No news this time, just this:
Someone asked me, what are you doing blogging about Egypt? You're not Egyptian, you're basically Irish.
My answer is this: I despise bullies. Be they schoolyard punks, street gangs, or the head of nations. When the people speak, the government should listen. Governments are there for the pleasure of the people, not the other way around. For too long, through the long history of the world, have despots, tyrants and rulers overextended their claims to leadership to the point of stroking their collective libidos and egos. Money, power, sex are their ruling priorities, not people, humanity, and aesthetics.
In its classical form, in some words from Wikipedia, despotism is a state where a single individual (the despot) wields all the power and authority embodying the state, and everyone else is a subsidiary person. This form of despotism was common in the first forms of statehood and civilization; the Pharaoh of Egypt is exemplary of the classical Despot.
The term now implies tyrannical rule. Despotism can mean tyranny (dominance through threat of punishment and violence), or absolutism; or dictatorship (a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator, not restricted by a constitution, laws or opposition, etc.).
In the United States Declaration of Independence, the British government is cited to have been reducing the American people under absolute despotism: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security".
Charles-Louis de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu was a philosopher during the enlightenment. He believed that despotism was an appropriate government for large states. Likewise he believed that republics were suitable for small states and that monarchies were ideal for moderate sized states.
The United States has disproved this rule of Montesquieu's by its mere existence. So despots can no longer claim this. So why is the world allowing this still, to continue? Countries like Somolia where so many fractured fiefdoms by local war lords, is an understandable issue,stability, some form of government is necessary to help; but countries like Egypt are not like that.
The Egyptian people have much to look forward to. Hopefully the worst is over. The second stage, what to plan for, who to rule, is up for question and a dangerous time. Choose wisely.
And all that is why I have chosen to blog about Egypt this week. I care that they are given freedom. That the world can life free, open, happy.
I watch with great interest and hope and wish them all the best that is there for them to gather unto themselves.
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