by B. R. GOWANI
“And obey Allah and His Messenger; and fall into no disputes, lest ye lose heart and your power depart; and be patient and persevering: For Allah is with those who patiently persevere.”
Quran 8:46
The head of the election commission’s Farouq Sultan’s long speech (of June 24, 2012) before announcing the winner of the Egyptian presidential election seemed like a never ending Indian TV serial. Ahmed Shafiq was the loser.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (in Arabic) was founded by Hassan al Banna in 1928. Since its founding, they’ve waited to exert political power and now, for the first time it will enter the corridors of power but without much power. Unlike Hosni Mubarak, Morsi is not going to be the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. That task the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is going to keep for itself. Similarly, the war powers is not going to be his prerogative either. The changes made to the 1971 Constitution has also reduced the power of parliament. But then the MB has willingly accommodated itself to the military.
This is a good news for Israel and the Western countries, particularly the United States which has given its blessings to the MB.
Morsi is taking all the correct steps to gain confidence of the West. His two vice-presidents are going to be a woman and a Coptic Christian. (Coptic Christians make up over 10% of the population.) A great thing indeed.
Morsi’s move to turn 750,000 temporary government employees into members of the permanent workforce is commendable–provided the ones who’re not Islamists are not turned into Islamists.
He has also banned hanging of presidential photos in all government premises. A very good action. But on second thought, it makes one shudder because Islam prohibits any kind of photography. Is it because of Islam or to avoid leadership cult?
This raises the other dangerous point. The MB’s international slogan is: “Islam is the solution.” Like “free market”, Islam doesn’t solve anything. It messes up more. That’s the danger we should expect.
It would be a bit too much to expect the MB’s present arrangement with the Egyptian military and the US government to last too long due to internal tensions between the Islamists and the secularists, on the one hand, and the explosive situation in the region, on the other hand.
The possible scenarios:
1. Perhaps Morsi would want to follow Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and maintain peace with the military and secularists (without pushing for Islamic laws), and continue in power.
2. The radicals in the MB will see this as an opportunity to implement as many as possible Islamic laws and thus create rift between the military and the Morsi government.
3. Even if the radicals in the MB do nor perturb the arrangement, the salafist Al-Nour Party, which has won over a quarter of the parliamentary seats, and is in favor of Islamic laws is not going to refrain from inciting the MB radicals.
4. Forget the Al-Nour people, many of the MB members would want to help the Gazan Palestinians (Gaza has a border with Egypt) and this can create trouble with the Egyptian military which wouldn’t want to upset the Isralis.
One can go on and on but suffice to say that the current calm in Egypt is of a temporary nature.
The revolutionaries have been sidelined and have been blamed by the wise lady of the Empire.
Hillary Clinton to revolutionaries: “So are you going to form a political party? Are you going to be working on behalf of political change?” They said, “Oh no. We’re revolutionaries. We don’t do politics.”
Mona Eltahawy blasted the wise lady on Chris Hayes program on MSNBC by pointing out that MB was able to use mosques to build grass root support whereas the secularists didn’t have any such place to take refuge and were crushed by the US supported Egyptian governments.
A word for the Egyptian military
Like Pakistani and Turkish militaries, the Egyptian military feels it is the custodian of Egypt. It should discard this foolish notion and should permit the Muslim Brotherhood all the powers that a parliamentary government is allowed to have. Too much restrictions on MB will push its restless members or will be pushed by the Al-Nour Party into action that will not be good for either Egypt or the Middle East.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com