Egypt again!
Just one year after Mohammed Morsi took the position of president of Egypt in the first democratically held elections ever held in that nation, the people of Egypt took to the streets to demand his ouster after months of trying to deal with a man who was not to be dealt with under any circumstances.
To say that Mohammed Morsi was a democratic leader is to ignore the situation at hand completely. Through most of his one year at the helm of the nation, he piled on one autocratic action after another and attempted to destroy most of the institutions of governance that the nation had established either before he came into power or after his ascendancy to the seat of power. Democracies are formed and exist on their institutions and there were several already in place when Morsi took over. He trampled over all of them including the Egyptian Supreme Court who he accused of being traitors from a prior regime that he needed to get rid of.
The United States government tried time and time again to convince Morsi to work and function within the framework of governance that had been set up when he took office but all of it was to no avail. We remember the statement made by some protestors that if the government that they had set up did not work, they knew the way back to Tahrir Square, the site and seed of the first revolution against Hosni Mubarak. So, in effect, one could call semi peaceful protesting a form of institution in the state of Egypt. And, one could call the Egyptian military another of the more stable institutions inside of Egypt itself. During the period of Morsi’s reign, the relationships that the Egyptian military has had with the United States military might have been one of the more effective external relationships that the nation had during that period of time.
When one looks back at the original revolution that overthrew Mubarak, it was the Egyptian military who, by their refusal to interfere on Mubarak’s side, allowed that upheaval to, more or less peacefully, go forward even though Mubarak had been in charge of the nation as a dictator for over thirty years. So, to say as some have said, that the Egyptian military has pulled a coup, is, for us anyway, simply a too simple statement for a series of complex events over an extended period of time. When you get the situation that the people of Egypt were faced with, with Morsi, something simply had to give. And, the Egyptian military provided the outlet for that release. No one else had the ability to do so. If the military had not stepped in, Egypt would have probably descended into chaos
Egypt faces a whole host of problems going forward and what has just happened will only add to those problems because you now have the Muslim Brotherhood who feel that their more or less peaceful revolution has been subverted. But, one cannot overlook the fact that vast segments across the entire country also felt that their revolution had been undone. It is interesting to note and important to remember that the Muslim Brotherhood did not start the revolution in Egypt. It was started by disaffected youth with good educations and contacts on social media sites who had felt alienated and frustrated for a very long time. And, because the Egyptian military did not pull a crackdown, the revolution was over after just eighteen days.
There are also those who try to compare Mohammed Morsi to George Washington. It is best remembered that Washington was offered the crown of America and chose instead to face the people and be elected the president of the nation, thus established the tradition of an elected executive. Mohammed Morsi stood for election after a revolution that he had little to do with and after that election, has effectively tried to install himself as the new dictator of the nation. George Washington , known as “the indispensable man” in America’s democracy, set up and facilitated the functioning of what had simply been a piece of paper--The United States Constitution. Mohammed Morsi did exactly the opposite as he tried to usurp and destroy the institutions of the country as he tried to establish an effective theocracy in the nation similar to what exists in Iran. Morsi had become the dictator that the Egyptian people had just gotten rid of.
There are going to be dark and troubling times in Egypt because of the many tensions that exist inside of the country, many of a religious nature. And there are many outside factions trying to influence what transpires there. But, one thing is certain. Mohammed Morsi was the wrong man for the job that he undertook and if that had happened inside of eighteenth century America, George Washington would not have been remembered the way that he is today.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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