More than a year after the end of Mubarak’s dictatorship, Egyptians are still waiting for the democratic regime millions of them waged a revolution for on January 25 of 2011. Indeed, in the eyes of many observers, the military, which used to stand by Mubarak’s side, is still pulling the strings of power in the country of the Nile. According to some, the army is a real threat to the advent of democracy just like the Islamist, against whom several Egyptian liberal intellectuals are fighting.
SCAF: Keeping the Mubarak Clan in Power, Whatever the Cost
According to Alaa Al Aswany, the activist author of The Yacoubian Building, the generals on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces never sided with the people to begin with, nor did they protect it, contrary to what they tried make people believe. Creating the Council actually allowed the Mubarak clan to stay in power. “I think there have been misunderstandings from the very beginning of the revolution. The people that made the revolution thought the fall of Mubarak was the first step to eliminate the regime; however, the Military Council accepted Mubarak’s departure as a necessary step to preserve the regime”, he in an interview given to the French-language Algerian newspaper El Watan.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) was supposed to rule the country provisionally for the six months following the revolution, giving the country enough time for a peaceful political transition. 14 months on, the Council is still there, leading Egypt the Mubarak way. In addition to helping the latter and his clan withdraw with full guarantees and despite the Council’s commitment to “favour democracy” and to implement “the people’s legitimate demands”, nothing has really changed when it comes to governance. Indeed, public freedoms are not respected and those who dare criticize the army’s management of State affairs can be tried in military courts, which happened to the journalists who covered the covenant between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Official media are still controlled by old regime figures and peaceful protests are brutally repressed. During their 14 months in power, they have shot at crowds various times.
For the Egyptian intellectual elite, the army’s record is a very negative one. In an interview given to the French-language Egyptian newspaper El Ahram Hebdo (issue of December and January 2012), the Egyptian constitutionalist Ibrahim Darwish said he expected a coup and a second revolution against the Military Council. Although they still defend the idea of democracy whoever the ruler is, Egyptian democrats are waging war on two fronts, against the military regime and against the Islamists who view them as a “foreign body” in Egypt.
The Islamists: a Threat Complicit with the SCAF
It is widely acknowledged that the Islamists present in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, all countries that have undergone a revolution, are those who suffered the most under the old regimes: exclusion, repression and the interdiction of any political involvement. Indeed, the regimes of Ben Ali, Mubarak and Qadhafi convinced the West they were fighting against fundamentalism and religious terrorism. For many, the Islamists’ image of victims of the old regimes helped them obtain the Arab populations’ support during the post-revolution elections.
Yet, several fundamentalist religious leaders who’ve recently entered the fray of politics are themselves more authoritarian than the autocrats. Such is the case of the Salafis in Egypt who are seen as more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood. Their political party, Al-Nour, which was founded three months after Mubarak’s fall, obtained 127 seats on 498 in Parliament.
Abdel Moneim El Sgahat, one of the party’s founders, once said on a TV show that democracy was a form of apostasy. Moreover, a few months after the January 25 revolution in 2011, the same Salafis were rejecting democracy as Western, before switching gears another few months after; they now use words of human and universal values they did not use to believe in.
Several journalistic investigations have pointed to enormous financial aid from Saudi Arabia flowing to Salafis in Egypt, while other reporting has been about the covenant between the SCAF and the Islamists, whence the danger to the yet unborn Egyptian democracy. According to Alaa Al Aswany, “the Military Council is persecuting the revolutionaries by saying they receive money from the outside, when it is curiously averting its eyes from the foreign funding going to the Islamists”. Through that strategy, they aim to stay in power in an indirect way by letting the Islamists in and integrating them in their plan.
The Salafis’ focus on women, their freedom, their clothing, and on Egyptians’ mores and individual behaviour risks diverting public discourse from what truly matters: kick-starting the economy and establishing effective rule of Law and democracy with civilians at the top. That situation led the famous Egyptian director Khaled Youssef to say Egyptians would wage a second revolution if the Salafi presidential candidate Hazem Abu Ismail were to win the May 24 elections. Abu Ismail’s campaign has been centered on female work participation, banking, tourism, arts and the Coptic community. His candidacy was recently rejected by the electoral oversight committee on the grounds of his mother having gotten an American passport shortly before dying.
At the eve of the elections, democracy must be allowed to work unimpeded. Sure thing is, the populations in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab World will find out that political Islam has nothing to do with the religion they believe in and that the tenants of political Islam do not have the solutions to the problems they are facing.
Abdel Moneim El Sgahat, one of the party’s founders, once said on a TV show that democracy was a form of apostasy. Moreover, a few months after the January 25 revolution in 2011, the same Salafis were rejecting democracy as Western, before switching gears another few months after; they now use words of human and universal values they did not use to believe in.
Several journalistic investigations have pointed to enormous financial aid from Saudi Arabia flowing to Salafis in Egypt, while other reporting has been about the covenant between the SCAF and the Islamists, whence the danger to the yet unborn Egyptian democracy. According to Alaa Al Aswany, “the Military Council is persecuting the revolutionaries by saying they receive money from the outside, when it is curiously averting its eyes from the foreign funding going to the Islamists”. Through that strategy, they aim to stay in power in an indirect way by letting the Islamists in and integrating them in their plan.
The Salafis’ focus on women, their freedom, their clothing, and on Egyptians’ mores and individual behaviour risks diverting public discourse from what truly matters: kick-starting the economy and establishing effective rule of Law and democracy with civilians at the top. That situation led the famous Egyptian director Khaled Youssef to say Egyptians would wage a second revolution if the Salafi presidential candidate Hazem Abu Ismail were to win the May 24 elections. Abu Ismail’s campaign has been centered on female work participation, banking, tourism, arts and the Coptic community. His candidacy was recently rejected by the electoral oversight committee on the grounds of his mother having gotten an American passport shortly before dying.
At the eve of the elections, democracy must be allowed to work unimpeded. Sure thing is, the populations in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab World will find out that political Islam has nothing to do with the religion they believe in and that the tenants of political Islam do not have the solutions to the problems they are facing.
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