Having hijacked the revolution, the Brotherhood hijacks Egypt

The current Egyptian situation, particularly the attempt to pass a new, bespoke constitution written for the size of one partisan organisation, can be encapsulated in one question: will Egyptians allow the Muslim Brotherhood to hijack Egypt after they hijacked the January 25 Revolution? The Egyptians’ courage and political awareness should not be underestimated. After the surprise of the Syrian people, we have the surprise of the Egyptian people. Despite the passage of 49 years since its inception, the Baath regime, followed by the Sect regime [beginning in 1970], which in turn was inherited by the Family regime beginning in 2000, have all failed at domesticating the Syrian people. Very soon, the Syrian people will triumph over its executioners who tried to erase it and turn Syria into their own ranch in the name of "resistance" and "dissent" and tragic-comical slogans believed by hypocrites who exploits Arabs, Arabism, the Lebanese, the Palestinians and all they can get their hands on. In Egypt, before and after the Syrian revolution, the people wished to send a remarkably simple message indicating that there cannot be half a revolution or a quarter of a revolution. All Egyptians wanted to say was that they refuse to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to hijack Egypt after they had hijacked the revolution. Egyptians did not revolt against the military regime in for it to be supplanted with another of the same ilk. Egyptians carried out their revolution—which the Muslim Brotherhood have been able to hijack—in order to establish a new regime to transform the largest Arab country into an institutional state where genuine peaceful circulation of power takes place. This is all there is to it. The Muslim Brotherhood hijacked the revolution, but they have not hijacked the revolution. They have failed, until further notice, at hijacking Egypt. They will try to. But what is made apparently every day, is that there is a live force in the Egyptian society that refuses to shift from the dictatorship of the military to the dictatorship of the Brotherhood. By taking to the streets again, Egyptians refused to repeat the experiences of the recent past, after 60 years of military rule which has brought the country nothing but crises and problems in the absence of the ability to build a democratic state based on institutions—a state which guarantees that each of the three authorities does not cross the line in accordance with the separation of powers principle. Without the separation of powers, it is difficult to speak of a modern state that can devote itself to solving the real problems from which Egypt suffers. What the military and the Brotherhood—who were partners in the July 23 1952 coup—have in common, is that both parties believe in revolutionary legitimacy rather than constitutional legitimacy. If not for that, there would not be such insistence on the constitutional declaration issued by President Mohammed Morsi, on the one hand, and, on the other, speeding up the ratification of a constitution that is below the standards of Egypt [or, indeed, any modern state]. The Muslim Brotherhood have not comprehended that the era of revolutionary legitimacy ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and its satellite states were the outcome of a revolutionary legitimacy that placed itself above any other. Therefore, and in the name of the single-party system, the Soviet regime eliminated everything that had to do with individual liberties and the separation of powers. It eliminated the human, overnight, and obliterated all hope of a better future for the ordinary citizen. It simply obliterated any ambition on the part of this ordinary citizen, desirous of social, or even economic, upward mobility. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood are now using the presidential elections—which was, indeed, a democratic achievement—to return to revolutionary legitimacy, instead of these elections—which elevated Morsi to the presidency—being a step along the path of entrenching constitutional legitimacy. At the height of the celebrations of the Palestinian victory in Gaza—a victory of Hamas over the people of Gaza as well as Gaza itself—the Egyptian president caught his citizenry unawares. He issued the constitutional declaration which made him a president with absolute power: a president who can control the judiciary, run it as he pleases and employ it in the service of reinforcing the Brotherhood’s control of all authorities in Egypt. How can modern state rise in the absence of a mechanism that allows for taking any official to account, regardless of his rank, when he does wrong? How can there be a genuine revolution in Egypt, if the revolution’s objective was to substitute Morsi for Hosni Mubarak and the Brotherhood for the military institution? Egyptians have rejected the Brotherhood interpretation of the revolution that has done away with military rule. President Morsi was obliged to leave the presidential palace in a manner unfitting of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt. The way he left the besieged palace signified that Egyptians are insistent on continuing the January 25 revolution, which means, above all else, the rejection of the Brotherhood dictatorship after the military one. There is no doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood—backed by the Salafists—will make a fresh attempt to seize the street. They may be successful. Their success, however, can only be temporary in light of the fact that they do not possess any answers to the problems from which Egypt suffer and which jeopardise the country’s future. This naturally refers to the issue of uncontrolled population growth, the economic crisis, the education level, agricultural and industrial development, Egypt’s share of the Nile’s waters, terrorism in Sinai, the relationship between power the Copts, and their role in the social and political arenas. Copts represent, at the most conservative estimate, 10 percept of Egypt’s society. Can the Muslim Brotherhood establish a healthy relationship with them, one way or another? It is unfortunate that seizing power and returning to obsolete practices do not solve any Egypt’s problems or any of its crises. Nothing can solve Egypt’s problems except in-depth dialogue. Egypt does not need another Pharaoh as much as it needs give-and-take between the various political currents away from inflexibility of any stripe. All the citizens who took to the streets and surrounded the presidential palace wanted, was to express that Egypt has changed and that the Egyptians’ determinations to throw off dictatorship, revolutionary legitimacy and backwardness in all its forms, is no less that the determination and insistence of the Syrian people to build a modern state and reject degradation and humiliation. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.