Is Egypt's military about to overthrow an elected president?
Hard to say anything certain about Egypt now. But the military has
thrust itself to the center of politics again as the democratic
transition falters.
By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / July 1, 2013
*
An Egyptian girl chants slogans at a demonstration against Egypt's
Islamist President Mohammed Morsi during a rally in Tahrir Square in
Cairo, Monday, July 1, 2013.
Manu Brabo/AP
The 48-hour ultimatum issued today by Egypt's unelected military
brass comes amid a wave of protests that appear to dwarf the popular
uprising that drove Egypt's military-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak from
power 27 months ago.
Dan Murphy
Staff writer
Dan Murphy is a staff writer for the Monitor's international desk,
focused on the Middle East. Murphy, who has reported from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Egypt, and more than a dozen other countries, writes and
edits Backchannels. The focus? War and international relations, leaning
toward things Middle East.
*
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While what happens next is anyone's guess, Egypt is undoubtedly in
its most dangerous moment since former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster
in 2011. The military is front and center in Egypt's politics once more; the
Muslim Brotherhood feels cornered and threatened by what it deems
to be counter-revolutionaries; and the crowds in Tahrir Square and
elsewhere are demanding something different – but what they want,
exactly, is far from clear.
Today Egypt's so-called democratic
transition is a failure, with the strongest evidence of that the
rapturous crowds chanting their love for the Army and the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). In January and February 2011, a
massive show of street power led SCAF to dump Mubarak overboard. Then
came a period of ham-handed military rule, with show trials of
activists, organized sexual assault on female protesters (what else to
call the so-called "virginity tests" forced on them within weeks of the
military takeover?) and the torture of democracy activists like Ramy Essam.
Eventually, the military appeared to back out of politics and
reasonably free elections were held, first for a parliament that was
packed with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies,
and then a squeaker of a presidential election that saw the
Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi narrowly defeat Ahmed Shafiq , a retired Air Force
general who served in Mubarak's cabinet for eight years and as
his last prime minister.
Since then, the parliament was dissolved
by court order, a new Constitution written mostly by the Muslim
Brotherhood was rushed through, and many of Egypt's democracy protesters who
backed Morsi as the candidate of change over a longtime Mubarak
servant have come to rue the choice. Inflation has jumped, government
receipts have fallen, and anger over Morsi's failings has swept away
Egyptians' anger about decades of authoritarian rule.
Now the
canny military is once again the darling of many at Tahrir, who seem to
welcome a soft military coup as the best option for the country. Steven
Cook, a keen observer of Egyptian politics, marvels at how the generals – with
the help of incompetent civilian politicians – have rehabilitated their image.
Of all the arresting images that emerged from yesterday’s mass protests in
Egypt, the ones that struck me most were those of military helicopters
dropping Egyptian flags down to the crowds below. The Egyptian
commanders have been pilloried for many things in the last two and a
half years, but for a group of people who eschew politics and maintain
thinly veiled contempt for politicians, they are shrewd political
operators. After the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, under Field
Marshal Hussein Tantawi, sullied the image of the senior officer
corps—if not the military itself—the Ministry of Defense is in the
strongest position it has been in since February 11, 2011.
>...The
possibility that June 30 would end in significant bloodshed in Egypt’s
streets—beyond the sixteen deaths and almost eight-hundred injuries—also played
into an unarticulated strategy on the part of both
counter-revolutionary forces embedded within the state and
anti-Brotherhood activists to encourage the officers to reset the
political system. Both groups believe that a military intervention would
fulfill their specific, but diametrically opposed interests. For those within
the state who have been working diligently to undermine the
Brotherhood in virtually every way, the goal is the restoration of the
old order. For Egypt’s myriad activists who have coalesced in a profound and at
times pathological hatred of Morsi, a “do-over” transition would surely improve
their electoral prospects. General Abdelfattah al Sisi
and his deputies are not so dim-witted as to fall into the trap the
political forces have set for them, however.
Cook
concludes his piece by writing "this morning General al Sisi is the most
powerful man in Egypt. To rule, but not govern…" The accuracy of his
comment is borne out by the statement Sissi issued today that brings up
the prospect of a coup. It is simultaneously with "the people" and vague enough
that it could justify almost any action – or inaction.
"The armed forces reiterates its call to meet the demands of the people, and it
gives everyone 48 hours as a last chance to carry the burden of the
ongoing historic circumstances that the country is going through," Sissi said
in his nationally broadcast address. "If the demands of the people are not met
within the given period of time (the military) will be
compelled by its national and historic responsibilities, and in respect
for the demands of Egypt’s great people, to announce a roadmap for the
future, and procedures that it will supervise involving the
participation of all the factions and groups.”
The "demands" of
"the people?" Most Egyptians demand more jobs, better living standards,
an end to police brutality, and a more dignified life in their homeland. But
they are from a consensus on how to meet those demands. Tens of
millions of Egyptians continue to support Morsi and the Muslim
Brotherhood, just as tens of millions of other Egyptians view them as
dangerous failures. Some of these are most worried about the
Brotherhood's desire to further Islamicize Egyptian society and public
life; others are uncomfortable with the neo-liberal economic policies
the Brothers favor; and still others merely want a do-over.
It's
become a tired cliche to describe Egyptian society as "polarized," but
some cliches are useful because they're the best way to describe the
reality. The effect of democratic elections, and the legal chicanery
that has followed them, has been a breakdown of social trust and further
division of society. Opposition forces, from groups that yearn for the
stability and heavy-handed governance of the Mubarak era to those who
want a real democracy – not just elections, but the trimmings of civil
society, separation of powers, and political compromise – have failed to build
workable opposition coalitions.
That has left Egypt with
two stark choices: The military, or Morsi. At the moment, the military
is clearly the more palatable choice for large swaths of the protesters, who
have been described as dangerous rabble by Morsi. He says they're
the ones standing between the will of the people and its realization,
not him. It's not hard to understand why he sees it that way.
The Muslim Brotherhood's offices in Cairo were overrun last night and set on
fire by protesters. Similar attacks were carried out in other cities. Did the
military, or the police, intervene to protect them? No.
Egypt's politics are sick, and getting sicker. And while the Morsi presidency's
singular achievement has been to divide Egypt's people in a shockingly
short period of time, the movement he hails from spent 80 years
struggling for power in Egypt. That power was delivered at the ballot
box, but now it is facing the threat of being removed from power within
two days, unless Morsi pulls the unlikeliest rabbit out of his hat in
the interim. What will the Muslim Brothehood rank and file do then?
The example of Algeria can't be ignored. In 1992, the Algerian military
cancelled elections that the country's Islamic Salvation Front was set
to win. That set the stage for a decade of civil war that claimed at
least 150,000 Algerian lives and convinced a generation of Islamists in
that country that peacefully participating in electoral politics was a
foolish choice.
Sissi surely knows this history. But as hundreds of thousands of protesters
continue to fill Egypt's streets demanding Morsi irhal ("go!") – just as they
did with Mubarak in early 2011 – he appears to have left himself few options.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2013/0701/Is-Egypt-s-military-about-to-overthrow-an-elected-president
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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