Last spring, the world stopped to bear witness to the Arab Spring, first marked with the fall of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali,@@http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104842@@ Tunisia’s former despot, and then popular uprisings that spread across the Middle East. Syria, Yemen and Bahrain have all seen continuing demonstrations that unfortunately have been met with deadly reactions from their respective governments. Egypt stands out as perhaps the only state swept by revolution recently that has seen a relatively peaceful and clear path to positive change. But has it really?
It is common knowledge that the Egyptian military took over to “facilitate” the transition from President Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial regime to a civilian democracy.@@http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/hosni_mubarak/index.html@@ A less-known fact is that Mubarak handpicked the military officials who were appointed to oversee this task before his ouster.
The old guard’s influence in post-Mubarak Egypt is still visible to us on the outside through the actions (or lack thereof) of the transitional council. They have still not lifted the 30-year-old emergency law, which allows the military to arrest and detain people without cause. This is a major cause for concern as the failure to lift emergency law would likely taint the upcoming parliamentary election.
The future of Egypt is still hazy. U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne W. Patterson@@http://egypt.usembassy.gov/pr101511.html@@ recently said, “I don’t think, frankly, the military knows or anyone else knows (what is going on). This process has really been fraught with uncertainty from the beginning and decisions are often made on a day-to-day basis, so I would expect that to continue for a while.”
There is building domestic skepticism about the ability and will of the military to relinquish power to the citizenry, resulting in more demonstrations in the now-famous Tahrir Square in Cairo.@@http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/20116297580725806.html@@ What is apparent is that this revolution is by no means over. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is only in the beginning stages, because there has really been no talk of an endgame. By endgame, I am referring to several things. First, all of Egypt’s manufacturing capabilities, and much of its other economic power, has been under military control for the past 30 years and is one of the many reasons Egypt’s economy has struggled for the past decade or more. Over 40 percent of the country’s approximately 80 million citizens live below the poverty line, and most on just $2 per day.@@http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/40-percent-of-egyptians-live-on-2-dollars-a-day-or-less-and-the-global-elite-like-it-that-way and http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/07/06/revolution-delayed-2/@@ This, coupled with staggeringly high unemployment, gave a heartbeat to the revolution.
Since the military took power, over 28 different political parties have been formed,@@http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=56550@@ a source of cautious optimism. There is still little real indication of which players will come out on top after the field is inevitably whittled down to a few parties because few Egyptians have experienced anything other than a dictatorship.
Notre Dame de Namur University student ambassador Lauren Keeney spent time in Egypt and worked for the Egyptian embassy before the revolution.@@http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lauren-keeney/34/219/427@@
“The fact that the U.S. holds presidential elections every four years was a completely foreign and almost utopian concept,” Keeney said. “In November 2010, everyone from youth to government employees in Cairo told us that a major revolution was going to break out, and it was just a matter of time before it happened.”
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest Islamist organizations@@http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/muslim_brotherhood_egypt/index.html@@ and the main opposition in many Middle Eastern states, is one of the major players in the new Egypt. They adhere to conservative Islamic values and believe that family, society, and government should all adhere to Sharia law. There are many more liberal voices in Egypt that call for a truly secular democracy that would guarantee equal rights for women and non-Muslims as well as freedom of artistic expression. Egyptian author Nawal El Saadawi put it quite eloquently in an interview with Al Jazeera, “Democracy starts in the home between the husband, the wife, and the children. If there is no democracy at home in the family, there is no democracy in the parliament.”@@http://www.sampsoniaway.org/blog/2011/08/18/egyptian-writer-nawal-el-saadawi-%E2%80%9Chope-is-power%E2%80%9D/@@
Any country that has gone through the kind of transformation that Egypt has needs time to readjust and begin anew. There are several inherent dangers in this “down time” that could — and are — playing out in the new Egypt. The most current issue is internal sectarian struggle. The Selafists, a fringe Islamist militant group, have been carrying out a series of attacks against the nation’s Coptic Christian minority who make up about 10 percent of the population. @@http://www.zenit.org/article-32534?l=english   and   http://www.euronews.net/2011/10/10/egypt-s-christians-protest-against-riot-deaths/@@These attacks have been met with little military response and have actually caused more violence via the Coptic demonstrations against this violence.
The second major problem I foresee is a hijacking of the whole movement by a group such as the Selafists, who weren’t a part of the revolution and disagree with many of the ideals that powered it. The Iranian revolution was hijacked in the same way after the Ayatollahs flocked in from Paris, Baghdad and other countries.
Ultimately, it is up to the people of Egypt to decide what kind of government they want. There are too many eyes on the military for them not to eventually relinquish power, not to mention too much money is at stake. But as the process goes forward at a snail’s pace, it is important that careful note is taken of who is at the top of the political food chain.@@ The same goes for elections in the United States, from President to local city councils and even the ASUO elections that will be held in the spring.@@ It is always imperative that the voting public knows where money and power are coming from.