Cairo on Missouri: Genuine Concern or Diplomatic Bickering?

One of the most amusing forms of bickering in international relations occurs when one government is granted the opportunity to give its opponent a “dose of its own medicine,” as the English saying goes. At the end of 2010, when Vladimir Putin – a prime minister at the time – was given the opportunity to defend WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, he condemningly said, “If we are talking about democracy, it should be complete. Why was Mr. Assange hidden in jail? Is that democracy? The [Westerners] should start sweeping around their own front door. I want to send the ball back to our American colleagues.”*

Bickering is usually the weapon of the weak or those in the wrong. For example, when the Bush administration criticized Tunisia’s last election during the era of Ben Ali’s regime of police modernity because it lacked the most basic forms of democratic competition, how did the regime – a client of the Americans – respond? It didn’t keep quiet and swallow the criticism, like it had in the past. Rather, faced with this blatant American hostility, it gathered the remnants of its dwindling bravery and ordered its mercenaries in the press to expound a profound, unknown truth to foreigners: that the government of Tunisia does not take lessons in democracy from anyone, especially from a country whose president came to power in elections of doubtable fairness (a reference to the 2000 U.S. election and the doubts surrounding its result given the Florida recount).

It was a wrathful reaction based on shocking pretension and superficial knowledge. Yet despite initial doubt, after much inquiry, the statement that “we do not take lessons” proved to be true.

What a strange world! Thus the Ben Ali regime proved that God is capable of depositing his power in the weakest of his political creations. It is no wonder, then, that the government that saved Egypt and restored it to the right path, particularly with respect to distinguishing friends from enemies both inside and outside the country, decided to ensure that President Obama understands it is not oblivious to the human rights violations that occur in America.

A few days ago the Egyptian foreign ministry released a statement calling for the American authorities to practice self-restraint in dealing with the protestors in St. Louis in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown. Brown, a black youth, was killed on Aug. 9 in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson with six gunshots fired by a white police officer, despite the fact that Brown was unarmed. The statement said that the Egyptian government is “closely following the escalation of protests and demonstrations in the city of Ferguson and the reactions to them.”

But absent from the minds of those “closely following” is that although the Missouri police may be brutal, so far only one person has been killed, whereas the number killed by Egyptian police last year ran into the hundreds. To those hundreds can be added the hundreds sentenced to execution and the thousands in prison. It is a trivial detail that those “closely following” will not let ruin the fun of their jest.

Tit for tat, then: Saint Louis for Cairo, Ferguson for Rabia Square. We are all essentially equal; no one is better than another in the transient world of democracy. A new thing has developed in the official Arab regime’s arsenal of diplomatic tricks, a thing that demonstrates the radicalism of the national salvation strategy in the countries of aborted revolutions and forever-persisting past regimes: fleeing forward blindfolded to ensure that all facts are appreciated and to avoid exposure to any mishap.

The White House spokeswoman’s response contained much of the “self-restraint” that those “closely following” hold so dear. She began by mentioning, “When we have problems and issues in this country, we deal with them openly and honestly.” About the Egyptian foreign ministry’s statement, she was content simply to say, “People are free to say what they’d like. They are free to weigh in on issues. That’s the beauty of freedom of expression that we hold very dearly here in the United States. That freedom of expression hasn’t, quite frankly, been upheld with the same sort of respect in Egypt.”

But something that lacks credibility and seems like a joke when it comes from regimes with a history of dependence and begging for aid, like those found in Tunis of yesteryear and Cairo today, is more meaningful when it comes from a country distinguished by its independence (regardless of the nature of its regime). Hence, it was logical for the Iranian foreign ministry to say that the Missouri disturbances were a symptom of “the phenomenon of racism” in the Western world. Likewise, it was understandable for China’s official news agency to say that while the United States is playing the role of international defender of human rights, “it still has a long way to go to repair its domestic circumstances … Obviously, what the United States needs to do is to concentrate on solving its own problems rather than always pointing fingers at others.”

*Editor’s Note: This quote could be only partially verified. “The [Westerners] should start sweeping around their own front door” could not be verified as a statement by Putin.