At the time of the successful military coup against the Morsi government (July 2013), many secularists showed themselves to be remarkably stupid and naïve. They thought that Egyptian democracy had been saved. They believed that secular governments would be freely elected until the end of time. They assumed that their civil liberties would be strengthened, not weakened. They were too trusting that the military would happily subordinate itself to the civilian government after the dust had settled. Yet these secularists were, in fact, chasing after mirages. Most people do not have long-term memories, with the result that few have tried to measure the concrete political realities in Egypt against the secularist expectations that the military coup augured for a better future. Yet this group has watched Egypts political progress, or rather the opposite of any progress, very closely. Far from becoming a democracy, Egypt has reverted back to a military dictatorship with civilian trappings. The civilian trappings are not even very convincing. Everyone without blinkers knows that President Abdel Fattah al Sisi is the face of the Egyptian military, even if he claims to be a civilian. More importantly, the human rights situation has gone from bad to worse. In July and August 2013, the Egyptian military slaughtered more than 1000 Muslim Brotherhood protesters and no one was held accountable for this travesty (the worst case of violence in Egypts recent history). What is more, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights claims that 41,000 Egyptians have been imprisoned since July 2013. Those thrown in jail include not only Muslim Brotherhood members, but also secularists, leftists, human rights activists, and anyone who violated the November 2013 law (which stated that demonstrations with more than 10 people are prohibited unless the government consents to them). Then in November 2014, the Al-Sisi regime passed another law prescribing life in prison and a 70,000 USD fine as the penalty for receiving foreign funding with the intention of harming the national interest. Since harming the national interest is not clearly defined, the Al Sisi government can use this law to destroy any undesirable vestige of civil society -- including Egyptian rights groups. Yet perhaps the most frustrating thing is that no one learned anything. The secularists did not learn how to form a coalition political party (like they did over in Tunisia) and persuade the majority of Egyptians that secularism, not Islamism, is the only viable way forward for Egypt. Similarly the Muslim Brotherhood was never put in the position of having to moderate its Islamist policies, since these policies were never put to a vote in a free and fair election. As a result, Muslim Brotherhood members can still claim that their policies reflect the democratic will of the Egyptian people. And who can dispute this claim, given that the Muslim Brotherhood was toppled by the military? Democracy is the only framework that can allow people to learn from past mistakes and vote for better political candidates -- or, in other words, gain in political maturity. The Egyptian military has brought Egypts democracy to an abrupt stop, with the result that the Muslim Brotherhood will continue to adhere to extreme policies and Egyptians of other political persuasions will not have the opportunity to organize themselves politically and contribute to the political and economic improvement of their country. The effects of no one learning anything may not be obvious in the beginning, but they will manifest themselves more clearly over the long term. hrw.org/news/2014/11/04/egypt-un-should-condemn-worsening-abuses
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 20:35:31 +0000