The death toll in Egypt’s summer of anger makes you wonder how dumping Hosni Mubarak two years ago could possibly have been worth such a cost.
International surveys repeatedly show that in times of crisis and disruption most people choose peace and security over justice.
Egyptians turfed out Mubarak in a quest for justice. In the process, they lost security. What went wrong? And what now?
Getting rid of a dictator is relatively easy compared to the work of constructing democracy from the ground up.
Democracy is not a short-term process that can be downloaded from outside. It has to rely on behaviour that is built up over time, and where the building blocks are civil society and its habits of give and take.
Egyptians, under successive dictators, had no opportunity to build these vital capacities, and the result of that is what we have been witnessing these past weeks.
Read more: How the West failed Egypt's democracy: Jeremy Kinsman - World - CBC News
International surveys repeatedly show that in times of crisis and disruption most people choose peace and security over justice.
Egyptians turfed out Mubarak in a quest for justice. In the process, they lost security. What went wrong? And what now?
Getting rid of a dictator is relatively easy compared to the work of constructing democracy from the ground up.
Democracy is not a short-term process that can be downloaded from outside. It has to rely on behaviour that is built up over time, and where the building blocks are civil society and its habits of give and take.
Egyptians, under successive dictators, had no opportunity to build these vital capacities, and the result of that is what we have been witnessing these past weeks.
Read more: How the West failed Egypt's democracy: Jeremy Kinsman - World - CBC News
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