Egypt: What It Isn't

It isn’t Tiananmen Square.  

It isn’t Syria.

It isn’t Muslim against Christian.

It isn’t secular against religious.

It isn’t a question of a coup or not a coup.

It isn’t a question of democracy against authoritarianism.

The situation in Egypt is so desperate, so complicated, that an attempt to grapple with it might well start with setting out what it isn’t. Some observers might see shades of Tiananmen Square; for twenty million plus Egyptians who marched on June 30th to oust the Brotherhood administration, it was the shades of the Ayatollah takeover in Iran that mobilized them. The bloodshed over the past six weeks has been sickening and horrific, but Egypt is not Syria with its regional, armed factions; a civil war isn't imminent.

It isn’t Muslim against Christian; one can safely assume that the Coptic minority is unanimously against the Muslim Brotherhood, but so is more than half of Egypt’s ninety-percent Muslim population.  It isn’t secular versus religious. Most Egyptians, Muslim or Copt, would claim to be personally religious; where they clash is over the role of religion in politics.

Whether or not to call the deposing of President Morsi on July 3^rd a coup is a question of semantics which concerns U.S. law and foreign policy alone.

It isn’t a question of championing democracy against military authoritarianism. The Morsi administration was as authoritarian as the interim Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that preceded it, or any that is likely to follow it. It is a question of what kind of authoritarianism, and to whose benefit.

And therein lies the violent clash of currents that brought out millions to the streets over the past months, to demonstrate against the Morsi regime and for it. By the unprecedented millions who marched against Morsi, his administration was seen as governing narrowly for the Brotherhood; it was also of the Brotherhood, in every appointment from cabinet ministers to nine governors; and by the Brotherhood, through the influence of his party’s bosses and their spiritual 'Supreme Guide.’ Morsi himself often referred to “my people and my community” when speaking of the Brotherhood. When his supporters marched in the streets, they waved the green Brotherhood flags rather than the red, black and white Egyptian flag, until the negative reaction prompted them to switch. But the discourse of the pro-Morsi demonstrators, and the signs they brandished, remained the same: ‘Islam,’ ‘Shari’a’ and ‘Legitimacy.’ To many Egyptians, the question became: “Where is Egypt in all this?” Are these people Egyptians first or Brethren first?

The Islamists counter: But where is democracy in all of this? A vote is a vote. But is a vote a vote in a country with a high proportion of illiteracy in the electorate, thrust into the polling booth after sixty years of autocratic one-party rule? And does a democratically-elected president continue to be legitimate if his regime is not only autocratic but also disastrously incompetent? By most accounts Egypt under Morsi was spiraling into economic free fall and insecurity, and that its very territorial integrity was threatened in the Sinai. The rights of women and minorities were also being menaced alarmingly. Indeed, in the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster, the attacks on Christian churches by his rampaging supporters is an indictment of Brotherhood ideology, whether or not the leaders were responsible for inciting the sectarian violence.

The violence, on both sides, on every side, whether Morsi supporter or opponent or security forces, is horrific. But it comes down, finally, to a split vision of Egypt: secular versus Islamist in political life, liberal versus fundamentalist in private values, national versus Islamic in world view. In Egypt today, these visions have proved to be irreconcilable.Conversation I participated in today on State of Things