Abdelilah Bouasria

A majority of Americans say they favor cutting U.S. foreign aid. So they should, especially for Egypt. The former president, Hosni Mubarak, left behind a political structure molded in his image. In fact, the soft transfer of power from Mr. Mubarak to the armed forces revealed Egypt’s inability to break free from the repressive features of military rule. The result: post-Mubarak Egypt has morphed into a dictatorless tyranny.

Sadly, in Egypt’s case, a freely elected civilian government may prove powerless in the face of the deeply entrenched and well-organized military. Ending America’s ample generosity to Egypt’s military, however, could produce the domestic political shake-up that country desperately needs.…  Seguir leyendo »

On Feb. 13, just 48 hours after the abdication of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s 18-member Supreme Military Council abolished the constitution, dissolved parliament and vowed to hold presidential and parliamentary elections within the year. Though promising, a series of procedural changes is not a revolution. For that to happen, Egyptians must refuse to submit to an unrepresentative elite promising state-delivered economic growth – essentially, a repeat of the Mubarak era.

To plutocracy – rule by wealth – and kleptocracy – rule by theft – we humbly add “humiliocracy,” a concept coined by Moroccan scholar Mahdi Elmandjra to explain rule by humiliation. From the lowliest civil servant to the highest military general, humiliocracy is in effect when a culture internalizes the failures of economic inefficiency.…  Seguir leyendo »