Islamist First Family in Egypt: Style or Substance?

A parallel universe. There really is no other way to put it. More than anything today, Egyptians of all political stripes, whether devastated or delighted, are experiencing the surrealist sense of a parallel universe. In that universe, the all-powerful and ineluctable Pharaoh of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, is a prisoner in a hospital somewhere, and a bearded, shabby, obscure Islamist called Mohamed Morsi, a veteran of Mubarak’s prisons, is shown around the presidential palace by the same presidential guard that would never have allowed him within a mile of Mubarak’s person. Less than eighteen months ago, such a scenario would have been too far-fetched even for a movie spoof.

When Mubarak, his wife or his son made a public appearance, it was the culmination of careful coordination and preparation intended as much to preserve the aura of grandeur of the First Family as to shield its members from friction with the public. Especially when you are preparing for the succession to your son, you cultivate the unapproachable mystique of royalty.

By contrast, today in his first public appearance in Tahrir as President-elect, Morsi concluded a passionate, theatrical speech by flinging off his jacket, waving aside his guards, and wading into the crowd of thousands, making a show of relishing his ‘bain de foule’, or bathing in the crowd, as the French say.

Suzanne Mubarak, and Jihan Sadat before her, fully embraced the publicity and power of her role as ‘First Lady.’ In the eyes of the world, where rumors of their greed and ambition rarely penetrated, the two attractive women were reassuringly Westernized; their elegance and polish did credit to Egypt in state visits and international women’s conferences. They shared much: both were half-British, on the distaff side; both married young, to officers of more modest backgrounds; both continued their education later in life and earned advanced degrees while their husbands were in power. Both espoused the typical causes of child welfare, education, and in Suzanne Mubarak’s case, the arts.

Mohamed Morsi’s wife Naglaa Mahmoud comes from a different world. She is not an Egyptian Everywoman, as the New York Times wrote recently; she is an Islamist Everywoman, and many Egyptian women would deny that she represents them. She is not just ‘veiled’, as so many Egyptian women are, with a headscarf; she wears a ‘tarha’ or prayer veil, that sweeps down to her knees. Unlike Turkish President Gul’s wife, who makes every attempt to look attractive and stylish in spite of her headscarf, wearing six-inch ankle boots to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, Morsi’s wife, by contrast, seems to make every effort to look as severe and dowdy as possible.

Although she accompanied her husband to the United States, where he studied engineering while she gave birth to two of their sons, she herself holds no college degree. Naglaa Mahmoud keeps her maiden name, not as a sign of independence from her husband, but rather in adherence to the convention of Muslim societies, where a woman never takes her husband’s name. In fact, ‘Suzanne Mubarak’ and ‘Jihan Sadat’ never existed outside of media parlance; legally, they kept their maiden names, as evidenced by the court charges, after the revolution, against ‘Suzanne Sabet’, the maiden name of Mrs. Mubarak.

As nervous observers in Egypt today try to decode style for substance, President-Elect Morsi and his wife will come under the closest scrutiny. How will Morsi, a virtually unknown back-up candidate brought in at the last minute by the Muslim Brotherhood to contest the presidential elections, deal with the pressures of office? But Egypt has a history of dark horses, once dismissed as lightweights- Sadat was derided as Nasser’s yes-man and Mubarak as an accidental president- who, finding themselves elevated to the position of president, prove to have the tenacity and cunning to not only hang on to power but to sustain their rule for decades. Morsi might prove to be just such an accidental president, confounding expectations. Whether that is a prospect to be dreaded or welcomed depends on where you stand in a divided Egypt today.

Islamist President in Egypt: The Devil You Don't

Celebrating Morsi win in Tahrir photo by M. Serageldin

Egypt today was a country divided, nearly as neatly down the middle as the votes- 51% versus 49%- that elected Islamist Morsi over his rival for the presidency, the military-backed Shafiq. On the one hand, in Egypt today, there was celebration, horns tooting, flags flying; on the other hand there were tears, lamentation, fear of what the future might bring. Cairo alone was an ominous demonstration of national divisiveness: Tahrir Square was dedicated to the supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, while Nasr City was the gathering ground for the supporters of the former general and Mubarak loyalist Shafiq.

It was the culmination of an escalation of events that began with the coup d’etat, by legislative decree, staged by the Generals on Thursday. For a few surreal days, Egyptians were in limbo: supporters of Morsi were happy their candidate won, but then so were supporters of Shafiq, who also declared he had won; those who wanted Mubarak dead were told he was clinically dead, and those who wanted him alive were reassured he was merely in a coma.

Now the suspense is over. On Sunday afternoon the head of the Egyptian Election Committee appeared on television, carried live by half the television stations around the world, and- as if determined to stretch his fifteen minutes of fame into fifty- launched into an agonizingly detailed accounting of the results of each precinct; at the end of which he finally pronounced the verdict the world was waiting to hear: Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, carried the day.

Tahrir erupted in cheers. It was not only Muslim Brotherhood supporters camped out in the square; there were secular liberals, as well, who were standing up for the sanctity of free and fair democratic elections and refused to see the revolution annulled and the clock turned back to Mubarak-era military rule. For those liberals, including Wael Ghonim of Face Book fame, the principle of democracy trumped ideological differences, however bitter the pill was to swallow.

But for many others in Egypt, it felt like the end of the world. For many of my friends who are distrustful of the military but outright terrified by the Muslim Brotherhood, the devil they know would have been better than the devil they don’t. One woman I know was choked up with tears, speaking on the phone from Egypt. Yet I remember a conversation with her, a year or so before the revolution, in which she’d dismissed my misgivings about the outcome of a hypothetical Brotherhood accession to power. “So what? They’ll make us wear a headscarf for a couple of years, that’s all, and then they’ll forget about it,” she shrugged at the time. Today she is in tears.

But this being Egypt, the air is thick with conspiracy theories. Morsi and the Generals must have reached an agreement, it is believed, hence the delay in announcing the results. The election of Morsi would avert the threat of massive unrest on the part of his cheated supporters; but with all powers concentrated in the hands of the military, he would be a toothless president reduced to a ceremonial role. Moreover, another, counter-intuitive conspiracy theory maintains, the election of an Islamist would further the secret plan of the United States to see Egypt broken up into two states, like the Sudan, Iraq and potentially Libya. 

And there are yet others in Egypt who will go to bed tonight weary of conspiracy theory, suffering from revolutionary fatigue, longing for a return to ‘normal’- with only the vaguest of notions of what normal might look like today. 

Mubarak: Rumors of My Death are Exaggerated

‘Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated,’ Mark Twain said, and of no one is that more true than of Hosni Mubarak. From a ‘clinically dead’ diagnosis on Tuesday, he seems to have made a miraculous recovery in the Maadi military hospital.

Ironically, it was the looming prospect of his death that provided the underlying catalyst of the Revolution of January 25^th, and the reason it initially succeeded. Egyptians were, by and large, prepared to wait for the perennially imminent eventuality of Mubarak’s death of natural causes; it was the prospect of inheriting his son Gamal as his successor, and a perpetuation of Mubarak rule for another thirty years, that finally proved intolerable to the people of Egypt.

Most crucially, it proved inacceptable to the Generals. Gamal Mubarak and his elite coterie of civilian businessmen threatened the deeply entrenched powers, privileges, and economic interests of the Armed Forces, which controlled some forty percent of the economy of the country. Initially, when the revolution erupted, the military stood on the side lines, but in the end the Generals confronted Mubarak with an ultimatum: leave or be deposed. Had the military chosen to intervene against the demonstrators, the course of the revolution would have been very different.

The passing away of Hosni Mubarak just after the Generals staged a bloodless coup d’état would have been a curiously tactful bit of timing on his part, taking the potentially explosive issue of his controversial sentence off the table. Before the revolution, the hoariest joke about Mubarak went this way: Mubarak is on his death bed, and the people come to pay their last respects. His Generals come to him and say: “Mr. President, the people have come to say goodbye.” Mubarak replies: “Why, where are the people going?”

Apparently, it is not yet time for Mubarak to go. Except, perhaps, abroad for ‘treatment’ somewhere where he can live out his life in luxurious exile; this is the cynical rumor that is currently circulating in Egypt. For most of the eighteen days of the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, all the people in Tahrir asked of the Mubaraks was for them to go. “Leave, leave,” they chanted. The Mubaraks chose to stay, perhaps believing in a come-back. Today, given the mood of the country, after disillusionment and counter-revolution, violence and contested elections, exile may be more than Mubarak can hope to be granted.

Egypt: Equilibrium of Evils

It could not have been more blatant or more predictable: late Sunday evening, as the polls closed and the presidential run off elections projected a win for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Morsi, the military rulers of Egypt declared a new interim constitution that severely restricted the powers of the president : he would be reduced to greeting heads of state at airports, as one friend put it, along the model of the Indian or Israeli presidents. Thus the ruling generals consolidated the coup d’état they staged on Thursday night- under the thin veneer of ‘court rulings’- that dissolved the Brotherhood-dominated parliament and arrogated to the generals all law-making powers, as well as control over the national budget; power to declare war; the naming of a constitution-drafting assembly; and complete freedom from civilian oversight. Moreover, the simultaneous re-assertion of draconian martial law effectively signaled that dissent would no longer be tolerated.

And so, at the moment when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces had promised to hand over power to civilian authorities, they re-instated a military dictatorship: Mubarak on steroids. Regardless of the two-hour news conference the generals gave today, attempting to soften their message, there is no getting around that stark reality: this is what the revolution has wrought.

The power struggle is not over. No one is satisfied in Egypt today, but many look at the situation as an equilibrium of evils: neither a Muslim Brotherhood sweep of the executive and the legislative, which would have opened the door to an over-reaching Islamist government; or the election of the military-backed Mubarak throw-back, Ahmed Shafiq, which would have legitimized the ruling generals coup d’état. For some, including liberals who disagree on all points with the Brotherhood but cannot stomach rule by military junta, it might even look like a glass half-full. Half-full of a bitter drought, nonetheless.

Which is the Lesser of Two Evils?

Egyptians today know they are voting for the lesser of two evils, but have a hard time determining which is the lesser. This is how part of my family in Egypt voted today in the presidential election run off : one couple went together to the polls together to cancel out each other’s vote. He suggested to his wife that they should spare themselves the hassle in the heat and just stay home, but she was determined to go to the polls, so he reluctantly had to go himself just to counter her vote. Although she had been a staunch supporter of the anti-Mubarak revolution, the wife voted for Shafiq, because she loathed the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi and all he represented even more. Although he equally opposes an Islamist takeover, the husband voted for Morsi, on the basis that the people could always oust the Brotherhood, but could never oust the military, who wield the ultimate power and can only be minimally counterbalanced, at best. The critical factor in the husband’s reasoning is that the powers of the president have not yet been defined, and it is clear that the military is waiting for the outcome of the election: if Shafiq prevails, the military will define the powers of the president as virtually limitless, in other words Mubarak’s dictatorship on steroids; on the other hand, if the Islamist wins, the role of the president will be defined in the most limited terms possible. That rationale is not without merit.

Either way, many, even most, Egyptians are voting for the lesser of two evils, however they define the outcome. There is blame to be assigned on every side: the Muslim Brotherhood, unarguably, overreached in trying to control both the legislative and the executive, and in so doing spooked a sizeable proportion of the population. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is making an even more naked grab for complete power, and is prepared to nullify elections results and squash dissent unmercifully: not a single officer, high or low, has been held accountable for the brutality exercised against demonstrators and the deaths that resulted from it.

Then there are those who are opting out altogether, and heeding the appeal by famous writer Alaa Aswany who makes the analogy that, when a team realizes that the game is rigged, the only option is to stop playing, rather than legitimize the fraudulent victory of the opponent. Vote, opt out, cancel each other’s votes: no good options, no good outcome for Egypt today. So there are those post all over their Face Book pages: Pray for Egypt!

Egypt's Mitary Coup: Back to the Future

It’s not that a military power grab was not a scenario foretold: back in January 2011, with the revolution ongoing in Tahrir and Mubarak still in power, the warnings were many: Be careful what you wish for! You may get a historical first: an authentic people’s revolution that turns into a coup d’etat, sixty years after a coup d’etat in 1952, by Colonel Nasser et al, that turned into a socialist ‘revolution.’

Today, the worst case scenario has come to pass: ahead of this weekend’s presidential election, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces- Field Marshall Tantawi and company- mounted a ‘soft’ coup, in one swift blow re-instating martial law, dissolving Parliament, ruling for the eligibility of their own candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, and announcing the formation of a constituent assembly of their choice to set a new constitution, new parliamentary eligibility rules, and the powers of a new president.

The military’s candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, is a former Air Force Commander, just like his role model Hosni Mubarak; just like Mubarak, he is a strongman whose mantra is ‘I or the Islamists’.  In today’s Egypt, this slogan resonates with a wide swath of disillusioned, exhausted and intimidated citizenry, fearful of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover; they breathe a sigh of relief at the prospect of ‘back to the future’, carried along in a miasma of willful, collective amnesia about the corruption of the Mubarak elite and the brutality of his security forces, police and military alike. All over Face Book, they are giving thanks for sparing Egypt ‘the Iran scenario,’ even if it ends in a Turkey-style military takeover; over Iran, they will take Turkey any day. So would I.

But what if the alternative scenario is not Turkey, but Algeria? What if, by nullifying a parliamentary election in which Islamists won at the ballot box, the military will be risking a massive wave of protests and resistance that could lead to the kind of bloodbath Algeria experienced for a decade? Egyptians are not Algerians, the reassuring counter argument goes, with nothing like Algeria’s violence and tribalism. But then again, the conventional wisdom before January 2011, was that Egyptians did not revolt.

This weekend Egyptians may or may not go to the polls to elect a President whose powers are yet undetermined, in a country with no constitution, no Parliament, and under the heel of a Draconian martial law. A year and a half after a revolution that inspired the world, this is a bitter day for Egypt: the ideals of a revolution betrayed, the blood of the best and the brightest of its youth spilled in vain. 

Egypt's Long, Hot Summer

Egypt’s liberal progressives are going about stunned today. They shake their heads in despair: Has is come to this? A choice between equal evils for President: either Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood or Mubarak Redux personified in Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak-era Prime Minister who presided over the infamous ‘Battle of the Camel’ in Tahrir Square when peaceful young protestors were set upon by Mubarak thugs. Shafiq represents back to the future in every sense: for one thing, he is a military man like every president of Egypt to date: Naguib, Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak.  He is also an unreformed counter-revolutionary hardliner who in a recent public speech affirmed his admiration for Mubarak and promised, if elected, to ban demonstrations by cutting off electricity to ‘shut down Cairo in ten minutes.’

It is a dismaying sign of how far the perception of the security situation has deteriorated in Egypt over the past year that there are many ordinary citizens, who once supported the revolution, but would vote tomorrow for the ‘law and order’ candidate, as Shafiq presents himself. But that rationale overlooks a fatal flaw: the record of the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) in ensuring security in the eighteen months since the revolution has been abysmal, as has its record in policing its own forces in their dealings with civilians.

To ‘law-and-order’ voters, the mantra of ‘anybody but the Muslim Brotherhood’ is paramount, and for good reason. The shocking domination of the MB Party in the parliamentary elections has panicked secular-thinking Egyptians before the prospect of a complete takeover of power by the Islamist movement. The obscure and uncharismatic Morsi is a pinch-hitter for the Muslim Brotherhood boss, Khairat El-Shater, himself disqualified on account of his imprisonment under Mubarak. Alarmists warn that, if elected, Morsi will take his orders from El-Shater, just as Putin’s protégé place-holder president took his orders from Putin; they warn that Morsi will be unduly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood ‘guide’, or spiritual leader, just as John Kennedy was suspected, as the first Catholic candidate, of taking his guidance from the Vatican.

The Coptic community has the most reason to be alarmed by the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood domination of both the legislative and the executive branches. It has taken its guidance directly from the Patriarch’s office and thrown its entire weight behind Ahmed Shafiq.

Secular-minded women, as well, are alarmed at the specter of an Islamist victory resulting not only in a more restrictive social climate but to the actual revocation of certain gains for women’s rights in Muslim family law; these legal rights were acquired, or rather imposed by presidential decree, under Sadat and Mubarak, but remain controversial with a large sector of public opinion and are unlikely to withstand an open vote in Parliament.

But women, unlike Copts, do not vote as a block, and the Muslim Brotherhood counts among its activists many outspoken, committed women who support their cause wholeheartedly. Further complicating the picture for liberal Egyptian women voters is the brutality of the military in its crackdowns on women demonstrators: seared in their minds is the shocking image of the ‘blue-bra girl’, stripped, beaten, stomped on and dragged by the hair at the hands of a military riot squad. 

No wonder, then, that the young idealists who marched and died in the Revolution of January 25^th feel doubly betrayed; they are left out of the political power game and cannot endorse either the Mubarak era hardliner who represents the counter-revolution or the Islamist opportunist who represents a religious absolutism that is anathema to the ideals of the revolution.

Curiously, Mubarak’s trial, which had receded behind closed doors, out of sight and out of the public mind, over the past couple of months, suddenly surged to the foreground and came to a rapid conclusion. Whose interests did this sudden closure serve? Many presume that the SCAF might have calculated that the political football of Mubarak’s trial was best taken out of the game before it could land at the feet of their candidate, Ahmed Shafiq. If so, the calculation backfired, as the sentence seems to have enraged rather than appeased a large segment of public opinion across the board. Mubarak was not held responsible for the killing of demonstrators at the hands of his security police; he was convicted only of failing to prevent the killing. The conviction has no basis in Egyptian law and is expected to be overturned on appeal; even if no appeal was granted, few expect to see Mubarak serve his life sentence in prison. Further adding to the grievance of the families of the victims and their supporters was the relative unaccountability also accorded to Mubarak’s reviled Minister of the Interior, to whom the police reported directly.  Mubarak’s two sons, widely suspected of wielding the power behind the scenes in the final days of the deposed dictator’s regime, were acquitted of all charges.

Since the sentence was proclaimed, hundreds of thousands of protesters have demonstrated in Tahrir and in city centers across Egypt. The second round of the presidential elections is scheduled for mid-June. If the MB candidate Morsi wins and the Islamists seriously engage in power struggles with the military, the SCAF might mount a coup. If Ahmed Shafiq wins, widespread unrest cannot be ruled out. Either way, it may be a long, hot summer for Egypt.