Daily Times

Sometimes glorious revolutions can veer away from their lofty ideals. In the poem French Revolution as it Appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement, William Wordsworth rapturously glorified the momentous event as “pleasant exercise of hope and joy”. Later, as the Revolution descended into chaos and violence, he became disillusioned with the revolutionary spirit and lamented the death of ideals in these words: “I scarcely had one night of quiet sleep. Such ghastly visions had I of despair and tyranny, and implements of death, and long orations which in dreams I pleaded before unjust tribunals.”

One recent example, where revolutionary idealism has been tempered with bloodshed and disregard of its objectives, is that of the Egyptian uprising. In 2011, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, clamouring for justice, transparency and participatory government, brought down the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak by holding peaceful demonstrations. The 2011 revolution had signalled the discontent of secular-liberal sections of society against the inept, corrupt and illiberal secular establishment, but Islamists had joined the revolution in its last phase, so it had broad-based representation and could be rightly called a people’s revolution.

However, two years on, the antithesis of the democratic goals of the 2011 revolution has taken place: Mohamed Morsi, first democratically elected president of the country, has been ousted from power by the armed forces, after millions of secular Egyptians came out on the streets, demanding his resignation. Ironically, the removal of Morsi has again been termed a ‘revolution’ and not a ‘coup’ by secular Egyptians.

The recent events in Egypt raise some interesting questions: Was the 2011 revolution a sham? If not, why has it taken a step towards authoritarianism? And why are secular Egyptians reluctant to label the new military intervention in politics as a ‘coup’?

To answer these questions, one needs to understand the historical animosity that exists on the one hand between the armed forces and Islamists and on the other between secularists and Islamists in Egypt.

In the 1950s, Gamal Abdul Nasser had launched a bloody crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood after it allegedly planned an assassination attempt against him. An Islamic fundamentalist assassinated his successor, President Anwer Saadat because he had forged a peace deal with Israel and established rapprochement with the west. President Hosni Mubarak battled with Islamists for decades and cooperated with the US to nab and control Egyptian jihadis in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. To put it simply, the political ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists clashes with the strategic role of the Egyptian armed forces in maintaining internal stability, holding the peace with Israel and keeping a tab on networks of Egyptian Islamists with their regional counterparts.

Similarly, liberal revolutionaries are also wary of the Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda and the spread of political Islam in the region. However, the disquiet of liberal Egyptians with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood emanates from a different motivation. Secular Egyptians oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists because they deem their political philosophy antithetical to the liberal ideals of a pluralistic and culturally diverse Egypt.

Despite the subtle difference in oppositional tension of secularists and the armed forces with Islamists, Mohamed Morsi’s exclusivist politics and winner-takes-all approach has turned the military and the liberal revolutionaries into brothers-in-arm against the Islamists.

Consequently, the animosity of secular-liberal Egyptians towards the Muslim Brotherhood has enabled the armed forces to raise the bogey of ‘terrorism’ in the country. The supporters of deposed President Muhamed Morsi are being portrayed as ‘terrorists’ who have come out on the streets to disturb peace and spread violence in the country.

However, Egyptian secularists and Islamists fail to realise that the current conflict is partly ideological but also ensues from the absence of democratic values and norms of engagement in Egypt that allow competing politico-ideological groups to live under the same roof. There is a manifest disconnect between the aspirations of the revolutionaries, both liberal and Islamist, and the capacity of the civilian institutions to translate them into meaningful political action. The reason for this disconnect is simple: democratic infrastructure, in the form of political parties, and the rules of political mediation have not evolved in Egypt because it has always been ruled by authoritarian dictators who banned political parties, placed severe restrictions on independent media and brutally clamped down on political dissent.

Since the ouster of Morsi, the brutal killings of hundreds of Egyptians, arbitrary detention and imprisonment of the Brotherhood leadership, and banning of Islamist channels bring out the unfortunate reality that the real losers of the confrontation between secularists and Islamists are the ordinary citizens of Egypt who would be denied the rights of peaceful protest, assembly, and free flow of information. Further, history is witness to the fact that authoritarian regimes conveniently use the stratagem of the ‘other’ and invoke primordial fears of people to prolong their rule and not to safeguard their democratic interests.

It is time that Egyptians of different ideological stripes close their ranks and make joint efforts for the restoration of the democratic process to solidify the democratic goals of the revolution. They must realise that democracy is not only characterised by majoritarian rule and street demonstrations. Democratic governance evolves by nurturing traditions of competitive politics through consensual arrangements. It takes deep roots in the body politic by giving voice to the underprivileged and safeguarding the interests of minorities.

Unless Egyptians set aside their binary opposition between Islamist and secularist, the military will exploit the ongoing chaos to maintain its stranglehold on power and more blood will be shed in the streets of Egypt.

The writer is a public policy practitioner and holds an MSc degree in Public Policy & Management from King’s College, London