Morsi’s supporters celebrate victory. Photo: Lorenz Khazaleh (Flickr)
One of the major victories of the Arab Spring was the new raft of democratically elected leaders who came to power following the fall of dictatorial regimes who terrorised their people and ruled without regard for freedom of speech, of the press and the views of the down-trodden who inhabited the levels in society below those of the privileged elite who controlled so much of their lives.
This process of democratising the region led to the first free and fair Egyptian election in decades; the election of Mohammad Morsi, candidate for a previously banned party (the Muslim Brotherhood), who successfully won the election as President of the newly freed country. This was a fresh political experience for Egypt’s young population, with millions never having had the opportunity to vote before during the term of the last leader, Hosni Mubarak, and his long fiefdom over the whole nation.
This glorious enfranchisement made the whole country feel like it had a real say in events, for the first time in years. This made the elections held after Mubarak’s downfall particularly engaging and exciting for ordinary Egyptians; their pet parties had to win, in order to get in there first and truly shape the country so monopolised by the oligarchs. The political energy, of the sort not seen in the more apathetic ‘reserved’ European and American democracies, was hailed as another success of the Arab Spring, with a strong vibrant culture around voting becoming the centrepiece for all those who (correctly) supported the Egyptians in their valiant struggle for self government.
However, this joyous revelling in a new found ability to determine the leadership of the nation also created many problems. The movements of mass action which had characterised the protests against the regime also had an effect on the way the campaigns were run as well as the level of political discourse in the country. For even after the brave citizen-led fight to stop the tyranny had been done in a spirit of unity, vast chasms of division remained amongst the politically educated. There were huge amounts of polarisation and partisanship in the run up to the election.
The BBC did an excellent piece analysing the potential results and cross-referencing the potential voters. It turns out that women (by a considerable margin) favoured the non-Islamic candidate, Ahmed Shafik, who was considered by some to be a stooge for the former government. This rejection by womanhood is significant in two ways: the first is their disenchantment with the Islamic message preached by Morsi and his supporters (perhaps showing an awakening amongst those the religion oppresses most?). It is also significant in that women were actually allowed to vote, in direct contrast to other ‘Islamic Republics’.
The world may not be ready for a democratically elected Islamic leader of a free country. People in the West who supported the military intervention in Libya were hugely alarmed when the Leader of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Jilil, said that the new constitution of the country would be broadly based on ultra-conservative Sharia Law, ‘obviously’. It does appear worrying that those who so keenly wrote and spoke in favour of Arabs making their own political futures and choosing their own leaders, are then recoiling when they choose something alien to our experience. Let me be clear, if the new countries’ governments stay within a democratic framework, then there are no problems.
However; if, like in Egypt now, the government exceeds its own powers and gives itself new ones (which the Morsi administration is currently doing) then the world at large is legitimised in its’ worries for the people, and the region. The consequences of further international involvement in a region already struggling to rebuild after the last encounter with hellfire missiles and a democratically elected demagogue at the helm are not happy ones.
It is a true travesty, after winning an election, and the respect of the international community in his mediation between Israel and Palestine (which not only prevented an escalation of the region’s problems, but also demonstrated a new resurgence from Egypt as a new power in the area) he had proved himself capable of the office entrusted to him. To see all of that disintegrate in a matter of hours from statesman to mob orator, who has to watch his party headquarters burn as the collective will of the Egyptians is once more released on another leader with dictatorial ambitions.
Morsi is defiant; he cannot govern while others have the ability to challenge his decisions and to amend them, he has decreed that none of his actions can be changed by the legislature; this is controlling, and hardly the actions of a democrat. But the other implications of his new move are profound. He is now able to take any action necessary to safeguard the revolution. This is Leninist in essence, and any mention of emergency powers whilst in the presidency is pure Putin.
He may genuinely think that by his actions he is stream-lining the process of making decisions, and he may think that concentrating more power in his hands is a positive attempt to respond to crises quicker, and he may well take false consolation in the evidence: he has, after all, done very well in the only major problem to come his way so far.
But this is no true indication of the stresses of his job and the future challenges, where his course of action may not be so well defined. The default Arab response is to defend Palestine, and that has served him well so far, but how can we guess he will respond to a more convoluted situation: presumably involving Iran and Israel? He has no obvious route to navigate the storm of angry rhetoric, UN Security Council vetoes and powerful backers. Let us hope the violence and strife makes him change his ways; we don’t want a situation like 1917, where the errors of a revolutionary government were considered as strong as to warrant another, and more disastrous, upheaval.
James Snell
Statisfied 