Dalia Mogahed: The attitudes that sparked Arab Spring

91,119 views ・ 2012-05-30

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Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast
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My talk today is about something
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maybe a couple of you have already heard about.
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It's called the Arab Spring.
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Anyone heard of it?
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(Applause)
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So in 2011, power shifted,
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from the few to the many,
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from oval offices to central squares,
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from carefully guarded airwaves
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to open-source networks.
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But before Tahrir was a global symbol of liberation,
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there were representative surveys
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already giving people a voice
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in quieter but still powerful ways.
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I study Muslim societies around the world at Gallup.
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Since 2001,
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we've interviewed hundreds of thousands of people --
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young and old, men and women,
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educated and illiterate.
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My talk today draws on this research
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to reveal why Arabs rose up
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and what they want now.
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Now this region's very diverse,
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and every country is unique.
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But those who revolted
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shared a common set of grievances
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and have similar demands today.
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I'm going to focus a lot of my talk on Egypt.
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It has nothing to do with the fact that I was born there, of course.
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But it's the largest Arab country
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and it's also one with a great deal of influence.
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But I'm going to end by widening the lens to the entire region
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to look at the mundane topics
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of Arab views of religion and politics
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and how this impacts women,
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revealing some surprises along the way.
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So after analyzing mounds of data,
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what we discovered was this:
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Unemployment and poverty alone
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did not lead to the Arab revolts of 2011.
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If an act of desperation by a Tunisian fruit vendor
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sparked these revolutions,
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it was the difference between what Arabs experienced
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and what they expected
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that provided the fuel.
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To tell you what I mean,
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consider this trend in Egypt.
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On paper the country was doing great.
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In fact, it attracted accolades
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from multinational organizations
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because of its economic growth.
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But under the surface was a very different reality.
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In 2010, right before the revolution,
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even though GDP per capita
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had been growing at five percent for several years,
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Egyptians had never felt worse about their lives.
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Now this is very unusual,
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because globally we find that, not surprisingly,
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people feel better as their country gets richer.
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And that's because they have better job opportunities
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and their state offers better social services.
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But it was exactly the opposite in Egypt.
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As the country got more well-off,
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unemployment actually rose
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and people's satisfaction
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with things like housing and education plummeted.
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But it wasn't just anger at economic injustice.
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It was also people's deep longing for freedom.
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Contrary to the clash of civilizations theory,
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Arabs didn't despise Western liberty,
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they desired it.
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As early as 2001,
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we asked Arabs, and Muslims in general around the world,
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what they admired most about the West.
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Among the most frequent responses
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was liberty and justice.
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In their own words to an open-ended question
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we heard, "Their political system is transparent
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and it's following democracy in its true sense."
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Another said it was "liberty and freedom
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and being open-minded with each other."
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Majorities as high as 90 percent and greater
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in Egypt, Indonesia and Iran
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told us in 2005
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that if they were to write a new constitution
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for a theoretical new country
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that they would guarantee freedom of speech
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as a fundamental right,
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especially in Egypt.
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Eighty-eight percent said moving toward greater democracy
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would help Muslims progress --
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the highest percentage of any country we surveyed.
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But pressed up against these democratic aspirations
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was a very different day-to-day experience,
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especially in Egypt.
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While aspiring to democracy the most,
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they were the least likely population in the world
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to say that they had actually voiced their opinion
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to a public official in the last month --
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at only four percent.
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So while economic development made a few people rich,
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it left many more worse off.
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As people felt less and less free,
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they also felt less and less provided for.
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So rather than viewing their former regimes
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as generous if overprotective fathers,
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they viewed them as essentially prison wardens.
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So now that Egyptians have ended Mubarak's 30-year rule,
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they potentially could be
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an example for the region.
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If Egypt is to succeed
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at building a society based on the rule of law,
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it could be a model.
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If, however,
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the core issues that propelled the revolution aren't addressed,
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the consequences could be catastrophic --
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not just for Egypt,
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but for the entire region.
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The signs don't look good, some have said.
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Islamists, not the young liberals that sparked the revolution,
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won the majority in Parliament.
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The military council
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has cracked down on civil society and protests
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and the country's economy continues to suffer.
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Evaluating Egypt on this basis alone, however,
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ignores the real revolution.
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Because Egyptians are more optimistic
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than they have been in years,
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far less divided on religious-secular lines
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than we would think
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and poised for the demands of democracy.
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Whether they support Islamists or liberals,
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Egyptians' priorities for this government are identical,
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and they are jobs, stability and education,
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not moral policing.
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But most of all,
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for the first time in decades,
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they expect to be active participants, not spectators,
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in the affairs of their country.
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I was meeting with a group of newly-elected parliamentarians
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from Egypt and Tunisia
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a couple of weeks ago.
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And what really struck me about them
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was that they weren't only optimistic,
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but they kind of struck me as nervous,
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for lack of a better word.
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One said to me,
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"Our people used to gather in cafes to watch football" --
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or soccer, as we say in America --
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"and now they gather to watch Parliament."
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(Laughter)
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"They're really watching us,
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and we can't help but worry
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that we're not going to live up to their expectations."
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And what really struck me
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is that less than 24 months ago,
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it was the people that were nervous
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about being watched by their government.
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And the reason that they're expecting a lot
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is because they have a new-found hope for the future.
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So right before the revolution
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we said that Egyptians had never felt worse about their lives,
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but not only that, they thought their future would be no better.
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What really changed after the ouster of Mubarak
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wasn't that life got easier.
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It actually got harder.
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But people's expectations for their future
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went up significantly.
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And this hope, this optimism,
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endured a year of turbulent transition.
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One reason that there's this optimism
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is because, contrary to what many people have said,
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most Egyptians think things really have changed in many ways.
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So while Egyptians were known
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for their single-digit turnout
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in elections before the revolution,
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the last election had around 70 percent voter turnout --
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men and women.
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Where scarcely a quarter believed in the honesty of elections in 2010 --
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I'm surprised it was a quarter --
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90 percent thought that this last election was honest.
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Now why this matters
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is because we discovered a link
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between people's faith in their democratic process
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and their faith that oppressed people
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can change their situation
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through peaceful means alone.
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(Applause)
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Now I know what some of you are thinking.
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The Egyptian people,
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and many other Arabs who've revolted and are in transition,
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have very high expectations of the government.
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They're just victims of a long-time autocracy,
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expecting a paternal state
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to solve all their problems.
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But this conclusion would ignore
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a tectonic shift taking place in Egypt
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far from the cameras in Tahrir Square.
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And that is Egyptians' elevated expectations
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are placed first on themselves.
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In the country once known for its passive resignation,
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where, as bad as things got,
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only four percent expressed their opinion to a public official,
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today 90 percent tell us
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that if there's a problem in their community,
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it's up to them to fix it.
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(Applause)
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And three-fourths
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believe they not only have the responsibility,
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but the power to make change.
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And this empowerment
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also applies to women,
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whose role in the revolts
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cannot be underestimated.
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They were doctors and dissidents,
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artists and organizers.
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A full third of those who braved tanks and tear gas
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to ask or to demand liberty and justice in Egypt
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were women.
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(Applause)
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Now people have raised some real concerns
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about what the rise of Islamist parties means for women.
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What we've found about the role of religion in law
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and the role of religion in society
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is that there's no female consensus.
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We found that women in one country
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look more like the men in that country
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than their female counterparts across the border.
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Now what this suggests
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is that how women view religion's role in society
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is shaped more by their own country's culture and context
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than one monolithic view
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that religion is simply bad for women.
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Where women agree, however,
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is on their own role,
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and that it must be central and active.
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And here is where we see the greatest gender difference within a country --
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on the issue of women's rights.
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Now how men feel about women's rights
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matters to the future of this region.
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Because we discovered a link
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between men's support for women's employment
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and how many women are actually employed
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in professional fields in that country.
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So the question becomes,
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What drives men's support for women's rights?
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What about men's views of religion and law?
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[Does] a man's opinion
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of the role of religion in politics
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shape their view of women's rights?
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The answer is no.
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We found absolutely no correlation,
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no impact whatsoever,
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between these two variables.
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What drives men's support for women's employment
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is men's employment,
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their level of education
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as well as a high score
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on their country's U.N. Human Development Index.
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What this means
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is that human development,
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not secularization,
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is what's key to women's empowerment
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in the transforming Middle East.
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And the transformation continues.
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From Wall Street to Mohammed Mahmoud Street,
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it has never been more important
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to understand the aspirations
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of ordinary people.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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