The Scorpion & The Frog – Pt. 3,188

From a NYT piece titled ‘Generation Revolution’: Why Youth Was Not Enough in Egypt”:

What happened to Egypt’s revolution?

After January 2011, Tahrir Square became a byword for hope, defiance and the unpredictability of history. The Egyptian people’s unexpected revolt baffled political scientists and other experts. Equally puzzling was the alacrity with which so many of the same Egyptians welcomed a new strongman a few short years later.

Egypt’s volte-face forces important questions about what kind of change is possible in the Arab world, and more universally, about the indiscriminate and violent nature of both revolutionary and authoritarian politics. Why were so many Egyptians willing to risk everything in 2011, and why, just two years later in July 2013, were so many willing to make another devil’s bargain with a despot?

The answer to this riddle is contained in the fable about The Scorpion and the Frog.

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