FYI
Will Egypt repeat Algeria's 'black decade'?
Comparisons between Egypt's present crisis and the upheaval in 1990s Algeria
gain credibility.
Massoud Hayoun Last Modified: 18 Aug 2013 12:03
Egypt has cracked down on protesters supporting ousted President Morsi, leaving
hundreds dead [Reuters]
Summer Nazif, an Egyptian-Algerian engineering student at Cairo University,
thought the international media's countless comparisons between Egypt's present
crisis and Algeria in the 1990s were "absurd" acts of punditry, but that was
before Egyptian security forces violently cracked down on supporters of deposed
President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday, leaving more than 600 people dead.
"When [Morsi supporters] exchanged fire with the police, that's when I started
comparing the two," Nazif, 19, told Al Jazeera.
Nazif's mother moved to Cairo from Algeria in the 1990s, escaping what
Algerians now refer to as "the black decade". Those 10 years were immediately
preceded by Algeria's 1991 elections, in which the North African nation's
Islamist party, the Front of Islamic Salvation (FIS), won the first round. As
in Egypt, the elections were held after a series of mass demonstrations.
After learning the results of that first round, Algerian military leaders
cancelled the elections altogether, prompting an armed, right-wing faction of
FIS to embark on a decade-long civil war with national security forces that
killed an estimated 60,000 people and stymied economic development in a country
rich with oil reserves.
Nazif, who returned to Cairo last week after her yearly summer vacation in
Algeria, described conversations she had about the situation in Egypt while she
was away.
"A lot of people in Algeria are talking about Egypt - in the street, at family
gatherings," she said. "They are afraid that the things that happened there are
happening again." She said the few "educated people" she knows in Egypt who
understand what happened in Algeria in the 1990s are also talking about the
infamous "black decade" and its portents.
Electoral 'legitimacy'
Nazif noted that unlike in Algeria, where the FIS never had a chance to make an
impression on voters, Egyptians like her were largely disenchanted with the
Brotherhood's roughly one year in power.
"The biggest thing they added was Islam," she said, noting that social and
economic discontent persisted throughout the Morsi presidency. "They claimed
they had a project. They didn't."
Analyst: We are likely to witness more escalation in Egypt
But the similarities between the Algerian conflict and Egypt's crisis are
strong: The sectarian divide between Egypt's Islamists and its military, both
of which are vying for political power, mirrors the strife that brought on
Algeria's "black decade," said Karim Emile Bitar, director of Paris-based
international relations think-tank, the Institut de Relations Internationales
et Strategiques (IRIS).
In both Algeria and Egypt, "we have similarities in terms of political heritage
- a nationalist, authoritarian military-industrial complex leading the
countries for the past 50-odd years" and Islamist groups whose political
activity has been crushed by the military, said Bitar.
And in both cases, he added, nullifying elections inflamed long-running
tensions between the military and believers in political Islam, leading to
bloodshed. In Egypt's case, it is unclear how long the current imbroglio will
persist. Nazif and Bitar say Egyptians should have maintained the legitimacy of
the polls to prevent the kind of violence that broke out on Wednesday.
"The idea [behind the Egypt-Algeria comparisons] is to heed the lessons of
history," Bitar said. "The best way to defeat Islamists is not to halt the
electoral process. Authoritarian [military] rule only offers temporary relief
to liberals and democrats. It does not answer the questions of Islamic
radicalism."
The day before Morsi was deposed by Egypt's military, he made a public address
in which he used the word "legitimacy", alluding to his and the Muslim
Brotherhood's electoral mandate, roughly 200 times.
His opponents mocked the speech, but it seems that many now believe abiding by
the polls could have prevented the chaos that unfolded and that Egyptian Health
Ministry officials said killed more than 600 Morsi supporters and security
personnel during Wednesday's clashes.
"Personally, my family supports the Brotherhood," Nazif said. "Not because they
support Islamist rule. They support electoral legitimacy. We believe we could
have elected someone else later."
Mohamed Soudan of Morsi's Brotherhood-backed Freedom and Justice Party told Al
Jazeera that not abiding by the outcome of Morsi's election in 2012 and waiting
for an opportunity to elect another president at the polls, was a major blow to
"law in Egypt".
'Aura'-building
As with Algeria's FIS, Egypt's Brotherhood will use the military's deadly
crackdown to build its "aura" of legitimacy, Bitar said. "Had the process not
been interrupted, had Egyptians demanded early elections, that would have been
a long-term defeat for political Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood will use this
claim to legitimacy for a long time," he said.
"Morsi is no Salvador Allende," Bitar added, referring to the first
democratically elected Chilean president, overthrown in a military coup in
1973. "But this will allow the Brotherhood to create a new aura."
In Algeria, "the fact that the [electoral] process was interrupted led to the
radicalisation of some [FIS] fringes that became the Groupe Islamique Arme," an
armed group that would later team up with al-Qaeda and continue armed attacks
into the present day.
As for Egypt, Bitar said, "I would not be surprised if radical fringes [of the
Brotherhood] decide to go toward violence" now that they have no apparent
political channels to challenge the military at their disposal.
The Brotherhood's spokesman in Britain, Hany Eldeeb, said that although the
Brotherhood has renounced violence, "Now [the military] is telling [Brotherhood
members] there is no hope for them to be in power. Definitely you are provoking
violence."
Tunisia's 'Egypt scenario'
Nazif said Egyptians "want to skip through" any potential "black decade". And
other political entities are also using the Algeria-Egypt comparison as a
cautionary tale.
Since Morsi's ouster in Egypt, Tunisia's Ennahda, another Islamist party that
came to power in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab revolutions, has warned
repeatedly against an Egypt-style coup.
Opposition parties withdrew from the National Constituent Assembly in Tunisia's
interim government after the July 25 murder of opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi
- the second such killing this year. His murder drove tens of thousands of
people, upset with the administration's management of social and economic
issues, into the streets.
World leaders react to bloody events in Egypt
Ennahda Vice President Walid Bennani told Al Jazeera its "opposition also still
wants to repeat the Egyptian scenario", but said that a coup was not in the
works.
Although Tunisia does not have a politically significant military as in Algeria
and Egypt, Bitar said "polarisation" between those who believe in political
Islam and secularists is "also extremely intense there".
"Some would like to replicate what happened in Egypt," he said, echoing Bennani.
One of the groups that orchestrated Tunisia's protests against the current
government is called the Tamarod ("Rebel") movement, just like the movement
that orchestrated the protests that ultimately resulted in Morsi's ouster.
"I think it would be a terrible mistake, although Ennahda and [party founder]
Rached Ghannouchi also commit lots of mistakes," Bitar said.
Tunisian activist Mouna Ben Halima told Al Jazeera her compatriots were
protesting Ennahda's "incompetence" with handling social and economic issues.
Under the Ennahda-led government, Ben Halima noted, Tunisian authorities had
jailed Amina Sboui, an activist with women's rights group Femen, and rapper
Weld el 15, essentially for dissidence and disrespecting the new
administration's moral sensibilities.
"Social and economic debates are perhaps more important than identity debates"
between secularists and political religionists, Bitar added.
Follow Massoud Hayoun on Twitter: @mhayoun
Source:
Al Jazeera
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