I've received some texts and emails along the lines of "Egypt - WTF?!" this past week and I've been writing people back individually, when it occurred to me that wait, there might be a more efficient way to do this! Don't I have some sort of "web log" type thing somewhere on the Internets that can take care of mass communication? I do! So I fished out my old password and here I am, with my take on what is going on in Egypt and why it matters what the US decides to call it.
I think the best entry point into the conversation about what is happening in Egypt came from Millie, who asked how what is going on now is related to the 2011 Revolution. In the days leading up to 30 June, anti-Morsi protesters were tweeting "We thought democracy was enough. It was not." Obama said something along these lines as well ("Democracy is more than elections"). Although what is happening now is not politically connected to the last revolution, it is emotionally connected.
You couldn't find someone more politically opposite to Mubarak than the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Mubarak was a career military guy, a secular ruler whose only ruling philosophy was "grab more." The MB by contrast is a religious party. They support a broader cultural return to Sharia law (which is already a part of Egyptian law in the areas of finance and family law) and were persecuted as a terrorist organization under Mubarak's regime. Many of their leaders, including former-President Morsi, were imprisoned under Mubarak.
However, despite their contrasting political and religious views, the STYLE of Mubarak's regime set the tone for the MB's year in power. His administration was characterized by snagging power and resources in every corner of Egyptian industry and turning it over to his supporters. These industry magnates held ruling posts in his party and skimmed billions for themselves (and more of their cronies) leaving Egypt's economy shriveled and completely dependent on foreign aid. These guys are still around. In the wake of recent developments, don't be surprised to start hearing familiar names pop up. Ahmed Ezz, kazillionaire steel magnate and known crony/skimmer was only just recently found not guilty of charges relating to said skimming, which went on for decades. This lack of accountability also marks the Mubarak era, as few if any of Mubarak's supporters, or the perpetrators of such horrendous violence during the first revolution, have ever been successfully prosecuted. Mubarak himself had his guilty verdict overturned earlier in the year and his retrial has been rescheduled for August 17th.
Bear in mind (it will be important again) that many of the judges still in office today came up through the ranks in the Mubarak days. The Judiciary is generally understood as independent from the executive but also slightly politically aligned with the old regime.
So the protesters who led the first revolution, and many of those middle-class, religious but not extremist Muslim Egyptians who voted for Morsi, have been disappointed to see Egypt's first democratically elected party repeat the same all-encompassing power grab tactics learned from the Mubarak regime. There was always some consternation that the MB would not treat women and religious minorities fairly, and that fear has been borne out. However, the MB's style is less about discrimination, and more about the same "more for me and mine" mentality that Egyptians have been sick of for thirty years. What Obama and the Twittersphere were claiming is that democracy is not just having elections, it is about ruling democratically, which the MB hasn't done.
Westerners are also asking if Morsi was so unpopular in Egypt, and if Egypt really wanted a fair, secular, democratic state, why did they elect the Muslim Brotherhood to power in the first place? It was a super slim majority, but roughly 50% of the country voted for Morsi, right? Well, sort of. There is a question of timeline and a question of process here, which explain why a majority of Egyptians voted for Morsi and yet still a majority don't like him.
First, the timing: Although Morsi and the MB were elected by the people, elections were held so soon (because there was a lot of pressure on the military to give up power and their reputation was starting to tumble rapidly) after Mubarak's fall that the secular and youth opposition groups - which had never existed as organized political parties before - did not have enough time to organize and get their message out (or come to consensus about what that message should be). Only the MB and the old regime had any sort of organizational structure and so Morsi and Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak's former spy chief, were the candidates in the run-off election. Procedurally, this run-off election was inevitable because out of a number (5 maybe?) of unsatisfactory candidates, it was unlikely any one would get a majority of the vote. But it also gave a visual representation of everything that was wrong with the elections: that they came down to a "choice" between the old regime and a religious party previously known as terrorists.
This choice between the greater of all evils left a huge segment of the population - coincidentally the segment that had driven the revolution - with no one to vote for. Many didn't even vote because they couldn't bring themselves to support either candidate, but of the ones that I know who did, they voted for Morsi, because he campaigned on promises of respecting all Egyptians' rights and not imposing a religious state on secular Egyptians and they thought at least here's a guy who has spent his whole career opposing Mubarak, so that's something.
Turns out he was either lying all along or he is a weak leader who believes he has to give in to his radical religious flank, not only of his party, but also to keep the support of the Salafis who are even crazier (these were the guys flinging themselves at the armed thugs riding top speed into Tahrir during the Battle of the Camels during the first revolution because they believed if they died in battle against a secular ruler - Mubarak - they would go straight to paradise). The last year has been one betrayal of women's and minority rights after another. The parliamentary elections were rigged, giving seats that were supposed to be reserved for youth and secular and other minority parties to MB and Salafi candidates. The constitutional committee was so stacked with religious party reps that many of the youth and secular people left the process so as not to imply approval of the final product. All of the tiny handful of women on the constitutional committee were religious zealots. The final product made reference to sharia and did not contain protections for women and minority rights.
Morsi overturned court verdicts (remember, people at least sort of think the Judiciary is independent, so going up against them was bad PR for the MB), and made a declaration that his executive orders were not reviewable by the courts. Morsi proceeded to disband parliament, the judiciary (and various individual courts), and NGOs at one time or another throughout the past year in blatant, inept power grabs, and has spent so much energy on doing these ridiculous things - and then trying to defend them to the international community from whom he is requesting aid - that he has not provided jobs or economic stability. There has been little accountability for the deaths of the protesters under Mubarak and SCAF (army) rule.
Morsi has failed to prevent, and even implied approval of, attacks on religious minorities (and some church burnings of Coptic churches) including, a few weeks ago, most shockingly, a group of Shiite Muslims who were beaten to death by a mob of Sunnis (the majority in Egypt). There has not really been inter-Muslim sectarian violence in Egypt before. Even moderate Muslim Egyptians (and even not so moderate Muslims) were like "whoa, it is one thing to murder Copts, but murdering other Muslims? That's way off base!" They began to see the MB's leadership as divisive even among Muslims.
Electricity is always unreliable in Egypt during the summers when everyone is using AC but lately the grid has been further challenged by chronic gas shortages (the electricity and water pressure of many buildings is run on generators). It takes hours waiting in line to get gas and these lines make traffic even worse. There are even some entrepreneurial kids walking around with shisha pipes among the cars in line so you can rent a shisha to smoke while you wait. So now on top of not having jobs and seeing the Egyptian pound fall in value and countries refuse aid because your government has shown it isn't interested in governing, you have to wait in line for hours (whether you are trying to gas up or not), your apartment may not have power, or AC, or running water (if you are above the 3rd floor, which most people are) for hours every evening.
In anticipation of the 1 year anniversary of Morsi's election, a loose organization of youth and secular coalition groups called Tamarod (rebel in Arabic), started collecting signatures demanding Morsi step down and hold new elections. A sort of impeachment by vote of the people petition. They were pushing 30 June as the day when anybody unsatisfied with MB rule should come out to demonstrate peacefully. If Morsi did not step down, Tamarod said the peaceful demonstrations would become full civil disobedience (camping in Tahrir and outside government buildings to block traffic and government officials, and strikes in factories, schools, and government offices). They claim to have collected 22 million signatures on their petition. After seeing the huge numbers of people protesting this past weekend, some military estimates say at least 3 million people joined anti-Morsi protests in Tahrir square alone, the military gave Morsi a 48 hour ultimatum that either the MB respond to the demands of the people or the army would lay out its own plan for the future and take steps to implement it. Morsi apparently pointed to his neck and said "this before that," meaning he would die before giving up power.
So after the deadline passed, the generals just went on TV and announced Morsi was no longer president. Backed on the dais by the head of Al Azhar mosque and the Egyptian Coptic (Christian) pope, the armed forces announced the roadmap (which was also drafted in conjunction with secular and youth representatives such as Mohamed El-Baradei and the April 6th youth movement which was instrumental in the first revolution). The roadmap includes:
-Suspending the constitution provisionally;
-The chief justice of the constitutional court will declare the early presidential elections;
-Interim period until president elected. Chief Justice will have presidential powers;
-A technocrat, capable national government will be formed;
-The committee will offer all its expertise to review the new constitution;
-The Supreme Constitutional Law will address the draft law and prepare for parliamentary elections;
-Securing and guaranteeing freedom of expression, freedom of media
-All necessary measures will be taken to empower youth so they can take part in decision making processes
The military immediately transferred power to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, who was appointed by Morsi to that position on MONDAY, 2 days before he became president! Morsi appointed him Chief Justice from among 3 senior judges, all put in office under Mubarak. Al Adly has since transferred power to Mohamed El-Baradei who will be interim president. He is really popular with Western leaders because he is secular, and a technocrat. He also won a Nobel Peace Prize as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency so he is pretty attractive to the international community. He is not particularly popular within Egypt because Egyptians don't relate to him. They see him as too allied with the West and with Israel to really be one of them (Egyptians). He is obviously a smart man, but it remains to be seen whether he is clever. No leader could rectify all that is wrong with Egypt before the patience of the Egyptian people runs out. Luckily, El Baradei doesn't have to rectify all that is wrong with Egypt, he just has to keep everyone from killing each other until new elections can be held (and a new Parliament elected, and the constitution amended and approved).
New elections will pose a similar problem as the first round of elections did. It is almost guaranteed that secular and youth groups are still not organized enough to put forward presidential candidates that could win. They just don't have the infrastructure and the MB and Salafis do. So the MB could very well win again and it would be much harder to argue that the people don't REALLY want them there if they won 2 elections.
Finally, the question of whether or not this is a military coup. This seems to be all that Western journalists can talk about (and they all agree it is a coup) and Egyptian and European media keep saying "why does it matter if it was a coup if it is what the people want?" I think both groups are wrong. I personally do not think this was a military coup (I'll explain in a minute why this is a political rather than semantic determination) and there is one obvious reason why whether it is or isn't a coup seriously matters for the future stability of Egypt.
First, not a coup: I can definitely see that from the MB's perspective, this felt like a coup. Military generals barge into your palace and tell you to give up your democratically elected presidency or they will toss you out on your ear, it is going to feel like a coup. But it isn't. Because you seized so much power, perverted the constitution, and declared your decrees to be above the law, there was no legal means to impeach you. Your people rose up against you and although many populations are not fortunate enough to have their own army, the Egyptian people do. So they sent their generals to you and said agree to early elections or else! And you did not agree, so something like 30 million people across your country demanded "or else." "Or else" in this case cannot really be seen as a military takeover because the military did not take over anything. They handed power immediately to a judge, ostensibly independent of the executive and political parties, and in fact also appointed to Chief Justice by the president himself only days before. How can it be a military coup if the military never held power? The military did not remove the president. The army acted as the enforcement arm of the general public and the people impeached the president for failing to govern.
Why does it matter what we call it? It doesn't matter what we call it as long as we don't call it a coup. US law forbids aid to a government where a military coup has taken place until democratic elections are held. The Egyptian military is 100% dependent on US aid to operate and the Egyptian military is the only stable institution left in Egypt (besides the judiciary, and they don't have tanks). So attention media types: stop calling this a coup. Call it a takeover, a transition, an impeachment (my preference). Call it a scuffle, a power grab, an illegitimate arrest if you really want to show your disapproval. But stop calling it a coup. Attention Egyptians: stop saying it doesn't matter if the West calls this a coup because YOU know the truth. It really does matter what the West calls it, so instead start teaching the West a new vocabulary more helpful to your cause (and your economy).
Whether it is or isn't a coup, I think the US will find a way to not call it a coup. The US's role and position in all this is based only on money and Israel. We will support whoever can provide a stable government that accepts our money and our foreign policy demands with respect to securing Israel. We do not care if that is the military, the MB, or even someone more extreme. For this, the US, both Obama and the American ambassador Anne Patterson, got a lot of hateful signs in the protests. The protesters see the US as supporting the MB, which isn't exactly true, we would support any strong leader willing to buckle to our own policies, and we will continue to dump money into Egypt, regardless of whether there is democracy or human rights, as long as we think Israel is still protected there. But if we come to define this as a coup, our own laws will prevent us from giving money to Egypt until democratic elections can be held. We have already disbursed all our 2013 aid funds to Egypt so the army is set no matter what until 2014, but by then there had better either be elections or some new diction in the West about what went on this week.
So there's my take on what has happened so far. Looking forward to what happens next...
I think the best entry point into the conversation about what is happening in Egypt came from Millie, who asked how what is going on now is related to the 2011 Revolution. In the days leading up to 30 June, anti-Morsi protesters were tweeting "We thought democracy was enough. It was not." Obama said something along these lines as well ("Democracy is more than elections"). Although what is happening now is not politically connected to the last revolution, it is emotionally connected.
You couldn't find someone more politically opposite to Mubarak than the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Mubarak was a career military guy, a secular ruler whose only ruling philosophy was "grab more." The MB by contrast is a religious party. They support a broader cultural return to Sharia law (which is already a part of Egyptian law in the areas of finance and family law) and were persecuted as a terrorist organization under Mubarak's regime. Many of their leaders, including former-President Morsi, were imprisoned under Mubarak.
However, despite their contrasting political and religious views, the STYLE of Mubarak's regime set the tone for the MB's year in power. His administration was characterized by snagging power and resources in every corner of Egyptian industry and turning it over to his supporters. These industry magnates held ruling posts in his party and skimmed billions for themselves (and more of their cronies) leaving Egypt's economy shriveled and completely dependent on foreign aid. These guys are still around. In the wake of recent developments, don't be surprised to start hearing familiar names pop up. Ahmed Ezz, kazillionaire steel magnate and known crony/skimmer was only just recently found not guilty of charges relating to said skimming, which went on for decades. This lack of accountability also marks the Mubarak era, as few if any of Mubarak's supporters, or the perpetrators of such horrendous violence during the first revolution, have ever been successfully prosecuted. Mubarak himself had his guilty verdict overturned earlier in the year and his retrial has been rescheduled for August 17th.
Bear in mind (it will be important again) that many of the judges still in office today came up through the ranks in the Mubarak days. The Judiciary is generally understood as independent from the executive but also slightly politically aligned with the old regime.
So the protesters who led the first revolution, and many of those middle-class, religious but not extremist Muslim Egyptians who voted for Morsi, have been disappointed to see Egypt's first democratically elected party repeat the same all-encompassing power grab tactics learned from the Mubarak regime. There was always some consternation that the MB would not treat women and religious minorities fairly, and that fear has been borne out. However, the MB's style is less about discrimination, and more about the same "more for me and mine" mentality that Egyptians have been sick of for thirty years. What Obama and the Twittersphere were claiming is that democracy is not just having elections, it is about ruling democratically, which the MB hasn't done.
Westerners are also asking if Morsi was so unpopular in Egypt, and if Egypt really wanted a fair, secular, democratic state, why did they elect the Muslim Brotherhood to power in the first place? It was a super slim majority, but roughly 50% of the country voted for Morsi, right? Well, sort of. There is a question of timeline and a question of process here, which explain why a majority of Egyptians voted for Morsi and yet still a majority don't like him.
First, the timing: Although Morsi and the MB were elected by the people, elections were held so soon (because there was a lot of pressure on the military to give up power and their reputation was starting to tumble rapidly) after Mubarak's fall that the secular and youth opposition groups - which had never existed as organized political parties before - did not have enough time to organize and get their message out (or come to consensus about what that message should be). Only the MB and the old regime had any sort of organizational structure and so Morsi and Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak's former spy chief, were the candidates in the run-off election. Procedurally, this run-off election was inevitable because out of a number (5 maybe?) of unsatisfactory candidates, it was unlikely any one would get a majority of the vote. But it also gave a visual representation of everything that was wrong with the elections: that they came down to a "choice" between the old regime and a religious party previously known as terrorists.
This choice between the greater of all evils left a huge segment of the population - coincidentally the segment that had driven the revolution - with no one to vote for. Many didn't even vote because they couldn't bring themselves to support either candidate, but of the ones that I know who did, they voted for Morsi, because he campaigned on promises of respecting all Egyptians' rights and not imposing a religious state on secular Egyptians and they thought at least here's a guy who has spent his whole career opposing Mubarak, so that's something.
Turns out he was either lying all along or he is a weak leader who believes he has to give in to his radical religious flank, not only of his party, but also to keep the support of the Salafis who are even crazier (these were the guys flinging themselves at the armed thugs riding top speed into Tahrir during the Battle of the Camels during the first revolution because they believed if they died in battle against a secular ruler - Mubarak - they would go straight to paradise). The last year has been one betrayal of women's and minority rights after another. The parliamentary elections were rigged, giving seats that were supposed to be reserved for youth and secular and other minority parties to MB and Salafi candidates. The constitutional committee was so stacked with religious party reps that many of the youth and secular people left the process so as not to imply approval of the final product. All of the tiny handful of women on the constitutional committee were religious zealots. The final product made reference to sharia and did not contain protections for women and minority rights.
Morsi overturned court verdicts (remember, people at least sort of think the Judiciary is independent, so going up against them was bad PR for the MB), and made a declaration that his executive orders were not reviewable by the courts. Morsi proceeded to disband parliament, the judiciary (and various individual courts), and NGOs at one time or another throughout the past year in blatant, inept power grabs, and has spent so much energy on doing these ridiculous things - and then trying to defend them to the international community from whom he is requesting aid - that he has not provided jobs or economic stability. There has been little accountability for the deaths of the protesters under Mubarak and SCAF (army) rule.
Morsi has failed to prevent, and even implied approval of, attacks on religious minorities (and some church burnings of Coptic churches) including, a few weeks ago, most shockingly, a group of Shiite Muslims who were beaten to death by a mob of Sunnis (the majority in Egypt). There has not really been inter-Muslim sectarian violence in Egypt before. Even moderate Muslim Egyptians (and even not so moderate Muslims) were like "whoa, it is one thing to murder Copts, but murdering other Muslims? That's way off base!" They began to see the MB's leadership as divisive even among Muslims.
Electricity is always unreliable in Egypt during the summers when everyone is using AC but lately the grid has been further challenged by chronic gas shortages (the electricity and water pressure of many buildings is run on generators). It takes hours waiting in line to get gas and these lines make traffic even worse. There are even some entrepreneurial kids walking around with shisha pipes among the cars in line so you can rent a shisha to smoke while you wait. So now on top of not having jobs and seeing the Egyptian pound fall in value and countries refuse aid because your government has shown it isn't interested in governing, you have to wait in line for hours (whether you are trying to gas up or not), your apartment may not have power, or AC, or running water (if you are above the 3rd floor, which most people are) for hours every evening.
In anticipation of the 1 year anniversary of Morsi's election, a loose organization of youth and secular coalition groups called Tamarod (rebel in Arabic), started collecting signatures demanding Morsi step down and hold new elections. A sort of impeachment by vote of the people petition. They were pushing 30 June as the day when anybody unsatisfied with MB rule should come out to demonstrate peacefully. If Morsi did not step down, Tamarod said the peaceful demonstrations would become full civil disobedience (camping in Tahrir and outside government buildings to block traffic and government officials, and strikes in factories, schools, and government offices). They claim to have collected 22 million signatures on their petition. After seeing the huge numbers of people protesting this past weekend, some military estimates say at least 3 million people joined anti-Morsi protests in Tahrir square alone, the military gave Morsi a 48 hour ultimatum that either the MB respond to the demands of the people or the army would lay out its own plan for the future and take steps to implement it. Morsi apparently pointed to his neck and said "this before that," meaning he would die before giving up power.
So after the deadline passed, the generals just went on TV and announced Morsi was no longer president. Backed on the dais by the head of Al Azhar mosque and the Egyptian Coptic (Christian) pope, the armed forces announced the roadmap (which was also drafted in conjunction with secular and youth representatives such as Mohamed El-Baradei and the April 6th youth movement which was instrumental in the first revolution). The roadmap includes:
-Suspending the constitution provisionally;
-The chief justice of the constitutional court will declare the early presidential elections;
-Interim period until president elected. Chief Justice will have presidential powers;
-A technocrat, capable national government will be formed;
-The committee will offer all its expertise to review the new constitution;
-The Supreme Constitutional Law will address the draft law and prepare for parliamentary elections;
-Securing and guaranteeing freedom of expression, freedom of media
-All necessary measures will be taken to empower youth so they can take part in decision making processes
The military immediately transferred power to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, who was appointed by Morsi to that position on MONDAY, 2 days before he became president! Morsi appointed him Chief Justice from among 3 senior judges, all put in office under Mubarak. Al Adly has since transferred power to Mohamed El-Baradei who will be interim president. He is really popular with Western leaders because he is secular, and a technocrat. He also won a Nobel Peace Prize as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency so he is pretty attractive to the international community. He is not particularly popular within Egypt because Egyptians don't relate to him. They see him as too allied with the West and with Israel to really be one of them (Egyptians). He is obviously a smart man, but it remains to be seen whether he is clever. No leader could rectify all that is wrong with Egypt before the patience of the Egyptian people runs out. Luckily, El Baradei doesn't have to rectify all that is wrong with Egypt, he just has to keep everyone from killing each other until new elections can be held (and a new Parliament elected, and the constitution amended and approved).
New elections will pose a similar problem as the first round of elections did. It is almost guaranteed that secular and youth groups are still not organized enough to put forward presidential candidates that could win. They just don't have the infrastructure and the MB and Salafis do. So the MB could very well win again and it would be much harder to argue that the people don't REALLY want them there if they won 2 elections.
Finally, the question of whether or not this is a military coup. This seems to be all that Western journalists can talk about (and they all agree it is a coup) and Egyptian and European media keep saying "why does it matter if it was a coup if it is what the people want?" I think both groups are wrong. I personally do not think this was a military coup (I'll explain in a minute why this is a political rather than semantic determination) and there is one obvious reason why whether it is or isn't a coup seriously matters for the future stability of Egypt.
First, not a coup: I can definitely see that from the MB's perspective, this felt like a coup. Military generals barge into your palace and tell you to give up your democratically elected presidency or they will toss you out on your ear, it is going to feel like a coup. But it isn't. Because you seized so much power, perverted the constitution, and declared your decrees to be above the law, there was no legal means to impeach you. Your people rose up against you and although many populations are not fortunate enough to have their own army, the Egyptian people do. So they sent their generals to you and said agree to early elections or else! And you did not agree, so something like 30 million people across your country demanded "or else." "Or else" in this case cannot really be seen as a military takeover because the military did not take over anything. They handed power immediately to a judge, ostensibly independent of the executive and political parties, and in fact also appointed to Chief Justice by the president himself only days before. How can it be a military coup if the military never held power? The military did not remove the president. The army acted as the enforcement arm of the general public and the people impeached the president for failing to govern.
Why does it matter what we call it? It doesn't matter what we call it as long as we don't call it a coup. US law forbids aid to a government where a military coup has taken place until democratic elections are held. The Egyptian military is 100% dependent on US aid to operate and the Egyptian military is the only stable institution left in Egypt (besides the judiciary, and they don't have tanks). So attention media types: stop calling this a coup. Call it a takeover, a transition, an impeachment (my preference). Call it a scuffle, a power grab, an illegitimate arrest if you really want to show your disapproval. But stop calling it a coup. Attention Egyptians: stop saying it doesn't matter if the West calls this a coup because YOU know the truth. It really does matter what the West calls it, so instead start teaching the West a new vocabulary more helpful to your cause (and your economy).
Whether it is or isn't a coup, I think the US will find a way to not call it a coup. The US's role and position in all this is based only on money and Israel. We will support whoever can provide a stable government that accepts our money and our foreign policy demands with respect to securing Israel. We do not care if that is the military, the MB, or even someone more extreme. For this, the US, both Obama and the American ambassador Anne Patterson, got a lot of hateful signs in the protests. The protesters see the US as supporting the MB, which isn't exactly true, we would support any strong leader willing to buckle to our own policies, and we will continue to dump money into Egypt, regardless of whether there is democracy or human rights, as long as we think Israel is still protected there. But if we come to define this as a coup, our own laws will prevent us from giving money to Egypt until democratic elections can be held. We have already disbursed all our 2013 aid funds to Egypt so the army is set no matter what until 2014, but by then there had better either be elections or some new diction in the West about what went on this week.
So there's my take on what has happened so far. Looking forward to what happens next...
