A Quote by Ahmed Zewail
The so-called Arab Spring has proved that the fall of a Mubarak-like presidency does not mean the immediate rise of democracy. In spite of this, I am confident that Egypt will not return to an authoritarian governing system again, and that, with some time, it will achieve its democratic goals.
Related Quotes
The patriarchy is alive and well in Egypt and the wider Arab world. Just because we got rid of the father of the nation in Egypt or Tunisia, Mubarak or Ben Ali, and in a number of other countries, does not mean that the father of the family does not still hold sway.
The world has witnessed the rise and fall of monarchy, the rise and fall of dictatorship, the rise and fall of feudalism, the rise and fall of communism, and the rise of democracy; and now we are witnessing the fall of democracy... the theme of the evolution of life continues, sweeping away with it all that does not blossom into perfection.
If democracy succeeds in Egypt, other countries will follow. Should the democratic experiment in Egypt be hijacked by the military or anti-democratic Islamist groups, the revolution will fail elsewhere.
Democracy in Iraq will be an example that the Arab population will look to with great interest. And some Arab governments are concerned about democracy in Iraq, not because Iraq will be an aggressive state against them, but rather by the example that will be set by a successful federal democratic state in Iraq.
Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system.
Whatever they did for democracy, the U.S. interventions in the Middle East and the vaunted Arab Spring have proved to be pure hell for Arab Christians.
I would like to stress this point undoubtedly: France sees the Arab Spring as auspicious. The Arab Spring holds out tremendous hope - hope for democracy and the rule of law, hope for peace and stability, hope for better future in which every person can pursue goals commensurate with his or her needs, talents and ambitions.
The Tunisian revolution left every Arab dictator in fear; Egypt's toppling of Mubarak left them terrified - even one of the U.S.' best allies in the region could fall.
You don't get the fox to be in charge of the chicken coop. You don't give the outgoing regime - which has been practicing dictatorship, is an authoritarian system, it's a bunch of military people - the task of changing Egypt into a second republic, a new Egypt with democracy, freedom, rights, etc.
Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America—burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion.
If you have reservations about the system and want to change it, the democratic argument goes, do so within the system: put yourself forward as a candidate for political office, subject yourself to the scrutiny and the vote of fellow citizens. Democracy does not allow for politics outside the democratic system. In this sense, democracy is totalitarian.
I am confident that this legislature will rise above partisan bickering, especially after the public promises its members made last fall, and that it will demonstrate a high capacity for civil service.
The Arab Spring is a true phenomenon. Embrace Arab Spring; embrace the aspiration for freedom of the people of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen.
Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head[s]. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color and texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as Nature will in time turn our precisely laid-out cities into a weed-way.
And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.
If I stand alone, It does not mean, I am any less a Human, If my arms do not hold another, It does not mean, They are incapable of holding, If my tongue is silent, And never speaks the words of Love, It does not mean, That it will be mute, When the time comes, That the words can sincerely be spoken. And just because the World, Has not yet introduced, The one that will share my Life, It certainly does not mean, That I am incapable, Of Loving.
Related Authors
Austin O'Malley Quotes
American
Scientist
Carl Sagan Quotes
American
Scientist
Charles Darwin Quotes
English
Scientist
E. O. Wilson Quotes
American
Scientist
Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes
German
Scientist
Isaac Asimov Quotes
American
Scientist
Jane Goodall Quotes
English
Scientist
Margaret Mead Quotes
American
Scientist
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes
Lebanese
Scientist
Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes
American
Scientist
Richard Dawkins Quotes
English
Scientist
Stephen Jay Gould Quotes
American
Scientist
Steven Pinker Quotes
Canadian
Scientist
Sylvia Earle Quotes
American
Scientist
Thomas Huxley Quotes
English
Scientist
W. Edwards Deming Quotes
American
Scientist