|
Where Egypt Might Go
The former Egyptian president Mubarak has been released from prison and put under house arrest. One wonders if he will run in the next presidential elections. How many votes would he get?
Here is a quite interesting piece on the take down of the Muslim Brotherhood reign: Shallow Democracy v. Deep State: An Archaeology of the Crisis in Egypt. It is correct in demonstrating how all kind of nefarious powers within the military, the bureaucracy and judiciary worked together to make former president Morsi's job as difficult as possible. He did not manage to co-opt or reform those forces. But it still does not sufficiently explain why the Egyptian military intervened and kicked Morsi out.
There are all kinds of conspiracy theories around this issue. The Saudis bought off the military because they hate the Brotherhood. The U.S. wanted the military to take over. If you believe the more and more erratic Turkish premier Erdogan it was the Israelis that were behind the coup.
I doubt all these theories. They all deny agency to the Egyptian military. Are we to believe that the generals in Cairo, who see themselves in the tradition of Gamal Abdel Nasser, can simply be bought off? The generals likely had their very own interests in launching the coup and those were not their economic ones. Sure, the army and the generals own a lot of factories and land and profit from that. But those economic privileges were securely protected in the Morsi supported constitution.
But Morsi showed lenience towards takfiri jihadists in the Sinai and belligerence towards Syria and Shiite in general. He stood next to jihad preachers when they called for Egyptians to join the takfiris in Syria. The Egyptian military has for years fought, with quite some losses, against takfiri minded sectarian terrorists within central Egypt and in the Sinai. When Morsi openly supported those forces he practically incited the army's longtime enemy against it.
Hardly any military in the world would condone such a situation. This point, rather then some foreign influence, was what launched the military's move.
Will the Egyptian generals now fall into the trap of a dirty war like those we have seen after the coups in Latin America? Will General Sisi turn out to be another Pinochet? I have my doubts that an attempt of "repressive stability" in Egypt would be indeed stabilizing.
The military will have an interest in avoiding further trouble and will likely hand off the economic and political mess to some civilian government. It is at least working into that direction. The new amended draft of the Egyptian constitution, not much changed at all, will do away with some contentious issues introduced under Morsi and has a new prohibition against religion based parties:
Article 6 in its amended form states that "it is forbidden to form political parties or perform any activities on the basis of religious foundations or on the basis of discrimination in terms of gender or sex."
The Muslim Brotherhood, if it wants to participate in the next elections, will thereby not be able to act as one political movement but will have to split out over several parties with varying interests. It could be a chance for the Brotherhood to change from its highly hierarchical organization into some broader based political organization.
It was somewhat amusing to yesterday read two divergent pieces on the U.S. "leverage" in Egypt in the same paper. The first one, Cairo Military Firmly Hooked to U.S. Lifeline, argued that the Egyptian military depends on U.S. maintenance of its tanks and air planes:
[A] close look at the details of American military aid to Egypt shows why the relatively modest $1.3 billion may give the United States more leverage over the Egyptian military than it may seem,..
While an op-ed piece on another page more realistically claimed that America Has No Leverage in Egypt.
The second piece is correct. The $1.3 billion military aid to Egypt goes into the pockets of U.S. arm manufacturers. It will therefore be difficult to kill. But should it be killed the Russians will immediately stand by to sell their weapons. How would the U.S., and its sidekick Israel, like some brand new Russian build and Saudi financed Mig-35's in the Egyptian air-force?
The U.S. has no leverage in Egypt and can do little but stand by and watch how the Egyptian military sorts out the mess and imposes a system it can live with. It will likely not be the "democratic", "liberal" and "secular" system that liberal interventionist and neocons say they prefer. It will be some muddle through, somewhat democratic system under strict military oversight that can at least partially satisfy most Egyptians. One hopes that it will be a bit more energetic and agile than the ossified Mubarak regime.
I’m not too impressed by the article B linked in the first paragraph of his post. The whole thing is infested with links, giving the impression that every statement, no matter how contentious, must be backed up with detailed evidence. But if you actually open the links, they may not substantiate what is being claimed. This paragraph is typical:
Then word came down that the high-court was preparing to declare the second constitutional committee invalid while affirming the SCAF’s controversial constitutional decrees. At best, this would have prolonged Egypt’s transitional limbo indefinitely. At worst, it would render any forthcoming civilian government more-or-less superfluous. In order to prevent this outcome, President Mursi temporarily assumed broad legal authority which he used exclusively to reinstate the parliament, and to allow the second constituent assembly to put their constitution to a referendum, both acts in defiance of the high court. Finally, he used his powers to sack the Mubarak-era prosecutor who had granted regime officials blanket immunity, and who had refused to heed Mursi’s previous calls to resign. The president then called for new trials to hold Murbarak-era leaders accountable for their crimes, this had been a central demand of protesters since the beginning of the uprising. Once the referendum succeeded, Mursi complied therewith, ceding all authority beyond his constitutional mandate back to the legislature and the courts. Nearly two years following the coup against Mubarak a civilian government was finally installed. However, Mursi’s apparent victory would be short lived, as would be the constitution and civilian government voters put into place.
The first link is decidedly critical of Morsi’s assumption of supra-constitutional powers, and provides no discussion of the point at issue, namely the high court’s supposed intentions before it was dissolved. It simply repeats the same assertion Mekay is making:
the Supreme Constitutional Court purportedly was poised to reinstate on 2 December the June 2012 Supplementary Constitutional Declaration pursuant to which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had awarded itself unprecedented legislative and executive powers. Were that to happen, all of Morsi’s subsequent decisions theoretically would be null and void.
But it goes on to make a completely incorrect assertion of the balance of popular forces:
Morsi’s decision arguably enjoys broad support from a citizenry yearning for stability. Opposition calls to rally in Tahrir Square belong more to the realm of nostalgia than to that of effective politics: the revolutionary zeal of 2011 has long exhausted itself, and any violence likely would rally a majority to the president’s side. Without meaningful grassroots popular backing, the non-Islamist opposition typically has resorted to obstructionist politics rather than formulate a positive agenda.
Now moving on, the second link goes to an opinion piece by Nader Bakkar, one of the co-founders of the al-Nour party and its official spokesman, which defends the power grab and contains among other things this amusing claim:
Some are afraid, actually mortified, by the possibility that Egypt will be able to repeat the successes of the model set by the Turkish Justice and Development party.
The third link goes to a Bloomberg article by Noah Feldman which among other things describes Morsi’s power grab as “naive” and says it “failed badly.” In fact, it concludes that “Morsi has substantially weakened his domestic legitimacy” and “made himself look like a dictator in the making.” The fourth link goes to a very short factual article which merely states what Mekay has already stated, namely that Morsi sacked the prosecutor-general after the latter refused to resign. The fifth link, and this is the crucial one, because it is supposed to look as if it backs up the culminating judgment of the entire paragraph, goes to an article which has no bearing on the point at issue. It provides no support at all for the claim that Morsi was “ceding all authority beyond his constitutional mandate back to the legislature and the courts,” which is supposed to be the whole point. And one could go through the whole of Mekay’s article like this, if one wanted to spend all day on it.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Aug 23 2013 11:56 utc | 19
Nasser’s career was a tragedy which ended, essentially, in 1967 as Israel and Saudi Arabia (in Yemen) teamed up to beat the Egyptian army and put an end to Nasserism.
It was already doomed, though: Nasser was one of a generation of post colonial nationalists who attempted to build popular support around programmes of strident defiance of imperialists, paternalist social policies and economic self-strengthening, without disturbing basic class relationships.
Nasser was revered in the Arab world for standing up to Britain and for his anti-zionism. But he was hated by the Saudi government and all the puppet tyrants that Britain was setting up to perpetuate imperialist rule.
When Egypt committed an army to support the revolution in Yemen, the “west” bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, struck: the “Royalist” counter revolution was led and trained by mercenaries, including British army officers on leave. The “guerrillas” had air support and were able to make life miserable for Nasser’s men, weakening the Egyptians like a running sore. When Israel attacked “pre-emptively” (for those who believe in fairy tales) Egypt’s best troops and Generals were hundreds of miles away chasing tip and run guerrillas.
The tragedy of Nasser was the tragedy of the Bandung movement, the failing of self development hopes in an international economy dominated by the United States, the evaporation of the new nationalisms in the cruel reality of poverty and backwardness, bigotry and disease, and the defeats of conscript armies, ill trained and badly led by officers recruited from comprador elites.
Sisi is to Nasser as Louis Napoleon was to Bonaparte, a farceur hawking his image and charisma to a cynical ruling class in the market for another figurehead. If Sisi has any private fantasies of building a new Egypt and cleaning up the corruption, of repudiating the crippling debt and introducing land reform, he would be well advised to keep them to himself.
b is quite right, the US does not do as it pleases with Egypt, but, as JohnH argues, it has enormous influence exerted most often through the ruling class that misses Mubarak and intends, in Sisi, to reconstruct his system.
In Egypt we are back where we started: millions of Egyptians tremble on the brink of famine, living standards are low and falling. And, to make things perfectly clear, the poor now know, from the vicious displays, such as that in the Rabia mosque, put on by Sisi’s military, that the future will be an authoritarian dictatorship serving the kleptocrats, international finance and zionism. So the struggle for life will be even harder. And the ruling class will be even more ruthless as it attempts to add to its ill gotten gains and maintain its privileged lifestyle.
Or, perhaps, Sisi will disappoint his Saudi allies by striking an independent course and putting the needs of the poor first; and defy the US by insisting on his right to deploy the military to defend Egyptian sovereignty, and, imitating Ecuador, audit the vast national debt and repudiate that which is odious in law and fact.
But don’t hold your breath: the smart money backs the racing certainty that Sisi is just one more, count them, tyrant backed by the United States, allied with Israel and hated by the people who will live, once more, under the rule of secret policemen, torturers and death squads.
Posted by: bevin | Aug 23 2013 14:36 utc | 22
|
