The mediocre talking heads on CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera are in a panic because the Egyptian people have failed to conform to their formulaic definition of “democracy”. The implications of the Egyptian people's raw demonstration of true people power in the past few days should have serious ripple effects worldwide. It is these same pundits who had claimed Egypt was a “democracy” during the Hosni Mubarak days — since he loyally abided by the regional objectives of the US government, including the bombing of Iraq at will after the US government bankrolled its same leader for decades, denouncing and isolating Iran after the US government overthrew its democratically elected leader in the 1950s through coercion and anarchy, maintaining political and economic relations with the apartheid state of Israel, etc — and praised the “first free and fair democratic elections in the history of Egypt” — since Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, desperate for a piece of the pie for decades by any means, also agreed to loyally abide by the regional objectives of the US government. The glaring truth is that the last thing the US government wants for Egypt is true democracy and economic self-sufficiency. Egypt's economic dependency on the US government and the US government's dependence on Egypt for their ongoing compliance to the US government's regional goals would be in serious jeopardy if this were to occur. Hence, the dictator/pseudo-democracy model, or the Islamist political model — if scaring people with religion keeps them oppressed and democratically suppressed, so be it, so long as you follow the script of our regional policy, Mr Morsi. Never mind that you have excluded all other elements of Egyptian society and incited hatred against Christian minorities, and never mind that you appoint former terrorists in key government positions. Somehow, amazingly against these factors, the dignity of the vast majority of the Egyptian people has raised its collective voice, teaching the world a basic lesson in true democracy that the US government could well learn from given its ongoing failure to reform their own multi-million dollar campaign finance system that fully contradicts the concept of democracy — representation of all citizens, not just the wealthy — as does the Obama administration's blatant violation of the privacy rights of its citizens. According to these pundits, this is off-script and now it's time to discredit this major victory in any way possible, despite the following fundamental contradictions of these pundits. - “Democratically elected”. Says who? Parliamentary, presidential and constitutional votes were rife with corruption, payoffs and thuggery. The timing of these elections was off, since the Mubarak administration sucked out the life of civil society for 30 years, and only allowed the “bad guy” Muslim Brotherhood to organise to feed into the Mubarak regime's claim that they were a better alternative to these radicals. There was chance for a proper transition period after Mubarak's departure to allow the semblance of a system of civil society to be developed. As such, the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to pounce, especially given their express willingness to play the US government's regional game. Anyone who believes that the rife corruption inherent in the official and practical aspects of elections in Egypt somehow evaporated with Mubarak's departure is grossly lacking in objective analysis. Another key factor in evaluating the presidential elections is that, in light of the absence of a genuine civil society, the Egyptians were left with a choice between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and a pro-Mubarak candidate — hardly in line with the sacrifices associated with the overthrow of Mubarak. - “Elections are the way to depose a democratically elected president” and, as Fareed Zakaria stated on CNN today, “Mob rule should not be determinative.” If a president, duly elected or not, fundamentally breaches the constitutional principles of the balance of power — declaring himself above the judiciary — passing laws through an advisory body (the Shura Council) rather than through the legislative body (the People's Assembly, the election of which was declared null and void by the judicial branch) and excludes all elements of Egyptian society other than the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious based elements, then he has violated his duty to the people who “elected” him. Abraham Lincoln stated, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” The Egyptian people did both given the breaches of the Morsi administration of the most fundamental of democratic constitutional principles, and the failure of the Morsi administration to serve and include the people — ie, the owners of the country and its institutions — in the political process. Also critical in evaluating the past week's developments is the Morsi administration's utter failure to fulfil any of its clear commitments to the Egyptian people from an economic, social and political standpoint, which resulted in a rapid and fundamental deterioration in the basic wellbeing of Egypt. The result is Egypt's current downward spiral into economic and social chaos. - “A military coup that contradicts the democratic process.” First of all, why wasn't the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumption of power after the resignation of Mubarak in February 2011 labelled by these same pundits as a “coup”? Tanks were in the street then, and SCAF made declarations and assumed authority. A rational interpretation of what occurred in the past few days in Egypt is that: the people have exercised their constitutional rights, and/or right to rebellion; the Muslim Brotherhood leadership incited its supporters to violence once it became clear that the people's will was going to prevail; the army stepped in to preserve order, protect the citizens of Egypt in light of these threats; and the army declared the invalidity of the existing Morsi government in accordance with the vast majority of the will of the people. This declaration was made in the presence, and with the support of, a broad cross-section of civil society and religious leaders, unlike the February 2011 SCAF declaration, and resulted in a representative of the judiciary — not the military as was the case in February 2011 — being appointed as the executive authority on an interim basis. Rest assured, if the Egyptian military fails to abide by its commitment to ensure that its role in the coming months is strictly limited to a temporary, apolitical role while Egyptians seek to establish a framework for a genuine system of democracy by which to erase decades of dictatorship, the people will hold them fully accountable.
The writer is an Egyptian-American attorney at law based in London.
