Egypt faces its future

What happened

Egypt’s armed forces, chief backers of the country’s autocratic rulers since 1952, took direct control of the government last week and promised a swift transition to democracy. The military’s Supreme Council dissolved the rubber-stamp parliament, suspended Egypt’s widely despised constitution, and charged a panel of experts with devising constitutional reforms by next week. Free elections, the Supreme Council pledged, would be held within six months. President Hosni Mubarak fled Cairo last week after 18 days of determined protest brought his three-decade rule to an end. Mubarak’s ouster opened a new, uncertain era for Egypt and the entire Middle East, which has seen popular outbursts in Yemen, Iran, Bahrain, and elsewhere in the wake of Egypt’s revolt. “Egyptians have inspired us,” said President Obama, “and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained by violence.”

Egypt’s uprising was sparked and sustained by a combination of secular, tech-savvy young people and the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement with a strong organizational network forged through decades of enduring state repression. Signs of discord among the factions appeared promptly after Mubarak’s departure. Some grumbled that the military had granted seats on the constitutional reform committee to allies of the Muslim Brotherhood while freezing out progressive candidates. The Brotherhood sought to quell fears about its designs on power by announcing that it will not field a candidate in presidential elections. But Brotherhood spokesman Abdel Fattah also said that the group’s desire for “sharia law does not differ from the demands of the people.”

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What the editorials said

“Count us as cautiously pessimistic,” said National Review Online. Mubarak’s overthrow was achieved through “blessedly peaceful” means. But we shouldn’t forget that Egypt is a land of “illiberal values,” where simply holding elections “is not a formula for liberal democracy.” That is if they ever have elections, said The Baltimore Sun. “The worrisome question is whether and when the military will follow through” on promises to yield power. The U.S. should play the only card it has: Tell the generals to foster a “government that reflects popular will” or lose $2 billion a year in U.S. aid.

Look on the bright side, said The Wall Street Journal. The words heard most often among protesters were “dignity,” “modernity,” “freedom,” and “jobs,” which together seemed to “displace Allah as the galvanizing ideas” among the young. The new Egypt is “the best opportunity since 9/11 to change the sclerotic Arab world.”

What the columnists said

The upside of true democracy in Egypt “could be huge,” said Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post. The revolution spells “the final doom” of the autocratic nationalism birthed in Cairo 60 years ago and mimicked ever since by regional thugs like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. He can’t survive democracy, and neither can the mullahs in Tehran, where Iranians are already reacting to “the triumph of people power.” There’s no solace here for al Qaida, either, said Bruce Riedel in TheDailyBeast.com. The “jihadist narrative” that the world can be changed only “through violence and terror” has been shattered by this “victory of mass demonstrations and civil disobedience.”

Don’t count on it, said Ellis Goldberg in Foreign Affairs. The modern Egyptian state is designed to benefit the military, which maintains not only paramount power but “vast economic holdings.” The generals have no desire for real institutional change, so we may be witnessing “a slow-motion coup” that could end, tragically, in a repetition of the “austere military authoritarianism of decades past.”

There’s another good reason to wait before we celebrate, said David Rieff in The New Republic. Democracy and the rule of law are “wonderful things.” But remember the “bitter axiom” of Bertolt Brecht: “First grub, then ethics.” Egypt’s “Bluetooth, tweeting classes” can exult in their victory, but how will it help tens of millions of impoverished Egyptians find jobs, feed their families, and “live in dignity”? The poor are “the ghosts at the democratic banquet,” and if they remain “marginalized and suffering,” this “year of revolutions in the Arab world” could end as bitterly as it began. Rest assured, the Muslim Brotherhood understands that very well.