Euphoria gives way to reality in Egypt: Bercovici

The so-called Arab Spring is in a deep freeze in Egypt as the ruling Muslim Brotherhood confronts its critics in the street.

The Toronto Star, Thousands of protesters in Cairo, Egypt, marched to express their rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohammed Morsi’s rule on March 22, 2013.
By: Vivian Bercovici Published on Tue Mar 26 2013

Last Friday, opposition activists demonstrated outside the Cairo headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ruling political power in Egypt. As often happens, the protest degenerated into a street brawl with rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown, tear gas sprayed, 200 injured and one dead.

Hopes were high two years ago that the overthrow of dictatorships in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East heralded an era of progressive, liberal democracy throughout the region. The western media and many political leaders gushed, adopting the term Arab Spring — evoking the Prague Spring and the 1848 Spring of Nations. “It was very dramatic,” recalls Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, a scholarly think-tank based in Philadelphia. “The quality of the demonstrations in Egypt was exceptional: modern, liberal and secular. It was surprising and unexpected.”

Media coverage concentrated on protesters in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, where everyone seemed to be tweeting like mad. The western media and many governments were awed by the crowds, the energy, the anger toward a dictator. They believed that Egypt was a democracy in early bloom.

The Muslim Brotherhood party won the ensuing national election under the leadership of Mohammed Morsi. For decades, Muslim Brothers in Egypt had been driven underground and into prisons by presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, secularist dictators who feared the populist appeal and power of the Islamists. In spite of their well-known beliefs, many westerners nurtured a fantasy that the Brothers were political pragmatists who shared their liberal, democratic values.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Eric Trager, a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, returned recently from Egypt. He has studied and written extensively about the country. He distills the Brotherhood credo into four essential beliefs, all of which turn on “Islamization” of various constituencies: the individual, small community-based “cells,” the state and the world. The notion of spreading “the word” globally and reclaiming former territories that were part of the historic Islamic empire are fundamental tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and no secret, according to Trager.

What does seem to be somewhat secret, or unformed, are the organization’s policy views as a governing party. We assume there is political consensus but the Brotherhood as a government in Egypt is in its infancy. We judge what we see.

During the conflict in Israel and Gaza in November, President Morsi was praised as a diplomat extraordinaire, given
credit
for brokering a truce between Hamas and Israel. Within days of that accomplishment, however, he attempted a power grab that would have made Stalin proud, declaring absolute presidential authority and a new constitution to go with it. In a flash, it was clear that the Brotherhood had no appreciation for the most fundamental principles of democracy, among them an independent judiciary and parliament.

The local and international backlash was swift and strong, forcing Morsi to modify his plans and backtrack, somewhat.

Then came the “apes and pigs” thing. Archival footage of Morsi being interviewed in Arabic in 2010 appeared on the Internet in January. He unleashes a torrent of hatred, referring to Zionists as “bloodsuckers,” “warmongers,” “descendants of apes and pigs.” Etcetera. Etcetera. Hardly the language of a liberal democrat.

Morsi explained that his comments had been taken “out of context,” as if any context would justify such hateful language.

In the last two years, civil liberties in Egypt have eroded. The Brotherhood-led government has prosecuted more journalists than Mubarak did in the previous 30. Fear among the eight million Coptic Christians in Egypt has spiked. According to Samuel Tadros, a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, the domination of local power structures by Muslim Brothers has led to extreme intimidation of this long-persecuted religious minority — like the burning of homes and businesses.

Such practices do not cultivate western confidence or investment, something that Egypt needs desperately.

Egypt is a religious, intellectual and military regional powerhouse of 90 million people who may go hungry very soon. The nation’s
cupboards
are bare. Food supply and cash-on-hand will last only a few weeks. The currency is in free fall.

The Brotherhood may have power but control is more elusive.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is shuttling around the area, twisting arms and scrambling to convince the key regional leaders to accept compromise and prevent economic collapse, and worse. Euphoria has given way to reality. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, it seems, really isn’t at all liberal, democratic or religiously tolerant.

The so-called Arab Spring in Egypt is in a deep freeze.

Vivian Bercovici is a Toronto lawyer and professor with a postgraduate
diploma
in Mideast politics. Her column appears monthly.

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