Too many Pharaohs: Why the Egyptian revolution failed
Two years ago, I had just returned from a symposium at Cairo University on The Nonviolent Revolution in Egypt: Learned Lessons. What a difference two years have made for the hopes and dreams of Egyptians for a transition to democracy after the decades of autocratic rule by Hosni Mubarak.
The symposium was jointly sponsored by the Center for Civilization Studies and Dialogue of Cultures (CCSDC) at the Department of Political Science at Cairo University, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Many of those who had led the January 25 revolution, so identified with the protests in Tahrir Square, were present at the conference. Hopes were high that Egypt was beginning a successful transition to democracy.
As I asked in my 2011 On Faith column, written after I returned from this conference in Egypt, Can the spirit of Tahrir Square survive in the transition to democracy?
The answer to that question in 2013 is, decisively, no.
Now the streets and squares of Cairo, places we walked in 2011 to get to and from this conference on nonviolence, are lit with burning cars and stained with blood, as photos of the continuing violence in Egypt show.
What happened?
What happened is that there continued to be too many Pharaohs in Egypt, too many historically entrenched centers of power. There was no real revolution.
Two years ago, at the conference, as we discussed the possibility of a transition to democracy in Egypt, Dr. Pakynam Al-Shakarawi, director of the CCSDC, and others, warned that Egyptians needed to find a third way beyond the old entrenched powers.
Many agreed a third way was critical for the transition. We need to let go of our old ideologies and find a new ideology, said Ahmed Abdul-Fattah, a video journalist.
A third way has eluded Egyptians, and instead ideologies have become more hardened.
As seen in the book of Exodus, there is a biblical lesson here, in terms of the violence that can result when absolute power is confronted.
Exodus tells how the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and how they escaped after a confrontation between the Pharaoh of the time and Moses, the Israelite leader. Millennia ago in Egypt, absolute power and absolute rule went together in the figures of the Pharaohs. These rulers held total power and were thought to be the earthly manifestations of gods. Moses tried to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves go free, but that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 8:32) and refused. The slaves escaped, and Pharaoh and his army were destroyed.
Absolute power does not try to find a third way as spoken of by leaders at the conference two years ago in Cairo on nonviolence. Absolute power hardens its position, and violence is normally the result..
It is not a compliment in contemporary Egypt to call someone a Pharaoh. It is a synonym for tyrant.
In this current Egyptian conflict, being a Pharaoh can mean having an entrenched ideology and refusing to find the third way.
Tragically, this is pretty much what has happened in Egypt, except there are more Pharaohs involved, that is, more groups who are determined to hold absolute power.
Control of the economy is one huge area of struggle.
There is tremendous anger in Egypt about the failure of the economy to deliver decent jobs for people. That was a grievance I heard frequently at the conference in Cairo, but one that continues today. It fueled anger at the rule of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood for contributing to the downward economic spiral.
There is also the profound ideological struggle, the Islamist/liberal divide, as Shadi Hamid, research fellow at Brookings, and expert on Islamist political parties and democratic reform in the Arab world, has said. You can compromise on how to run the economy. But when it comes to the very nature of the state, there is a real divide in Egyptian society about how those things should look.
That is, no third way was found and now the violent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by the military, as well as labeling the Brotherhood terrorists, has made the divide even wider.
The U.S. and its allies were close to a peace deal to end the crisis in Egypt. But the military backed government hardened its heart and moved ahead with a violent suppression of the pro-Morsi protestors.
The Muslim Brotherhood then called for a Day of Rage, and more deaths and injuries occurred.
Attacks on Coptic Christians and their churches by pro-Morsi groups have also resulted in fatalities, as political violence, with a sectarian edge, continues to escalate. Coptic Christians have long felt persecuted in Egypt, and opposed the rule of Morsi and the Brotherhood. They also backed the military coup that overthrew the Morsi regime.
The violence now threatens to spiral out of control in Egypt, and many Egyptians still look to the military to provide order.
The liberals and secularists in Egypt by and large backed the militarys overthrow of Morsi, and they have been adopting the militarys line that crushing the pro-Morsi protests is a War on Terror.
A significant exception to this is Egyptian Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who resigned from the interim government in protest over the security forces use of such violence against the protestors. I saw that there were peaceful ways to end this clash in society; there were proposed and acceptable solutions for beginnings that would take us to national consensus, he wrote in a resignation letter. It has become difficult for me to continue bearing responsibility for decisions that I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear. I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood.
Another third way option closed.
Despite ElBaradeis words and principled action, however, the Egyptian military is still widely trusted in Egypt, even after the recent bloodshed. I was truly amazed at this sense, represented even two years ago at the conference on nonviolence in Cairo, that the military is the protector of the people.
The military has its own agenda, in my view, and it is not democracy.
It is crucial that these groups recognize, as Dahlia Kholaif wrote for Al Jazeera, that the military, has vast economic interests. She quotes Robert Springborg, an expert on Egypts armed forces and a professor in the department of national security at the Naval Postgraduate School in California. The question isnt what sectors do they invest in, but rather: is there a sector that they dont invest in?
Far from being the protector of the people, the military surely has, as its primary goal, protecting its vast economic interests.
The reason the Egyptian revolution of 2011 failed is because it wasnt a revolution. It was a genuine protest movement by the Egyptian people, but the outcome was merely a change of players at the top, orchestrated by the military. The Muslim Brotherhood consistently manipulated and consolidated its own power through and after the elections; yet corrupt Mubarak-era figures continued. And when the military didnt like that outcome, they moved the players around again.
The Egyptian military is the biggest Pharaoh in the room, and it has been, for a very long time.
Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite is Professor of Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and its immediate past President. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Her most recent book is #OccupytheBible: What Jesus Really Said (and Did) About Money and Power.
Too many Pharaohs: Why the Egyptian revolution failed
