Egypt is worth watching closely at the moment. It wasn’t long ago the revolution occurred and the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was toppled. Since then the Muslim Brotherhood has ascended to the seat of authority and as the country has moved to implement democracy, it is the Brotherhood that has held the reigns of power with the President, Mohamed Morsi, being a former Muslim Brotherhood member and most of the government being made up of the Brotherhood. That has just changed drastically and in a manner that could spark civil war if not handled properly.
Photo: Matt Cassel/Al Jazeera
In recent days the military has removed Morsi from the presidency and placed one of Egypt’s top judges in as the interim leader. They have suspended the constitution, arrested the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood for inciting violence against opposition protests and have arrest warrants in place for 300 other Brotherhood members, including those in the government. They have also suspended the constitution, largely drafted by the Brotherhood as they held power.
The obvious push back from the Brotherhood is that Morsi was a democratically elected President and their government also democratically elected. The problem is that the opposition, both those in the political class and those in the streets, views much of their actions in government as entirely undemocratic and accuse Morsi and the Brotherhood of simply establishing another dictatorship.
The country is on the edge of civil war if this is not handled well. The Brotherhood denounced violence years ago, but some of its members are calling for a fight and the army is vowing to use its might to crack down on any such push.
Whilst the situation is tentative, Egypt is also on the path of a real opportunity. One only has to look back through the history of the Western world to see the same sort of unrest playing out in the path to the type of governance we have now. It took us hundreds of years to get to it yet the world expects the likes of Egypt to get there overnight. Egypt has the nucleus of a bright future following the dictatorship of Mubarak. It has hundreds of thousands clearly willing to take to the streets if they suspect that the political class isn’t working for the people. There is a military, who eventually need to come under civil authority, but who, at the moment, seem intent on moving towards balanced power that heeds the wishes of the people (and it’s obvious that such a balance of power has to include the Muslim Brotherhood). The military just needs to make sure it’s not simply protecting its own power but until a strong civil society is in place, that military needs to be there and it needs to be tied to the will of the people. without such a force the country could too easily be overcome by any other group who can militarize itself.
It would be easy to look at Egypt and simply see chaos, but the protests are a good sign. The present situation is concerning and it does have the potential to go extremely badly, but it also has the potential to continue towards a true democracy that safeguards and represents the interests of the people.