If it is any consolation to Egypt, we have our own religious extremists vying for political power in our system and yet we are the super-bestest nation ever. And while virtually everything that is wrong with our country can be explained by reference to the ridiculous amount of power our religious nutcases enjoy, our economic elite supplies plenty of problems all by themselves. Of course, they are only capable of working their mischief because they’ve teamed up with our religious nutcases to form the Republican Party.
Now, in Egypt, these same types of folks will try to play the Islam-card all the time to shame you into trading away your rights and your economic future for the pleasant feeling of being right by God. My advice is to divide and conquer. Your economic elite is presently terrified of religious extremists. Try to keep it that way. Instead of letting your industrialists buy off the Salafists, invite the Salafists to assist you in creating an awesome social safety net and providing assistance and education to the poor. The poor form a natural recruitment pool for Salafists anyway, so they’ll start out trying to appeal to them.
If you let your wealthy elites join with the Salafists, you’ll lose your religious freedom, your civil rights, and your economic future. That’s basically what’s been happening in our country, and it isn’t pleasant. We were happier before.
It should be easier to prevent this kind of evil union in a parliamentary system than it is in our two-party system, but Big Money usually finds a way, so keep vigilant.
