Roula Khalaf: Egypt’s unravelling threatens the democratic experiment

o the surprise of the rebellious youth of Tahrir Square, Egypt’s military issued a constitutional declaration this week without bothering to consult them.
Days after the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president, the military decreed that his interim successor would have vast powers, appointees would draft constitutional amendments, and the country would be rushed into a seemingly unrealistic schedule of elections.
Observers might be forgiven for concluding that, as Egypt’s first democratic experiment unravels, the role of the leading protagonists in the drama of state-building has been reversed. Mr Morsi was criticised for ignoring the necessity for consensus, excluding others and trying to muzzle journalists. He has been replaced by military authorities that are – for now, at least – ignoring the need for consensus, excluding others and muzzling journalists, not to mention using excessive force against Islamist protesters.
The wider impact of this should not be underestimated. In less than two weeks, the Arab world’s most populous country has been rocked by a political earthquake so powerful it has shaken the whole of the Middle East. The coup in Cairo threatens to bring down with it the political transition launched in the wake of the 2011 revolts across the region.
Mr Morsi and his colleagues from the Muslim Brotherhood have been detained and the anti-Islamist propaganda and judiciary machines unleashed. Retired generals and policemen, all thought to be part of the old regime of Hosni Mubarak, are now paraded on television screens as strategic analysts.
No one doubts that Mr Morsi’s one-year presidency was disastrous. But it now falls to the coalition of youth and anti-Islamists to ensure Egypt takes a step forward rather than slipping back into authoritarianism.
In contrast to the cohesive rebellion of 2011, the downfall of Mr Morsi comes as Egyptian society is torn apart, its political and ideological divisions becoming so entrenched that emotions are replacing rationality.
The overthrow of a democratically elected yet incompetent Islamist president is obviously a damning indictment of political Islam and its transition from opposition movement to government.
But it is also a harsh shock to the Arab transformation. The intensity of the setback can be seen in the triumphant reaction of Saudi Arabia, the chief protector of the old autocratic order. Riyadh’s take on the coup is that it has rescued Egypt from a “dark tunnel”, to quote King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch. Even more telling was that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, a dictator battling a two-year revolt, should end up calling on Mr Morsi to resign.
Yet even before Egypt’s upheaval the Arab world’s hopes of building a new democratic political order had been disappointed by spreading instability. Syria is disintegrating under the weight of a civil war that could drag on for years, with Gulf rivals such as Saudi Arabia settling scores with Iran on the battlefields.
Libya is smothered by unruly militias that are defying the legitimacy of the state. Iraq’s sectarian violence is surging; and Lebanon is teetering on the brink of its own Sunni-Shia conflict. Only tiny Tunisia, and perhaps also impoverished Yemen, is moving forward – painfully.
For a trace of optimism today, you have to look beyond the Arab world to of all places Iran, where, more than three decades after the Islamic revolution, a new and more pragmatic president, Hassan Rohani, has just been elected.
So pervasive is the turmoil that some in the region are thinking the unthinkable: when the dust settles, will the borders of the modern Arab world drawn by French and British powers after the first world war survive the sectarian tensions?
Into the mayhem have stepped the radicals, the Sunni jihadis whose narrative was defeated two years ago by the massed youth who mesmerised the world with peaceful protests. Now, from Libya to Syria, the jihadis are exploiting the disorder to reassert themselves.
Is this the end of the so-called Arab spring? Probably not.
Revolutions produce chaos long before stability and new tyranny before democracy. Change in the Arab world, with its tumultuous colonial history and its cultural and ethnic complexities, was never likely to follow a straight path.
In this region, since the lid of authoritarianism has been lifted, political struggles have played out not over social or economic programmes but over identity and the role of religion. Battle lines have been drawn, and they have pitted Islamist against liberal in homogeneous societies, and one sect against another in multi-ethnic countries. The new order, albeit more democratic, will remain febrile unless the common goal of building a nation transcends identity allegiances.
It is worth remembering, however, that the revolutions erupted against a backdrop of weak, failing economies – and political transitions have received only a trickle of international financial support. The expectations of the young of economic empowerment have been thwarted as unemployment has soared, and living conditions deteriorated. Unlike eastern Europe, Arab countries have not benefited from the political model, the economic anchor or the prospect of integration offered by the EU.
Most of the oil-rich Gulf states that this week pledged $12bn to reward military action against Mr Morsi saw the uprisings of 2011 as an existential threat. In Egypt today, the post-Mubarak era has been reset to the Gulf’s liking, with the army resuming its central role, and in alliance with liberal and leftists groups. Its chances of moving backwards, towards a controlled pluralism, appear greater than the prospects of a flourishing liberal democracy. It is up to the youth and the liberals to demonstrate otherwise.

Roula Khalaf

Fonte: FT