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rfmcdonaldI read the Economist’s special report on Egypt when it came out last July, and that weekly newsmagazine’s conspicuously anonymous authors actually seem to have done a reasonably good job predicting a strong possibility of significant political change, soon, in that country.
And, finally:
When I’ve blogged about attempts to create plausible future histories, here at A Bit More Detail and also over at History and Futility, I’d like to think that one thing I’ve consistently emphasized is the need for care, for careful and for short-term predictions based in fairly broad and detailed understanding of the reality at hand. Is the Economist’s prediction a good example of this sort of thing, being made on the basis of detailed information and in a short time span (the author predicted that the September elections would go through, after all)? Can we learn from these methods?
Anyhow. Discuss.
Political talk in Egypt has always been acidly cynical, but now a new bitterness has crept in. This has not been prompted by any change from above, since little has really changed in Egyptian politics since President Hosni Mubarak came to office 29 years ago. The sour mood is informed instead by the contrast between rising aspirations and enduring hardships; by a growing sense of alienation from the state; and by the unease of anticipation as the end of an era inevitably looms ever closer.
[. . .T]he expectation of a seismic shift is almost tangible in the air, and not just because of Mr Mubarak’s health. Egyptians may be renowned for being politically passive, but the rising generation is very different from previous ones. It is better educated, highly urbanised, far more exposed to the outside world and much less patient. Increasingly, the whole structure of Egypt’s state, with its cumbersome constitution designed to disguise one-man rule, its creaky centralised administration, its venal, brutal and unaccountable security forces and its failure to deliver such social goods as decent schools, health care or civic rights, looks out of kilter with what its people want.
For some time Egyptian commentators have been noting resemblances between now and the years before Egypt’s previous seismic shift. That happened in 1952, when a group of army officers rolled their tanks up to King Farouk’s palaces and tossed him out. The coup was wildly popular at the time. It had followed a period of drift and growing tension, marked by strikes, assassinations, riots and intrigues between Communists, Muslim Brothers and the king. Egypt was thriving economically, but the spoils flowed mostly to a cosmopolitan elite that was out of tune with the street. It had a functioning democracy, but ever-squabbling politicians seemed unable to get things done. To general chagrin they could not shake off the lingering influence of Britain, whose soldiers refused to budge from the Suez Canal where they had been encamped since 1882.
And, finally:
The government’s plan to perpetuate itself in office, via the traditional electoral rigmarole, is likely to go ahead. Predictions of change in Egypt have almost always proved wrong; generally it bumbles along much as usual. This time may just be different. The country now faces three main possibilities. It could go the way of Russia and be ruled by a new strongman from within the system. It might, just possibly, go the way of Iran, and see that system swept away in anger. Or it could go the way of Turkey, and evolve into something less brittle and happier for all concerned.
When I’ve blogged about attempts to create plausible future histories, here at A Bit More Detail and also over at History and Futility, I’d like to think that one thing I’ve consistently emphasized is the need for care, for careful and for short-term predictions based in fairly broad and detailed understanding of the reality at hand. Is the Economist’s prediction a good example of this sort of thing, being made on the basis of detailed information and in a short time span (the author predicted that the September elections would go through, after all)? Can we learn from these methods?
Anyhow. Discuss.
