Perspective: Morsi Beau-Coup

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It might seem a quick fix in the short term, but can have huge ramifications in the longer term and for the future of the country. 

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Ahmadiyya Times
By Dur-e-Aden | July 8, 2013

As Pakistanis are mourning and remembering the dark era that took over this country on July 5, 1977 and from whose shadows we are still desperately searching for any ray of hope, Egypt is celebrating something that happened on July 3, 2013. From the face of it, the two incidents are pretty similar; military of a country taking over and replacing a democratically elected leader with the support of a certain section of the population. However, the ramifications for Pakistan were so horrific that one always wonders how the country would have looked today if that part of history is erased. What will happen in Egypt on the other hand, is still not clear. Morsi is no Bhutto, there is no Soviet Invasion next door for which armed militias are being indoctrinated and I am not entirely aware of the ideology of the interim President as well as the Armed forces of Egypt as to which way they plan to steer the country.

Yet like other political “experts” on Egypt, I couldn't resist so here is my EXBERT analysis of the situation. To start with, let me clarify that I am not a fan of Islamism. Political Islam is a dangerous ideology that misuses and misinterprets religion for purely political gains and in the process, brutally suppresses the rights of the most vulnerable sections of the society, especially women and minorities. Moreover, due to the respect that people have for religion in most Muslim majority countries, Islamists are easily able to prey on their sensitivities by hiding their own oppressive agendas under the garb of religion so that they can appeal to a wider section of the society and garner support. In this way, they not only manipulate ordinary people, but also demonize opponents of their ideology as opponents of the faith of Islam and label them either as apostates, atheists or people who have no regard or respect for religion. One example of this in Egypt was noted by Mariz Tadros in his book “The Muslim Brotherhood in Contemporary Egypt.” He explains how during the constitutional referendum of March 2011, Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis used religion to push for a yes vote. Instead of making logical arguments to justify their position (even if it was inspired from religion), their argument was simply that “good Muslims” should vote yes and only the infidels and unbelievers would vote no.

Hence the idea of “democracy” in such a context where people are being manipulated, where the President is consolidating powers, is unable to protect minorities, and is also accused of inciting sectarian hatreds at times does become questionable. However, it is important to note that no matter how much one disagrees or hates Morsi, he was still elected by the Egyptian people. The people who voted for him were not outsiders but were part of the same Egyptian society. It is possible that Brotherhood hijacked the revolution as Islamism was not for which people initially came into the streets, and it is also entirely possible that people were being manipulated by Islamists to vote for them. Nonetheless, people are vulnerable to manipulation in any society where candidates are often trying to reflect or appeal to popular sentiments in order to gain votes from the public. It happens in Pakistan, it happens in US, it happens in UK, it happens in India and other countries where some form of democracy is in place. Imran Khan has taken out numerous dharnas on drones but has a softer stance on Taliban atrocities because people in Pakistan are more anti-US than they are anti-Taliban.  BJP garners support by appealing to Hindu nationalist sentiments despite the accusations of being involved in anti-Muslim violence. George W. Bush was elected twice in U.S. (Good Lord!!!) and anti-immigration and anti-minority rhetoric of some of the right wing European politicians is not hidden.  As much as we detest certain ideologies and people who come to represent them by appealing to a section of the population (sometimes the majority of the section unfortunately), democracy is still designed in a way where you can vote the people out even if they manage to get into power at a particular time.

Now to be fair to the members of the opposition to Morsi, a lot of them have complained that the current political environment in Egypt was not exactly suitable for building up their political parties and support base because opposition members of the current members were being arrested. There were restrictions on freedom of speech which is a fundamental part of any democracy and there were more cases of “insulting the President” under Morsi than there were under Mubarak. Moreover, all of this was in addition to the Presidential decree which Morsi issued to consolidate his own power and he failed to reach out to opposition to listen to their concerns. He was acting as a President of the Brotherhood as opposed to the President of Egypt which means that even if he was democratically elected, he was ruling Egypt in an authoritarian manner. Hence, they had no option but to take to the streets to express their discontent. After all, authoritarianism is not why so many people lost their lives during the start of the Egyptian uprising and became known as the “martyrs” of the revolution, majority of whom families are still awaiting justice.

However, to build up democratic institutions and to strengthen the process of democracy for which Egyptians have struggled so hard, it is important that the process continues uninterrupted. Incompetent, corrupt and unpopular leaders should be thrown out at the ballot box, instead of allowing for interference by non-democratic institutions. It might seem a quick fix in the short term, but can have huge ramifications in the longer term and for the future of the country.

It is true that Morsi’s government failed at so many levels. However, one of the good things about the failure of the Morsi government was that people started to see how hollow the slogan of “Islam is the solution” is. The empty rhetoric of using religion to cover up for the incompetency of your government was not going to stand around much longer and whenever elections would have happened next, Islamists would have suffered the consequences of their empty promises. It might have been a painful process and people who were brutalized by the Morsi regime might have suffered more in the time being, yet Islamists would have lost their influence over the society and as a result, over the government gradually. However,  now as a result of a forced removal, Islamists can not only play the victimhood card which they are very good at playing, there is also a chance of escalation of violence in an already divided country between the supporters of Islamists and those who were opposed to their rule. Military suppression of Islamist forces, as the history of Egypt shows, has implications for further radicalization in the society. Not to mention that the organizational structure of the Brotherhood is still intact and is much stronger and functional than the secular opposition which is divided, is not organized politically at grass roots level and is also missing a leader. Therefore even if elections happen, Islamists can still manage to get more votes than the opposition. Now if that happens, they can become more inflexible to act in a reconciliatory manner towards the members of the opposition. Moreover, they can also try to pursue their Islamist agenda in the government much more vigorously by making the argument that we came after deposition of the military through elections (for the second time) for which the opposition called for in the first place. This means that majority of the Egyptians agree with our vision for how our society and government should function.  

In addition, military intervention in politics has implications for different policies of the country as well. They can allocate more resources for their institution at the expense of the welfare of the people. They can influence politicians to do their bidding otherwise can always threaten to takeover by pointing to a precedent in history and make the argument that people will support it or they can make people support it by pointing to the failures of the civilian government which is easy to do, especially in nascent democracies. Not to mention that after the ouster of Mubarak and even during the period of Morsi, Egyptian military has also been accused of committing human rights abuses and cracking down on activists.

Now by giving this EXBERT opinion, I am in no way planning to take away from the voices of Egyptians. It is their country and they know better than any outsider how to solve its problems and which way they would like it to go. It was just an advice from a resident of a country which has seen such kinds of episodes play out several times and have learned after 66 years why it was a bad decision every time, even though it looked like the solution to all problems for the time being. Democracy has not solved Pakistan’s problems during the times that it was in place and is not going to do so in the near future. Yet democratically elected leaders, no matter how bad, are answerable to people to some extent and do suffer the consequences at the ballot box, even if not in the way we would like, but they do. It was a date in July of 1977 which started one of the darkest eras in the history of Pakistan. I do hope that in the case of Egypt, a particular date in the month of July does yield different results. The realist inside me however, cautions me otherwise.

P.S. (The title of this post is not mine and was taken from a facebook status of someone and I take no credit for its creativity).


  -- Perspective: Morsi Beau-Coup
  -- By Dur-e-Aden
  -- Ahmadiyya Times


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