A Heap of Brotherly Confusion

In Cairo, the underground (the Metro) runs perfectly well.  Clean, on time, cheap, non-congested.  At the Suez Canal, the southbound and the northbound, between Port Said on the Mediterranean (north) and Suez on the Gulf of Suez (south) runs as a Swiss watch.  If these events happen in Egypt as symbols of modernity and connectivity, why does not the revolutionary aftermath run similarly smoothly?

The answer lies in a beautiful quote from National Geographic in a recent incisive article headlined “Egypt in the Moment.”  It goes like this: “Before, there was no dialogue about the future.  Now there is one.”  Herein lies the brotherly confusion.  For the dialogue raised basic questions whose answers lie dormant in the minds of those who toppled Mubarak, as well as of those who rode the crest of the revolutionary success at no cost or at a little cost to themselves.  The former group fragmented; the latter group split in caucuses each claiming to be “the guardians of the revolution.”

Here we begin with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (the SCAF).  With no government in place on February 11, 2011, when Mubarak was pushed out of power, the SCAF assumed or was invited to assume power over demographically big and culturally diverse Egypt.  Field Marshall Tantawi, from his office at the Ministry of Defense in Abbasiyah, Cairo, became the de facto Head of State.  In effect, the SCAF protected the revolution at birth, then, as a unique midwife, took over the role of a stern mother.  Tantawi is the face of official Egypt and also its substance.

That role was truly beneficial.  It saved Egypt from the calamitous predicament of Syria where civil war is raging in spite of Kofi Annan’s understated descriptions.  It also provoked endless series of demonstrations in many Tahrir Squares all over Egypt.  While in Libya, where the country is bathed in competing city-state militias, Egypt is bathed in competing ideologies, Islamists and secular, and in all kinds of squabbles by professional syndicates and labor unions.  All of these forces are demanding instant political and economic solution and benefits.

How about the signal success of holding those fair Parliamentary elections in which a whopping 67% of the electorate, men and women, participated?  Here lies the SCAF’s boast of its good intentions of moving a complex Egypt toward the promised land of democracy and development.  To the anti-SCAF forces which want to force their way, in despite the structures of the provisional constitutional scheme promulgated under Mubarak, the SCAF says: we protected you from our guns; we shall leave on June 30 of this year; our role in protecting Egypt from chaos, after a civilian president is elected this May and a new constitution is drafted and approved in a plebiscite, must continue.

Both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis (no coalition between the two is possible because the Salafis adhere to a literal and unworkable interpretation of the role of Sharia in governance) hold 70% of parliamentary seats.  But the weight of secularism in and out of Parliament is crushing the Brotherhood's old motto of “Islam is the Solution.”

The Islamists demand of an ouster of the Ganzouri Cabinet of technocrats has been rebuffed by the SCAF and by the secular parties and parliamentarians.  The Brotherhood’s initial selection of a would-be presidential candidate, Khairat El-Shater, and the Salafi’s selection for the same role of Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail were aborted under applicable legal rules.  El-Shater had served time in jail under Mubarak’s rule; Abu-Ismail’s mother was an American citizen, a disqualifier under the rules of that bygone era.  In fact, the SCAF bared its teeth by putting down a rowdy demonstration by the Salafis who besieged the Defense Ministry in Abbasiyah in a failed attempt to get their candidate un-disqualified.  The SCAF said: “How can an Egyptian attack his/her own Defense Ministry?  We are acting on the basis of court decisions, not on the basis of a desire to stay over beyond June 30, 2012.”  The majority of the populace seems to join the SCAF in support of this argument.

Within a few days from now, and definitely before the end of this May, a new President of Egypt will emerge in spite of the heap of brotherly confusion.  The three leading candidates are: Amr Mousa, a secularist; Abdel-Moneim Abu-ElFotouh, formerly one of the brain-trusts of the Muslim Brotherhood; Muhammad Morsi, now the formal candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Hamdain Sabbahi, a Nasserite.

The role of the judiciary has been decisive.  Thirteen-thousand judges shall oversee the fairness of that fierce competition for the highest office in Egypt.  Fifty-two million Egyptians have the right to vote at twelve-thousand polling stations.  Campaign financing is limited to ten-million Egyptian pounds ($1.7 million approximately).  Under the leadership of Judge Farouk Sultan, who presides over the Supreme Commission for Presidential Elections, the presidential race is predicted to be fair.  It shall also be protected by massive security forces backed up by the SCAF.

By the end of June, the heap of brotherly confusion is expected to gradually evaporate.  It shall then be the time for the mighty River Nile to swell in its annual flood season.  Then the voice of the late Um Kalthoum, that departed great lady of the Arab song shall ring out again in praise of that mighty river in these words: 

“If it was not for the Nile, neither Egypt nor the Sudan would have found their place in human history.”