By Dan Murphy
Yesterday, tens of thousands of anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters swept up to the gates of the presidential palace in Cairo,
furious about a proposed Constitution that was written with limited, if
any, input from the revolutionary political groups that spearheaded the
protests that drove Hosni Mubarak from power in Feb. 2011.
The protests prompted a hasty retreat through a back gate by President Mohamed Morsi,
as angry protesters shouted the same slogans against him that swept him
to power in June. Riot police had to hold back the protesters.
Today, came the inevitable show of street power from the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders insist they're defending a democratically elected president from an undemocratic mob.Brothers were out in force in Cairo today, clashing with President Morsi's opponents and helping to secure the area around the palace, where Morsi returned to work today.
Crisis averted? No.
Egypt's
sputtering transition from a military-backed, secular dictatorship to,
well, something else, has now hit its rockiest point in the nearly two
years since it began. Morsi's spokesman and backers have not offered any
specific compromise. His Vice President Mahmoud Makki today addressed
the nation, saying a referendum scheduled for Dec. 15 will move forward.
Gehad el-Haddad, a senior adviser for the Freedom and Justice Party,
the Brotherhood's political wing, summarized Mr. Makki's remarks as
"No moving of Referendum date, no cancellation of Constitutional
Declaration. Crowds do not dictate course of country, elected bodies
do."
WHAT NEXT FOR PROTESTERS?
If the Brother's stick to their
guns, the protesters have little in the way of political alternatives
but more protests, or giving in. That too seems unlikely, with
fundamental questions at stake about the future of Egyptian society and
surging distrust of Morsi and his movement. Politics conducted through
shows of street power is always dangerously messy, and the stage is
being set for a politically and economically paralyzing period of
political confrontation, with the risk of real violence.
Michael Hanna at The Century Foundation is worried, and fears that Morsi has been emboldened by his successful role in brokering a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel last month.
"If approved in a hastily called referendum, that slipshod [constitution] will bound Egypt's
political future and institutionalize its crisis. With a significant
portion of the country's judges declaring a strike in response to
Morsy's declaration and dueling protesters mobilizing on opposing sides,
Egypt's flawed transition now risks tipping into outright civil strife
and prolonged instability," he writes.
"Rather than using his burnished reputation as a regional leader to
forge a more consensual and stable transition back home, Morsy
capitalized on the favorable international political climate by making
an untenable and unjustifiable power grab that has plunged Egypt into
crisis."
The US
has been largely passive in the face of these moves, wary that too much
criticism of Morsi could jeopardize his commitment, so far, to
maintaining Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, as was demonstrated by the
role he played in securing a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the
Gaza Strip last month, when it appeared an Israeli invasion of Gaza was imminent.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments today are a case in point.
"The upheaval we are seeing now
once again in the streets of Cairo and other cities indicates that
dialogue is urgently needed," Ms. Clinton told reporters in Brussels.
Clinton asked for "respectful exchanges of views and concerns among
Egyptians themselves about the constitutional process and the substance
of the constitution."
Dialogue? Morsi gave himself
sweeping powers by decree last month, and used them to rush through the
draft constitution he now wants put to a national referendum ten days
from now. The draft was hastily finished in an all night session of a
committee almost devoid of Egypt's secular political forces, and has
raised fears that fundamental rights to free speech will be compromised
in the new Egypt, as they were in the old, and that Islamic law will
play an ever-larger role in Egyptian governance.
A BEGGAR'S CHOICE
What's more, if the referendum
doesn't pass, Egyptians will be left with Morsi holding executive and
legislative power and insisting the courts have little remit to review
his decisions. That's a beggar's choice for his political opponents, and
no recipe for national consensus on the rules of the game.
And events in Cairo today have been about as far from a "respectful exchanges of views" as could be imagined, with Muslim Brotherhood
protesters tearing down the makeshift tents of protesters attempting a
sit-in near the presidential palace and engaging in rock throwing
volleys with less organized secular-leaning protesters.
Street confrontations at the end
of Mubarak's rule were generally between government security protesters
and police, with one of the notable exceptions coming on Feb. 2, 2011,
when leaders of Mubarak's then-ruling National Democratic Party
organized an attack on protesters at Tahrir Square.
Armed thugs, a few bizarrely riding camels and horses, charged into
Tahrir, touching off a globally-televised melee that ended with 11
people dead.
The ruins of that battle, which
saw the sympathies of millions of Egyptians shift towards the young
protesters, marked the end of whatever hope Mubarak had of clinging to
power. The crowds in Cairo, Alexandria,
and other Egyptian cities swelled to unmanageable numbers all unified
by a singular demand: "Mubarak, go!" The Muslim Brotherhood, cautious as
ever, finally joined the protests in force. The military, which
governed Egypt from the time Mubarak stepped down until Morsi's election
this June, began publicly lining up behind the "legitimacy" of popular
demands.
On Feb. 11, Mubarak was gone.
CONSENSUS FRACTURED
Today, the secular
revolutionaries are comparing the clashes to the "Camel Battle" on
social media. Reports from the streets of Cairo have protesters
expressing optimism that the general public will react, much as they did
in early 2011. But what's happening now is a face-off between two
groups of civilians with different ideologies, not the Egyptian people
and military as "one hand" against the regime.
Reporters on the ground say the
Brotherhood's numbers on the streets today are greater than their
opponents, and President Morsi remains the only popularly elected
political figure in the country. But while his support is intense, it
isn't meaningful. In the run-off round of the presidential election, he
defeated Mubarak loyalist and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq by 13.2 million votes to 12.3 million.
That a former air force chief of
staff who went on to serve in Mubarak's cabinet for eight years came so
close to victory was a clear sign that the Brother's did not have a
mandate for the Islamicization of Egyptian politics the group has craved
since it was founded in 1928.
What stood for a political consensus for post-Mubarak Egypt, with all
sides promising greater freedoms and a national healing after Mubarak's
almost 30 years of at times brutal rule, has now been fractured. Whether
Morsi has the will, or interest, in trying to put it back together
again is the key question that now confronts Egypt.
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