The march towards democracy proceeds amid suspicions that generals and Islamists are trying to slow it down
DURING the Egyptian summer tempers rise along with temperatures. Street fights erupt with alarming regularity. Purple faces, bulging veins and blood-curdling threats seem to portend carnage. Yet much of this is theatre, played out in the confidence that passers-by will intervene, separate combatants and make them reconcile.
Emerging from decades in a deep freeze of authoritarianism, Egyptian politics is showing a similar propensity to grow dangerously heated, then subside into calm as cooler heads intervene. In recent weeks the political scene, occupied by scores of passionate new actors produced by the big bang of revolution, has looked frighteningly polarised. It pits mostly secular forces, impatient for sweeping change, against wary conservatives who are backed by the ruling army high command and bolstered, ironically, by Islamist groups that faced repression under the pre-revolutionary regime. The tension has at times risen beyond rhetoric. On July 23rd pro-army vigilantes attacked a protest march in Cairo, leaving more than 300 people injured.
Yet fears that opposing forces may descend on Tahrir Square en masse, provoking open battles in the heart of Egypt’s capital, were quickly allayed. Islamists, led by puritan Salafist parties that have emerged as a powerful alternative to the relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood, were quietly advised to withdraw a threat to call a million-man counter-march to assert Egypt’s “Islamic identity”. Politicians parlayed a truce, calling instead for a big joint demonstration on July 29th to deliver a short list of common demands to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the body of 19 generals that serves as a collective presidency.
Some of those generals had earlier raised eyebrows by accusing the April 6th Movement, a youth group that played a key part in mobilising thousands of followers during the revolution, of being an agent for foreign powers. The army’s annoyance was understandable. April 6th spearheaded a reoccupation of public squares in several cities in early July to push for speedier adoption of revolutionary reforms. Joined by a motley coalition of activists, including Salafist splinters and Muslim Brotherhood factions, the activists have increasingly targeted the generals as obstacles to change.
Their most bitter complaint is that, whereas some 10,000 civilians have been served harsh jail terms by military courts since the revolution, most officials of the former regime have so far escaped justice for decades of corruption and abuse of power, including the widespread use of torture and the killing of more than 800 people during the revolution. The toppled president, Hosni Mubarak, has languished in a fancy hospital in the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, hidden from view pending his trial on the feeble charge of having paid too little for a beach house.
Considering that the ruling generals have nurtured an image as neutral guarantors of revolutionary goals, their sudden hostility to one of the revolution’s primary instigators has jarred. Some attribute sinister motives to the army, pointing to evidence of attempts to plant plain-clothes agitators in protests and to mute the thriving independent press while encouraging state-owned media to portray protesters as hooligans. There are even whispers of a quiet alliance between the army and Islamist parties, aimed at securing a “Caesar option” whereby military rule will eventually be acclaimed by a weary people as a welcome alternative to chaos.
Such fears are overblown. Egypt’s military has little experience or understanding of civilian life, and even less preparation for its current role. Being by nature conservative, xenophobic and more disciplined than Egypt’s fissiparous secularists, Islamist groups may seem natural partners in keeping order. Unlike most other parties, the Islamists laud the generals’ plan to postpone forging a new constitution until after the election of a parliament, which would then be asked to form a 100-strong constitutional congress. Yet their support does not reflect love for the army. Rather, it stems from confidence that elections will produce an Islamist parliamentary bloc big enough to prevent the adoption of a constitution they would deem too secular.
Such tactics are worrying to the many Egyptians, not just the 8% Coptic Christian minority, who would prefer some separation of religion and state. Still more anxiety stems from the fact that rules for the poll, now set for November, are extremely complex, mixing party lists and individual candidacies. With the army set to ban foreign election monitors, the risk of a flawed or contested outcome has grown.
Despite all this, opinion polls suggest that Egyptians remain broadly hopeful of the future. The government under prime minister Essam Sharaf, a pious professor of traffic management, has generally responded to the revolutionary clamour. It has promised to speed trials of former officials, including Mr Mubarak, and open them to the public. Successive cabinet changes have replaced unpopular ministers. Further purges are expected, including policemen, provincial governors and university administrators. Perhaps, as with Egypt’s theatrical street fights, the mood of suspicion and recrimination will prove a prelude to lasting reconciliation.
30 July 2011