Egypt a Year After Morsi

A year ago yesterday was June 30, the date of the now iconic "June 30 revolution," and Thursday will mark the anniversary of the military coup (sorry, military intervention) that removed President Muhammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Over the coming days I hope to offer a number of posts assessing the events of the past year. I'm sure whatever I say will offend someone, given the profound polarization both before and after the events of a year ago. But a few things seem clear to me: 1) Too many people have died in the past year, on both sides; 2) too many people are in prison, and not just Islamists but journalists, revolutionaries and the like; and many of those who supported Tamarrod and the June 30 protests last year are today disillusioned, though others welcome the ascendancy of the military.

We know now that the military leadership cooperated with Tamarrod before and during the demonstrations, and we also know that Sisi has admitted to having had dreams of himself in a leadership role. Just how scripted the events of June 30-July 3 last year were is still a bit fuzzy, but the Army seems to have moved, not reluctantly as it claimed, but with a carefully predetermined scenario.

More to come in the coming days.

Intissar Amer (Madame al-Sisi): First Lady or Invisible Consort? The Many Styles of Egypt's First Ladies

The photo above shows a rare appearance of then-Field Marshal Sisi in public with his wife, Intissar Amer. It dispelled rumors that she wears he full veil, but indications so far re that she will keep a low public profile when she becomes Egypt's First Lady. During the Presidencies of Anwar Sadat and Husni Mubarak, when the title "First Lady" was applied as a semi-official title and the incumbents had a highly-visible public profile. made the President's wife a public figure on he world stage, but not all of Egypt's first ladies have been as high-profile  as Jehan Sadat and Suzanne Mubarak.

Under the monarchy, of  course, the queens had a high public profile. Fuad I's Queen, Nazli, and Farouq's Queens, Farida and, after their divorce, Nariman, were given the public roles due to royalty on the European model. Of Middle Eastern monarchies, Egypt and Jordan gave their queens high levels of publicity and  public role, unlike Morocco or the Arab Gulf monarchies. But there has been considerable variation since the fall of the monarchy. Omitting transitional and interim figures:

Muhammad Naguib's wife, ‘A'isha Muhammad Labib, who was at least his second wife, played no real public role and remains little known. Some references even give her the first name ‘Aziza.

Nasser and Tahia's Wedding

Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser's wife had a more public role, though not nearly as visible as her two successors. Tahia Kazem, also called Tahia ‘Abdel Nasser,was the daughter of an Iranian father and Egyptian-Iranian mother. She was frequently photographed with her husband and children but did not have the high profile public role of her two successors.

During Nasser's Presidency

Tahia, who died in 1990, wrote a memoir of her life with Nasser which was not intended for publication. It was finally published in 2011 in Arabic, and last year in English. She thus joined, belatedly, Jehan Sadat in publishing her memoirs.

Jehan Sadat

Anwar Sadat's wife, Jehan, became the first Egyptian First Lady to play a major role in public, and to achieve international fame.in her own right. Jehan Safwat Ra'ouf, better known as Jehan El Sadat, married Sadat in 1949, shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Iqbal Mahdi, by whom he had three daughters. Jehan was the teenaged daughter of an Egyptian doctor and his British wife. (Many Egyptians believe that her mother was actually Maltese, but public documents show her mother was from Sheffield, as she asserts in her memoir. Some suggest the Maltese rumor may have originated when the Free Officers did not want to seem linked to the British occupation.) During the Sadat years the term First Lady (al-Sayyida al-Ula) began to be regularly, if unofficially, used. After Sadat's assassination, Jehan worked to keep his legacy alive, in part through the Anwar Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland. where she is a senior fellow.

Suzanne Mubarak

Husni Mubarak's wife. Suzanne Thabet, officially known as Suzanne Mubarak, is, like her predecessor, the daughter of an Egyptian doctor and a British mother, in her case a Welsh nurse. Like her predecessor she had a high profile, founded or was patron of schools and charities, and is believed to have been a strong supporter that her younger son Gamal should succeed his father. She was reported to be writing her memoirs before the Revolution broke out, and after the revolution Rose al-Youssef published what it claimed were excerpts, but many believe these, such as other leaks purporting to be her husbands memoirs, are a hoax.The source is highly dubious, to be generous.

Muhammad Morsi's wife, Nagla' ‘Ali Mahmoud, was a striking departure from her two fashionable predecessors. She wore the hijab, flatly refused to be called First Lady (saying she preferred "Umm Ahmad"), but she did give occasional interviews and discuss her role.

Which brings us to Madame Sisi, Intissar Amer. Sisi has said that they met in secondary school and he married her on graduation from the Military Academy in 1977. She is said to dislike public appearances and has not pursued a career, preferring to raise her family. She does not dress as conservatively as rumors speculated, but modestly, at least based on that one photo, but from what is known of her she is likelier to follow the Tahia Nasser model than the Jehan Sadat or Suzanne Mubarak one.

You May Find This Amusing Though I Feel it Needs Some Explaining First

This is going around. It's funny in one of those "the joke is great after you have it explained to you" ways:

This should be obvious to anyone who has been following Egyptian social media the past few days, and also is pretty familiar with the iconography (in the literal sense of the symbolism of icons) of Eastern Christian saints. (Though the Coptic label is a big clue there. If you know some Coptic of course.) And that's an Omega watch, of course, and Sigmund Freud in the role of Saint Basil of course, and ...

Just in case a few of you are still a little puzzled or don't fit all the above, let's start with General Sisi's dreams.

An audiotape appeared on a YouTube video yesterday, posted  by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. It purports to be (though it's not confirmed genuine) an interview between Egypt's General Sisi and the Editor of Al-Masry al-Youm. In it Gen. Sisi allegedly reveals (though he goes off the record to do it) that for the past 35 years he has had dream visions, in which he saw himself as ruler of Egypt wielding a sword with the slogan "There is no God but God" in red, and wearing an Omega watch.

First, the Arabic audio (transcript in Arabic), followed by an English transcript from this website:

Interviewer: Had you expected to take on the leadership of the Egyptian Army?
El-Sisi: The leadership of the Egyptian army, or something greater than that?
Interviewer: Fullstop.
El-Sisi: I am of the people who’ve had a long history of visions. This is only for you.
Interviewer: Okay, I’ll listen, I’ll only write later.
El-Sisi: 35 years ago…well, I’ve stopped talking about visions 7 or 8 years ago, from 2006.
Interviewer: I understand this part…
El-Sisi: I stopped talking about these things. I said I wouldn’t talk about it again. But I’ve always had visions…
Interviewer: You see yourself on the throne of Egypt?
El-Sisi: No, that’s not it. I’ve seen a lot of things…
Interviewer: That happened?
El-Sisi: That happened afterwards…nobody could explain it. For 35 years, nobody could explain it.
Interviewer: Like what?
El-Sisi: But this won’t be said.
Interviewer: Not in this interview, but whenever God wishes.
El-Sisi: For example, many years ago, I saw in a dream, that I was raising a sword, on which was written “No God but God” in red…this was 35 years ago…
Interviewer: “No God but God” colored red…?
El-Sisi: In red, yes – on the sword, raised like this. Another in which I had on my wrist, a watch, with a very big green star on it…and Omega, and people are asking “Why you? Why do you have this watch?” and I said this watch is named for me, it’s an Omega, and I’m Abdel Fattah, so I put the Omega, with…the global nature, with Abdel Fattah. Not me, the dream, that’s just an example. In another dream, I was told I would be given what nobody else had been given…
Interviewer: Who?
El-Sisi: In the dream, we’ll give you what nobody else had been given. In another dream, I was with Sadat, and I was talking to him, and he told me “I knew that I would be the president of the republic”, and I said to him “I also know that I’m going to be the president of the republic.”
Interviewer: What do you feel when you see your pictures raised next to pictures of Abdel Nasser, and when Abdel Hakeem said you are an extension of the leader, and that you are the most capable of leading the country?
El-Sisi: There’s a prayer I always say, that I could be that.

Okay, that explains (in so far as it is explicable) the red-labeled sword and the Omega watch, and offers at least a clue to the presence of Sigmund Freud. And the spear of course is poking at Muhammad Morsi, and has knocked off his crown.

Now for the rest of the imagery. Despite resembling the typical images, it does not represent St. George and the Dragon (with Morsi as the dragon), but rather the dream of Saint Basil, in which Freud is Basil and Sisi is Saint Philopater Mercurius (a Coptic version of whose name is the label, but the twin swords also give it away).  Here is a non-Sisi version of a similar icon:

Saint Philopater Mercurius  was an early Christan soldier-saint and martyr. Legend has it that the Archangel Michael came to him and gave him a divine sword to go with his physical sword as a Roman soldier: in Arab Christian tradition he is known as Abu Saifain, he with two swords; hence the sword in each hand. He was martyred in 250 AD by the Emperor Decius, the same Emperor he had previously served.

A Cappadocian, he was buried there, but years later the Armenian Church gave some of his relics to the Coptic Church, and he became the subject of popular veneration.

But you can't keep a good saint down. Over a century after his death, in 363, Saint Basil the Great, also Cappadocian, was imprisoned by his former schoolmate Julian, now the notorious Emperor Julian "the Apostate," who had reverted to paganism and started persecuting Christianity anew. Legend says he prayed for deliverance, and in a dream was told he would be President of Egypt with an Omega watch had a vision in which St. Philopater Mercurius appeared and told him that he had struck the Emperor Julian with a lance. Julian was indeed pierced through the liver with a lance in a battle with the Sassanid Perisans, and soon died; Christianity was restored and St. Basil freed.

So that's the rest of the imagery: Morsi is the despised Julian; Sisi wields the twin swords of the saint, but bearing an Islamic slogan. It falls apart a bit in that Freud is Saint Basil, since despite the connection with dreams, it wasn't Freud's dream here, it was Sisi's. And then there's the Omega watch. (At least he didn't dream of a Rolex.)

But you all knew this already, right?

So Sisi's not just Nasser. He's Saint Philopater, but with the Muslim shahada on his sword.

I still don't get the Omega/Abdel Fattah link though.

Nael Shama in Le Monde Diplo: "Understanding Cairo" and How its Presidents Haven't

A hat tip to Ursula Lindsey at The Arabist  for my belated discovery of this gem from Nael Shama at Le Monde Dipomatique in English: "Understanding Cairo." Egypt's Presidents (with one exception) are assessed as not understanding the capital. Read it all, but it offers such a refreshing insight and a new spin on recent events that I think it deserves rather extensive excerpts:

Modern Egyptian rulers failed to unravel the secrets of the city, abandoning it at times, unleashing their wrath against it at other times — always failing to understand it. They mistook Cairo’s patience for apathy, overlooking the fact that, like all old cities, it is both wise and resilient. It smiles in the face of hardships, bears the ebbs of time with a strong heart, but in response to tyrants, it doesn’t murmur: it shouts.

President Anwar Sadat sought solace in his village house in Mit Abu El-Kom, in Menoufia Governorate, away from Cairo’s political traffic jams. Sadat was not returning to his roots in a quest to consolidate family ties or evoke sweet childhood memories. Sadat hated Cairo and its unruly people . . .

Likewise, from the late 1990s until 2011, President Hosni Mubarak — and his “royal” entourage — spent long periods of time in the resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh, far away from Cairo’s oven-like heat and suffocating air pollution . . .

. . . In the tranquility of his comfortable exile, Mubarak could block out what had become of Egypt during his three-decade rule: a despairing nation, a corrupt and dysfunctional state, a failing economy addicted to foreign largesse, crumbling services, an ailing infrastructure, a population boom (more than a million new souls every year), a fading grandeur replaced by a pitiable image in the region and beyond. Yet Mubarak’s flight to the periphery did not bring the core to rest: Cairo bent under Mubarak, but it did not break. Eventually, Cairenes flocked to Tahrir Square, Cairo’s (and Egypt’s) center, to seal Mubarak’s fate.

. . . Morsi’s downfall was also partly because he didn’t understand Cairo. Despite the MB’s successive ballot box victories in post-Mubarak Egypt, it was Cairo that slowed down the group’s foray into the territory abandoned by Mubarak and his defeated, dissolved party. In Cairo, Morsi lost both rounds of the presidential elections (May-June 2012) as well as the referendum on the constitution (December 2012).

Morsi visited Tahrir Square only once after his election victory. This visit came on his first day as president, in order to celebrate his victory among his supporters and, in hindsight, to pay farewell to the central square of a city he so quickly and foolishly lost. Morsi remained oblivious to the threat posed by Cairo’s recalcitrance until the very end.

The exception? Who's left?:

Only Nasser — who clipped the wings of the aristocracy and uplifted the poor, creating a viable middle class — bonded with Cairo. The expansion in education and health services and the establishment of an industry-oriented public sector gave rise to, and consolidated, Egypt’s middle class in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1956, he vowed steadfastness against the tripartite aggression (Suez) from the rostrum of the widely revered Al-Azhar mosque, in the heart of Cairo’s old Islamic city. “I am here in Cairo with you and my children are also here in Cairo. I did not send them away [for protection from air raids],” he said, to affirm his loyalty to the city.

Nasser did not travel much during his reign. He was not a big fan of the tourist retreats of Egypt’s pre-revolution aristocracy. He stayed in Cairo, and there he died. In the autumn of 1970, Nasser resided for a few days in Cairo’s posh Nile Hilton during the emergency Arab summit convened to put an end to the bloody Palestinian-Jordanian conflict — Black September. On the night of September 27th, on the balcony of his hotel room that overlooked River Nile, Kasr El-Nil Bridge and the lights of the city that never sleeps, he told his friend Mohamed Heikal: “This is the best view in the world.” On the following day, he died.

There's a genuine truth in this piece, and one that goes far to explain the deep differences among Egyptians today. Read the whole thing, though. At least twice.

Al Arabiya: Preacher Says Angel Gabriel at Morsi Rally

I shouldn't even cite this, having recently called out Al Jazeera for bias, since its rival Al Arabiya tends to be as biased, but with an anti-Brotherhood tilt. But I can't resist. Al Arabiya has a headline: "Divine intervention? Angel Gabriel ‘spotted’ at pro-Mursi protest." The story doesn't fully live up to the headline as it involves someone having a vision:

Protesters in Cairo’s Rabia al-Adawiya Square believe they have seen the light.
In a show of support for Egypt’s ousted president Mohammed Mursi, a preacher giving a sermon at the Square this week told the crowds of a miracle.

In the speech, broadcast on Egyptian satellite channels, the preacher said the Angel Gabriel had been spotted among the crowds at the pro-Mursi Square.

Sheikh Ahmad Abdel Hadi, a Muslim Brotherhood preacher, addressed protestors saying: “Some good men in Madina Al-Munawara (in Saudi Arabia) told me of a vision in which Gabriel entered Rabia al-Adawiya’s mosque to keep people praying stationed in their positions.”

He added that there was another vision in which there was a gathering attended by Prophet Mohammed, Mursi and others. In the vision, when it was time for prayers, the people asked the prophet to head the prayers, but the propher asked Mursi to lead instead.

Al Jazeera's Nonstory on US Aid for Morsi Opponents

Al Jazeera, long known for its straightforward reporting, has come under increasing fire for its undisguised support for Muhammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, reflecting the views of its Qatari owners. For the most part the tendency has been most pronounced in Al Jazeera Arabic and their Misr Live channel from Egypt, and less so in Al Jazeera English. But this strange "exclusive" story is bizarre, "Exclusive: US bankrolled anti-Morsi activists: Documents reveal US money trail to Egyptian groups that pressed for president's removal."

It's already well-established that Egyptian secularists and liberals believe the US backed Morsi and helped support the Brotherhood; now we're being blamed for his overthrow as well?

Indeed, the US supports a number of organizations that promote democratization:Washington's democracy assistance programme for the Middle East is filtered through a pyramid of agencies within the State Department. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is channeled through the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), USAID, as well as the Washington-based, quasi-governmental organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In turn, those groups re-route money to other organisations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House, among others. Federal documents show these groups have sent funds to certain organisations in Egypt, mostly run by senior members of anti-Morsi political parties who double as NGO activists.

In fact, as anyone familiar with these organizations should know (and could determine with a few calls), they generally maintain links with a broad range of political parties. Secularists have attacked some of them for their links to the Brotherhood, buy they, like the Embassy, maintain relationships with parties across the spectrum.  This is just as great an oversimplification as the charge that the US Embassy supported and propped up the Brotherhood, or that Ambassador Patterson was personally some sort of enabler of Morsi.

The lesson may be that if you try to keep lines open to all sides, all sides will end up blaming you. But Al Jazeera used to be above such blatantly slanted reporting, and they deserve to be called out on this.

When is a Coup Not a Coup? Egypt on the Eve of Ramadan

The July 3 toppling of Muhammad Morsi in Egypt has predictably led to rolling clashes between supports of the deposed President and those who celebrate his departure. We've just had a four-day weekend in the US due to the Fourth of July falling on Thursday; I decided not to try to post through most of the holiday in order to allow my own thoughts to form more clearly.

What's clear is how much remains unclear. The confusion over the weekend over whether Mohamed ElBaradei was to become Prime Minister,or Vice President, or either is still murky; there have been many rumors about who is getting which jobs, with many distinguished names in play, but little certainty.

The US is seemingly unsure what to do. American law requires a cutoff of aid if there has been a military coup against a freely elected government. But US officials are carefully avoiding using the c-word, which would limit their freedom of action; the US has major strategic interests in Egypt, and with most of that aid going to the military, a cutoff of aid could lead to a radicalization of the Army which is holding most of the cards right now.

And I should mention that after this four-day weekend I found my email inbox full of over hundred (I stopped counting) messages from (ostensible) Egyptians all informing me, many in identical words and all in only three or four variant texts, that this was a revolution, not a coup. None of these were from anyone I knew, although a few purported to come from "the Egyptian people." If these folks think the US Administration will heed my advice, I'm flattered, but if they think spam-bombing Washington is the way lobbying works, they've got a lot to learn. Anyway, I got the message after the first dozen or so, I suspect that other Mideast hands got similar mail.

Was it a coup? Well, let me ask another question: was February 2011 a coup? We didn't generally call it that though it was the Army that sent Mubarak packing. But no one considered Mubarak freely elected (except perhaps Mubarak).

The tendency to see this as a simple case of polarization between the secular and the Islamists is complicated by the fact that the Nour Party, which is Salafi, has backed the coup (but may have blocked ElBaradei). But the arrests of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and media closings, suggests an intention on the part of the new leadership to suppress the organization, which may not sit well with Nour.

And Ramadan starts at sundown. That may exacerbate tensions, especially among Islamists.

More thoughts are coming.

Just Over a Year Ago ... I Posted This

Don't say I didn't see it coming. My headline and post on July 2, 2012:

 And here's a closeup of that picture:

Photo via Zeinobia

Now we know the answer.

Crunch Day in Egypt Tomorrow: Al-Ahram is with the Army

Tomorrow's (state-owned) Al-Ahram: (via Zeinobia): Big headline in red: "Today ... Dismissal or Resignation." Black headline below masthead: "Formation of a Presidential Council and Suspension of the Constitution."

The state media now appears to be with the Army and not with Morsi. Game over? That remains to be seen.

Morsi's Speech and Tomorrow's Deadline

Egyptian President Morsi is not a charismatic speaker. But anyone who expected tonight's speech, in the middle of the night in Egypt, to provide any concessions were disabused quickly by his defiant defense of his legitimacy. In fact, he may have set some kind of record for the number of times he said "legitimacy" (شرعية) in a single speech.  That emphasizes his strongest argument: he was elected in a free election and removing him extra-constitutionally is undemocratic.

But, except for a claim that he had accepted an opposition initiative to resolve the standoff but that the demonstrators had rejected it, he made no gestures towards the opposition, instead insisting he would defend his position as the legitimately elected president. He claimed he is prepared to lose his life in the defense of that legitimacy. The statement that he had accepted an opposition initiative just might provide a slender opening for a compromise in which Morsi remains as President but there is a national unity government and plans for new elections, but it was far too vague to reassure. That, and the fact that the opposition is simply running out the clock on the Army ultimatum rather than seeking a real compromise, means that scenarios for tomorrow include some rather violent ones. Let's hope the Army really does have a plan that won't bring the Brotherhood militias out in an Algerian-style war.

Egypt's Strange Slow-Motion Creeping Coup

After the Egyptian Army's earlier ultimatum warning of intervention if political forces do not find a solution within 48 hours, the Army has issued another statement insisting that it is not threatening a coup, but merely pressuring political leaders, comparing it to the role played by the military in 1977, 1986, and 2011. (Link is in Arabic.) The food riots of 1977 and the police conscription riots of 1986 were cases of brief military operations domestically because internal security forces were outnumbered, but in 2011 SCAF took over and ran the country for more than a year, which to many would seem like a coup. But not to worry: we're told that a military coup would be against Egyptian Army doctrine.

Also today, it looked more and more as if the Army was openly siding with the demonstrators. After the initial announcement of the ultimatum, Army helicopters flew over Tahrir Square with giant flags. Internal Security Forces clashed with the personal bodyguard of Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Guide Khairat al-Shater, and the state media suddenly showed a tilt towards the protesters. In the provinces, the Army took over the governorate headquarters in Fayyoum, ousting the Morsi-appointed Governor.

In an even stranger development, the Egyptian Presidency announced that Morsi and Prime Minister Qandil had met with Defense Minister General Sisi, and posted this photo to the Presidency's Facebook page:

I was wondering what Sisi had in that briefcase, but then came reports citing a military spokesman as denying that Sisi met with Morsi at all today.

Morsi, meanwhile, has bumped a scheduled statement until tomorrow. The tone of the pro-Morsi rally has been defiant, but there is also speculation that he might agree to a referendum on new elections. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the countdown continues towards a possible military Definitely-Not-a-Coup-Just-an-Intervention.

The Paradoxes and Contradictions of June 30

 On Sunday, June 30, opponents of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi will take to the streets on the anniversary of his presidency to demand new Presidential elections and a reboot of the democratization efforts that began with the January 25 revolution. They want to remove the President, dissolve the Shura Council (Islamist dominated and acting as the sole legislative body), and rewrite the new constitution. The Tamarrud (rebellion, insurrection) movement, the main organizers of the protests, are mostly secularist revolutionaries of 2011 disillusioned and feeling their accomplishments were sidetracked, perhaps derailed, when the Muslim Brotherhood got control of the locomotive. As Zeinobia notes, they're now trying to institutionalize a front organization.

The Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party intend to defend the regime, seeing it as legitimate, democratically elected. and, as Morsi said in his speech this week, needing more time. They wouldn't object too strongly if the independent press (and maybe a couple of state-owned papers as well) and the judiciary got hammered a bit in the process.

US Ambassador Anne Patterson came under fire this week for suggesting that protests against the elected government would be a bad idea (an oversimplification of what she said, but one feeding the conspiracy theory among some Egyptian conspiracy theorists among liberal secularists that the US is backing the Muslim Brotherhood).

There's rather open yearning among some secularists for a military coup, to reset the clock and restart the democratization process. Really? Wasn't that what the 1952 coup promised? Didn't you finally shuffle your last general off the stage in 2011. 59 years later? Yeah, that'll work. It worked so well the last time. What are you thinking?

The prospect of the demonstrations has also fueled insecurity. There's a gasoline shortage and runs on other necessities. Insecurity is just what Egypt needs.

So am I opposed to June 30 (conspiracy theorists could say I'm in league with Ambassador Patterson)? No, the right to demonstrate should be sacrosanct. But there are problems with the demands being made. They would roll everything back, in effect, to February 11, 2011. That is not going to happen,because it ignores the Parliamentary and Presidential election results. Morsi won an election (by 51%) and the Freedom and Justice Party won a plurality in the Parliament (since dissolved) while Islamists held a majority overall. That can't be ignored. The Brotherhood and its allies have proven their support base.

The other side of the coin is they've proven other things as well: 

1. A remarkable incompetence and inability to address serious issues like the economy, and a tendency to rally against outside enemies (Ethiopia on Nile waters, the usual suspects of Israel, "outside influences" meaning the West, Syria) while ignoring horrors at home (the recent killings of Shi‘ites, continued looking the other way on Coptic-Muslim clashes, public harassment, abuse, and even rape of women, torture in the prison Morsi himself once spent time in, etc.)
2. Despite the FJP having won only a plurality in Parliament and Morsi's narrow squeaker win for the Presidency, an unwillingness to compromise, a sense of "legitimacy is ours and you're the enemy," and an attitude to NGOs and the press that is indistinguishable from Mubarak's except for the identity of some of the targets.
3. An overall performance that, in a Parliamentary system, might already have led to the fall of the government, and that might justify a constitutional impeachment if there were in fact a Parliament in place.

But the opposition doesn't want a constitutional removal; they want a new revolution. Or so they say.

Now as an American, I have standing to criticize emerging democracies because of our sterling record of our two major parties working together. OK, how about the House, Senate, and President fully understand the need for compromise and always work together. Oh, all right. At least all sides universally accept judicial decisions. 

OK I see your point, maybe I don't have standing to criticize. But hey, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun got on real well in the 1840s. Too bad about that little Civil War unpleasantness that followed.

It is in fact the refusal of either side in Egypt to recognize the legitimacy of the other or consider power sharing that is most disturbing. One of the best expressions of the conflicting issues and ambiguities of this quarrel I have seen is in this post by Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr (who has an English father and Egyptian mother and is always a good read). Excerpts (but read it all)(language warning for one phrase):

Ideologically, I am extremely torn about the protests’ demands. I would like nothing better than for Morsy and his arrogant, obstinate Brothers to be booted out of Egyptian political life (and I voted for Morsy in order to keep out Shafiq) but have three issues:

1. It would hit the Muslim Brotherhood harder if they were ejected from Egyptian public life via elections. They would not be able to cry foul, and this would hit at their precious legitimacy in a way that the protests don’t. I have long been of the opinion that the Muslim Brotherhood should be left to their own devices as long as the economy can stand it, so that they continue to fuck up, destroy their support base, and we can be rid of them forever. This is a problematic and unpopular position, I know and it assumes firstly, they hold elections and secondly, they don’t forge results.

2. I keep imagining that it was ElBaradei or Hamdeen [Sabahi] or someone non-MB and palatable to those taking to the streets on Sunday was elected. I imagine, what if Mr Palatable did something to garner the ire of his (Islamist) opposition on a par with Morsy’s constitutional amendment, something along the lines of removing all reference to Sharia in the constitution (PEDANTS: I AM JUST IMAGINING FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS EXERCISE AND AM NOT SUGGESTING THEY WOULD).

Say that this inspired mass protests similar to those at the presidential palace in December 2012 and that Mr Palatable’s supporters used violence against the raging Islamist mobs. Now imagine that the political impasse dragged on and on until the exasperated Islamist opposition, together with ordinary Egyptians fed up at the economic situation and turmoil (I am assuming that no president could have fixed much in a year) took to the streets demanding Palatable go.

What would my position be? I would most likely stand against the Islamist mob and one of the arguments I would invoke is that Palatable was democratically elected and you, raving Islamist mob, represent nobody but yourselves.

3. If a miracle happened and Morsy did step down as a result of these protests it sets an awkward precedent. Particularly if the army is involved.

So I am in a quandary. I despise the Muslim Brotherhood and hate what they have done to the country. I like democracy, such as it is, and think that respecting clean election results is a useful and pretty essential rule in a functioning society, but then the Muslim Brotherhood themselves seem to have no respect for the rule of law. The reappearance of the Egyptian army in politics would be disastrous, and prompt a jingoistic army lovefest that my embattled nerves could not withstand. It would be ammunition for the Omar Suleiman “Egyptians are not ready for democracy” crowd, and that would be heartbreaking.

Indeed.
 

Morsi's Big Speech: Preaching to the Brotherhood Choir

Egypt has been increasingly on edge as the big demonstrations scheduled for June 30 (marking the anniversary of Morsi's Presidency) approach. With opponents demanding new Presidential elections and much speculation about the role of the Arm (which has said it will maintain order), uncertainty about what may happen has led to a run on gasoline stations and food stores.  Today, Morsi delivered a much anticipated speech defending his presidency and responding to his critics.

If anyone expected Morsi to express contrition or make conciliatory gestures, they haven't been watching the man's track record. He spoke for two and a half hours, addressing many issues and promising that he will move more quickly towards Parliamentary elections and improving daily life, but also denouncing or criticizing the courts, media, and other institutions that have opposed or criticized him. He never mentioned the recent killing of Shi‘ites.

I didn't hear the entire speech but from what I did, plus summaries on social media, he does no seem to have suddenly acquired rhetorical charisma.

Clearly, too, he was preaching to the choir. His Muslim Brotherhood supporters and other Islamists will doubtless applaud the speech; the demonstrators planning to turn out Sunday will remain unpersuaded.

The polarization in Egypt seems to be deepening. I'll have much more to say before June 30.

Egypt's Syria Break and the MB's New Anti-Shi‘a Rhetoric

Egypt's break with Syria over the weekend followed almost immediately after a meeting of senor Islamists with President Morsi in which the Islamists, particularly well-known preacher and senior Muslim Brotherhood adviser Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for "jihad" against the Asad regime. The Syrian conflict has increasingly been a subject of Qaradawi's statements; his anti-Shi‘ite rhetoric has become more pronounced lately, and on his website he has published congratulations from the Saudi Crown Prince for his stance. Once an advocate of Sunni-Shi‘i cooperation, he has become more and more confrontational; the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole has endorsed similar rhetoric, always having been rather suspicious of Shi‘ism.

The new anti-Syria rhetoric, combined with the recent tough talk about Ethiopia's dam project, may be intended to provide external enemies to rally support at a time of domestic dissent. Most recently Morsi's appointment of new governors for the provinces raised eyebrows when the new governor of Luxor turned out to be a member of al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the group that staged the 1997 attack on tourists at Luxor. Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya has since renounced violence, but critics fear an impact on the already badly hit tourism sector.

But rhetoric aimed at Ethiopia and Syria at the same time could prove risky, and raises new questions about Morsi's (and the FJP Party's and its Brotherhood sponsors') foreign policy positions.

Morsi's Brinksmanship on Ethiopia: A Dangerous Game?

Egypt's President Morsi, in an address to a rally of Islamist groups yesterday, called for Egyptians to unite against an external threat, in this case the controversial Ethiopian dam.

Conventional wisdom seems to be that Morsi is using the dam project as an attempt to rally the opposition behind him prior to big anti-Morsi demonstrations scheduled for June 30 and marking one year in power. From Ahram Online:

The president also said that "all options" were on the table to respond to the current situation and insisted that Egypt would not accept infringements on its water security.

"We have said several times that Egyptians with their revolution carry a message of peace...We do not want war, but we do not accept threats to our security."

Morsi also asked opposing political forces to stand united at a time when Egypt faces hard challenges and to put aside all political rivalries. He went on to call for "national reconciliation," adding that he was certain that political figures would respond positively to his appeals.

"The country demands that we stand united," he said, issuing his call for reconciliation only weeks before planned mass demonstrations on 30 June to demand snap presidential elections.

Morsi did say Egypt is committed to dialogue with Ethiopia and praised dialogue over other approaches, but the implied threat was clearly there.

While the outreach to his domestic opponents may be welcome, the apparent escalation of an international dispute in order to rally unity at home can be risky, and is already drawing criticism. International grandstanding and brinksmanship in an escalating situation can spin out of control easily; that should be obvious in the week of the 46th anniversary of the 1967 war, when Egypt paid a huge price for just such brinksmanship. True, Ethiopia and Egypt share no common border, and threats may be seen as empty, but domestic posturing in international disputes can put diplomatic solutions at risk.

Morsi and Al-Azhar

I have already referred you to the Middle East Institute's Arab Transitions Project and its current focus on Egypt, but I particularly wanted to call to your attention this piece by Ahmed Morsy on "The Grand Sheikh and the President," which I found a useful assessment of the assertiveness of al-Azhar in the age of Muslim Brotherhood government.

Anticlimax: Kidnapped Egyptian Troops Freed

Nearly a week after seven Egyptian security forces were kidnapped in Sinai (one soldier, four State Security, two Port Security), followed by days of confusion and uncerta8nty, growing speculation about growing tensions between Morsi and the Army, stepped up warnings that the Army was about to move and would not negotiate, at least one accidental firing on a bedouin funeral, the whole drama ended anticlimactically today with the peaceful release of the seven captives. Ahram Online's account is, well, obscure:

The details of the hostages' release have not been officially confirmed. A senior military source said that the Egyptian army used a diversion strategy to secure the release of the hostages.

"The armed forces executed a diversion strategy by sending out mixed information through news agencies," the source told Al-Ahram Arabic news website.

"They (tribal leaders) were also the ones who persuaded the kidnappers to release the soldiers in the desert."

According to military spokesperson Colonel Ali, military intelligence officials played a key role in the operation to free the soldiers, who were abducted in North Sinai's capital, Al-Arish.

Whatever that means. I suspect the key line is the one about the tribal elders. This sidebar story suggests that this was more of a retaliation by local tribes than a planned terror operation; as usual, President Morsi is making promises to develop the Sinai and improve life there.

Judiciary, MB in Egypt Approaching Showdown?

Last Friday, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt held demonstrations calling for a "purge" of the judiciary, as the continuing series of confrontations between the courts and the Presidency deepen. Having already dissolved the Lower House of Parliament last year, the courts are considering the constitutionality of the Shura Council, the Upper House now serving as the sole legislature, while other court rulings have put off the Parliamentary elections, originally due this month, until fall at the earliest. The Shura Council is meanwhile debating a new Judiciary Law that would force the retirement of as many as 3,000 judges.

Meanwhile, the government has essentially ignored court rulings against its appointment of the Prosecutor General and another ruling that sought to remove the Prime Minister. Justice Minister Ahmad Mekki has submitted his resignation, though it is unclear if it will be accepted; a Cabinet reshuffle is expected in the next few days. [Update: Mekki reportedly will not resign and Morsi has reportedly suspended the Judicial Authority Law after talks with the judges.]

Along with the Cabinet reshuffle, the government is expected to name new governors for the Governorates; if it seeks to name primarily Brotherhood members, it is likely to deepen the confrontations; it could however signal a willingness to work with the opposition. President Morsi's international travels have yet to provide the sort of deus ex machina solutions to the country's economic problems he seems to have hoped for, and the failure to address the economic crisis further deepens the political stalemate.

Egyptian Presidents, Pakistan, and Hats: Then and Now

You'll recall that when President Morsi received an honorary degree in Pakistan, he got a lot of online comment for this picture:
And then Bassem Youssef's supporters showed up at the court with this:
Well, it seems that Egyptian Presidents visiting Pakistan tend to get photographed wearing unusual headgear.  A hat tip to Sarah Carr for pointing out this wondrous pic from a Nasser visit in 1960:


But you know, somehow I have to say, Nasser actually makes this work. He somehow pulls it off, as Morsi does not. On him it looks good, or perhaps more precisely his smile and his eyes convey the sense of  "I look ridiculous, don't I?" as if it's an inside joke. Nasser, who was never freely elected, knew how to play his audience like a true politician. Morsi, who was freely elected, doesn't get it. Not yet anyway, and perhaps not ever.

A sense of humor might help. I've said before Morsi seems to have been the very rare Egyptian born without one, or perhaps he had it removed. Nasser's eyes say it all. It's a joke to him, and he's sharing it with his countrymen.

The Copts Get Tough: Church Issues Demands

In the wake of the sectarian conflict in Egyot: a still from a 1960s Egyptian movie: a Muslim sheikh and a Coptic priest on a bicycle built for two. Too bad it's only an old movie.

In the real world, the Coptic Church, sounding tougher than in the recent past, has issued demands of the Presidency:

The Coptic Orthodox Church has identified five demands for President Mohamed Morsy to resolve the sectarian crises that have erupted in various parts of the country.

“We demand the president to apply the law to everyone, ensure safety and security in the entire country, activate fully the principle of citizenship, amend religious discourse, and teach Coptic history in schools,” Father Makary Habib, the personal secretary to Pope Tawadros II, told the Turkish Anadolu News on Wednesday.

“The absence of the law treated Copts as if they were second class citizens,” Habib said, adding that what is happening now is the result of thirty years of sectarian problems under the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“We are tired of painkillers,” he said, hinting to informal and customary solutions. “We need concrete steps.”

Though Egyptians marched yesterday against sectarian violence, tensions remain high. Anyone have a supply of bicycles?