USA, why you support dictatorship?

An Egyptian protester holds a sign that reads, ''No More US $ For The Bloody Mubarak Dictatorship''

Millions of people demonstrated in Egypt’s Tahrir Square in an unprecedented movement for democracy, yet US leaders and US media remain patently apprehensive of a change in government.

The US which purports to stand as a beacon of light for democracy around the world, seems to be holding its breath as this popular movement demands that a dictator step down from power. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can only produce wary criticisms of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demanding his government make needed reforms.

In an address to the Egyptian people, Clinton implicitly beckoned the Egyptian people back into their homes and encouraged use of the conventional political process to achieve reforms. She said all this while Mubarak’s brutal central security forces were violently breaking up demonstrations. Vice President Joe Biden claimed that Mubarak was no dictator on television just a day before Mubarak began shutting down lines of freedom of speech, first by disabling Facebook and Twitter, later turning off cell phone networks and internet access all together.

After 28 years under the Mubarak regime, the Egyptian people have no reason to believe that Mubarak will produce reforms now. And considering the regime has been propped up by the US Government since it’s inception, the people of Egypt must find the words of US Secretary of State Clinton disingenuous at best.

Rather than stand in solidarity with the Egyptian people in their pursuit of democracy, the US seems to be taking a neutral view on the events unfolding in Egypt. But the real view is anything but neutral. Egyptians know that the US has had a long-standing supportive relationship with the tyrannical Mubarak government. In fact, Egypt is the second largest recipient of US foreign aid because of it value as a geographically strategic ally in the Middle East.

The Egyptian people are fed up with Mubarak’s deference to US interests over the interests of his own people and they are justified in demanding that he step down. The response of US diplomats, however, has made it quite clear that the US is far more concerned about it’s own influence in the region, then being a beacon of light for democracy.

The US not only stands to loose its influential and illegitimate hold on the Egyptian government, but US officials are worried that democracy may actually be dangerous for Egypt! US leaders are afraid that the Muslim Brotherhood will commandeer the revolution. They echo Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fear that this popular revolt could lead to an anti-US Islamist theocracy like the one that was produced in Iran subsequent to the 1979 Revolution. And they’re afraid other nations will follow Egypt in this manner in a domino effect across the Arab world.

But here’s where a good knowledge of history becomes critical–a history that powerful leaders in the West tend to ignore. Long before the Iranian Revolution, the US had its meddling hands in Iran as well. In 1941, the CIA overthrew democratically elected Iranian President Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed the brutal Shah dictatorship in Iran, who oppressed the Iranian people, but protected US oil interests in the country. The Iranian people grew furious with the US control of their government, and it created an incredibly hostile attitude toward the US and it’s allies like Israel and Britain. The result? Iranian anger at the US intrusion of their government fueled conservative Islam and anti-US sentiment in response to the US threat to their country’s sovereignty. And so it’s no surprise, that when the people of Iran finally revolted against the Shah, he was replaced by an extremely anti-US Islamist.

Similarly in Egypt, the US support of the dictatorial Mubarak regime is creating resentment toward the US once again. Would it really be a surprise if a new Egyptian government developed a less-then-friendly attitude toward the US, when US interests stand as an obstacle to their right to democracy? Of course it shouldn’t be a surprise. The US has fueled anti-US sentiment itself by undermining democracies around the world for decades. It’s not because “they hate everything we stand for” as former New York City mayor Ruddy Giuliani would put it, its because we’ve been conniving in their governments for years.

But the Egyptian revolution is an enlightened revolution as compared to the revolution in Iran. It is a popular revolution, and so far is remaining a popular revolution. It’s not a Muslim revolution or an anti-US revolution. The Egyptian people understand, that it is up to them to take control of their government, but first the US must stand aside by cutting ties to Mubarak and allow the democratic movement in Egypt to move forward. A neutral stance in this case, is an opposition stance as long as we continue to prop up a dictator. If the US government continues to support Mubarak and act as an obstacle to democracy then the US should expect to be viewed as an enemy to the interests of the Egyptian people.

It would be an unusual foreign policy move for the US to take a ‘hands off’ policy in the unfolding events, but it is the best move. The US has an incredible opportunity to resolve tensions in the Middle East by demonstrating a measure of good faith and supporting the will of the Egyptian people. As for the potential domino effect of democratic movements and revolutions in the Arab world, this is not something to regard with apprehension. It is the most encouraging development in the Middle East for decades. Perhaps it will be the spark that sends Iranian revolutionaries into the street to end the oppressive dictatorship that has ruled the country as a reaction to the US infiltration of their government 50 years ago.

Photo by Chase Nordengren

Photo by Wesley Fryer

Photo by Lenny

My First Tattoo by Lisa

Photo by Benny Lin

Peace, Hope, Love, Live, Laugh, Joy, Dream, Cherish. These are the words that consitute the new secular dogma. And it seems well enough that these could be words to live by. Oh Peace is a desirable state of things. And Hope is always good. Love is, by far, a necessity. Laughter, of course, is a lovely experience. Who doesn’t want Joy in their lives? What would it be like not to Dream? And, by God, we should Cherish everything we have.

But these words are part of our language, they have always been ours, so why is it that we feel the need to go out and buy effigies of these words to hang on our living room walls to show that we believe in them? What idiocy is this?

The popularity of these “word products,” at first, seems like a rather benign fad. But as with all things that seem innocuous and completely without detriment, there is an unforeseen consequence.

People come to believe something profound in these words. They feel that they are paying homage to the word by acquiring actual effigies and placing them in their home. But words are representations, and by creating effigies of words we effectively separate them from any actual context. These words are extracted from context and given a level of inherent importance and value. The word is taken to represent something good, or goodness itself, which is also a term that means nothing if in and of itself.

Not only are these words no longer in context of actual situations, but they are not even in the context of other words. Hope what? Love who? Cherish what? Live how? Laugh when? Dream what? Peace why?

Words must represent something or at least be associated with something specific, because that is what they are–representations. But these idolized words come to represent nothing, but another representation–the general idea of goodness. They are tied to nothing, and therefore they don’t actually mean a thing. Hanging a word like Hope on your wall is akin to the idolatry that the Bible teaches against.* “See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion” (Isaiah 41:29 NIV). These words are hallow like the idols of ancient Israel.

So how can something that doesn’t mean anything end up being harmful or misleading? Well, you can smack the word “Hope” on anything, like a presidential campaign or a business operation or diesel truck for that matter, and though it means nothing at all, it seems to mean that whatever the word is associated with is part of that assumed goodness. While it retains no actual meaning, some people ignorantly believe that any message which utilizes one of these word must be a message of goodness, and so they don’t bother to look at the dirty details.

These words almost seem to be invoked as commandments of the secular dogma, but they can mean very terrible things as well. What is a commandment for Peace, when you must fight for your own freedoms? What’s to stop someone from Hoping their neighbor will suffer ill-fortune? What’s to keep a man from Loving a women who is not his wife? Who’s to say that a hospitalized person in a vegetable state wants to Live? There are certainly times when Laughter can be terribly cruel. Dreams are not without nightmares. Why shouldn’t we enjoy sorrow, when we have lost our Joy? And if we are to Cherish some people, then we must also hold others out of favor.

So these meaningless effigies and these word slogans that people throw about with this noble air can just as easily mean something good or bad. Out of context, the words still mean absolutely nothing, yet by some faint and meaning which people give these words, they are easily lead to believe that something meaningful and positive is being said.

It is this belief in representations and images instead of the actual objects they represent, that has led man astray for ages. And it exists in many more forms of representation than words, but this trend of emblazoning words on walls and pictures, and products, is just a sign of a world very disconnected from reality–very disconnected from context. And the way in which consumers have bought into this worship of words so whole-heatedly is a chilling sign that our society is descending further from the truth into an age of falsity.

*I reference the Bible to support my case in this article. Of course, it is quite ironic, however, that dogmatic Christians who praise the “word” of God are guilty of the same form of idol worship that their holy text condemns.