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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/26/us-egypt-authoritarian-dictatorship-donald-trump>
"“What’s he done now?” My parents live in Cairo and I’m in New York City. We
FaceTime once a week and that question is like a game we play. My parents ask
about Donald Trump and I ask about Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, whom Trump calls “my
favourite dictator”. Aren’t we Egyptian-Americans lucky – a dictator for each
side of our hyphen.
Tellingly, the “he” my parents ask about has dominated our conversations
lately.
I moved to the United States from Egypt in 2000 and I have spent the past 25
years watching the US turn into Egypt – from encroaching state power to the
increasingly unchecked role of religion in politics.
After each travesty – the lies used to invade Iraq, the zealotry that destroyed
abortion rights, the arming and financing of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians
in Gaza – I thought: “Any minute now, there’ll be a revolution, they’ll burn
things down.”
And here is Trump, finessing that state power into a regime that, as with the
regime in Egypt, is targeting culture, education, media, judges, students and
any group or entity that poses a threat or even the potential of dissent to the
regime. And I’m still waiting for the revolution.
I now know, having lived in the US for more than two decades, that most white
people in this country would rather hear comparisons to Russia or Hungary than
Egypt or a place led by Black or brown autocrats, because even autocracies are
separated along racial lines."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
