When the Arab Spring bug caught on in Egypt, in late January 2011, commentators rushed to explain that the Tahrir Square crowd was hip and Western, secular and “facebooked.” Never mind the rape of a Western journalist, Lara Logan, by the hip and Western revolutionaries – a fate visited upon other female journalists during the following months (see here and here). Everyone looked around, and the Muslim Brotherhood was nowhere to be seen.
This fact, alone, seems to have fed the facile illusion that the Brotherhood could not hijack the initial Twitter moment of the Egyptian revolt against Hosni Mubarak.
Since then, at each turn of the road, as the Muslim Brotherhood gradually hijacked the Egyptian transition, commentators told us there was no need to worry. The Muslim Brotherhood would only contest a small number of seats (they did not); they would not have a candidate of their own for the presidency (they did); and their candidate was moderate (he wasn’t).
One can imagine the alarm felt by Egypt’s generals at each of these developments. Finally, they took action days before one of their own was to lose the presidential runoff to the Brotherhood candidate. They engineered the dissolution of the Brotherhood-dominated parliament and dramatically reduced the powers of the presidency.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi is now the president of Egypt and, predictably, he’s moved to overturn the generals’ move, by reinstating parliament until the constitution is drafted and new elections are called for.
Just as predictably, this morning Time has a blog entry illustrating why, yet again, there is nothing to worry about: “Some analysts say that Morsi and the junta likely worked out a power-sharing deal well before the Islamist president, representing the most reliably pragmatic political organization in the country, took his presidential oath on June 24. A closer examination of the decree suggests a deal may be in the works this time too.”
Feel reassured? I don’t.
Every revolution I can remember started out as a coalition of different forces–and the radicals were not the majority. Think of the Bolsheviks and Kerensky’s government in 1917 Russia. Think of Mehdi Bazargan’s government in Iran’s early revolutionary days, in 1979. Even Hitler, when he first seized power, formed a coalition and perfunctorily bowed to the then German president – there were reassurances then as well. Radicals take over the revolution because that is what they are best at doing – and any compromise or pragmatic concession to more moderate forces is just a tactical move to bide their time.
The Muslim Brotherhood has fought the generals for the last 60 years and contended with Arab nationalism and Western ideas since 1928. In the last 20 months, the Brotherhood has come out of the shadows and savored its final triumph. The ballot box vindicated its vision and patience. To assume, at each twist of the story, that the Brotherhood will be pragmatic or compromising is to ignore history and precedent. The Muslim Brotherhood has the support of the majority of Egyptian society on its side. It has penetrated the lower ranks of the army already. It controls the presidency and will begin to exert its power more and more over the state bureaucracy and the state-financed and appointed clergy.
It is a matter of time, but for all intents and purposes, and optimistic articles notwithstanding, the Brotherhood owns Egypt.
The interesting question is could we reasonably have prevented this. By your post it seems like we could not, but I'd like to know your analysis.
History has taught that over time military leaders, even those with the best of intentions, make poor guardians of secular moderation in government. They tend to be ultimately outmaneuvered by politicians who possess a cunning that most soldiers lack. Probably the most successful example has been the Turkish military, but they too have been all but neutered by the Erdogan regime. As for the Egyptian military leaders: They will prove to be no match for the Muslim Brotherhood. Only respect for constitutional governance and individual rights can rein in the power of radicals, and that seems to be missing right now in the majority of Egyptians.
The generals didn't order parliament dissolved. The supreme court did it because 1/3 of the members had been illegally elected. Brotherhood members voted in elections SPECIFICALLY reserved for NON Brotherhood folks after the interim agreement between all parties that the seats would be spread somewhat equally between factions for a few years. Brotherhood members voted more than once, and for seats they were not allowed to interfere with. Meanwhile, Brother members beat people who voted against them and there are reports of the rampant abuse of women's votes as their husbands took their ballots, filled them out, and then forced women to deliver a vote to someone else than the person they wanted. Also, in the election in general Morsi and Shafiq took about 20% of the vote each. Almost 45% went to liberal candidates, and so the lack of time to organize, and the failure to coalesce behind one candidate, cost the majority of the population its will in this election. Note to the author: You really need to get some sources in Egypt and stop believing your own PR.
part of the blame for what the "Arab Spring" is morphing into has to be laid at the feet of the West. we are such fat and comfortable people here, thousands of miles away from the messy Middle East. we don't really have to worry, we think. n nthe Muslim Brotherhood? it seems too much trouble to really look at what they're doing now compared to what they've said in the past, to read the freely available history of its founder's ties to Hitler, to look up the word "taqqiyah" and realize that we're being lulled into destruction like a bug in a spider's web. n nI know I sound overly dramatic, but I do think our culture is in danger. Islamists use political correctness and the threat of "Islamophobia" to stifle all dissent. (so now you're a bigot if you don't want them to build a mosque at Ground Zero, things like that.) n nunfortunately, like Obamacare, we had to elect Morsi before we could see what was in him. my prediction is that if Obama wins a second term, the Israel-Egypt peace treaty goes out the window, and Obama lets them keep their foreign aid anyway.