Last night George and I were watching footage of the Cairo protests. At one point, a man went running across an open space and was suddenly kneecapped by a bullyclub-wielding police. George laughed and said, “That guy’s pretending to be a bad guy. The good guy pretended to knock him down.” Obviously, George was interpreting the scene from the insufficient background of an American four year-old: everything seemed like pretend; the sides were good v. bad. How different, then, are all these talking heads who talk about the protests in terms of liberal democracy and the Muslim Brotherhood? How different is President Obama who talks about a “universal” human right of assembly and speech but only if it’s peaceful? How different, in other words, are these Americans interpreting the scenes in the Western terms? Insufficient? With all the complexity of good v. bad?
