With no introductions, here is my personal take on the Egyptian
recent developments:
Well I disagree with the way they brought Morsi down; if it's
going to be a democracy, then let the impeachment be through the voting
ballots, not through military coup in a country divided heavily. It is easy to
miscalculate what a majority is when we use as references pictures of thousands
or millions marching and chanting against the president, but truth be said,
millions in a country of 80 million individual is far from statistically
meaning anything.
Even if scores of the population went down against Morsi, he
still have as many supporting him, and throwing the votes of the millions who
voted for the Islamist president down the trash is not only a slap against what
democracy is standing for, but is also an open invitation for direct
confrontations that can easily escalate into a civil war. Indeed brotherhood
failed in dealing with several issues of economic or political nature, but
isn’t it the case for most democracies and political governing systems
throughout the world? The day an elected government manages to tackle all
domestic challenges and successfully address them, then we’d have achieved that
utopia no one talks about except in books of fiction. A military take over and
mass detentions of Brotherhood figures doesn’t seem to be an achievement of a
popular will, but most likely seems to be a rushed reaction to deal with an
uneasy transition, and most likely to cause an even greater crisis given the
stigmatization it has brought against Political Islamism and the alienation of
a segment of the population’s will or political choice.
Some may argue that the political environment, as well as the
judicial and institutional realities of Egypt may have prevented a democratic
action to impeach the president or to bring on early elections, but let us
remember that the Egyptian people were the ones voting for Morsi in the first
place, and the ones taking on their disapproval to the street didn’t allow the
president elect a fair period at the helm of the government to actually produce
results. One year is not enough to judge a president (that is why in most
democracies presidential terms span through 3 to 5 years), especially someone
who took office after a revolution, an economy in the red and security in
jeopardy.
Egyptians may have set the bar too high, and it's impossible for
a president or a government to fix everything an entire chaotic country the
first months, Transitions are hard and demanding, but Egyptians appear to
forget that the nation is gathering itself out of a regime meltdown and is in a
re-evaluation phase where all principles of governance and political
institutions are put under scrutiny and reconstruction.
Maybe the Muslim brotherhood is not that good in many respects,
but the reality is that they are the most organized and they won the elections.
If the Egyptians are against them, then let them show it through political
parties and political participation;
The best way to oppose some political or ideological organization
in a democracy is to organize and face them in the battlefield, aka the
elections; making a mess, encouraging anarchy or getting the military involved
never solves anything but just brings the country to the brinks of a civil war.
Many you argue with tend to delegitimize the popularity of the
Muslim Brotherhood by invoking that their supporters are mostly residents of rural
areas and are not fully aware of the Brotherhood’s lack of good governance and
whatnot, yet this argument seems closes to a self-condemnation because the very
people who preach it disregard an important question: If the rural areas are so
blinded into voting for the devil himself, then why didn’t the previous regime
or the numerous NGOs set a comprehensive framework to spread awareness to rural
areas or improve their living conditions as to draw them away from the
Brotherhood’s grip? It is easy to point fingers, find excuses, and fall into a
state of arrogance where we categorize a segment of the population as worthy of
the right to choose their political representatives while denying it to others.
What is alarming in the current Egyptian crisis is the far
reaching implications it has on the MENA region and the Sahel. Political Islam
has always been stigmatized because of its tendency to promote violence and
preach a bloody agenda of extremism, ultra-conservatism and anti-human rights
policies, yet when the Political Islam renounced violence in the post Arab
Spring through the participation of Islamist factions in the political life
(something they have been banned from doing), the reaction from the street and
from a certain segment of the population has been outright rejection of their
legitimacy and reactionary refusal of an agenda they didn’t even have the
chance to assess because of the many prejudices held against it.
Political Islam now is being given another excuse to lose hope
in democracy and democratic tools of participation. The rule of law, although
preached and professed to be for everyone now appears to be an exclusive right
of the secular, the liberal and is forbidden for Islamist models of rule. This
leaves no other means for the Islamist to voice their opinions and shape
politics other than through violence, which is why the West, championed by the
US is reluctant on approving of the military’s move given the disastrous
implications it can set in motion in the future.
After Algeria and Palestine, Egypt joins the club of countries
where the military unlawfully deposed a democratically elected government shaped
by Political Islamist agendas, and the consequences as in these nations is a
return of extremist violence, something which we already started witnessing in
the Sinai where armed operations against the military are being conducted by
Islamist factions.
Closing TV channels to prevent the Brotherhood from decrying the
military takeover, rounding up their key figures and claiming that major cities
are the only representative of the Egyptian will stems from a fear that Political
Islam may become the key force driving politics and Egyptian domestic affairs,
a turn event that is far from making the strongholds of corruption happy, and
is sure to threaten the economic empire of the military as it did in Turkey
with the AKP.
Egypt is in a turning point, and much of the region’s future
development will be shaped by what actions are set in action in Egypt during
the crisis. Be it a civil war, a return to armed confrontations, a
radicalization of the Muslim brotherhood and its operations or a return to
civilian rule through the restoration of the president elect are all potential
outcomes that can either build or break modern Egyptian democracy, or at least
the nation’s stability and security.
Mohamed
Amine Belarbi
