“If you want to know the character of a man…

…give him power.” That is how the Speaker of Parliament in Britain introduced

President Obama as he rose to give his historic speech to the Parliament. Historic in that he reminded us that “We’ve (the US & UK) created the world that is emerging and we remain the catalyst for global action…The nature of our leadership must change.” He reviewed the architecture of democracy.

It is this last point that may go the most wanting in Egypt and some other parts of the Middle East.  It was a young man working in a hotel who helped us to understand misinformation regarding the nature of democracy.  He said that “we need a strong man with a good heart.” When I added: “and, an understanding of democracy.” He paused, grimaced and said, “what if a group of bad people want something—then we have to give it to them?” Democracy understood as the raw rule of the people, or the street–rather than rule of law, civil rights, governance, representation. Granted this concept of democracy has not been well known.

A professor friend from Ain Shams University told us that he was very nervous whenever he would drive past a police station. “They could just arrest me, torture me, keep me and I would have no recourse.” Fortunately, the top two candidates for president in Egypt understand these principles well.

Linda

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 9:28 am and is filed under Leadership, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.