The Sisi Trend

It has been three years since the Arab Spring. Back then it was a hopeful time. Rancid autocratic governments were being toppled by what appeared to be youthful, pro-democratic, tolerant, anti-neoliberal populations. The intractable problems of the Middle East -- oil wars, Palestine, the export of Salafi jihad -- suddenly seemed soluble by a mass people movement of the disenfranchised.

But the turds in the punch bowl didn't take long to appear. A totalitarian crackdown in Bahrain fueled by riot weapons supplied by Uncle Sam; NATO intervention in Libya; Gulf Cooperation Council intervention in Syria; a botched Muslim Brotherhood post-Mubarak democratic transition followed by the coup de grace delivered by the SCAF and the return of a more extreme version of the Mubarak police state.

Today David Kirkpartrick and Carlotta Gall report on the different trajectories of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, where Arab Spring protests began, and Egypt, where the Arab Spring was snuffed out. Tunisia at this point looks like a qualified success story with the Islamists cooperating with the secular opposition to craft a new constitution which acknowledges the Islamic character of the state without enshrining Sharia.

Ennahda [the Islamist party] won wording stating that Islam is the religion of Tunisia but gave up on any reference to Islamic law. “Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state, Islam is her religion, Arabic her language and republic her regime,” a clause of the preamble reads. The more liberal parties, with strong lobbying from civil society groups, secured guarantees that Tunisia would remain a civil state with separation of powers and pledges of freedoms and rights. “Tunisia is a state of civil character, based on citizenship, the will of the people and the primacy of law,” the counterpart clause of the preamble reads. 

Neither clause can be amended by future governments.

Next door in Egypt a new constitution is being voted on in a plebiscite that was conducted yesterday and finishes up today. The new constitution validates the July 3 coup of Mohamed Morsi and solemnizes the police state. The Muslim Brotherhood, now a criminal organization with its leadership behind bars, has called for a boycott. The constitution is expected to pass overwhelmingly. Sisi, the military man who led the coup, is widely predicted to run for president.

What I felt at the time of the Morsi's imprisonment last summer is that elites around the world were taking note. Violence works. Crack down and crack down hard when you feel your power slipping. That's the ticket. It might be messy, but eventually the masses will fall into line. Elections are necessary only to validate the violence perpetrated by the rulers.

Thailand, though half-a-world away, is going through, I think, a situation not entirely dissimilar from Egypt in the run up to the July 3 coup. If there is a trend that was set in motion by the SCAF in toppling Morsi, then Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra should be watching her back. It could be argued that the trend was on display in Ukraine recently and that Viktor Yanukovich was on his way out, if not for the artful intervention of Vlad Putin.

The bottom line? I see a bull market for authoritarian coups ushering in police states.

Neoliberalism vs. Arab Spring

Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns was in Cairo yesterday. David Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim have the story, "U.S. Warns Egypt’s Generals Against Jeopardizing ‘Second Chance’ at Democracy":

Mr. Burns urged both sides to take steps to reconcile. “The government itself has said it wants inclusion of all political streams,” he said. “We have called on the military to avoid any politically motivated arrests. And we have also called upon those who differ with the government to adhere to their absolute obligation to participate peacefully.”

He did not repeat American calls for the generals to release Mr. Morsi. Mr. Burns never mentioned the ousted president, nor the Islamist movement behind him, the Muslim Brotherhood. When an Egyptian journalist asked how the new government responded to American calls for Mr. Morsi’s release, Mr. Burns said only, “We have made our views clear on that issue.” 

Seemingly all sides rebuffed Mr. Burns. The young organizers of the petition drive that preceded Mr. Morsi’s ouster, the ultraconservative Islamist party Al Nour and officials of the Muslim Brotherhood all said they would not meet with Mr. Burns. And state news media reported anonymous military officials saying that Mr. Burns was more determined than his Egyptian counterparts to ensure the continued flow of American military aid.

It's clear that the U.S. government wants some sort of plausible cosmetic democratic transition, a process capped by a showy, credible election. The United States specializes in elections (never mind Bush v. Gore). The American democratic ideal is to give the people a pageant, an electoral Olympics, every four years. It makes the people feel as if they're participating in the greatest system of the greatest country on earth. Then after the acceptance speech has been delivered behind the shield of bulletproof glass and the last balloon has been dropped, elites get down to governing according to the accepted global neoliberal norms.

But it is not apparent that Egypt is going to credible elections anytime soon. Street battles raged overnight in Cairo. The realization is dawning on everyone, not just Islamists, that the military is going to criminalize the Muslim Brotherhood. So we're at that point when the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take up arms.

David Kirkpatrick has an excellent frontpage story, "Egyptian Liberals Embrace the Military, Brooking No Dissent," about how Egyptian Liberals and Leftists are vocal defenders of the military coup and the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood -- even if it benefits the supporters of Hosni Mubarak, the overthrow of whom has been the crowning achievement of the Arab Spring thus far:

Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the liberals’ goal — an Egypt governed by an inclusive civilian democracy — appeared to be further away than when Mr. Mubarak fell. Now, he said, the old institutions and elites from the Mubarak era are emboldened to push for a full return of the old order. “There is a powerful and well-resourced player now trying to push Egypt back to 2010,” he said.

Kirkpatrick's story repeats many of the points made in a piece by Joseph Massad that appeared on the Counterpunch web site this past weekend. Entitled "The Struggle for Egypt," it's the best thing I've read on the coup to date. Massad frames the military's ouster of Mohamed Morsi as a battle that pits Mubarakist neoliberals and the Supreme Council of Armed Forces against Muslim Brotherhood neoliberals. Leftists, at this point, are naively hitching their wagon to the SCAF. But at the end of the day, neoliberalism will still hold sway, and the people will be on the path of even greater immiseration. It doesn't look good for the Arab Spring.