Brotherhood succeeds SCAF...Concerns over Egypt

Which direction is Egypt heading in? Is it possible that Egypt will once again return as a power that has a positive influence on the Arabs and the whole region? Actually there are several issues that invite big concerns over Egypt's future after the Muslim Brotherhood has taken over the rule of Egypt from the military generals who enjoyed sixty years of military rule which began in July 1952 in what was called the "Egyptian Revolution", which was nothing but a  military coup. That was the start of a long series of inflictions levelled at Egypt and the entire Arab World due to the continuous process of militarising Egyptian society. What we see now is the  final product of 60 years-worth of impoverishing the people, destroying their education, undermining the moral foundations of the society and increasing religious extremism which was the last thing the exhausted people could resort to. It is still unclear whether the 1952 regime imposed by a group of officers with cooperation from the Brotherhood is gone, or this regime will be revived through the Brotherhood after being led for 60 years by the Brotherhood's rivals; Gamal Abdelnasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. There is grave concern that the new regime --now led by the  Brotherhood-- will reiterate the same failed experiences of the aforementioned former presidents. These experiences only led to a series of disasters, the latest of which was the deal agreed between the Brotherhood and the United States to push Mohammed Morsi towards the presidency. Both the rule of the military and that of the Brotherhood are similar in their trans-boundary negative effects, as these effects spread to the entire Arab region. But unfortunately only very few Arabs have the courage to refer to things by their true names, and that is what prevents them from admitting that Gamal Abdelnasser was responsible for destroying the Middle East. Nasse eliminated all signs of modern civilisation in Egypt. He eliminated democracy and partisan life, then turned his hand  to education and then to the economy. He never recognised the difference between a true victory and a false one like the victory he claimed in 1956. He never understood that his decision to nationalise the Suez Canal had brought disaster to Egypt that could never be compensated. His nationalisation policy which was extended to almost all economic sectors, forced most of the foreign community in Egypt to leave the country once and for all. And that is how Egypt's great cities of Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia, and Suez lost their cosmopolitan identities, and the wealthy neighbourhoods like Cairo's Zamalek were turned into huge parking lots or landfills. What the 1952 "revolution" brought to Egypt also reached every corner of the Arab world. By announcing the Egyptian-Syrian union in 1958, Nasser converted Syria from day one of this union, into a police state ruled by an officer called Abdelhamid al-Saraj, who was taking his orders from Cairo,or more precisely, from Nasser's friend General Abdelhakim Amer. It is true that this union didn't last for more than three years, but Nasser's legacy remained in Syria, as the Baath party which took over in 1963, was nothing but a "developed version" of the regime which Nasser had installed in Syria under the slogan of the "Arab Union", a slogan which has always proved meaningless. Nasser was short-sighted enough to sponsor the Cairo agreement of 1969 which destroyed Lebanon by making its southern region the sole open battle field for the military conflict between the Arabs and Israel. Fortunately the 1952 "revolution" was unable to continue its "achievements" to destroy Morocco and Jordan, after it successfully destroyed Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Sudan. Nasser concluded his "victories" in 1967 when he pushed the Arabs to a Soviet-backed war against Israel, in which the Arabs received their most painful defeat, which they are still recovering from, or perhaps they never will. However, what was more dangerous than defeat itself, was the fact that this defeat paved the way to the prevalence of  security agencies in Egypt, which controlled all aspects of life and ruined Egypt's future. These agencies also killed the vibrancy of Egyptian society which turned out to be a sluggish one, both physically and mentally. Degradation reached its low-point in Egypt when Mohammed Hussein Heikal, the main theorist of the 1967 defeat, became known as one of the most prominent journalists in the country. That "Heikal" thing turned to be an "opinion machine" who gives an opinion about every single thing happening, including the September 11 attacks which he believes the Serbs were responsible for!! Anwar Sadat tried to overcome Nasser's legacy during his 11 years in charge, sometimes by seeking aid from the Muslim Brotherhood. But his attempts had finally failed because he decided to ignore the core problems of the regime, particularly the growing authority of the security agencies in addition to the poor quality of education and the uncontrolled population growth. After Sadat came Hosni Mubarak, under whom Egypt suffered 30-years of stagnation. He didn't have the vision to prevent the growing trend of religious extremism symbolised by the Brotherhood. So no wonder that the Brotherhood succeeded him to power after they hijacked the January 25 revolution which was originally launched by the Egyptian youth. The question which came to the fore after Mubarak's ouster was whether the military rule has finally left Egypt or not? The answer is that the military rule is certainly gone. However, Egypt appears to be waiting for another blow, which could be a knockdown this time, following the military blow. The Muslim Brotherhood are lined up to be top favourites to deliver this knockdown, by completing the disastrous work of the military. The Brotherhood will never perform self-criticism of their ideas and beliefs. They will never ask themselves why Turkey and South Korea have tremendously out-paced Egypt in economic development in such a short period after they were economically ranked lower than Egypt only two or three decades ago? The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are yet to have any plans for their country except the plan of seizing power, and they are insisting on continuing to work on this plan even if this will require doing deals with the military junta from time to time. But one may ask if this plan would qualify Egypt to have a positive influence on the region, or at least to keep its negative influence within its borders.    The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.