Articles about Egypt - theguardian wwekly vol 189 No 5 - Friday 12 July 2013.pdf

8/14/2019 Articles about Egypt - theguardian wwekly vol 189 No 5 - Friday 12 July 2013.pdf

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Incorporating material from the Observer,Le Monde and the Washington Post

Vol 189 No 5 2.20 4.20* Exclusions applyA week in the life of the world | 12-18 July 2013

Medellnmoving upCable caroffers hope

Can political Islam ever work?Egypts coup deals blowto religious democracy

Fallout likely to be feltthrough Muslim world

Even the most global events, thosewhose reverberations are felt far be-yond their borders, are rooted in thespecific and local. Last weeks coupinEgypt, thearmy steppingin to re-move and then arrest the democrati-cally elected president, is no differ-ent. The toppling of Mohamed Morsihad a hundred causes, many of thempeculiarto Egypt.A choiceexam-ple: Morsi wanted to close all shopsat 10pm, so that Egyptians would

be fully rested in time for morningprayers. That didnt go down well infamously nocturnal Cairo.

Still, what happens in Egypt mat-

ters outside Egypt. One in four Arabsis said to be Egyptian, the ancientnation repeatedly setting theleadthe rest of the Arab world follows.One example: within a decade or twoof Nasser taking power in the early50s, similar regimes were in place inIraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan.

One analyst says that the im-plications of the latest events willresonate even further, reachingIndonesia, Pakistan and every placewhere Muslims form the majority. Ofcourse the nearer neighbours are af-fected most directly. The ambitiousGulf state of Qatar, Morsis fellowIslamists in Turkey, and the MuslimBrothers of Hamas are among initial

losers, each having invested heavilyin the one-year president only to seethat investment evaporate.

But the fallout spreads far wider.For this represents a deep blow not

just to Morsi and the other Brother-hood leaders rounded up on thegenerals orders. It strikes at a largerproject: namely, the creation of amodern, viable form of political Is-lam, one that aspires not just to be amovement of protest but capable ofgovernment. Granted a trial run on

For better or worse the military deposition of Mohamed Morsi will have global implications Khalil Hamra/AP

Comment

Jonathan Freedland

the biggest possible stage, that showhas now closed after just a year.

What to make of this failure ofthe Islamist experiment? The hos-tile will say this was no surprise.Citing the conduct of the man who

before Morsi was most named as thepotential model of moderate Islam-ism, Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan who last month crushed a wave ofanti-government protests they willregret without sincerity that thisproves Islam and democracy are

incompatible. They might repeat thatoft-quoted nugget of cynicism: inthe Muslim world democracy meansone man, one vote, one time. Inthis view, the 2012 Egyptian elec-tion was always bound to be a freakevent, never to be repeated.

Defenders of Islamism will sayMorsis brand was denied a chanceto prove itself, strangled at birth bythe forces that took back control lastweek. In this version, the Brother-hood was Continued on page 5

Sarkozys neweyes for FranceFormer presidentplots a comeback

South Sudanat crossroadsLeaders feudrisks peace

newance


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4The Guardian Weekly 12.07.13

International news Egypt

Ian Black andPatrick Kingsley Cairo

Egyptians were braced for furtherviolence after at least 51 supportersof the deposed president MohamedMorsi were killed on Monday by se-curity forces in what the Muslim

Brotherhood condemned as a massa-cre, but the military insisted was theresult of an armed attack on a Cairo

barracks.Hours after the countrys single

blo odiest inci dent in over a year,interim president Adly Mansour setout a timetable for amending the con-stitution, and for elections for early2014. Under a constitutional declara-tion by Mansour late on Monday, hewould create two appointed commit-tees to work out amendments to theIslamist-drafted constitution passedunder Morsi.

A referendum on the new docu-

ment would be held within fourmonths. Elections for a new par-liament would be held within twomonths after that, around mid-Feb-ruary. Once the new parliament con-venes, it would have a week to set newpresidential elections.

Morsi, narrowly elected a year ago,was deposed by the Egyptian militarylast Wednesday after mass protestsled by the Tamarod (Rebellion) move-ment. Mansour, the head of the highconstitutional court, replaced him asinterim president. Morsi supporterssay it was a military coup. Opponentscall it a continuation of the revolu-tion that overthrew Hosni Mubarak

in 2011.Mondays incident took place out-

side a Republican Guard offi cers clubwhere Morsi had been rumoured to bein detention. The Brotherhood said itspeople were attacked during morningprayers, but the army said an attempthad been made by a terrorist groupto storm the heavily guarded build-ing. Emergency services confirmed435 people were injured.

Egypts interim presidency an-nounced a judicial investigation intothe killings, but that did not appeaseangry crowds. The US said it wasdeeply concerned and called onEgypts army to exercise maximumrestraint.

Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of

the al-Azhar mosque and the coun-trys senior Muslim cleric, warned ofthe danger of civil war after the ear-lier shootings and said he was goinginto seclusion until violence endedand reconciliation began.

Injured victims described howshooting began hours after hundredsof thousands of people attended ri-val rallies for and against Morsi. Thedeaths blocked attempts to form anew civilian-led transitional gov-ernment and fuelled already hightensions on the eve of the Ramadan

holiday.There were dawn prayers and then

I heard someone calling for help, Mo-hamed Saber el-Sebaei said. Just be-fore we finished, the shooting started.The army units that were standing infront of the Republican Guard head-quarters first started shooting teargas,then live ammunition above peoplesheads.

People started to fall back and thenan armoured vehicle came round theright-hand side escorted by a groupof soldiers with their rifles shootingdirectly into the people.

Initial claims that women and chil-

dren were among the dead were notconfirmed. But a doctor running afield hospital called the three hourshe had spent treating casualties someof the worst in his life.

The army said an armed terror-ist group had tried to break into thecompound and attacked securityforces. Two policemen and an armyoffi cer died and 40 soldiers were in-

jured, with seven in critical condition.The army said it had arrested at least200 people with large quantities offirearms, ammunition and Molotovcocktails.

But many unanswered questionsremained. Protesters could not agree

whether the security forces fired firstwith teargas or live ammunition.Some were filmed holding firearms.

In immediate political fallout, theconservative Salafi Noor party with-drew from already faltering talks ona transitional government. Politicalsources said Mohamed ElBaradeior Ziad Baha al-Din were likely to benamed interim prime minister.

The US has been trying to defusethe crisis by brokering an agreement

between the Brot herho od and themilitary, but Egyptian analysts andpoliticians say there is now no chanceMorsi will be restored or that the de-fence minister, General Abdel Fatahal-Sisi, will resign, as the Islamists aredemanding.

Massacre leavesa nation in turmoil

Muslim Brotherhoodcondemns killings aspolitical solution stalls

How a tiny band of coffe

Martin Chulov andPatrick Kingsley Cairo

Last Wednesday morning, as Mo-hamed Morsi sat discussing his plightwith a small coterie of aides at a base inthe east of Cairo, a senior adviser reas-

sured him that the presidential guardwould protect him, no matter what.

But as Egyptian troops moved in onthe base on the orders of army chiefAbdul Fattah al-Sisi, even this eliteunit slipped away, so Morsi could beeasily detained. As with so many ofthe political errors of his presidency,Morsi hadnt seen it coming.

The 3 July coup may have been ex-ecuted by the military, but its roots liein a civilian movement. On the even-ing of 15 April, Mohammed AbdulAziz and five other friends sat downin Borsa coffee shop in central Cairoto plot ways to invigorate Egyptstired civil opposition. According toAziz, the aims were simple at first.In the beginning all we wanted to

do was gather petitions to renounceMorsi, he said. But the group soongot a name, Tamarod (Rebellion).Within weeks it had also gained a mo-mentum.

The means were not dissimilarto the campaign that led to the top-

pling of President Hosni Mubarak 30months ago. Smartphones, Facebookand other forms of social media werecritical organising tools, but this timethe boot leather of volunteers and old-fashioned petitions also played a piv-otal role. By mid-May, Aziz said, therewere 8,000 volunteers in 15 of Egypts22 governorates.

Egypts problems had been pilingup since November, little more thanthree months into the four-year termof Morsis government. The economywas in torpor, the body politic barelyfunctioning, society deeply polarised.

On one side of a by now gaping di-vide was the Muslim Brotherhood,the powerful Islamic group largelyresponsible for sweeping Morsi to

Power shift ... opponents of MohamedMorsi gather at Cairos Tahrir SquareSuhaib Salem/Reuters


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The Guardian Weekly 12.07.13 5

Coup fallout will be feltfar beyond Egypt

More online

Latest news on Cairoguardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live

cheated of

power it won fair and square.Less straightforward is the viewof those who dream of a secular, lib-eral democracy in Egypt. Many arecheered by last weeks events: thetheocrats have been scattered, theirpower-grabbing constitution sus-pended. Yet this is to underestimatethe danger of what has happened.

To remove an elected president,to arrest a movements leaders andsilence its radio and TV stations, isto send a loud message to them andIslamists everywhere. It says: youhave no place in the political sys-tem. It says: there is no point tryingto forge a version of political Islam

compatible with democracy, becausedemocracy will not be available toyou. It is the message sent in Algeriatwo decades ago, when Islamistswere on course to win an election

but were pushed aside in a militarycoup; and in Gaza in 2006, whenHamas won the votes but were inter-nationally shunned. Except this timethe point has been rammed home inone of the mightiest Muslim nations.

The peril is clear. The MuslimBrotherhood could again be drivenunderground. It renounced violencelong ago and few believe it will go

back. But more radical jihadist voices

will now say: you tried the demo-cratic route, look where it got you.The challenge for Egypt now is

to somehow stop this pendulumswing from secular, military-backeddictatorship to illiberal democracyand back again, in which one set ofmasters seeks to replace entirely theother typified by Morsis winner-takes-all approach to power. A moredurable accommodation wouldrecognise thatIslamistand secularEgypt have to live together and sharepower. That will require the MuslimBrotherhood not to conclude thatthey cannot rule democratically, butthat they cannot rule alone.

The west are not detached by-standers. US influence in the regionmay be diminishing, but in Egypt itretains power of the rawest kind: its$1.3bn in military aid gives it all but aveto over Egypts armed forces. TheUS could have used that muscle tohead off this crisis months ago, pres-suring the army and Morsi to come toan agreement. Instead Morsi and hismovement will now be martyrs.

Of course, its hard not to root forthe crowds in Tahrir Square, thrilledto be rid of a man apparently benton becoming a theocratic tyrant.But the manner of his departurecould pave the way for something farworse for Egypt and beyond.Leader comment, page 22

hop rebels triggered Morsis fallpower in elections last June. On theother was the rest of the country about 48% of voters, according to thepoll that gave Morsi the presidencywith close to 52% of the popular vote.

The disaffected included a band ofunlikely allies, who sit uneasily even

now; at one end were the leftists andsecularists, at the other those whoresented thetopplingof Mubarak.

The latter had been a formidablefoe-in-waiting. Away from the scenesof Tahrir Square in January 2011, manymillions of Egyptians were uncom-fortable with Mubaraks demise. Theyhad been safe under the dictator andsome of them had prospered. The 17months after his ignominious exit had

been unsettling for the Mubarak faith-ful. But the year since Morsis inaug-uration had been even worse.

It was becoming clear thateverything that the state had built,everything that it had stood on,was coming crumbling down, saidAhmed Badawi, a mid-rank police

offi cer unhappy to see Mubarak go. Itwas a case of my enemys enemy ismy friend, so we joined them in Tah-rir Square this time, he said of lastweeks revolts.

A senior western diplomat whohad spent time with Morsi said the

writing was on the wall for his presi-dency early this year. The army had

become more and more worried bythe [Brotherhood]. The economywas being wrecked by the movement.They were spending at least $1.5bn permonth more than they should have.They were using months of reserves ata critical level. You couldnt deny theunderlying trend that the governmentwas heading for bankruptcy.

By March, serious diplomatic ef-forts had started to convince Morsi toform a government of national unity.We were trying to convince them to

broaden the base of political participa-tion, said the diplomat. After muchnegotiation, they declined and thenwent about making it even worse by

maintaining a technocratic govern-ment run by newly promoted lower-grade offi cials with bad ideas.

Bymid-June,withotherstateinsti-tutions sharing the militarys alarm,the tide was turning against Morsi.Tamarod claimed to have received

more than 20m petition signatures.Within a week, citizens experi-

enced shortages of essentials. In thelead-up to the first anniversary ofMorsis swearing-in 30 June thedate chosen by Tamarod for a march toTahrir Square, the shortages seemedspecially severe. The army had givenMorsi the first ultimatum: find waysto end the crisis within a week. Unableto deliver, Morsi watched as the largecrowds hoped for by the born-againopposition materialised. The armyposted statements on its Facebooksite acknowledging huge crowds ofprotesters on the streets. When thefirst deadline expired, the army gaveMorsi another deadline, this time 48hours. It was to be his last as leader.

Continued from page 1


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theguardianweekly22The Guardian Weekly 12.07.13

Millions of Egyptians took to the streets re-

cently with legitimate complaints aboutMohamed Morsi. They accused him of mo-nopolising power, of assaulting the separa-tion of powers between the presidency andthe judiciary, of bearing down on journalistsand ruining the economy. These were genuineconcerns after just one year and the throngwas swelled by the deep resentment the Mus-lim Brotherhood itself had generated. This ex-plosion was a long time coming.

Last week, however, hundreds of thou-sands more were on the streets demandinghis restoration. Whether or not Mr Morsi hadbeen good or bad, he had been their choice andthey were being robbed of it. If you can take

to the streets, they were saying, we can taketo them too, and they did in provinces all overEgypt. That is one of the consequences of de-ciding the fate of regimes with military coups,however popular. Once you stage a coup once,you can stage another one again. Once parlia-ments are dissolved and constitutions sus-pended, the street becomes the only arbiterof legitimacy. It is, to say the least, ironic thatthe African Union called the coup for what itwas and, notably, the European Union did not.

As the deaths and injuries from streetclashes and shootings rose, it is not diffi cultto see where this will end up. The stakes are

huge, not just for Egypt but for the Arab world

as a whole. Before the disaster of major civilunrest in the Arab worlds most populouscountry unfolds, two things must be done.All parties must be included in the transitionand elections must be held as soon as possible.This is a matter of deeds as well as words. It islittle use for the judge who has been propelledinto the position of being the countrys newinterim president, Adly Mansour, to reach outto members of the Muslim Brotherhood, andto call it part of the fabric of society, when 300Brotherhood offi cials have been arrested andwarrants have been issued for its entire topleadership. In the jargon of such operations,this is called decapitation. It is designed to

cripple an organisation and prevent it fromorganising legitimate opposition.

Inviting the army in may yet prove to be oneof the biggest mistakes that the demonstra-tion in Tahrir Square made. The military onlyagreed to allow presidential elections to takeplace after the fall of Hosni Mubarak becausea majority of its top staff realised they couldnot control the country on their own. Thatconclusion is even truer today, as the protestagainst the coup multiplies. The army is notprotecting any revolution by opening fire onfellow Egyptian citizens whoever they maybe. It is imperilling it.

There are serious questions in politics. Andthere are silly questions. Britains place in theEuropean Union is a serious question of thefirst order. So, possibly with some reserva-tions, is a referendum on continued Britishmembership of the EU. But James WhartonMPs European Union (referendum) bill,which the massed ranks of Conservative MPsvoted for unanimously last Friday, does not

raise a serious question at all. Instead, thisattempt to bind the next parliament to holda referendum in 2017 is a sideshow, even bythe standards of the farce that now passes forConservative party debate on Europe. It is asilly stunt, nothing more and nothing less.

Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs adoptedthe simple expedient of going back to theirown constituencies as usual last Friday, thusdenying Mr Wharton the chance to inflate thisexercise into a major political event.

It is less than six months since David Cam-eron a Conservative leader who once sensiblywarned his party against banging on about Eu-rope went to the City of London and banged

on that a future Tory government would holda referendum on UK membership of the EU

in 2017. This was meant to cement Mr Cam-erons control over his party over Europe. Butin May, after Ukip electoral successes had putthe wind up the Tory party (much of whichbelieves Ukip is right about leaving the EUanyway), a succession of serving and formerministers said they want Britain out. As a con-stitutional position it is a nonsense, becauseno parliament can bind its successors. As an

exercise in leadership it has been shameful.Politics, though, is a fickle business. The

same Conservatives who lost their headsover Europe and plotted against Mr Cameronin May have now rather lost their interest inthe bill that they once deemed to be so crucialto his leadership. Just conceivably, this mayhave something to do with the recent drop-offin poll support and publicity for Ukip. Fear ofUkip on the Tory benches has not disappearedbut it has certainly declined.

Divisions on Europe between those whowant to leave and those who want to stay re-main as large as ever. Europe remains a funda-mental and serious question in British life. But

the Tory party no longer has anything seriousto say about it.

EU referendum

Gesture politics

Egypt

On the brink of disasterSelling fictionby its weight

12 July 1909

The six-shilling novel has withstoodseveral attacks, of which, perhaps,the sevenpenny reprint is the mostinsidious, and we seem to be enter-ing upon an experimental periodwhich may bring the solution of aconsiderable diffi culty.

Mr. W H recentlyremarked on the inconsistency ofpaying the same sum for long orshort, good or bad, and he proposes,in a letter which he has issued to thetrade, to make certain distinctions.He will publish a series of novels inthe autumn which will be either two

shillings or three shillings net pervolume, according to their size.

If the novels are long they will bein two volumes, and here, we think,Mr. H is on dangerousground. It is true that the world oncemanaged to get on with three-vol-ume novels, but the wrong volumewas always turning up and the rightone slipping away out of sight; still,if the change will give the authormore scope we shall not grumble.

Oddly enough, Mr Hsuggests that he has solved theproblem of giving the buyer valuefor his money. The diffi culty is, it

seems to us, that it may be neces-sary to obtain the bigger prices forwhat are, from the publishers pointof view, the inferior novels.

The uniform and comparativelyhigh price of novels gives a chanceto writers who could never hopefor very large sales, though their

books are of better quality thanthe ephemeral stuff that is bought

by thousands. Five hundred peo-ple might want a good, unpopularnovel, and would pay a price thatwould give, say, a profit of sixpenceto the publisher; but if this book beproduced at a price that might give apenny profit there will not be three

thousand readers for it.However, art has always strug-

gled with this diffi culty of findingsomebody to pay for it, and this hashad its use in tethering it within therange of humanity. It is consoling toremember that some popular booksare good.

If we compare T B-L L (W. Heinemann, 6s. net)with the [same] book of 40 yearsago, we find strange changes. Thena few pairs of ringdoves nested nearLondon, now hundreds of thesetame and fat pigeons strut about theparks and squares; the black-headedgull was a rare visitor, now seldomabsent and nowhere in these islandsso tame.

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Articles about Egypt - theguardian wwekly vol 189 No 5 - Friday 12 July 2013.pdf