Sunday, February 06, 2011

Egyptian Turning Points? Or Just More Uncertainty...

We're in some uncharted waters here.  As much as many people in the US, myself included, would like to draw comparisons to past grassroots uprisings - Tehran in '79, Tienanmen Square in '89, Berlin and Eastern Europe also in '89 - what is happening in Cairo is not exactly the same.  Different country, different regime, different history, different culture, different people, different time.  So it is difficult to know which lessons to draw upon from history, which policies to repeat and which to avoid, and where are the key turning points.

Watching some of the Sunday morning talk shows here in the US, it's clear that more and more journalists, pundits and policy makers are similarly uncertain.  I'm certainly no expert on Egypt, though I have been following the events of the last two weeks closely.  Here are some observations and thoughts at what may prove to be a turning point in the revolution in Egypt.  My main theme, I think, is how uncertain everyone involved is.

  • The protesters in Tahrir Square have been remarkably successful at organizing themselves as protesters, but there seems to be a lack of cohesion and organization as an emerging political movement.  As a result, there seems to be no clear agenda beyond toppling Mubarak, and, yet, it seems that the protesters really want something more:  some kind of liberal democracy, at a minimum.  But it appears that they have no shared road map for how to get there, so they don't know what to demand beyond Mubarak stepping down.  But the real issue is that Egypt has been a military dictatorship for almost half a century.  
  • As a result of the limits on political freedoms in Egypt over the decades, there is a lack of political parties and perspectives in the Egyptian political sphere.  So we see the Muslim Brotherhood emerge as a major player, even though it represents at best 20-25% of the Egyptian people.  And we see what may be the beginning of a splintering in the opposition, as certain parties enter into talks with the government while the majority of the protesters appear to be unrepresented and even uncertain as to when, if ever, they would negotiate with the government.
  • Without a clear leadership for the protest movement, US journalists keep interviewing each other, some Egyptian and foreign journalists, a few Egyptian officials, and Mohamed El Baradei, who appears to be a spokesperson for some of the protesters but lacks legitimacy as a true leader for the opposition and also lacks a clear agenda beyond toppling Mubarak.  I have yet to see or hear one interview with a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood or with anyone purporting to be a leader of any other faction of the opposition. 
  • Fareed Zakaria, as usual, has some of the more interesting and compelling analytical points to make, and asks many of the best questions when interviewing people on GPS. Today, he pointed out that, while many in the US and the West are fearful that the current uprising in Egypt will lead to a repeat of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, with a Muslim extremist government taking over, the most likely scenario for that result is that the US is seen as helping the army and the current regime maintain power when Mubarak eventually steps down, angering the protesters and the many Egyptians who want change and feel like they deserve it after all that the protests have accomplished so far.  Resentment toward the regime and the US grows, the population and the opposition, in particular, becomes more radicalized and more religious, and eventually there is another uprising that does bring about a regime more like Tehran's.
  • The Obama Administration, the protesters, and those around the world who support the general aims of many of the protesters - an end to the Mubarak regime and the rise of democracy in Egypt - have a bit of a quandary right now.  How do you get Mubarak to step down and transition to democracy in a country where political freedoms have been limited for so long?  It takes time for a truly free press, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly to create new political parties and a healthy debate over various visions for Egypt's future and the role of its government in shaping that future.  If elections are held too quickly, the current regime might well find a way to use them to extend its grip on power, with new faces at the top but the army still in control.  Or, one or more factions in the opposition might be able to grab power in a political vacuum left by Mubarak's demise and the absence of real political parties.

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