Egypt, Take Two
I’ve been thinking about writing something about the latest events in Egypt since last week, when Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were removed from power, and actually meant to write it at the start of this week, but here we are, on Sunday, with the post still not written. As a result, since I mean to at least write it now if I couldn’t get myself to do so earlier, this will be another rushed post, less detailed than it should be and without links. If you happen to read it and somehow don’t know the details of what’s going on over there, feel free to search for more information on your own, as it’s extremely easy to find.
I won’t get into the whole discussion about whether it is a coup or not, partly because, although the military didn’t openly take power for itself, for all practical purposes it is, and partly because it’s not particularly relevant. What matters is that those who needed to be removed from power were removed swiftly and without bloodshed, and that the country received another chance. How much of a chance that is and what exactly will be done with it is another matter entirely.
Granted, removing someone from power when they shouldn’t have been allowed to take power in the first place, regardless of how free and fair the elections were considered to have been, isn’t exactly something to brag about, but fixing a mistake after a year is still better than not fixing it. Fixing a mistake by making others, however, is not acceptable, yet this is exactly what the Egyptian military and those it appointed as interim rulers certainly seem to keep doing after the initial intervention.
The first move I disagreed with was arresting Mohamed Morsi, followed of course by all the other arrests of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the warrants issued for those who went into hiding. Yes, allowing them to remain free and make public appearances would have caused even more of their supporters to gather around them and would have most probably resulted in a greater number of clashes and casualties, but that would have been their fault and would have reduced their credibility even further, in Egypt as well as abroad, while arresting them brings back memories of the Mubarak regime and may well reduce the support for the interim rulers, forcing whoever will be elected after this period is over to struggle to regain all of this lost confidence.
Worse, however, is the killing of protesters, at least without clear and complete footage proving the military’s side of the story. I, as an external observer, don’t care that a country’s military claims that they responded to an attack staged by a group of terrorists that came out of a larger group of otherwise peaceful protesters. I have heard that too many times and the result of going down that path can be seen in Syria for more than two years now, so if a country’s armed forces make such a claim, I expect them to back it with irrefutable evidence… And I also expect them to have better ways to deal with such situations, if true, than shooting at groups of people and, even if entirely by accident, killing protesters, regardless of which side they’re on.
But these events will determine the future of a country while also influencing the entire region and the way in which certain issues are dealt with in the rest of the world as well, so, as insensitive as it sounds, there are things to worry about that are far more important than arrests and killings. I’m referring to deciding who can be elected in a position of authority and how, enforcing the separation of Church and State and, of course, the particular risk of radicalizing certain Islamists who had so far remained relatively silent, hoping that their views, with the possible exception of the particularly extreme ones, will be enforced through methods that are generally considered democratic.
This last issue has been frequently mentioned in recent analyses, and for good reason. However, the fact that this risk is so real is a good thing from where I’m standing, because religion must be a strictly personal choice and have no influence whatsoever on laws or political decisions. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Paganism, Atheism or anything else; no belief system should be allowed to have any influence on the lives of those who didn’t freely choose to adhere to it, so anything that gives people who disagree with this statement hope that their views will be forced upon others needs to be stamped out, along with those who can’t accept this, regardless or where it happens or how.
Yet this is not what’s actually being done in Egypt now, is it? Or, all right, at this particular moment the Salafists, who are actually a far bigger problem than even the Muslim Brotherhood as far as their objectives are concerned, are no longer taking part in the negotiations, but that’s because they pulled out after the army killed protesters, likely in an attempt to gather even moderate Islamists around them and increase their influence in the end. However, before pulling out they blocked two nominations for the office of Prime Minister, proving that the other forces are definitely willing to allow them to continue shaping the future of Egypt, while at the same time those same forces didn’t even consult the leaders of the masses of largely secular protesters who triggered this entire chain of events!
Of course, you’ll say that this isn’t so much about religion, the economy and the fact that Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were starting to entrench themselves, becoming authoritarian, playing a much bigger role, but I always dismiss the economic concerns, seeing as the entire system needs to be destroyed in order for a fair one to be built upon its ashes. The authoritarianism is a different matter, but while authoritarian rulers need not be religious, rulers who are heavily influenced in their decisions by religious beliefs are usually authoritarian.
As such, I think that, if Egyptians want to avoid finding themselves in a similar or worse situation a year or two from now, removing any influence of religion from politics should be the first order of business, regardless of the risks involved. Past that, a more transparent and participative system must be developed and enforced, and leaders who will strive to guarantee the rights of all to live as they please as long as they do not undeservedly harm others or the environment must be appointed, regardless of what percentage of the population will support or oppose them… But that is a message for the entire world, not only for Egypt.
