Lessons from Egypt upheaval
The bloodbath, over which Malaysia and other countries have expressed a deep regret, has plunged Egypt into deepening chaos and emboldened the brutal military regime that showed little or no interest at all to put the country back on the road to democracy.
A. Jalil Hamid
THERE have been a series of paradoxes in a volatile Egypt. Firstly, an 18-day-old revolt spearheaded by the young people of Egypt ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the popular uprising, tens of thousands leapt to their feet, bouncing and dancing in joy on news of Mubarak’s ouster.
“Lift your head high, you’re an Egyptian,” they had cried. Repeating the tense of the revolution’s war cry, they screamed: “The people, at last, have brought down the regime”.
Then in the last two months — in a bizarre twist of events — we saw a seemingly democratic movement urging the military, which backed six decades of the autocratic rule by Mubarak, to topple a democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, who succeeded Mubarak.
The political turbulence in the post-Mubarak era in the most populous Arab country could be described as the proverbial “out of the frying pan, into the fire”. Egyptians’ taste for democracy proved to be short-lived, falling back into the trap of the powerful military.
The euphoria over the downfall of strongman Mubarak soon fizzled out as Egyptians lashed out against Morsi’s government over soaring food prices and rising unemployment.
“Liberal” political parties, upset by Morsi’s leadership that tried to forge ahead with his government’s Islamic agenda, then decided to join forces with the military to topple his Muslim Brotherhood’s supremacy in Egypt.
The secular-liberals, who had earlier failed to make much inroads in the country’s elections, found it politically expedient to join hands with the generals to oust the Brotherhood government.
With Morsi arrested and his power seized, his supporters had retaliated with massive protests in Cairo and other big cities. The protests turned yet into a bloodbath on Aug 14, when armed police stormed thousands of the Brotherhood’s supporters and peaceful demonstrators camped beside a mosque and a university in Cairo.
In the ensuing mayhem, more than 500 people were killed and nearly 3,000 injured with the violence spreading to other cities, including Alexandria and Suez and a score of churches were burned down. A month-long state of emergency was declared across the country.
The bloodbath, over which Malaysia and other countries have expressed a deep regret, has plunged Egypt into deepening chaos and emboldened the brutal military regime that showed little or no interest at all to put the country back on the road to democracy.
The Wall Street Journal said the events on Aug 14 showed that Egypt could be heading into a “murderous civil war” that could be a tragedy for the country.
The generals’ worst mistake, however, is to ignore the chief lesson of the Arab Spring, The Economist wrote. “This is that ordinary people yearn for dignity. They hate being bossed around by petty officials and ruled by corrupt autocrats. Instead, they want better lives, decent jobs and some basic freedoms.”
A democratic transition for countries such as Egypt, which has never tasted a proper democracy, will be long and painful. It is not going to be simple and easy in the first place.
What complicates things is the repression unleashed by the new military rulers in Egypt. The road to democracy should not be paved with violence and civil disobedience.
In the case of Egypt, democracy should not be an end but a means to achieve greater good. The ultimate goal is to serve the people by meeting their basic needs and preserving their rights.
The lesson for Egypt is that there is more to democracy than just winning elections. From the people-led Arab spring, it has now ominously turned into a generals’ summer.
