Death of Egypt

It's now official that the army of Egypt are running the show. This is not technically a coup because a 'technocrat committee' has taken over, with strings pulled heavily by the armed forces. This only matters to the Americans because their constitution says they can't support a government created out of a coup. They have thus ignore the definition of coup so they can continue to fund the Egyotian army. But as I said before (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/revolutionary-egypt.html) this is not a desirable situation and could be the ruin of Egypt.

The army is on the streets of Egypt with armed personal carriers and tanks to try clear the streets. 

This is unlikely to bring a constitution that would bring about democracy. The army has control over what is going on at the moment and will have control over the transitional government. Indeed they will be reviewing what is in the constitution and they will be getting rid of all the mentions of Sharia from it and allow for freedom of worship again. But it is unlikely that they will change the amount of accountability that will be had. The unaccountable and liberty loving Army, with a civilian proxy, is replacing an unaccountable and liberty loving dictator.

Morsi abused the constitution of Egypt by making it totally Islamist biased so Egypt had no democracy.

And what about the elections? The next elections are meant to be in 2016, although I doubt anybody could wait that long. Some people in the media have said the new government are likely to hold elections in the next few weeks, that again seems improbable as it is too optimistic as the military would like to get in control and that could take a while. How ever long this takes though be sure to know that this will be a sham and an insult to dmeocracy. The candidate, secretly backed by the army, and from the former Mubarak regime will win. So no great deal of change for the Egyptians there. The army didn't like being out of power last time and I doubt they will have a situation where they do not call the shots. This sort of situation resulted well for the Egyptians with Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. This is why after several decades of tender loving care they ousted the military.

Egypt will be very unstable after this. Don't forget the anti-Morsi camp is as large as the pro-Morsi group. The Muslim brotherhood have been educating, providing welfare and acting as protection for communities which have their support. Around 40% of the population supported Morsi and the Brotherhood and they are not going to give up easily. There has already been violence on the streets between these two factions with deaths coming up to around 50, that we know of. Communities across Egypt tonight are going to be in fear, especially the Copts, when the Salafists and other Islamists start to attack everything. The Army is going to have one massive problem cracking down on descent which optimistically will take months with many causalities on the way. This is going to destroy the economy, homes, families and effect every single citizen in the country.

Both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army have a very large amount of supporters who will not give up their positions easily. Violence has already started on the streets. When will it end? How big will it get?

So what has happened in the past when this situation has arisen? When France had their Revolution they had 5 changes of government where they eventually ended up with an Absolute Monarchy again. Repressive regime replaced repressive regime and the French people were not happy in the end. Yet again in 1848 the European Spring then started with a liberal lefty revolution that ended up with the conservatives winning all elections and the bringing back of the monarchy or dictators, like Napoleon III. In Algeria the Muslim Brotherhood gained popular support before an election, which they would have won. But after a military coup took place to prevent this a civil war was caused that lasted for ten years and killed up to 200,000 people. Algeria is now one of the most repressive countries in the World and not a place where democracy exists. The history books are not filled with successful revolutions or coups in the way that Egypt now finds itself in.

Photo from the coup in Algeria. Does this photo look familiar? Just look above.

Egypt is now a disaster of a country. Morsi or the Coup is a bad situation, whoever came out on top was going to preside other a very dark future for the people there. This future ranges from mass civil riots and violence on an unprecedented scale to all out civil war. The Nile may yet again be running with blood.

Revolutionary Egypt

Egypt is a very confusing country because it is not like a Western democracy at all. Yet again the population of a nation have taken democracy to mean voting and that's it. This is very far from the idea of power of the people. The Egyptian people are essentially going backwards and striving for permanent revolution and a constant change of dictators. What is going on at the moment is really another revolution, albeit one which has a 48 hour waiting time.

Democracy has so many meanings that it can't really be defined by anyone. But generally speaking there is the need for basic rights and accountability of politicians, best served through voting.

Mr Morsi has got himself in a very large problem by not allowing for democracy.

This has not happened during the time of President Morsi. Although elected with over 50% of the vote, Morsi has very little constitutional checks and balances acting upon him. The President has become an elected dictator where what he says goes. The constitution of Egypt has very little to say on how the country is actually run accept that there is a president and that the army, who are not accountable at all, will somehow be involved. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have thus taken over as much as possible so that they are running things. There is however no sort of laws on how they are to do this so there is actually no rule of law per se and only the authority of the president.

The constitution that underpins the rights of citizens is also fairly ignored or rather inconsistently applied. This is down partially to the lack of any sort of law in Egypt but also from contradictions in the constitution and the government. The constitution allows for freedom of religion but bans anyone insulting Abrhamic religions, which also goes against freedom of speech also. The Muslim Brotherhood too, being an Islamist party, are involved on the fringes of the terrorisation of any minority religions in the country at a local level.

Tahrir Square is yet again full ready for another revolution.

The protesters out in Tahrir Square tonight are demanding Morsi to resign for all the reasons above. But they want their own dictator to be put in charge after fresh elections with an interim government ruled by the army in charge. Yet again shafting checks and balances and rights of citizens. There is no real change for Egyptians, it's some sort of permanent revolution. The worrying thing is this is about to get bloody because there is a large proportion of Egyptians who support Mr Morsi, they were out protesting on Sunday. These are people who responded to the burning of the Muslim Brotherhood HQ with violence. I think civil war in Egypt is perhaps a step too far but there will be some sort of localised conflict of civil disobedience which will bring about terror.

This can be avoided and bring Egypt back onto the path of democracy by Mr Morsi having a power share. However, because he is actually not in as weak as a position as made out any sort of decision to do so will be tokenism and bordering on an insignificant irrelevance. There is no easy path for Egypt and I'm rather pessimistic about any success there.

This whole episode is a bit like the French Revolution and what happened in Europe in 1848. It's all going to end very badly where eventually nothing will have changed because the people of Egypt are led by those who are only out there for a power grab of their own ideas. There was, and is now in Egypt, one sole barely accountable authority in the state. The flip flop of power will be from elected dictator to another. It may end with the army back in charge and nothing to show but the deaths of thousands of people and some pretty hard times. That's absolute revolution however, a roll of the dice loaded for chaos and defeat leading to rare success.

Revolution like this didn't work in France and led to a lack of peoples input into politics for 100 years.