Don't Fear The Future Regime In Egypt
By Harsh Dobhal
03 February, 2011
Mail Today
The Egyptian society has suffered for far too long under Hosni Mubarak’s crushing regime. Faced with growing poverty, rigged elections, rising unemployment and the dismal lack of medical care, Egyptians were desperate to break the status quo. The success of uprising in Tunisia proved to be the igniting factor against the US-Israelbacked Mubarak. Things in Cairo cannot remain the same, western might notwithstanding. What next? Fears are being expressed that a radical Islamic group could replace Mubarak. Hamas, once an underground group founded in 1987, was catapulted to power by the Palestinians in Gaza in a free and fair election in January 2006, defeating Fatah. The organisation, largely isolated by international players, is too entrenched there to be forced out by Israelis, Americans or even by the discredited leaders of the Palestinian Authority which is in control of the West Bank. Though the Hamas remains an Islamist political party, it has successfully used the democratic space and is the only legitimate political force representing the people of Gaza today.
In Egypt, where demonstrators have hit the streets for a week straight against three decades of Mubarak’s rule, a radical repressive Islamic regime could come to power, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to be believed. Israel, essentially a Western outpost in the region, has indeed been making desperate requests to the Americans to save Mubarak’s regime.
But the Cairo unrest is neither motivated by religious extremism of any al-Qaeda-style Islamist group nor has the popular revolt been orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation of about half a million people in a country of 84 million. Concerns are being expressed by some Western analysts that the Muslim Brotherhood — by all parameters the best-organised opposition party in Egypt — could take over the country once Mubarak is ousted. However, the Muslim Brotherhood had categorically refused to support the unrest initially. It was only after days of protests that it backed the liberal, secular opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei as the lead spokesperson for the country’s opposition groups.
This astute political decision is attributed to the organisation’s moderate wing getting its way through. In fact, ElBaradei himself writes that he was issued a fatwa by an ultra-conservative group in Egypt to “repent” for inciting public opposition to Mubarak. That is why political Islam should not be equated with the al-Qaeda or the Taliban, for the situation in Egypt is not similar to what it was in Afghanistan. The threat of the Muslim Brotherhood by all means appears to be overblown. First of all, the demonstrations are against the brutal dictatorship and for a genuine democracy. Secondly, the Muslim Brotherhood had gained only 20 per cent votes in the last parliamentary elections (which were by no means fair under Mubarak). Since opposition parties are outlawed in Egypt, the Brotherhood’s members had to run as independent candidates. But, as is being speculated, even if the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power in a possible free and fair election in future, it would be the only legitimate political force which the world should deal with. And it would be possible only after the party further moderates itself and understands people’s real sentiments.
Renowned West Asian historian Juan Cole has argued that the present regime in Egypt is widely seen as a state for the others — the US, Israel, France and the UK — and as a state for the few — the Neoliberal rich. That the Muslim movements have only served to protest the withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities. “But they are a symptom, not the cause,” Cole said.
(The writer is a West Asia expert)
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