2013 Egypt Coup - Morsi ousted

[ramana]

Basically its the Sultanate despite all modern rhetoric.
Whoever controls the military is the Sultan.

Even otherwise Egypt always had only warrior kings that were successful.

[SSridhar]

When bigotted religious fervour is assiduously nurtured over hundreds of years, the society gets fundamentalized and it would be futile to expect a secularist to suddenly pop-up from their midst who can lead the nation. Sisi's thesis is not surprising. Al Azhar has been the institution that everybody looked up to in the Muslim world and coming from such a country, his religiosity was expected. By the same token, we have to look at the kind of friends that Col. Nasser or Col. Anwar Sadat kept during the early days of their careers in the military. Nasser himself was reported to be a member of the MB. It is to the credit of the Egyptian Army that they did not go down the road that the PA has taken of being the 'guardians of the ideological frontier' as well.

When the Free Officers allied with al Banna and Syed Qutb to mount a revolution and take over Egypt from King Farroukh, the alliance fell apart shortly thereafter. The Egyptian Army which has been ruling since then has not shown any inclination to Islamism of the variety of al Banna or Syed Qutb. It is a fallacy to equate the two poles and insinuate 'deluge' for Egypt either which way.

It is not possible to have secularism as a practice of the state in West Asian, North African or many East African countries. This is a given and so one understands clearly that when the Egyptian Army fights MB, it is not fighting to install a secular government, just as when the PA took on the Taliban in a few rare instances it was not to protect a 'secular' government ruling from Islamabad.

As for JI & JUI split from Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, I am not aware of any deep distrust between Qazi Hussain-led JI and Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. The encouragement that Gen. Zia gave to MQM in Karachi, in order to politically blunt PPP after the execution of ZAB, led to some issues between IJT and MQM, but it did not overall affect the relationship between Zia and Hussain. The Zia-JI project was fundamentally deeper and significant. Of course, there was a split between a Fazl-ur-Rehman-led JUI and Gen. Zia leading to the creation of JUI-F & JUI-S (Sami-ul-Haq also known by another colourful name) with the latter supporting Gen. Zia. Gen. Zia supported the Islamist parties to gain political support and legitimize his usurpation of power. The JI & JUI never wanted to take over power from the PA, and they themselves perhaps knew it was impractical. Such is not the case in Egypt.

[Johann]

SS,

The Free Officers, and Nasser in particular were secular men whose Muslim identities were cultural rather than religious.

Sisi is different - a clean shaven believer. He is part of a different generation that is the result of the deep Saudi support for the Mubarak state. The result of deepending Gulf influence was a wholesale movement towards Islamic conservatism in the last 30 years and you can see it in the AUC graduation pictures - the steadily growing number of beards and hijabs.

Sisi has no problem with Islamic parties (the Salafi Al-Noor seems to be doing OK) that obey the army, but he has problems with any force - secular or religious that challenges his power. Again, Sisi's reliance on Gulf patronage guarantees a self-consciously conservative Sunni state.

I don't want to derail this by bringing a long Pakistan-centric conversation, but Zia like armies all over the Muslim world that play the religious card initially made the JI feel like it was a senior partner in shaping the state and the nation. It wasn't. It was merely one tool among others for Zia and the Army. The JI like any other individual group was disposable. And yes, that is why the IJT chose to fight the ban on student activity.

[SSridhar]

The Free Officers, and Nasser in particular were secular men whose Muslim identities were cultural rather than religious.

Johann, as I said before, Nasser was not merely culturally exhibiting his religious streak, but he was a card holding member of the MB and MB was (and is) known only by its ideological base; nothing cultural like Kalakshetra, or Shanti Niketan for example.

Sisi is different - a clean shaven believer. He is part of a different generation that is the result of the deep Saudi support for the Mubarak state. The result of deepending Gulf influence was a wholesale movement towards Islamic conservatism in the last 30 years and you can see it in the AUC graduation pictures - the steadily growing number of beards and hijabs.

Sisi has no problem with Islamic parties (the Salafi Al-Noor seems to be doing OK) that obey the army, but he has problems with any force - secular or religious that challenges his power. Again, Sisi's reliance on Gulf patronage guarantees a self-consciously conservative Sunni state.

The deep support for Mubarak was not so deep after all. For a decade or more, the Gulf nations boycotted Mubarak and Egypt for signing the peace deal with Israel. The Arab League HQ was moved out of Cairo. The persecuted MB members found asylum in these countries. They had always been welcomed even earlier under Nasser or Sadat's regime too. It was not until 1989 that King Fahd restored his country's relationship with Egypt. Soon, Saddam swallowed Kuwait and KSA & Egypt became the pivots against Iraq. As the Western powers joined hands with these Arab nations to oust the invaders from Kuwait, the two leaders Hosni Mubarak & King Fahd faced considerable backlash within their own countries against their seeking alliance with the Western powers. Almost all of that was orchestrated within Egypt by MB, thus belying that it was KSA's support. MB had had an independent mindset right from the beginning of its foundation and AQ was founded through the indoctrination and support from Abdullah Azzam and Zawahiri, both members of the MB. The modern-day MB and Islamist movement in Egypt may be traced to Jamal-ud-din-Afghani, Hassan al-Banna et al. I therefore find no convincing linkage between Sisi and KSA's support etc.

IMO, the Egyptian Military (not only Sisi) may be using Al Noor to control the unbridled influence of MB and split their support base. The absolutely large numbers of MB threatens the state. In using Al Noor as a destabilizing tool, the military may be playing with fire but states, even mature and old democracies, have made similar choices or Faustian bargains.

I don't want to derail this by bringing a long Pakistan-centric conversation, but Zia like armies all over the Muslim world that play the religious card initially made the JI feel like it was a senior partner in shaping the state and the nation. It wasn't. It was merely one tool among others for Zia and the Army. The JI like any other individual group was disposable.

I too do not want to delve deep into Pakistan in this thread. I would just say that Zia supported JI for one reason and JUI for another. Both JI & JUI were needed for the sake of legitimacy, but, what distinguished them was JI was a favourite of KSA and Zia needed it for his project of Islamization.

On a generic level, The Islamists have always bandied together for a cause and fell foul of each other unravelling themselves soon therefater. In case after case, history shows that.

And yes, that is why the IJT chose to fight the ban on student activity.

In fact, IJT was the only student organization that was not banned by Zia. All the others were banned. The ban on the rest was in force until a few years back.

[KrishnaK]

And yes, that is why the IJT chose to fight the ban on student activity.

IJT ?

[ramana]

In 2007 I summaried my understanding of Arab Nationalism and Islamism and uploaded to slideshare.

http://www.slideshare.net/ramana_56/modern-islamism

You may want to look around for other summary presentations.

[Johann]

Johann, as I said before, Nasser was not merely culturally exhibiting his religious streak, but he was a card holding member of the MB and MB was (and is) known only by its ideological base;

SS, this is simply not true. In the 1940s Anwar Sadat, already a member of what became the Free Officers got to know the Muslim Brotherhood in prison when the British arrested him for trying to work with the Germans. Those contacts became the basis for co-ordination of actions between nationalist officers and the MB against the British and against the Egyptian regime. The Free Officer movement and the MB despite their cooperation remained competing movements with very separate ideologies. For the Free Officers Arab nationalism, socialism and modernity were at the centre and Islamic identity was at the periphery, whereas for the MB it was Islamic identity and modernity at the centre with Arab nationalism at the periphery. They cooperated in pushing the British out of the Nile in the 1940s, and in bringing down the monarchy in 1952 but within two years of the Free Officers coup the power struggle led to Nasser banning the MB.

The deep support for Mubarak was not so deep after all. For a decade or more, the Gulf nations boycotted Mubarak and Egypt for signing the peace deal with Israel. The Arab League HQ was moved out of Cairo. The persecuted MB members found asylum in these countries. They had always been welcomed even earlier under Nasser or Sadat's regime too. It was not until 1989 that King Fahd restored his country's relationship with Egypt.

After Nasser died in 1970 Sadat faced a power struggle with the more Marxist elements of the Nasserist movement who could mobilise the leftists student unions and who enjoyed the support of the Soviet bloc. In order to out-maneouver them Sadat freed the MB, and turned to the Saudis. It worked for him. In the mid 1970s he launched the 'infitah' campaign to de-socialise the economy. The vast majority of capital that came into Egypt came from the Gulf Sheikhdoms, and this supported the new patronage networks that the regime depended on internally.

Between all of these moves the leftist challenge was crushed, making the Islamists less useful. Sadat's intensifying conflict with the Islamists after the Camp David accords led to him locking them up, and his assassination. This caused only brief problems with the Saudis, whose boycott of Sadat and then Mubarak was completely perfunctory. The Saudis and the GCC needed Egypt's support to contain revolutionary Iran, and to deal with the threat they felt coming to the Peninsula from the Soviet influence in Afghanistan and South Yemen. The Saudis for example paid the Egyptians to share their chemical weapons expertise (developed in Nasser's time) with the Iraqis. They paid for the Egyptian light infantry weapons to be shipped to the Afghan Islamist groups fighting the DRA and the Soviets. And most of all they continued to invest heavily in the Egyptian economy, propping up the regime. Additionally, the Saudi official ulema legitimated the Egyptian state against attacks from the MB and Islamists. In exchange the state permitted the Saudi support for the growth of apolitical religious conservatism of quietist salafis and Al-Azhar.

IMO, the Egyptian Military (not only Sisi) may be using Al Noor to control the unbridled influence of MB and split their support base. The absolutely large numbers of MB threatens the state. In using Al Noor as a destabilizing tool, the military may be playing with fire but states, even mature and old democracies, have made similar choices or Faustian bargains.

Al-Noor appeared overnight after Mubarak fell. It is almost entirely composed of well established Salafi preachers who depend on the Saudis for their funding and spiritual guidance. Many of the most popular had their own (again Saudi funded) TV shows which have become very popular in the last 20 years. These are the very same Salafis had insisted that participation in any sort of politics was haraam. Al-Noor is if anything more hardline than the MB in its official line on things like gender and religious tolerance. The difference is that it is much less independent in its decision-making; it can be managed through the relationship with Saudi Arabia.

[SSridhar]

Johann, as I said before, Nasser was not merely culturally exhibiting his religious streak, but he was a card holding member of the MB and MB was (and is) known only by its ideological base;

SS, this is simply not true. In the 1940s Anwar Sadat, already a member of what became the Free Officers got to know the Muslim Brotherhood in prison when the British arrested him for trying to work with the Germans. Those contacts became the basis for co-ordination of actions between nationalist officers and the MB against the British and against the Egyptian regime. The Free Officer movement and the MB despite their cooperation remained competing movements with very separate ideologies. For the Free Officers Arab nationalism, socialism and modernity were at the centre and Islamic identity was at the periphery, whereas for the MB it was Islamic identity and modernity at the centre with Arab nationalism at the periphery.

How the MB and Col. Nasser and Col. Sadat came into contact with each other is immaterial. There is a lot of evidence to both of them being members of the MB. Your claim is also not true. Why should it be even surprising that an Egyptian did not belong to MB or a similar outfit like AN ? There are many organizations that have competing ideologies but overlap on some and collaborate tactically. The Free Officers & MB struck a deal that later unravelled. I am not disputing the strategic differences between Free Officers and MB.

Al-Noor appeared overnight after Mubarak fell. It is almost entirely composed of well established Salafi preachers who depend on the Saudis for their funding and spiritual guidance. These are the very same Salafis had insisted that participation in any sort of politics was haraam. Al-Noor is if anything more hardline than the MB in its official line on things like gender and religious tolerance. The difference is that it is much less independent in its decision-making; it can be managed through the relationship with Saudi Arabia.

The trouble I have is in understanding this thesis that AN is somehow bad in Egypt (which it certainly is) but those countries which are the fountainhead of that ideology (or controlling it) are however acceptable. There was no compunction in seeking their full support to eclipse enemy power thirty years back and then 'protect' them to wreak havoc in the region for decades. There is nothing to choose between AN & MB as far as Egypt goes. However, the EA for the most part has been secular and there is no evidence that it has been fundamentalized. It is not as though only hegemons can seek tactical alliance with the most rabid groups and poor EA cannot, or is it ?

[Johann]

There is a lot of evidence to both of them being members of the MB.

I'm afraid I've never heard of this about Nasser from any serious source, or even amongst the popular conspiracy theories in the region. I'm curious to know where you've picked this up from - I've never you seen you say something outlandish like this before before.

The trouble I have is in understanding this thesis that AN is somehow bad in Egypt (which it certainly is) but those countries which are the fountainhead of that ideology (or controlling it) are however acceptable.

You can certainly take that up with people who are fans of Saudi policy. I am not one of those people.

There was no compunction in seeking their full support to eclipse enemy power thirty years back and then 'protect' them to wreak havoc in the region for decades. There is nothing to choose between AN & MB as far as Egypt goes. However, the EA for the most part has been secular and there is no evidence that it has been fundamentalized. It is not as though only hegemons can seek tactical alliance with the most rabid groups and poor EA cannot, or is it ?

The overthrow of Mubarak was not something the Saudis wanted. The overthrow of Morsi has seen the return of the Mubarak crowd, and its weakened Egypt's path to normal, democratic politics.

The real bulwark against Islamist excesses has to be a culture of rights, and a culture of protest, not the power of the Army. The Egyptian public was magnificent in its willingness to protest Mubarak and then Morsi, and yet in every case the Army has attempted to stunt and hijack growth of democracy and people-power.

Participatory liberal democracy is what will stunt Erdogan (who himself takes advantage of the conventions of decades of authoritarian military rule) and the AKP in Turkey, and the MB in Egypt. Not military dictatorship. The Army is now arresting the same liberal protestors who helped organise against Morsi.

The Egyptian Army is somewhere between the Turkish Army and the Zia/post-Zia Pakistan Army on the secular-Islamist scale. Sisi is certainly less secular and more religious than someone like for example Ayub Khan, which I find worrying given the route that the PA took and Pakistani society took. The Egyptian military, just like the Pakistani military is hooked on Saudi and American money. When combined with authoritarianism its just not capable of being a positive influence.

[Samudragupta]

But the fundamental question is why do EA need more Islam? Zia needed more Islam to hold West pakistan together in the face of separation of Bangladesh and increasing threat of the Soviets in the West.....

[Johann]

But the fundamental question is why do EA need more Islam? Zia needed more Islam to hold West pakistan together in the face of separation of Bangladesh and increasing threat of the Soviets in the West.....

The PA needed Islamism to justify dictatorship, and the military's untouchability when civilians were ostensibly in charge. The EA will need it for the same reason. Mubarak's brand of allying with conservative Islam without fully personally embracing it is a failed brand. The EA has to try to outflank the MB's religious credentials while at the same time seeming to be the only thing standing between the jihadis on one hand, and the Copts and West on the other. It will almost certainly take the rhetoric of Musharraf's 'enlightened moderation' and many of the contradictions and deceptions inherent to it.

Plus there's a generational and class shift. Egypt after the colonial era, and after Nasser death became a much less secular society. The officers rising up after the old guard were fired by Morsi reflect that somewhat higher level of background religiosity.

[SSridhar]

I'm afraid I've never heard of this about Nasser from any serious source, or even amongst the popular conspiracy theories in the region. I'm curious to know where you've picked this up from - I've never you seen you say something outlandish like this before before.

Johann, I am not to be blamed if you are unaware. I am sure one can find credible references to this. I would not call something 'outlandish' just because I have not heard of it before and for that reason I would not use such a word against a fellow poster.

Again, I do not understand why this point must be belaboured so much. Certainly, Nasser fell foul of MB (even if he had been a card carrying member of that organization) when he came to power, and had his own vision of Socialism and Arab Nationalism. Both Nasser & Sadat had come from poor backgrounds and in a religiously very active country like Egypt, which was also in the throes of anti-Colonialism, there was every likelihood that the two were bitten by the bug. He either masked his religiosity for what he perceived to be a common good of his nation or he changed after assuming power, neither of which is impossible. Sadat openly exhibited where his sympathies lay when he lifted the ban on MB and like ZAB in Pakistan introduced several Islamist measures. As many claim, both ZAB in Pakistan and Anwar Sadat in Egypt took these measures under exigencies of circumstances to consolidate their own position, such an assessment might be true or not, but the effect has been the same. In fact, after the disastrous defeat in 1967, Nasser himself called for religion to play a greater part in countering the enemy.

In any case, I have no doubt that both Nasser and Sadat have been referred to as members of MB by various sources, including by the longest surviving member of the original Free Officers coterie.

[SSridhar]

But the fundamental question is why do EA need more Islam? Zia needed more Islam to hold West pakistan together in the face of separation of Bangladesh and increasing threat of the Soviets in the West.....

It is inevitable that in these states religion is co-opted by whomsoever who wants to be in power. Whatever their personal beliefs are, if they do not turn to religion, they may not be able to survive internally for too long. Ayub Khan, who may be mistaken as a secular person because he wined and dined when he was not supposed to do so, nevertheless invoked religious symbolism extensively when he was facing internal challenges like when facing Fatima Bhutto in elections, for example. Can there be a better example than the Quaid himself ?

[Johann]

SS,

Nasser was never at any point an Islamist. He and the Free Officers as I said did briefly try to work with the MB in the 1940s on the basis of a common commitment to Egyptian sovereignty from semi-colonial rule (ie nationalist terms), but the association was never comfortable for either party, and the Free Officers never fully integrated themselves with the Ikhwan.

Here is Khaled Mohieldin's account of those two years from late 1944 to late 1946.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... rhood.aspx

Nasser's problem besides his suspicion of the Ikhwan's opacity in decision making was his ideological tendency to frame Egypt's fundamental problems in secular socio-economic terms rather than religious ones, and their lack of concrete social and political programmes. The solution for Nasser was never more Islam. It was building a social conscience and nationalist framework into the state. Nasser's consistent view was that religion was at best cultural heritage, but that religious belief should not obstruct progress. That was why he nationalised Al-Azhar for example - to ensure religious figures could not set the national agenda.

If you've seen anything that suggests Nasser was actually an Islamist, please feel free to share it. I've spent a lot of time in and on Egypt, and I've seen nothing of the sort, and neither have the far more knowledgeable and experienced Egyptians I know.

[SSridhar]

There are enough leads in my previous posts for an interested person to follow up.

As I said, the outcome of finding the MB membership cards of Nasser & Sadat with their photos and signatures is immaterial to the discussion. Their actions after they came to power are there for all to see. The point is that these two gentlemen were as susceptible to such ideologies as anybody else in Egypt at that time was and it would be no surprise if they had been influenced.

Secondly, in these countries religious identity is inevitable and to expect them to follow a secular approach to governance is unthinkable and unworkable. Irresponsible behaviour by those practising realpolitik has aggravated the situation beyond control. They cannot become preachy when they choose and allies otherwise. That is the hypocrisy we are currently witnessing in Egypt.

[Johann]

The point is that these two gentlemen were as susceptible to such ideologies as anybody else in Egypt at that time was and it would be no surprise if they had been influenced.

But they simply were not influenced or susceptible. I don't know if you actually read the excerpt I linked above.

It is an eyewitness account of the period when the Free Officers came close to merging with the much larger MB. That is almost certainly the period, and the origins of the somewhat hazy ideas of Nasser you seem to have.

What should be clear from it however is that their unwillingness to ideologically compromise made fusion impossible. The MB's religious nationalism and Nasser's semi-Kemalist nationalism simply could not co-exist.

I'd challenge anyone for evidence that Nasser ever adopted an Islamist ideological framework.

If you think that's somehow unbelievable for Egypt (which seems to be the case from the generalisations about it in your post), consider that the strongest Egyptian political party for 15-20 years before the 1936 treaty that gave Egypt autonomy was the entirely secular Wafd. They led the revolution of 1919, and they had a mass following from every level of society.

[SSridhar]

From Nightwatch for the night of Sep 05

Egypt: On 5 September the Egyptian Social Solidarity Ministry warned that the Muslim Brotherhood that was founded in 1928 will be dissolved after the end of the third and final deadline on Thursday, 5 September, to address accusations over illegal activities. Hani Mahanna, spokesman for the ministry, told the news service, MENA, that no representative of the group has shown up at the ministry and "so we have no other alternative but to take necessary legal action and dissolve it within days". According to the news report, this is the third deadline to be granted to the group to answer charges of forming military militias and engaging in illegal activities. Under the Law number 84 of 2002, Non-Governmental Organizations are banned from engaging in politics or forming military militias. And since the 2012 Constitution was suspended, the social solidarity minister rather than the administrative court is authorized to take a decision on the group's dissolution.

Comment: The security forces of the government are not outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead the interim government has maneuvered so that the Brotherhood's failure to defend itself is responsible for its dissolution. This is a slick political maneuver sometimes called surrendering the initiative. It always results in blame being shifted from a government to a victim of that government, i.e., the victim brought it on himself. A useful analogy to US law would be an order to disband a seditious organization because it had failed to fill out the proper forms to apply for tax exempt status as a humanitarian organization. In the case of the Brotherhood, the accusations of violent sedition are at least partly accurate. The Brotherhood's failure to make an appearance to defend itself in fact does leave the ministry with no recourse but to dissolve the Brotherhood. The process leading to the dissolution of the Brotherhood is slick, but the dissolution of the Brotherhood has not been in doubt since 3 July.

Excellent, Egyptian Army. There is no room for such an organization to exist in any country.

[Agnimitra]

When necks are severed with such casual copiousness, then its clear that the hand that holds it is not liberal democracy:

Egypt sentences 528 supporters of President Mohammed Morsi to death: ‘Sentences handed out like small change’