pointing that while Muslim has chances to
take important positions in government in India that's not common and
naturally accepted thing. I found article reasonably weighted and thought out
and found strange to see that first comments to be completely not-insightful
and not-contributing anything valuable.

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rdl
This article seems calculated to cause maximum distress on HN.

1) Involves both religion and specifically both India and Muslims, and Arabs
2) Written by an abject moron (Thomas Friedman) 3) Speculates vacuously about
the future, with no actual facts, inviting arbitrary speculation and axe-
grinding. 4) Includes references to both terrorism and politics.

He should have worked in a Python vs. Rails vs. Haskell vs. PHP thing, and a
bootstrapped vs. VC funded argument, though.

------
Shyama
I am an Indian woman and have actually lived in Cairo for 3 years. Lovely
people, lovely time. However let us face it, neither Pakistanis nor Egyptians
would like to be compared to India because a) belief in their racial
superiority (Egyptians"we are white") (Pakistanis -they are darker than us).
B. the news about India;s growth has not trickled into these countries, with a
very repressed media. Once we take this away, it boils down to the question:
will the Egyptian revolutions end up in dictatorship and religious
fundamentalism like Pakistan or will it strive towards democracy for the next
100 years and so on...Remember the democratic movement in the UK started 600
years ago. And by the way, the poverty and lack of opportunity I have seen in
Egypt was worse than India, because there was practically no mobility. The
districts were no go zones. Cairo was a show case as were the tourist areas,
other than that, people are trapped economically.

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polskibus
Egypt has oil, very thin water supply and enormous population growth rate.
Corruption is massive. It is similar to Arab countries not to India and
Pakistan. Go and see for yourself.

~~~
zvikara
> It is similar to Arab countries

Egypt is an Arab country - the biggest and most influential Arab country,
located in the center of the Arab world. Saying Egypt is similar to Arab
countries is like saying France is similar to European countries.

~~~
nu2ycombinator
I think what he meant is, Egypt is going to become muslim state like other
arab countries, instead of Pakistan. It does not make sense to compare it with
India since India is mix of lot of religions(Hindu, Xstianity, Budhism, Sikh,
Islam, Jain) and has high tolerance for religion freedom.

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minimumprofit
India has ~0.83 billion Hindus (~1.2 billion total population), the rest of
the ~0.4 billion people are Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsis, etc. As such
we have always had people of different faiths (not just Islam) in various
positions of power and responsibility. I don't see (from the article) what
democracy in India has anything to us electing a person of Hindu/Muslim/any
other religion faith into a position of power.

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peripetylabs
Egypt has one of the most educated populations on the planet, thanks to an old
and large education system. I'm very optimistic of their future as a country.

This article reads like someone transcribed talk radio.

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fakeer
Judgemental comments are not very well received on HN, still there's just one
thing I've to say about this article - "the author has no idea wheat he is
talking about".

He seems to be ignorant of India[1] has a democracy, a republic and he also
seems to be a regular reader at those forums which often churns out hate
comments and incorrect and whimsical outbursts.

[1]I cannot say the same about Pakistan as I do not live there.

~~~
arrrg
I don’t understand, but what exactly is your problem with the article? I
couldn’t find anything where he so much as indicated that India isn’t a
democracy or a republic. He speaks very highly of India.

~~~
fakeer
I didn't question whether he question that. It's _the way_ he describes India
_as a_ "democracy" and a "republic".

Please note italicized phrases. Those are my peeves. You can go through my
comments again, of course.

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eriksank
I think it is the British who deserve credit for the 1937 The Muslim Personal
Law Application Act which simply confirms existing Islamic/Koranic traditions,
while they also insisted that the Hindus would finally agree to unambiguously
codifying the Dharmasastra. Even though I am definitely not a fan of
colonization, I must admit that the British administration did a superb job in
preemptively demining the situation well in advance.

~~~
shared4you
I think it was because the Hindus preferred "church-state" separation, meaning
_not_ to codify Dharmashastra. Muslims didn't want a secular law, so a Muslim-
specific law was created for them.

~~~
eriksank
Well, the Brits seemed to have been smarter than to create a new law. The
Brits just confirmed the existing law. Of course, the Brits were interested in
peace, quiet, order, and efficient exploitation, so I understand their
motivations too ;-)

