Analysts keep trying to find similarities between the messy transition in Egypt and other countries that went through similar turmoils.
In the beginning we all hoped for the Turkey model but it later became clear this is not going to happen. Then Pakistan became the country where most analysts thought Egypt is destined to be (in Liberal Koshari we thought the similarities between the two countries were "disturbingly real"). In the past couple of months, a number of analysts are trying to look at the Indonesia experience to try make sense of the haphazardness and chaos in Egypt.
Lawrence Pintak in his Seattle Times' article takes another crack at the similarities and lessons to be learned from the ongoing Indonesia struggles towards real democracy away from the army influence. Excerpt below:
A decade-and-a-half after its revolution, Indonesia is still struggling to eradicate the kind of corruption that plagues Egypt. Real power is still held by the old oligarchs in new clothes. Islamist militancy remains a threat. And Muslim-Christian violence continues to flare. But the good news is that public outrage and sharp media coverage are pushing things in the right direction ... Corrupt officials are being jailed, Muslim political parties have been incorporated into the government without the imposition of sharia law, and intra-religious clashes, common after Suharto's overthrow, are now the exception rather than the rule.Image: Random Trash
