by Henry Precht
When General Amr Ibn al-As captured Egypt for Islam in 640, he sent this message to his commander:
I give you Egypt, its fields are ever green, its Nile is ever flowing and its people are the slaves of whoever would rule them.
That description held true for the [...]]]>
by Henry Precht
When General Amr Ibn al-As captured Egypt for Islam in 640, he sent this message to his commander:
I give you Egypt, its fields are ever green, its Nile is ever flowing and its people are the slaves of whoever would rule them.
That description held true for the centuries when Egypt was ruled by Arabs, Mamelukes, Turks, the French and British and even after Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser — the first native-born Egyptian ruler since Cleopatra — took over in 1952. Army rule became much like the control exercised by a superior foreign power.
That is, until two years ago when Egyptians defied their ruler Hosni Mubarak and, with anti-historic defiance, tossed him out. Now the army has reasserted itself, demanding with heavy loss of life that the slaves return to their customary place in the pharaonic hierarchy. Hosni Mubarak, their former protector, is to be released from his prison cell.
Over a thousand men and women were killed by the army in a few weeks. Will the slaves submit? On the answer to that question rests the future of the Middle East and the US role therein.
In the past when Egyptians have violently demonstrated their ire — as against the British pre-Nasser — the impulse has not lasted long. When I was a vice consul in Alexandria in the 1960s, a mob burned our library in Cairo after Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. When the US was accused of aiding Israel in the 1967 war, youth attacked our consulate. In both cases, Egyptians came back in a few days to check out a book or apply for a visa. A dozen years later, those who had seethed with anger at Israel and the US made peace and welcomed the visiting American president.
The same flaring and then fading of anger happened when Anwar Sadat raised the price of bread in the 1970s and when security police rioted over low pay under Mubarak. In both cases, the regime bought off the discontented. But no Egyptian regime has ever felt comfortably secure with its people. After Sadat was assassinated in 1981, army troops manned sandbagged position on Cairo street corners for weeks. Coincidently, the nation’s huge police force was an important way of alleviating the problem of youth unemployment.
Washington should see its declining fortunes and lack of influence — both in the disdainful eyes of the people in the streets and the men shooting them — as yet another Egyptian rising against foreign masters. The Russians in the 1970s, Americans now.
Still, 1000 dead — almost all of them unarmed youth, demanding justice, dignity and the democracy they had been promised. All their demands made in the name of religion. Will revenge for the martyrs outbid the army’s appeals to nationalism and the crowds’ fear of deadly reprisals? With many of their leaders locked up without charges and the media under tight regime control, it seems possible widespread revolt can be quieted and prevented. But outbursts of al Qaeda-style violence and sporadic displays of anger in demonstrations also seem quite probable in the months ahead if no army-Muslim Brotherhood deal is achieved. None is now in prospect.
A deal — implicit if not explicit — might be reached if the MB called off future mass demonstrations and if the army responded by downing their weapons. A few “reliable” MB prisoners might be released and they would quietly drop the call for Mohamed Morsi’s return to the presidency. Step by unadvertised step, ever so gradually, normality might, just might, return to Egypt.
This scenario depends on the outcome of a looming disaster: the predictable collapse of Egypt’s economy unless outside help arrives. Even — especially — the angry must eat. Who will feed them? Russia? China? Saudi Arabia? Bread riots, driven by a revolutionary and religious sense of wrong can again set the nation and perhaps the region aflame.
Or maybe the legacy of centuries of slavery will re-emerge to restore peace. If not, the ever-flowing Nile will be red with blood.
Photo: Graffiti sprayed by protesters on an army tank in Tahrir Square on Feb. 3, 2011: “Long live the revolution, and down with Mubarak.” Credit: Hossam el-Hamalawy
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
The comedy of errors that is US involvement in Egypt is reaching new heights. The Obama administration continues to be torn by conflicting preferences and concerns. This week its blunders reached new heights after it blessed the trip of Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Egypt. The [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The comedy of errors that is US involvement in Egypt is reaching new heights. The Obama administration continues to be torn by conflicting preferences and concerns. This week its blunders reached new heights after it blessed the trip of Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Egypt. The ensuing farce was inevitable.
The GOP Senators are somewhat less obstructionist than others in their party; they have not always opposed Barack Obama’s policies simply because they were his policies. While many of the current Republican crew are virtually absolute in opposing anything Obama does, McCain, in particular, has only done that most of the time. But they are certainly not Obama’s allies, and, while the administration made it clear that the duo were not their representatives in Egypt, it was almost certain they would only complicate matters. So, they did.
By hypocritically (even if accurately) labelling the military’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi a coup, McCain and Graham further aggravated the box of Obama’s indecision. If anyone believes the good Senators are sincere in their call for the interim government to engage with the Muslim Brotherhood, they need only recall McCain’s description of them in 2011: “I think they are a radical group that first of all supports Sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any transition government.” Does anyone seriously believe his views have changed so much in two years?
Moreover, while Graham and McCain made it clear they consider Morsi’s ouster a coup, they also support continuing aid to Egypt, which would be forbidden under US law if there was indeed a military coup.
But McCain and Graham are only one side of the coin. On the other is US Secretary of State John Kerry and his ill-advised statement that the military acted to “restore Egyptian democracy” when they ejected a duly elected president. In other words, we had the administration’s lead diplomat angering the Muslim Brotherhood with his statement, and GOP senators infuriating the military and its current government with their own. A nice double whammy.
As I pointed out last week, this sort of snafu is the result of indecisiveness on Obama’s part regarding how to respond to the events in Egypt. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) represents the old Egypt, the one the US had a very cozy relationship with, and their announced agenda in the wake of deposing Morsi was for a new transition to a civilian government. But despite that, SCAF still ousted a democratically elected president in a military coup. The Muslim Brotherhood was one of a number of so-called moderate Islamist governments coming to power in the region in recent years, and might have represented a worrying trend for the Western interests of a potential region-wide alliance of states including Tunisia, Turkey and possibly others as change continues in the Arab world. The Brotherhood shot themselves in the foot by trying to impose their will on Egypt and attempting to re-establish a nearly dictatorial presidency and failing to take significant action on the economy. It seems, from current polls, that the Brotherhood has a lot less support in Egypt than they once did. But they were ousted in a coup, and while their protests are not winning over hearts and minds, neither is the harsh crackdown by the government.
What the US is seeing now is the potential for the Brotherhood to rebound from this major setback by taking up their familiar position of a besieged minority. Indeed, one of the greatest obstacles to reconciliation in Egypt is the Brotherhood’s willingness to embrace that familiar role again, and the government’s apparent willingness to use excessive force, which will enable the Brotherhood to regain some of the sympathy it has lost, if not now, at least in the long-term.
The military and Brotherhood seem both to be pursuing their agendas while remaining completely deaf to the interests and legitimacy of the other side. Indeed, while the Brotherhood is casting the military as just the latest in a long line of military usurpers in Egypt, the SCAF is portraying its adversary’s actions as a part of a “war on terror”, with the Brotherhood in the role of al-Qaeda. That will resonate in the West, which has a tendency to view all Islamists with the same lens. But such abject demonization is likely to have lasting and divisive effects, not only in Egypt, but throughout an Arab world already seething with conflict.
The words of McCain and Graham have perhaps chilled some of the US’ cozy relationship with the SCAF, but the SCAF leadership is well aware of the fact that the Senators do not speak for the Obama administration. In the end, their work will make Obama’s job a bit harder, mostly because they made the entire United States look foolish and poorly organized.
Kerry’s words, however, will prove to be a much greater impediment to US diplomacy in Egypt. By legitimizing the coup, Kerry may well have eliminated any chance for US mediation toward the goal of a truly inclusive government — the only alternative to anti-democratic rule by iron-fist or more spiralling chaos in Egypt. With the Brotherhood’s supporters continuing their protests, while apparently engendering only minority support among the Egyptian populace for such actions, and the military government continuing — and perhaps soon escalating — its crackdown on the Islamist forces it has recently characterized as terrorist elements, true mediation is needed now more than ever. But the waters are now so poisoned that the US and EU may be unable to help even with pure motives.
Considered together, the words of Kerry, Graham and McCain reflect the confusion of US policy in Egypt. It is an absence of policy, caused by a conflict between a desire to see the Middle East move toward moderate Islamist politics on the one hand and the understanding that a return to dictatorship, and the accompanying crackdowns on Islamists, is not going to bring the stability that, above all else, the West most desires. Those conflicting impulses have paralyzed US policymaking and brought about the comedy of errors we are now witnessing.
Ironically, the Brotherhood and related parties throughout the region were already marginalizing themselves and screwing up their chances at power. All the US and the Egyptian military had to do was let them hoist themselves on their own petard. Even now, freeing Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and allowing the people to vote again can well be expected to produce a very different result than it did in 2011. The deafness of all sides to the other — and the refusal to allow political processes to take their own course — has narrowed the options on all sides, leaving few good ones for anyone, especially the United States.
]]>by Daniel Luban
Charles Krauthammer, July 1, denouncing the Obama administration for refusing to speak out against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi:
“Obama the bystander again. Here are the Egyptians in the millions, out on the street, trying to bring down an Islamist government — increasingly dictatorial, increasingly intolerant, arresting journalists and [...]]]>
by Daniel Luban
Charles Krauthammer, July 1, denouncing the Obama administration for refusing to speak out against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi:
“Obama the bystander again. Here are the Egyptians in the millions, out on the street, trying to bring down an Islamist government — increasingly dictatorial, increasingly intolerant, arresting journalists and judgues, trying to Islamicize the military — and the people are saying, ‘No,’ and what does the president of the United States do? He takes a position of studied neutrality; he says he’s not supporting either side.”
Krauthammer compared the Egyptian situation to that of Iran during the abortive Green Revolution of 2009, during which “the same thing happened . . . they were shouting ‘Obama, Obama, are you with us or against us? And he took a position that was essentially support of the regime . . . . That was a shameful episode.”
We might note that Krauthammer’s remarks came immediately after the Egyptian military had given Morsi a 48-hour deadline to resolve the situation — a time when any public support of the protesters by Obama would clearly (and fairly) have been interpreted as support for a potential coup.
Fast forward one week, one coup and one massacre later.
Charles Krauthammer, July 8, praising the Obama administration for refusing to take a stance on events in Egypt:
“I don’t think I’ve ever said this, but I think Carney actually got it exactly right today,” Charles Krauthammer remarked on Special Report Monday evening when asked about the Obama administration’s decision to postpone an official response to the ousting of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian army last week.
Krauthammer explained that the U.S. is “not in a position to decide” which side to take in the upheaval and agreed that the White House should “wait and see” how the situation develops.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Rashad
]]>via IPS News
The governing programme of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood has been disappointing. His commitment to genuine democracy has been faltering, and his efforts at inclusion and political tolerance have been wanting.
Morsi’s actions against the Egyptian comedian Basim Yousif belie his initial statements supporting [...]]]>
Morsi’s actions against the Egyptian comedian Basim Yousif belie his initial statements supporting tolerance, inclusion, and freedom of expression. Humor is the backbone of a mature democracy; muzzling the voices of dissent is an omen of a budding dictatorship.
These actions unfortunately confirm the suspicions of many Arab secularists, liberals, and non-Muslim Brotherhood citizens that once the MB reaches power through elections, they would scuttle democracy and replace it with their version of theocratic rule or divine hukm.
Morsi’s intolerance of secularists, women, Christians, and even liberal judges is generating fears in Egypt and elsewhere that the country has replaced the secular Mubarak dictatorship with a theocratic autocracy. Morsi’s rule does not allow a diversity of views, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s interpretation of the role of religion in the state has emerged as the guiding principle for governing Egypt.
This disturbing phenomenon does not bode well for political Islam, especially as Islamic political parties become majorities in Arab and Muslim governments.
My former government colleagues and I have argued for years that as part of government, Islamic political parties would focus on “bread and butter” issues and relegate their religious ideology to the backburner. We believed their policy concerns would trump their ideology.
As minority government partners in Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen, Malaysia, and Indonesia, Islamic parties focused on legislation that responded to the needs of their constituents, bargained with other parties to pass needed legislation regulating commerce, transportation, power, energy, food prices, and other issues of concern to their citizens.
They generally were not elected or re-elected because of their Islamic credentials and did not use their Islamic ideology to govern. They promoted moderate platforms during their election campaign and generally have governed as responsible factions in their respective parliaments.
As we briefed senior policymakers, we highlighted the difference between mainstream political parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots in Jordan, Palestine, Morocco, and elsewhere, and extremist Islamic groups, which did not believe in man-made democracy and inclusive government.
At the time, all of those parties were in the minority. We also judged that when some of those parties become a majority, they would uphold the same democratic, inclusive tendencies.
The Turkish Justice and Development Party or AKP, which became the first Sunni majority governing party in the region, emerged as the poster child of our briefings. It governed democratically, defended Turkish secularism, and encouraged inclusion in the economic and political life of Turkey. Despite its Islamic roots, AKP supported the democratic notion of separating religion from politics.
Many had hoped the Muslim Brotherhood would bring a similar governing model to Egypt. In fact, that was the promise that President Morsi made upon his election as president. He consolidated his power the first one hundred days, but since then he’s begun to consolidate his control in undemocratic ways based on a constitution that he helped push through hastily and without much public discussion.
How can Morsi recapture democracy and move Egypt in the right direction?
First, rescind the sham constitution and replace it with a constitution that reflects the diverse political ideologies in Egyptian society.
Second, include secularists, women, Christians, and non-MB leaders in high positions in government and promote a national programme of tolerance toward these groups and punish those who engage in sectarian and gender hate crimes.
Third, hold open, free elections for the next parliament, with much simpler and straightforward voting procedures and without stacking the decks in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Fourth, create a major fund to support young men and women in start-up initiatives in technology and entrepreneurship to develop businesses and create jobs. The young generation must have tangible incentives to have a stake in society in order to help build a prosperous future.
Fifth, convene a series of high-level meetings of leaders – men and women – from across Egyptian society from the business, banking, and tourism community, the professions, civil society, academia, and the high tech industry, with different political, social, and religious ideologies to discuss the immediate future of Egypt and develop specific strategies of how to get there.
The Muslim Brotherhood has no monopoly on the future vision of Egypt. If Morsi is to be the president of all of Egypt, he must take concrete steps to alleviate his citizens’ concerns about his leadership, create jobs for the youth, and partner with leaders of different ideological stripes to build a more democratic Egypt.
Egypt is endowed with a rich culture and a diverse social fabric and could not possibly prosper under a theocracy. Putting the country on the right path will be Morsi’s greatest legacy.
Photo: Protesters battle police in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the second anniversary of Egypt’s January 25 revolution. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.
]]>