He says it in a column he begins like this: “Sadly, the transitional government in Egypt today appears determined to shoot itself in both feet.” The column came under the title: “Egypt's Step Backward” and was published in the New York Times on February 21, 2012. Friedman pours his heart out as well as his tears about an Egyptian Revolution that is apparently not living up to his ideals. You look again at his opening sentence to see what it is that is saddening him, and your eyes are caught by a little something that has to do with shooting oneself in both feet. For a moment you wonder if he meant it as a political metaphor to say that Egypt chose a course that treats the left and the right equally. But you also entertain the possibility that the expression may just be another one of those exaggerations he is famous for. It could well be that since the actual expression goes: “shooting oneself in the foot,” he decided to generate twice the impact by involving both feet. Whatever.
He goes on to gripe about this: “On Sunday, [Egypt] will put on trial 43 people … for allegedly bringing unregistered funds into Egypt to promote democracy without a license.” What's wrong with that? you ask. The correct procedure -- as it is followed everywhere in the world -- is to allege a wrongdoing then take the matter to trial; and this is what the Egyptians did. Oh no, there is nothing wrong with that, says Friedman, and he even goes on to explain: “Egypt has every right to control international organizations operating within its borders.” Well, is there a but? you ask. Oh yes there is a but, and it is a big “but” at that because it is followed by “the truth”. Here is that passage in full: “But the truth is that when these democracy groups filed their registration papers years ago under the autocracy of Hosni Mubarak, they were informed that the papers were in order and that approval was pending.” The approval was pending but not given, you see. So the groups acted as if the approval was given. What can be more law abiding than that? Friedman sees nothing wrong with it. The New York Times sees nothing wrong with it. Only the Egyptian government sees something wrong with it. This is two against one and the two win. See? It is democracy at work. Get it? Two win against one.
You stop for a moment to scratch your head and figure out if he is trying to say something more profound than this but nothing clicks. So you resume reading the article: “The fact that now – after Mubarak has been deposed by a revolution – these groups are being threatened with jail terms for promoting democracy without a license is a very disturbing sign.” Oh, look at the poor thing, he says he is disturbed. Well, I know a few people who do not need his confession to be convinced of same -- but that's another subject altogether. Anyway, you hope that Friedman will tell what it is that is bothering him thus get it off his chest and feel better. And this is what he does, in fact: “It tells you how incomplete the 'revolution' in Egypt has been and how vigorously the counter-revolutionary forces are fighting back.” Wow, you begin to sense that he is promising something big. You sense that you're in for a delicious treat, a presentation deserving of such admiration, it could go under the title: The Friedman Critique of Egypt's Version of the Federalist Papers.
Aren't you excited, my friend? Think about it, this is the guy who associated himself with every new invention that has appeared on the scene during the last two decades or so. From the personal computer to the latest gadget in the social media, he tried to own the trend by painting himself as being the foremost authority on the subject. To this end, he interviewed all the people he thought were worth interviewing, and he reported on their views by blending them with his own. In so doing, he made himself look like a veritable guru on the subject, something he may or may not be. If he is, imagine how impressive he will sound comparing our times with those of America's founding fathers. Imagine also how the meaning of freedom and democracy will be defined in the context of the new age of social media. Aren't you excited? I'm getting goosebumps already.
So here we go with the anticipated presentation. He begins it like this: “This sordid business makes one weep and wonder how Egypt will ever turn the corner.” Okay, Tom, we know all about your tears (crocodile or not) but get on with the presentation. We don't expect to see a scholarly critique of the first order but we need to see something meaty. Where is the meat, Tom? Alas, instead of real meant, he gives us this substitute: “Egypt is running out of foreign reserves, its currency is falling, inflation is rising and unemployment is rampant.” What? you scream. This is how he critiques events associated with the quest for freedom and democracy as they unfold in the age of social media? We need to weep alright; we need to weep at the sordid business that brought American journalism down to the level of the gutter. And we do not need to wonder how it all happened because we realize we are looking at one of the foremost culprits.
Still, he goes on to say this: “Yet the priority of a few retrograde Mubarak holdovers is to put on trial staffers from the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which are allied with the two main U.S. political parties...” He goes on to ask: “What is this really about?” And he answers his own question by attacking the minister of international cooperation, Fayza Abul Naga, Egypt's iron lady whom he calls an old Mubarak crony. He says she personifies a tendency that helps to explain why Egypt has fallen far behind its peers: South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brazil, India and China.
Being the forgiving person that you are, you say okay to yourself; maybe he has chosen to talk about economics instead of sharing his opinions pertaining to the subject of democracy in the age of social media. If this is his wish, you say goodbye to Egypt's “Federalist Papers” but you still expect him to deliver something that would be deserving of such level of admiration, it could go under a title that may sound like this: “The Wealth of Emerging Nations Operating in the Shadow of a Developed World.” Thus, you read the column in its entirety several times over while looking for something that may resemble economics but all you find is this: “Egypt today has only two predators: poverty and illiteracy … 33 percent of men and 56 percent of women in Egypt still can't read or write.”
At this point you stop asking anymore questions because you know he has no good answer to any of them. Instead, you take it upon yourself to educate the guy. You do so because there is joy in educating people and because you want to make the world a better place. You look around and see the many ignoramuses who hold prestigious positions from which they exert an enormous influence on a population that believes they know something -- and you want to change that. To this end, the first thing you tell the guy is to go back 10 or 15 years, and look at the statistics of say, South Korea since it is a nation he cited as being one of Egypt's peers. He will find in some publications that the literacy rate was listed as being 95%. A page or two later in the same publication, he will find that the number of people who never attended school was listed as being at the 40% level. This means that one third of the population became literate without ever going to school. How can that be?
An exhaustive research on the subject will show that when the rapid industrialization of South Korea began, nearly half the population had never attended school. Because the country needed a large number of people to do manual work such as material handling and assembly, the factories started their own classes to teach the new hires the few basic symbols that would allow them to follow simple instructions. The moment that these people were able to get through the day without making too many mistakes, they were called literate, and their numbers went into the statistical tables as such. By contrast, the Arab countries – Egypt among them – do not consider someone to be literate unless they hold a primary school certificate that shows they had at least six years of formal education. Thus, the first lesson that Friedman and the editors at the New York Times need to learn is that different cultures compile statistics differently. If you are going to compare things, you start by establishing what it is that you are comparing, or you will look like idiots.
The way things stand today in Egypt is that the truancy rate among young boys and girls is less than 2% which means that the country is on its way to having a literacy rate that is close to 100%. In the meantime, there are about 7 million “mature” people in the country who do not hold a certificate that says they had at least six years of formal education. When you add this number to the kids who are under the age of 13 and have not yet earned that certificate, you register an illiteracy rate of something like 20 or 25% which you see in some publications but is meaningless as well as misleading. As to the percentages quoted by Friedman, they are to be found nowhere except his imagination. In any case, the government of Egypt has instituted programs to eliminate illiteracy by tutoring the older folks who never had the chance to go to school. But from the looks of it, the program will not do well because most of the people who are eligible to enroll in it, do not need to be literate to survive. They are mostly retired people or they are stay-at-home mothers busy raising kids or looking after grand kids. I say, let them be, and let them rest in peace when nature will have run its course.
I live on a continent that claims to have a near 100% literacy rate but I know from experience -- being a retired teacher -- that a quarter of the population or more is so functionally illiterate, it would be classified as totally illiterate by Arab standards. A question that was often asked half a century ago, even splashed on the front page of magazines was this: “Why Johnny can't read?” Unfortunately, no one has come up with a good answer, and no formula was found to remedy the situation. It looks now like Johnny has grown into adulthood while remaining as illiterate as ever. But he found his way to the boardrooms of the nation, to the helm of sport teams and to a few other prestigious positions. What is going on?
Well, even though the question referred to the reading skills of Johnny, it meant to encompass the three Rs which cover the skills that deal with reading, writing and arithmetic. There is much that can be said about this vast subject but it will have to remain one for another time and another place. What is relevant now is to lay on this background the fact that we started to read the New York Times piece with great expectations only to be disappointed by the time we had fully exposed ourselves to its content. And this forces us to ask the question: Who is the author and what does he want?
To find the answer to these questions, we go back and read the old columns and the books that were written by Tom Friedman. He talked about technology, culture, economics, geopolitics and what have you. He teemed up with some people and he quoted other people. Some of these were in foreign countries but most were in America. Of this last group, you will have to check for yourself and see that 99% were Jewish. It is as if America was populated only by Jews. Thus, he wrote about the ways that America should remake itself to meet the challenges of tomorrow, yet all he did was to tell how America must conduct itself to be of use to Israel and only Israel. Journalism today is not about reflecting reality; it is about advocating new realities. You do not need arithmetic for this, and you do not need to understand what you read. You only need to acquire the skill to echo-repeat what you will be programmed to propagate. This alone can make you succeed in America.
And so it is with everyone in this sordid place they call Jewish America. It includes the US Congress whose only purpose is to serve Israel whether it is dealing with internal or external matters. And this is what the iron lady of Egypt saw when she looked at the activities of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, both of which are allied to the American political parties now running America as if it were a Jewish banana plantation in the service of Israel and the Jews worldwide.
Not only that but the setup is now geared to turn the whole world into one giant banana kingdom, and bring it under the reign of a modern King David as a Pax Americana that would be more like a Pax Judaica. Not us, said Fayza Abul Naga, not us. This may sadden Thomas Friedman and the editors of the New York Times but if -- in response -- Ms. Naga is too polite to do it, I'll do it myself: You have my middle finger, you Tom, you Times. Go to hell and stay there.