Ad by Google

Recently in we’ve been studying about the protest in Egypt. At first, Ithought the protest might not last long. When I saw pictures on the amount ofpeople that join the protest I started to think that this protest mightactually work. I know that many people feel that the president of Egypt shouldstep down. After doing this study, I began to agree with what people think,that Mubrak allow the Egyptian government to be corrupted. For example, I heardthat 2 government officials, Al Ahram and Ibrahim Soliman have used theirposition to obtain bribe and illegal commissions.

One thing that I know for sure about Egyptian Protest is that it took placeall over Egypt at the large squares that allow a large amount of protestors togather up. Now I’ve studied my share of current event in Egypt, and I believethe Egyptians is hopeless unless something change. I’ve heard that the Egyptiangovernment passed out a law called the Emergency Law, it allow government toimprison individual without reason. I think it’s funny how the law is call“Emergency” Law, yet it has been in effect for around 30 years.

I did some research on Egyptian Protest .I came across this one article:“Egyptian Rise against Their Pharaoh” < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aladdin-elaasar/egyptians-rise-against-th_b_815520.html>. This article provided a lot of information and opinions on 2011 EgyptianProtest. Government corruption is one of the reason people protest, there areother reasons, such as what I found out from this article: “Five –star luxurycomplexes are being built for the super-rich and the well-to-do in the Egyptiansociety who can afford it; the five percenters!”  This statement reallysurprises me, because I didn’t expect the living condition of the Egyptians tobe so bad. I cannot believe that only 5 percent of the Egyptians live in goodcondition, while 95 percent live in harsh condition, 95 is such a bignumber.

In another source that I looked at, “Journalists attacked, detained inEgypt”< http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110203/D9L503U80.html>, there were few sentences that shocked me “when a CBS camera crewattempted to take pictures of violence between pro- and anti- governmentcrowds, they were marched back to their hotel at gunpoint, Logan said. The CBSjournalists were only allowed to leave without cameras, and were watchedwherever they went. Mubarak’s opponents were becoming afraid to talk tojournalist, she said.” Basically what the quote says is that the Egyptiangovernment threatens the journalists with guns so that they may not takepicture and show it to the outside world. The government sent people to watchthe journalists so the anti-government crowd would not have a chance to speakto the journalists about their thoughts. By performing such acts the governmenttakes away people’s right to speak out their voices, and prevent the outsideworld to see the condition in Egyptian. If the other countries does not knowwhat is going on in Egypt it is less likely that they will be about tohelp.  

Personally, I believe Egyptians have the right to rebel if they want to. I’mgoing to bring up the Social Contract Theory I’ve learn in Government class, toprove my point. Social Contract Theory state that humans are born with rights,those rights are call Natural Rights. People give up part of their rights tothe government in exchange for protection and order in society. In Egypt’scase, I see that the government has not been doing a good job, not only has itfail to provide the citizens’ needs, it also violated the remaining rights ofthe citizens. The Social Contract Theory stated if the government fails toprotect its people’s rights, then the people can rebel.  

I think the situation in this comic piece is similar tothe situation a lot of Egyptians have to gone through. The “No” signs on thewall are like the unreasonable laws passed out by the Egyptian government, theschool is the Egyptian government, and the main character is commonEgyptians.

 

East-West Schoolof International Studies, Flushing, NY, USA

View full post on Site BlogFeed