(Originally published on 6 July 2013)
Over 2 years ago, I saluted the People of Egypt on this platform for their revolution and expressed my best wishes for them to finalize that revolution with a good ending. Today once again, I salute the People of Egypt for taking corrective action on their journey to freedom. I am very glad to see that People of Egypt were alert of the fact that they, too, were driven to a theocratic state. Luckily for them, there was a very good example that they were able to compare what was happening in their country in the last year to what has happened in Turkey in the last 11 years. They were wise enough to see the resemblance, and noticed that if they waited any longer, things would get worse, and they will not be able to reverse the situation. I congratulate the People of Egypt on their decision. However, I would like to warn them that this was the easiest part. The difficult part is to clean up the grassroots of what they took corrective action against through education. This will require a long-term (at minimum 30 years) elementary and middle school state education policy that should eliminate hard line theocratic teachings with no exceptions. For this, once again, luckily the People of Egypt can take a look at the education system in Turkey between 1970s and 2012, and learn from the mistakes that were made, especially in the 1970s. Otherwise, the corrective action in Egypt will not go any further than a version of 1960 intervention in Turkey which lasted only 20 years. Unless the above described is done, I do not believe that the effects of the corrective action in Egypt will last even 20 years; it will be much shorter than this given the current split between the People of Egypt.
Over 2 years ago, I saluted the People of Egypt on this platform for their revolution and expressed my best wishes for them to finalize that revolution with a good ending. Today once again, I salute the People of Egypt for taking corrective action on their journey to freedom. I am very glad to see that People of Egypt were alert of the fact that they, too, were driven to a theocratic state. Luckily for them, there was a very good example that they were able to compare what was happening in their country in the last year to what has happened in Turkey in the last 11 years. They were wise enough to see the resemblance, and noticed that if they waited any longer, things would get worse, and they will not be able to reverse the situation. I congratulate the People of Egypt on their decision. However, I would like to warn them that this was the easiest part. The difficult part is to clean up the grassroots of what they took corrective action against through education. This will require a long-term (at minimum 30 years) elementary and middle school state education policy that should eliminate hard line theocratic teachings with no exceptions. For this, once again, luckily the People of Egypt can take a look at the education system in Turkey between 1970s and 2012, and learn from the mistakes that were made, especially in the 1970s. Otherwise, the corrective action in Egypt will not go any further than a version of 1960 intervention in Turkey which lasted only 20 years. Unless the above described is done, I do not believe that the effects of the corrective action in Egypt will last even 20 years; it will be much shorter than this given the current split between the People of Egypt.
Note: One may criticize me for not condemning the way the corrective action took place in Egypt. Well, each political regime protects itself against other competing political regimes. To do this, any means is valid. Rest assured that if the existing government of Egypt were able to change the regime (similar to what happened in Turkey), they would not allow any opposition, any judicial system, any media, any military personnel who were against themselves. They would either kill these people or send them to jail.
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