Egypt is in a crisis at least as momentous as January 2011. But the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Tahir Square are gone, so there are no gripping videos. The simple story line – brave young (media savvy) Egyptians versus stodgy old dictator -- has been replaced by a confusing cast of characters who are complicated mixes of interests and motives. The result, to paraphrase the 70's protest song, is that the revolution is not being televised.
The dramatic events of the Arab Spring, culminating in the departure of Hosni Mubarak were prologue; this is the revolutionary moment in Egypt, when the broad outlines of the future will be determined.
Perhaps a brief reminder of the major events of the recent past will help set the stage. When Mubarak was ousted by his former close allies in the military the 20 member Supreme Council of the Armed Forces assumed control. SCAF oversaw drafting a series of new laws, most notably provisions for parliamentary elections last November. It should not have surprised anyone that the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, was the single biggest winner in the elections and when allied with more fundamentalist and conservative Islamist parties, commanded a two thirds majority. The SCAF also established a procedure for Presidential elections. Part of the process involved review of potential candidates by SCAF and the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court (all of whose members were appointed by the Mubarak government) which led to the disqualification or withdrawal of a fairly large number of candidates. The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood broke its public pledge not to sponsor a Presidential candidate and when their first choice was disqualified, nominated Mohamed Morsi. Ahmed Shafik, former Air Force general and Mubarak’s last prime minister, emerged as the other major contender after the first round of voting in early June.
Ten days before the presidential election the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled on legal challenges to the parliamentary elections and decided that as many as one third of the members elected in November had run illegally. Almost immediately the SCAF issued a series of decrees that dissolved parliament, claimed all legislative authority, prevented the not yet elected president from interfering with the military (including cutting its budget.) So Egyptians went to the polls on June 19 to vote for a president whose authority was unclear and whose specific powers were to be determined by SCAF or some other body at some unknown date.
For many Egyptians the Presidential choice was difficult. During the campaign Mohamed Morsi found himself walking a tightrope between the expectations of his social and religiously conservative base and the need to reassure more secular and liberal voters that he was fully committed to democracy and tolerance. Ahmed Shafik could run a campaign based on who he was not -- an Islamist -- without too many awkward questions about his ties to the military or his role in the old regime. He presented himself as the safe candidate, disinclined to change the social order and more likely to get the economy going again both because he knew how to run a modern bureaucracy and because he would not frighten tourists away.
Ten days after parliament was dissolved Morsi won the presidency. A week later he challenged the military by convening the dissolved parliament. Some of the liberal and secular members boycotted the session which they saw as a flexing of Islamist political muscle, but the large majority of members were there for a very brief session that charged a committee with pursuing legal avenues to counter the Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision and adjourned. (Somewhat disingenuously the speaker of the parliament insisted that the session and its decision were not defying the Court’s authority but were trying to find ways to implement the Court’s decision.)
So if it is not a simple fairy tale of good guys and bad guys, what is going on? For most politically active Egyptians there are two examples in the Middle East of how the future might look. One is relatively democratic Turkey, where an Islamist party moderated its positions over a couple of decades and has not used its electoral victory to radically upset the society or economy and the military has increasingly moved away from its old dominance. The other is autocratic Saudi Arabia where the government and semi-official committees for the promotion of virtue and suppression of vice vigorously enforce a very narrow and restrictive version of Islam. Each example inspires hope in some Egyptians and dread in others.
There are three major players whose decisions will interact with each other and define Egypt’s future: the Muslim Brotherhood, the senior military officers, and the secular or liberal politicians. Each of them has reasons to oppose and support the others and each of them is in turn internally divided.
In simple (dangerously close to overly simplistic) terms, the interests and challenges of each include:
For the Muslim Brotherhood, the primary interest is in achieving power in Egypt to reform the country. There is a wide variety of views within the Brotherhood itself and among its supporters about the nature of that reform. For some the goal is to use persuasion and the democratic process to improve social morals and reduce the influence of secular, Western ideas and practices. Turkey is the example. For others, it is to use the state apparatus to force people to conform to conservative religious ideals and behaviors and Saudi Arabia is a positive example. The Brotherhood was an opponent of the Egyptian regime at its founding in the days of the monarch and was the most forceful and visible opponent of the regime initiated by Gamal Nasser in the 1950s that ended with Mubarak’s ouster.
The Brotherhood is viewed favorably by many Egyptians for its consistent opposition to repression. But it is feared for its roots in Islamic fundamentalism and episodes of violence in its history. The decision to run a candidate for president paid off in a short term victory; it is hard to tell how much damage it did to the Brotherhood’s long term credibility and legitimacy. Secular liberal Egyptians and the military hope the constraints of governance and the more democratic elements within the Brotherhood will move it toward the Turkish model but fear that even apparently moderate members secretly long for Saudi Arabia and repressive righteousness.
For the senior military officers there are two primary interests: maintaining order and stability in Egypt and maintaining the uniquely privileged position of the officer corps in the Egyptian economy and society. The military has worked very hard to counter the Muslim Brotherhood over the decades, outlawing it, jailing its leaders from time to time, portraying it as a threat to ordinary Egyptians to justify continued military rule, and making strenuous efforts to inoculate the officer corps against Islamist tendencies. The 20 members of SCAF have vivid personal memories of the Islamists who gunned down Anwar Sadat in 1981. The leadership of the Brotherhood is not tied into the modern economy in the ways that the leaders of many secular liberal parties are nor are they likely to be tolerant of the military's largely autonomous network of businesses. At the same time, assuming direct rule as way of preventing the Brotherhood from coming to power is a very unpalatable alternative. Far better to have people applaud you for guarding the country against all enemies foreign and domestic than have people blame you for high unemployment and inflation.
For secular liberals, the primary interest is preserving and extending the modern sectors of Egypt. It is close enough to the truth to say that there is an observable class division in Egypt. On one side are urban, western educated, upper and middle class business people and professionals and recent college graduates, living or hoping to live much the same sort of life you do. On the other side are rural or urban slum dwellers, not well educated or having only a religious education, small farmers or traditional artisans, making the best of meager resources and often feeling vaguely threatened by an alien world. The fondest hope of the secular liberal parties is that they can play a broker’s role between the Brotherhood and the military and avoid the Scylla of a return to dictatorship and the Charybdis of reactionary religiosity. The greatest fear is that the Brotherhood will be able to mobilize its base in rural Egypt and the slums and use democratic forms to destroy both democracy and secularism.
Adding to the volatile mix is a high level of distrust and suspicion in Egyptian political life. Conspiracy theories are hardly unique to Egypt and the Middle East, but they seem more common than in the U.S. There is a pervasive suspicion that powerful forces are manipulating events behind the scenes. For example, President’s Morsi’s attempt to reconvene parliament is seen by some as a bold confrontation of the military; others are sure that Morsi and the military had collaborated on the script for the drama. Political opponents are suspected of colluding to thwart your interests and your allies may be tempted to make a deal behind your back. The culture of distrust makes it hard for politicians and groups to forge long term cooperative relationships and to take statements of positions or pledges of support at face value.
The current drama will probably not have a sudden, obvious outcome. Unless the Brotherhood leadership grossly miscalculates or Cairo erupts in riots, the military is not likely to send tanks into the streets and declare the democratic experiment dead. President Morsi and the parliamentary majority are unlikely to try to establish an overtly Islamic state and unleash a reign of terror on loose women and MINOs (Muslim in Name Only.)
The more likely outcome is a two steps forward, one back, messy and halting movement toward a hybrid system that can maintain order while addressing Egypt’s glaring economic problems. If everyday Egyptians do not feel personally secure and the economy gets even worse over the next year, then the military might well decide (as have militaries in many other countries) that the civilians have failed and it is time for direct rule by men who know how to get things done ...
