•Revolts are rarely won by those who start them
THE land of the Nile has become a pool of blood. As things stand, only a miracle will prevent Egypt from descending to the very portal of civil insurrection and war.
The tragedy now gripping Egypt is of immense portion. Two years ago, Egyptians of all stripes protested to rid themselves of a haughty, arrogant dictator who sought to turn his evil fortune into a perpetual family dynasty.
Yet, a terrible omission was committed. Now, the county pays the dear costs of this error. In ridding themselves of the dictator, the people thought they were also ridding themselves of the dictatorship and the political culture upon which it was founded. They mistakenly thought the man was the institution. He might have personified the system but he was not the system. They tossed him and began to celebrate. The work was but half done. The dictator had been removed but the system upon which his arbitrary tenure was built remained intact.
For all of their novel, internet-savvy political activism and old-fashioned street protests, the agents of civil society were either naïve about the intricacy of their political system or were exhausted from the exertion already made. They relaxed after merely achieving the removal of one man from office. To their current lament, they left unharmed his political structure and the aura of power that structure had acquired.
In beginning this revolt, the secular political activists gave Egypt hope. In not being disciplined, visionary and sufficiently organized to bring the revolt to conclusion, they unwittingly placed the people in a harsh vise that now taxes and tolls them. Payment is being demand and is being demanded in lives and blood.
It is a terrible disgrace not to combat injustice. Yet, it is almost as hapless to fight it incompletely. As such, Egypt serves as a fine lesson how to start a modern protest as well as a terse manual on how not to finish one. What began as a political awakening has quickly transformed into a national wake, a mournful dirge heard in all corners of the ancient nation.
The architects of the Egyptian dawn are mostly invisible now. The manner in which they constructed a diffuse, loosely organized protest movement made it difficult for the authorities to contain the protests. But it also made it impossible for the organizers to transform this amorphous group into a political movement with positive, soundly-defined objectives. Because of this fault, the political ground was ceded to people and groups who had something other than democracy at heart.
Put another way, there were three main groups in Egypt on the day of Mubarak’s exit from power. There was this inventive but disorganized assemblage of civil society and secular organizations. Then there was the military, the most organized and powerful governmental institution. The people erred, thinking Mubarak had made the military when it was the military that had made the strongman. Without the military, Mubarak was an infirmed old man. The military without Mubarak remained its powerful self. Third, there was the Muslim Brotherhood and its large universe of supporters.
By virtue of its lack of political organization and funding, secular civil society disqualified itself from seriously competing for national leadership. Civil society proved adept at causing disruption such that Mubarak was troubled out of office. United about whom it did not want, civil society was incapable of forming a solid coalition around what and whom it wanted to fill the political vacuum civil society had authored.
Battle for control of the nation boiled down to a contest between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. The present crisis is a turf war between these two politically unimaginative, power-oriented rival groups that care little for the condition of the general population. Both groups seek for national power. Neither cares for democracy.
From the beginning of the crisis, the military saw itself as the only truly national institution. Its generals also had too many significant political and economic interests to cede national leadership to any group uninitiated in their ways and inimical to their interests. Given its very nature, the military, in its most charitable disposition, was inherently hostile to democracy. However, after Mubarak’s ouster, the group decided to play coy, like a venomous snake pretending to slumber. Yet, at the right moment, it would strike.
The dominant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, symbolized by ousted President Morse, also cared too little for democracy. A conservative, pragmatic lot, they played the game of ballot and vote, understanding their established organizational spread and power gave them a distinct advantage in the early elections that had been scheduled. They exploited the advantage and won. Although rising to power through democracy, they were too willing to clip the very democracy that had just taken them to the place of power.
Last November, President Morsi decreed a usurpation of legislative and judicial power. If taken literally, the decree made him a 21st century pharaoh. What further undid him was his conservative economics. If a leader is to quickly curtail the people’s newly-acquired freedom, at least give them cheap bread. To remove both is to call forth disaster. Morsi did this by imposing a dire economic austerity on the pained nation. Morsi ran into trouble not because of Islam or of brotherhood. His trouble was that his mindset led him to classical economic policies when progressive, at least Keynesian, policies were the only logical escape from calamity. As such, he became more the brother of conservative western economists than of the average Egyptian. Again, there was no innate problem with the Brotherhood as a political force. Islam, as a religion, does not detest democracy or progressive economics. The tragedy is that the particular leaders of the Egyptian franchise of the Brotherhood proved too undemocratic and economically conservative for the exigencies they faced. Had the Muslim Brotherhood selected more progressive economic and political policies, their man might still be in power and the streets moving more toward tranquility than anomie.
Ironically, the conservatism of the Muslim Brotherhood is a by-product of the very state it has been fighting the past eight decades. Although it has been the main organized opponent of the military government, the Brotherhood also has been allowed to exist, even if sometimes on the fringes of legality, because its leadership is not so unlike the military’s. This has made it part of the nation’s institutional establishment, meaning it has been inculcated into the governing system more than it would admit. As such, the Brotherhood leadership, in many ways, is the un-uniformed mirror image of the military’s general class. Save for one thing.
The military’s leadership is politically more adroit. In comparison to the Brotherhood’s leaders, one group looks like a gang of experienced, cynical men while the other appears to be a cackle of adolescents. After Mubarak’s departure, the military’s objective was to regain power. Their strategy would be that of driving a wedge between the Brotherhood and secular society. The Brotherhood won the election. Begrudgingly, civil society accepted the results and decided to give Morsi a chance. However, this was not the making of an alliance or even a gentlemen’s agreement. In effect, civil society had placed Morsi on probation.
Not wanting to push civil society and Morsi together, the military kept its powder dry at the time. As Morsi gained power, the military entered agreements with him protecting their base but also tacitly encouraging him to nip the frail democracy by arrogating power to himself. Exploiting Morsi’s clumsiness, the wedge was driven between him and secular society.
Encouraged by the military, civil society took to the streets. What was done to Mubarak, the groups now did to Morsi. The military deceived the civilians that their coup would be a temporary corrective, saving democracy from the paddle-handed Morsi. The civilians swallowed the bait because they never liked Morsi and because they entertained the fantasy of gaining the upper hand in new elections if the Brotherhood were duly disgraced if not completely shackled.
The civilians gave the military their blessing. Nobel Prize winner Mohammed el-Baradei allowed ambition to get the better of him by agreeing to join the caretaker government the military established. This lent civilian color and legitimacy to what was a military coup against an immensely unpopular Morsi.
Had the civilians been wiser, they would not have accepted the military’s gift. They should have realized the military is not in the business of giving more than it takes. Had they not accepted this easy route, enough people might have been amassed to force Morsi’s exit or his change of ways.
In a series of adroit if immoral maneuvers, the military exploited the differences between civic society and the Brotherhood to grab power.
Recognizing the importance of strong institutions, the military is not satisfied with clipping Morsi. They seek to decimate the Brotherhood. In this way, the military believes it will not face another organized rival for decades. Within the space of two years, the military has serially duped the civil society and the Brotherhood, getting what it wanted as a result: It controls the levers of national government. However, this comes at high price that continues to increase. Hundreds die by the day and night.
The military’s strategy has proven successful. They have civil society in their hip pocket and now dragoon the Muslim Brotherhood. Their goal is to drive the Brotherhood toward violence. The more violent the Brotherhood’s reply to the government’s muscle, the more the military shall crackdown, claiming the Brotherhood is terror inspired. This dynamic will lessen the already slim chance of a rapprochement between the Brotherhood and civil society. The Brotherhood would deem civil society responsible for the suppression in the first instance. Moreover, secular groups now fear the Brotherhood might become more radicalized due to the violence. Secular groups will fear a more vengeful Brotherhood’s inclusion and participation in politics and governance.
The military has succeeded in reshaping the political landscape to fit its narrow interests. Politically, the nation is fragmented and the military is the only coherent institution to be found. Secular society is reeling, not yet fully understanding how massively it has been hoodwinked by the men in uniform whom they thought were bumbling fools. The Brotherhood is fragmented between those who want to fight and those who futilely believe an armistice with the military is possible. The pacifists hope against reality. The fighting is not because something has gone awry. This is all part of the grand design of the military’s return to power.
By violently polarizing the situation, the military seeks to limit the options of the international community, especially the Western powers, to two. Either stand with the known entity, the military, or walk the unfamiliar path with the unknown entity, the Brotherhood. America had already tacitly endorsed Morsi’s ouster when its top diplomat proclaimed the military was trying to “restore democracy.” President Obama issued a recent statement deploring the military crackdown. But all the American did was cancel a nonessential joint military exercise. He did not and likely will not suspend military assistance in any significant degree.
Clearly, America frets more about the Brotherhood and its ilk than about the military. American love for democracy in the Middle East ends when a purported “Islamicist” wins a national election. At that point, the hidden caveats and conditions for American support for democracy surface. Do not be taken by public statements by Obama Administration officials and Republican Party leaders such as Senators McCain and Graham. In public, they condemn the military’s street war. In private, they likely signal their acquiescence to the dirty campaign.
America has not fought dreaded Islamicists in far away, isolated Afghanistan to watch them gain a foothold in the most strategic nation in the Arab world. The Suez Canal, that vital international military and commercial shipping route and dual gateway into the Mediterranean and toward the Persian Gulf, is an Egyptian artery. This is one of the most important channels of water in the world. America would rather it held by those to whom it gives billions of dollars of military aid than by a more radical version of Morsi. Without a cooperative Egypt, Israel’s geopolitical exposure increases exponentially. This cautious American president will do nothing that will be construed by conservative critics as impairing Israel.
Moreover, America has seen what a mess they made of Libya by executing an established strongman. Thus, although the Egyptian military is killing people at a much faster clip than Gaddafi did, the cries that the military is “killing their own people’ are predictably absent. If the choice is between a possible more radicalized, vengeful Brotherhood and the military, the West will dance and wed the military. General el-Sisi knows this. He shepherds the situation toward this result that suits his personal and organizational interests. In other words, Egypt might have gone through these last two years of protests, crashed hopes, rising frustrations and now crimson tragedy just so an old dictator can be replaced by a more acrobatic and strategically clever one.
In this, sober lessons abound.
Incomplete reform quickly leads to complete regression. There will always be a backlash against reform. Ironically, the less vigorous the reform in altering the power equation between rival national institutions, the more potent shall be the conservative backlash.
While anger may stir the people to protest, they must be careful. Quick resort to violence never serves the people. It serves those who wield the instruments of destruction. Last, a political or social movement must have a positive final goal. In Egypt, the movement only had a negative initial goal: the removal of Mubarak. After that, the people’s movement dissipated. Establishment operatives were allowed to seize the reins; they guided things back to the way they were. In the next weeks and months, violence will likely be the way of Egypt. The nation moves from the possible dawn of a new day into the darkness of nights already long passed. The violence and death are sad. Sadder still is the likelihood that these losses come only to install a dictator perhaps more agile and dangerous than the one first deposed. Getting rid of the strongman is but a half remedy. A viable democratic alternative must be the final, purposeful objective. In the absence of such a destination, the people run into the danger that the strongman they bind may be replaced by one they cannot bind.
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