The Egyptian Revolution and Gay Persecution
We're all talking about the Egypt demonstrations dominating cable news in America. And so are gay folks. "Egyptians will overthrow an autocratic government with US technology -- Facebook and Twitter -- and democracy will emerge", Americans say.
Well, that’s what we are all hoping for but there is one big problem with that scenario that will adversely affect US foreign policy, and the safety of all Arab and Muslim gay people.
You see, their is no democratic government in waiting in Egypt, no organized political party that firmly represents democratic values and individual freedom. The most organized political faction is the “Muslim Brotherhood”, a party and movement severely hostile to the US, Israel and, yes, gay people.
There is a strong likelihood that the Egyptian revolution will turn out to be like the 1979 Iranian Revolution that was encouraged by President Jimmy Carter, only to be hijacked by Islamic militant extremists who held hostage dozen of American diplomats and plunged Iran back into the 14th century. Carter lost Iran and far too many western-thinking educated Iranians, including women and gays who lost their lives and limbs in the past 30 years. Meanwhile Iran exports terrorism and homophobia in the Middle East.
Iran and Egypt are the two largest populations in the Middle East. In no way do we want both nations to come under repressive Islamic rule. Such an event would undermine all we have painfully achieved in Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and other developing Arab nations moving slowly toward full democracy. It would also gravely endanger all the gay people who have come out in Arab society, and subject all of them to possible torture and murder.
It remains to be seen how the Egyptian situation will unfold. Will Obama become the American President who lost Egypt, just as Carter lost Iran? Or will Egypt become a “democratic wave’ across the Middle East that will transform and liberate the region, just as Eastern Europe of the 1990’s was liberated from communism via the underground use of fax machines?
Ironically, if the Egyptian revolution becomes a wave across the Middle East, the American people say by large numbers that George W. Bush, not Mr. Obama, will get the lion’s share of credit.
Life is not always fair to gay people any way you look at it….