In Egypt, The Kids Are Not All Right

Protests for representative government and human rights in Egypt have given way to thuggery and lawlessness, suggests David Ignatius in an opinion essay for the Washington Post. He compares “soccer thugs” roaming Egypt’s streets, defying authority, to the aggressive youth gangs in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. “They seem to disrespect their fathers’ generation for having sacrificed their dignity by submitting to President Hosni Mubarak’s soulless, repressive regime,” Ignatius writes. In painting Egypt’s protesters with a broad brush, he notes that the authoritarian Mubarak regime had encouraged some angry rampaging by youths on limited topics. Egypt is not alone, as similar nationalistic, racist mobs roam the streets of other nations. Of course, themes of A Clockwork Orange also suggest that youth and abuse of freedoms are not solely responsible – bearing a greater share of blame is abusive state power systems seeking mass compliance for a meaningless social existence. – YaleGlobal