When you live in a western democracy, it’s a little difficult to understand the mentality of other regime types, especially if they exist in faraway countries. Until suddenly, a million people walk out to the streets to demand their rights.
When you live in a big neighborhood, and you’ve heard nothing bad about the residents of some house on another street, you assume everything there is fine. Why shouldn’t you? Still, there is a possibility that many problems exist in that house, but ones that the quiet residents have gotten used to, and nobody on the outside knows about.
It’s similar when you live in a western democracy: it’s a little difficult to understand the mentality of other regime types, especially if they exist in faraway countries, that the media doesn’t really bother with too much. Until suddenly, one morning a million people walk out to the streets to demand their rights, like they’re doing in Egypt today, and everyone seems surprised because they had no idea there was a problem.
To read Lilac Sigan's article in full, please go to her blog The Other Side of the Equation.