Category: Middle East Page 16 of 20

To point out the obvious, Egypt’s judges have effectively gone over to the junta.  What this means, if you are in the opposition (violent or otherwise) is that if there is another revolution, those judges go.  You completely sideline them from power and rip out the heart of the current judiciary, along with ALL senior civil servants (since they sabotaged the previous, democratic government, by making sure basic services like power didn’t work.)

You can’t have a revolution in Egypt which accommodates anyone who was in bed with the previous regime.  Sadly, this will include much of the secular opposition, who supported Sisi’s coup.  Having proved that they do not believe in democracy, and that they can’t be trusted not to back the military, they will have to be sidelined, though since they have no actual power nor the willingness to engage in violence, they need not be killed (they don’t have the guts, themselves, to pull of a coup.)

This is a basic application of JFK’s maxim that that those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.  I don’t like how the Muslim Brotherhood ruled, but Sisi is far, far worse.  Those who oppose him are entirely justified in their use of violence, and have so far been more discriminate in its use that the army or the police.

Egypt’s economic situation will continue to get worse over the long run.  The country cannot feed itself, and offers little that the world needs.  The fat classes (and in Egypt it easy to tell who is part of the system and who isn’t, because their poor people aren’t fat), will eventually lose power.  When they do, those who take control will not be, as Morsi was, willing to make accommodations with the old regime.  Nor should they.

Here are the numbers:

Since Mr Morsi’s overthrow his Muslim Brotherhood group has been the target of a fierce crackdown by the military-backed authorities. More than a thousand Brotherhood members have been killed and more than 16,000 people, many of them Islamists, have been arrested.

Then, of course, there was the death sentence for 529 protestors for the death of one policeman.

Al-Sisi, the General who overthrow Morsi in a coup is now “running for President.”  He has also kept the Gaza crossing closed more often than not.

Meanwhile, the resistance has, actually, gone out of its way to attack targets like police stations, which are, frankly, legitimate targets.

The Muslim Brotherhood, and anyone else, in my view, has an entirely legitimate right, in this case, to violent revolution.  A democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup.  The Brotherhood claims not to be behind the violence, but whoever is, is not in the wrong, unless you believe that political violence is never justified.  (In which case, Americans, please start paying your taxes to the Crown.)

More to the point, the Brotherhood was legitimately the most popular party in Egypt. They did win the election fairly, after having their preferred candidates disqualified by judges appointed by the old government. They did run the clinics, distribute food and so on in much of the country.  The outlawing of the Brotherhood and seizure of all their property was a huge blow for ordinary people, even as it enriched the government.  Note that, as in Iran, the Egyptian military is a huge economic power in Egypt, owning many businesses.

The entire situation stinks to high heaven, suggesting that the original demonstrations were allowed to succeed by the military so that they might later undertake a coup.  The deep state also, clearly, deliberately sabotaged Morsi at every step, in particular power supplies suddenly became unreliable right after he was elected.  Contrary to the army’s propaganda, that’s not something Morsi could have caused, and that it was so is indicated by the fact that right after the coup, the power suddenly became much more reliable again.

The original demonstrations succeeded when the army decided they wouldn’t support the government, remember.  Let this be a reminder to you that if you do not have control, physical or ideological, over those who have the ability to inflict violence in your society, you do not actually rule: you are only in charge as long as they want you to be.

Meanwhile, with the largest and most popular party in the country outlawed and 16,000 of its supporters in jail (imagine 16,000 Democrats or Republicans in jail for protesting), I’m sure al-Sisi will cruise to victory and become “President”.

This includes seizing all their money and assets.  Among other things, this is a humanitarian disaster: who do you think feeds many of the poor in Egypt?  Who runs the clinics?

One of my friends worked in Egypt, for the Mubarak regime, for a while.  He’s a man with a strong stomach, but they disgusted him.  His most telling observation was this: “the middle class are all fat.  Obese.  Everyone else is skinny.”

I’ll be straightforward: the Muslim Brotherhood has the right to resist this violently.  They’ll probably lose, but they won the election fairly and the results of a democratic election were thrown out by a military coup.  You really can’t get any more legitimate reason to commit violence than that, except straight-up genocide.  So I don’t want to hear hand-wringing when the bombs start going off: it is the logical consequence of what the military has done, which includes gunning down unarmed civilians in the street.

As for the “liberals” who supported the coup, they have disgraced themselves.  If the Muslim Brotherhood or some much nastier successors do win, you can be sure liberals will have NO meaningful influence in Egypt’s government.  Perhaps they had very little under the Brotherhood, and certainly the constitution was unfair, but this was a coup, and they supported it.  It will not be forgotten, least of all because a lot of blood has been spilled and far more will be.

(Why did the Muslim Brotherhood win the election and not liberals?  Because they had consistently opposed Mubarak and paid the price for it, and because they, not liberals, fed the poor and cared for the sick.)