Egypt: Buyer's Remorse over Morsi

A little over a year ago today, millions of Egyptians voted for Mohamed Morsi, in spite of severe misgivings about the man and his Muslim Brotherhood, because they could not in good conscience vote for his Mubarak-redux opponent, General Shafiq. They reasoned that the devil you don’t know is better than the devil you do, and they gave the new president a chance, although Morsi, a pinch-hitter candidate brought in by the Brotherhood at the last minute when the party boss was disqualified, lacked stature or charisma for the job. In the year since he was elected, many of those who cast reluctant ballots for him have had time to suffer severe buyer’s remorse, and today they cheered his ouster. 

That explains the paradox that bemuses Western media observers: why 22 million Egyptians signed a petition withdrawing confidence from Morsi only a year into his administration, and why millions thronged the streets for the better part of a week calling for his departure, and why they cheered wildly when the military staged a bloodless coup to oust the first democratically-elected president in Egyptian history. The Morsi administration has not only proved disastrously inept, it has also turned out to be insular, divisive, and shockingly power-hungry. He acted, not as a president for all Egyptians, but as if his mandate came from the Muslim Brotherhood alone. He put himself above the law while he forced through an overnight constitution, against massive opposition; and rigged Parliament to consolidate a permanent majority for his Muslim Brotherhood party. He was kicking away the ladder that brought him to power, oblivious to the evidence that millions of Egyptians, who found his ideology repugnant but had nevertheless entrusted him with their votes, were feeling betrayed.

And Egypt- that majority of Egyptians, those who voted for him reluctantly a year ago and those who voted against him- Egypt today clamored for an annulment from its commitment to the Muslim Brotherhood administration. If the January 25^th Revolution was a long-drawn, painful, bittersweet divorce from the Mubarak regime after a long marriage that had seen happier days, the June 30^th Rebellion was a visceral rejection of a regrettable mistake, a correction in direction: an annulment.

That the annulment had to come at the hands of the military is worrying to many who wonder if this will be back to the future. The sight of armored tanks on the streets is less reassuring than it was during the days of innocence of the January 25^th revolution, before the SCAF abused its powers during eighteen months of rule. The sight of white-uniformed police being hoisted above the crowd and hailed by demonstrators is even more disturbing to a nation who remembers the abusive, loathsome role the police and security forces played under Mubarak and the brutality with which they repressed the revolution of 2011.

Those who warn of a back to the future scenario might think of another analogy: in Muslim religious law, if a man divorces his wife three times, he may not take her back, even if it is their joint wish, before she has married another husband in the interim. The name for this intermediate husband who makes the remarriage of the divorced couple legal is a ‘legitimizer’; the brief one-year Morsi regime may be regarded as having played the role of ‘legitimizer’ that allows Egypt to go back to its military-backed autocracy.

But the ‘legitimizer’ regime may not go quietly. To the Muslim Brotherhood and their considerable base around the country, this defeat is bitter, and extremists among them may be plotting insurrection and violence. That would be a mistake, just as it would be a mistake by the newly-triumphant, liberal, secular majority of the country to try to shut the Islamists out of the democratic process in future elections. The Brotherhood was not ready to rule in June of 2012, but Islamist parties are entitled to have a voice in the politics of Egypt, as long as they respect the spirit and not just the letter of the democratic process.   

To those who mutter that Egypt is only jumping out of the frying pan of Islamist misrule into the fire of military dictatorship, that Egypt can only be ruled by a strongman, perhaps the answer is this: we don’t need another hero. Whoever comes to power in Egypt at the next election or whoever make seek to take advantage of the military's role as kingmaker, will have to deal with a new reality: the masses of Egypt have found their way out of the thunder-dome, not once but twice, and will find their way out again if need be. The people have spoken, and their voice may be loud, chaotic, and divided, but above all, it will not be silenced.

Egypt's Jon Stewart Bassem Youssef

The Emperor had no clothes. Or rather, the Emperor was wearing one too many, according to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-dominated administration. The last straw that got television comedian and chat show host Bassem Youssef arrested was a satire on President Morsi wearing an outsize ceremonial hat bestowed on him during an official visit to Pakistan recently.

Youssef’s avowed idol and inspiration, Jon Stewart, pointed out on The Daily Show that he spent much of the eight years of the Bush administration making fun of the President wearing big funny hats- cowboy hats. But Egypt is not the U.S., and never has been. Bassem Youssef would not even have been allowed to go on air with his show under Mubarak, let alone make fun of the President and the Muslim Brotherhood Party week after week. After the revolution of January 2011, Youssef went from doing ten minute video clip spoofs on YouTube to hosting a two-hour, must-see TV show every Friday night, with millions around the Arab world tuning in.

As the popularity of his show grew exponentially every week, Bassem Youssef, a practicing heart surgeon by profession who first started producing his skits in his own basement, went on to host on glossy studio sets on the most widely-watched cable channels in Egypt. He self-consciously modeled himself on his idol Jon Stewart: from Stewart’s mannerisms and self-depreciation to the format of the show to the host’s trademark irreverence and lewd innuendos- par for the course for an American comedian but shocking in a socially conservative country like Egypt.

And like Jon Stewart, Bassem Youssef at his best could be excruciatingly funny while debunking false claims and exposing the hypocrisy of the party in power with the deadly precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Until the authorities, forced to acknowledge the power of ridicule, were no longer able to ignore him. More than once, he was warned and ordered to cease and desist, to no avail. If, once or twice, his program seemed to be pulling its punches, dissatisfied viewers threatened to tune out in droves, and he returned in full force. Finally Youssef was arrested last week and interrogated, while thousands stood vigil outside the Attorney General’s office and millions more stood vigil on the social media. Even the U.S. Embassy in Egypt tweeted about the topic. And in the U.S., not only Jon Stewart but NBC, CBS, and television world-wide reported on the Bassem Youssef cause celebre.

 No doubt domestic and international pressure played their part in the decision of the Attorney General to release Youssef. That same night, Bassem Youssef put on a show that pulled no punches. But he was the first to acknowledge that he had the luxury of relative impunity on account of his celebrity, and if that were lifted, so would his immunity. And he acknowledged, by name, the many dissident media figures now in jail who were victims of the public’s fickle span of attention. If you forget them and don’t speak out for them, he said, one day no one will speak out for you. He seemed to be speaking for himself.