At last Egyptian politics
is moving. President Mohamed Morsi is slowly building on his summer 'coup',
when he stared down Egypt's generals and put his men in the top army and
defence positions, following terrorist attacks in Sinai which the army,
so old and bumbling, so involved in Egyptian internal politics, failed
to prevent.
Now, he has stared down Israel's generals, and dealt as an equal with
US President Obama to bring US pressure on Israel to back down in its
planned invasion of Gaza. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil was sent
to Gaza 16 November at the height of Israel's current Operation Pillar
of Cloud, forcing Israeli President Netanyahu to call a unilateral truce
to avoid killing the Egyptian leader. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
rushed to Cairo to show Washington's support for Morsi, making it clear
that Obama was starting a new leaf, finally understanding who his real
ally is in the Middle East, and putting Netanyahu in his place. There
will be no repeat of Israel’s humiliation of Obama with the 2008 Operation
Cast Lead.
Then, just hours after Morsi, the world's wise peacemaker, waved good-bye
to Hillary, but with his old-guard judiciary poised to dissolve the Constitutional
Committee and destroy all hope for carrying the revolution forward, the
unassuming president stared them down too, issuing a decree putting his
decrees above judicial review. And for the second time, he dismissed the
procurator general, Abdel Meguid Mahmud, who has presided over the legal
stonewalling of prosecutions of counterrevolutionaries -- this time not
backing down. The time for dawdling and letting criminals off the hook
is over. The new prosecutor general, reformer Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah,
has ordered a new trial of Mubarak and police and thugs let off scot-free
by the old judiciary.
And watch out, Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court, don't you
even think about disbanding the Constitutional Committee that is so painstakingly
putting together a constitution. (Liberals and Christian secularists resigned
from the committee, doing their best to sabotage it, revealing where their
sympathies lie.) Or about disbanding the Shura Council on some technicality,
as you did the lower house in May, in a conspiracy with the generals to
sabotage the revolution.
The secularists should look at the writing on the wall. Egypt is a devout
Muslim country, where Christians are protected by Islam and cultural liberals
are tolerated. These Western-inspired forces will never prevail, so they
should work with Islamists, not against them, if they want to maximize
social harmony and their own rights. Sadly, the opposition is increasingly
siding with the Mubarak crowd. "President Morsi said we must go out of
the bottleneck without breaking the bottle," presidential spokesman Yasser
Ali said. The opposition would rather see the bottle break that get Egypt's
life blood flowing again.
Islamic civilization has been endangered for centuries now, battered and
undermined by the Western secularist onslaught. Finally, Muslims are doing
something about it. Now the Egyptian revolution of 2011 -- which is Islamic,
as elections since then prove beyond a doubt -- is in danger, and the
Muslim Brotherhood is showing it has spine and smarts. In both assertions
of presidential power since then -- in August and November 2012 -- Morsi
used a brief window of opportunity to maximum effect. His decisive steps
caught observers by surprise, but surprise is the essence of revolution.
Waffling and compromise lead to paralysis.
Anyone who wants to be part of a new Egypt, to shake off the imperial
yoke looking for inspiration in Islam, should be delighted and inspired.
Instead, MB offices in Port Said and Ismailia and Suez were fire-bombed,
and liberals and judges, reinforced by the Mubarak crowd -- now more and
more assertive -- are demonstrating angrily at the high court in Cairo
and the judges' union has called a strike. Some talk of impeaching the
president as a traitor. The counterrevolutionaries are continuing to expose
themselves. "The decisions I took are aimed at achieving political and
social stability," Morsi explained, vowing to firmly enforce the law against
hooligans hired by loyalists of the former regime to attack security forces,
state and party institutions.
Under prosecutor Meguid, it was beginning to look like no one would be
held to account for the tens of thousands who were tortured and killed
during Mubarak's reign, for the billions that were stolen, and the flagrant
rigging of elections. The rich, corrupt old guard continue to pay thugs
and unemployed to disrupt civic life, to bring discredit to the revolution.
They have been doing this from day one and there is no reason to believe
they have stopped.
Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a
clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority
of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians
represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak
and now against the MB.
They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should
remember, was in the service of the imperial world order. He is a nice
Arab, a laid-back, secular Muslim, no threat. How else could he have been
appointed AIEA chief and crowned Nobel Peace Prize winner? Morsi has “usurped
all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh," ElBaradei
pontificated. Other dissidents include the also-rans in the June presidential
elections. Morsi’s main rival, Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq,
fled Egypt in disgrace after the election, facing arrest on corruption
charges, leaving behind Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, ex-MBer Aboul Fotouh,
and former Mubarak foreign minister Amr Moussa, who have teamed up to
form the self-proclaimed “National Salvation Front” to oppose the presidential
decree.
ElBaradei should be reminded there were great pharaohs, not just bad ones.
Yes, "Morsi is a 'temporary' dictator", screams the headline in al-Masry
al-Youm. There are times, especially during a revolution, when it is necessary
to act decisively to save the revolution. The kind of paralyzed 'democracy'
that the US and the old guard in Egypt want would choke and stall the
gains until cynicism reigns and the starving masses cry out for the old
order. What is key, is that the firm hand is an honest one, devoted to
the people. Morsi's kind are Egypt's only hope now -- selfless and God-fearing,
not acting for personal gain or empire, but for the good of the people.
He pledged to relinquish his new powers when the constitution is ratified
four months from now, and there is no reason to doubt his word.
Prior to the revolution in January 2012, ElBaradei too was a hero, a brave
figure, able to shield himself from Mubarak's secret police with his international
prestige, the man who openly rallied Egyptians against tyranny. In the
lead-up to the revolution, he acted in alliance with the MB, as later
did Sabahi in the lead-up to the first post-revolution elections. They
both underrated the real MB support and determination -- and their own
lack of standing with Egyptians -- thinking that secularists would prevail
in open elections, that they could make the MB abandon their program.
After the MB and Salafis chalked up 75% of the vote, the secularists suddenly
found it impossible to accept their junior role in Egyptian politics.
Rather than recognizing their own lack of credibility, and accepting the
broad MB program while trying to salvage something from the secularist
project, they have now drifted into alliance with the old guard and by
implication their imperial allies abroad.
This is exactly what happened during the Russian revolution of 1917, where
the political playing field shifted quickly, leaving key actors flummoxed.
Alexander Kerensky too was a liberal 'revolutionary', until he fled to
Paris, exposed as a reactionary anxious to appease the British and French
and keep Russia in the criminal war which had inspired the revolution.
Speaking at a Cairo mosque, Morsi told worshippers Egypt was moving forward.
"I fulfill my duties to please God and the nation. God’s will and elections
made me the captain of this ship. I don’t seek to grab legislative power.”
It is ridiculous to accuse the mild-mannered Morsi of creating a dictatorial
cult around himself. He is a man with a mission, but one which should
gladden the hearts of all Egyptians: “We’re moving on a clear path, we
are walking in a clear direction. And we have a big, clear goal: the new
Egypt.”
The transition to the new Egypt will not be easy. The striking judges
and brazen secularists, who flourished in the Mubarak era, will have to
learn some self-restraint or go. Traditionally, revolutions lead to a
house-cleaning through retirement, emigration, or in the worst case, through
violence. When old elites team up with old and new mafias, they play with
fire.
The Egyptian generals bowed out when their bluff was called. The prosecutor
general and those eager to scuttle the real democratic process and the
birth of the new constitution, with holier-than-thou words about the ‘independent’
judiciary, should do the same now and let the popularly-elected leader
get on with the hard work of making sure the revolution is not strangled
in the cradle.
***
A version of this appeared at http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/25/274493/morsi-strengthens-grip-on-egypt-affairs/
Eric Walberg is is author of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the
Great Games http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html You can reach him at
http://ericwalberg.com/ |