Some, in Egypt, are calling for the downfall of the Egyptian state, others for its perpetuation unaltered. Then there are those who see gradual reform as a fundamental condition for progress. There is also a fourth category of opinion, motivated by hate and the thirst for revenge against the nation state. Into this last category falls the Muslim Brotherhood. Its experience with the state initially manifested itself in an inability to understand and eventually mutated into contempt for its every facet and institution. For more than 80 years Muslim Brothers have jealously guarded a separate identity — some have called it a state within a state — and separate historical memory. That memory runs a parallel but antithetical course to the Egyptian national memory, from the times of Saad Zaghlul, Mustafa Al-Nahhas and the Wafd Party to the July 1952 Revolution, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the October 1973 war and Anwar Al-Sadat. The Muslim Brotherhood's worst sin after coming to power was the comprehensive failure to confront the legacy of the Hosni Mubarak era. The chief source of that failure was the obsession with asserting control and consolidating the Brotherhood's hegemony over the state, as opposed to reforming it through carefully studied, clearly designed plans drawing on the successful experiences of other states to instigate institutional reform. When the closed, authoritarian, hegemonic Muslim Brotherhood made its official entry into politics in the post-January 2011 period it did so through a subsidiary, the Freedom and Justice Party. Through this entity it fielded a candidate for president and with that candidate moved into the presidency. Neither the president nor the group from which he hailed succeeded in persuading a single institution of government that they respected the state and were committed to its survival. The Muslim Brotherhood was shocked when the state rejected them. It saw itself as the victim of a conspiracy of the state when in fact it was the Brotherhood that was conspiring against state institutions. The Brotherhood had no qualms about its desire to avenge itself against the state and showed no limits in its determination to take control. That the state and the people made common cause against this threat has turned the Muslim Brotherhood into an anomaly in modern Egyptian history. For most of this history the state stood behind the ruler, even if he was opposed by some of the people. When the majority of the people rebelled against Mubarak, the state relinquished its support of him and he fell easily. What Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood managed was to win the rejection of both the state and the people. If the Muslim Brotherhood is interested in seeking an explanation for such an anomaly it will need to begin a rigorous examination of its modus operandi and the thinking that informs it. Egypt is a nation state with a national army. Even if the latter requires reform it remains an essential component of the state. The experience of every democratic transformation in the world underlines the simple fact that it is impossible to build democracy in the absence of a state. In Eastern Europe and South America the question on the eve of democratic transformation was not whether to destroy an existing state and build a new one from scratch, as occurred with the communist revolutions in Russia and China, but how to implement the successful reform of existing state institutions. No successful democratic reform began with the collapse or dismantling of the state. They were all marked by a determination to proceed along the best possible path leading from a dictatorial to a democratic state. This happened in Eastern Europe and South America, in Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and, before them, Spain, Portugal and Greece. True, there have been recent experiences in which an existing state and army were swept away and dismantled to clear the way for the construction of a democratic state. Iraq, following the US invasion, offers an example. The result? Millions dead and a failed state that sits atop a sea of oil. The Libya case is somewhat different. Following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi there was no state to bring down because in his highly personalised regime there was no institutionalised state to begin with. So far 50,000 people have died in the state-building process in an oil-rich country of only five million people. Because of the many mistakes of the security agencies in the Mubarak era many found it difficult to discern any difference between the state and the regime. The state and the regime appeared identical, although theoretically the first should be neutral and not change with the whims of politics, while the latter is changeable in accordance with the political outlooks and policies of the government. Had the Egyptian army not proven on two significant occasions that it was an institution of the state, as opposed an instrument of the regime — in February 2011 when Mubarak was forced to step down so that the state could survive and following the 30 June Revolution when the army intervened against the Morsi regime which had sought to alter the character of the Egyptian nation state — this confusion between the concepts of the state and regime would have persisted in the minds of many. It was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood sought to monopolise control over the state by filling it with its own members and loyalists — in short, “Brotherhoodising” it. The threat led many to cast aside their former bitterness toward the institutions of the state, sentiments that had accumulated after a lengthy experience of mismanagement and shortcomings. This was because they now believed that their battle was against a graver threat than the dictatorial state — the danger of falling into the clutches of a “non-state”, as occurred in Iraq following the US invasion and in Sudan following the Muslim Brotherhood coup there. It was essential to avert such spectres which would not only have put paid to the opportunities to build democracy in Egypt but also have undermined the future of Egypt for generations to come. The Egyptian people's mass support for the soldiers and police confirms that the vast majority instinctively support the preservation of the state. At the same time, the energies released by the 25 January Revolution must prevent the return to earlier ways of managing this state and be channelled into the reform and development of its institutions. The people's rejection of Muslim Brotherhood rule was not only inspired by their opposition to the Morsi government's policies and its appalling incompetence in every domain. It was also inspired by the fear that their state, which was built over the course of two centuries, was in jeopardy. The solidarity between the people and the state after every assault and act of violence perpetrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters confirm the Egyptian people's dedication to their nation state. Egypt cannot become a vibrant democratic country without a viable nation state.
