The test of Mohamed Mahmoud
Replacing the police with private militias was one of the fatal mistakes of the Muslim Brotherhood when in power — a mistake interim authorities now appear to be repeating, writes Dina Al-Khawaga
The most serious mistake the Muslim Brotherhood regime made after coming to power was to rely on organised militias to defend it and to fight its opponents in the streets. That was the function of the Hazemoon, the mob allegiant to Islamist politician Hazem Abu Ismail who had been disqualified as a candidate for the 2012 presidential elections. Their actions at the Media Production City and at the headquarters of liberal or leftist political parties was a sign of the beginning of the era of militias in Egypt.
Organised thuggery against the political opposition was also the function of gangs of Muslim Brotherhood youth during the anti-government demonstrations at Al-Ittihadiya palace or at the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters at Muqattam. Such unwarranted violence put paid to the credibility of the Muslim Brotherhood youth who, in the eyes of the majority of a shocked public, became an arm of regime repression, brutality and murder, whereas for many years prior the revolution they had been a symbol of hope for the development of a democratic Islamist wing that would advocate political reform.
More importantly, this was how the Muslim Brotherhood regime lost its legitimacy as a political order committed to institutionalised government and the rule of law, and came to epitomise a noxious blend between political power, violence and the mobilisation of its membership bases against civilian political opponents.
For this reason — and for this reason only — the mass demonstrations of 30 June marked the starting point of a legitimate corrective coup that was needed in order to redefine the boundaries between institutions of government and action in the street, and between revolutionary violence and repressive violence. Millions of demonstrators took to the streets that day to denounce the fraud perpetrated against the Egyptian revolutionary drive and to reject the Muslim Brotherhood regime as an expression of that drive. In that mass action of unprecedented magnitude, the people demanded the return of the state as a state and the rehabilitation of the citizenry as individuals inherently endowed with the right to choose, to effect change and to call to account any ruler regardless of affiliation or basis of legitimacy.
In the four months since then, the Muslim Brotherhood has yet to grasp why the opposition against them was so strong and why they were ousted from power. However, more disturbing yet is that it appears that the militia epidemy has spread to the interim regime, which has begun to turn to mobilising the street not just for support but to pursue and confront other civilians. As though the interim regime does not find it sufficient that it enjoys lavish media support to a degree unparalleled since the Nasserist years, and that the secularist parties have rallied behind it in virtual lockstep, it has allowed — or perhaps encouraged — grassroots campaigns such as Kammel Gemeelak (Complete your Favour) or "The army and the people are one hand" to move against political opponents, whether the Muslim Brothers or that small minority that fears a return to a police state. In so doing, the government risks unleashing a new cycle of civil violence, whereas it first and most sacred duty is to protect the citizens and safeguard their rights.
The interim regime and the security agencies may be subjected to the "Brotherhoodisation" that we had all fought against. By "Brotherhoodisation", here, I refer to the use of masses of supporters for the purposes of intimidation and violence against opponents. The phenomenon of "Brotherhoodisation" did not consist only of the Muslim Brotherhood's drive to monopolise control over all branches and agencies of government. It was also about their attempts to undermine the institutional and legal nature of the state. The interim government could lose all its credibility if it fails to draw the line between the rule of law and due process, and police repression and the quasi-militarised mobilisation of its supporters in pro-regime demonstrations and boisterous rallies. It must sever its links with the latter in the name of the civil polity, the state ruled by law, and its responsibility towards all citizens without discrimination.
What transpires on Tuesday will constitute a critical test of the nature of the political conflict in Egypt at present. Is it really a struggle between the state and a violent Muslim Brotherhood movement that thirsts for power and control? Or is the struggle with an authority that seeks to expand its instruments of repression from the institutionalised agencies to mobilised supporters in the streets and squares and that is unable to resign itself to the need, approved by the vast majority of the people, to complete the sole task entrusted to it, which is to lay the foundations for a new, truly democratic system of government based on the respect for plurality and the prevalence of the rule of law in dealing with political adversaries?
The writer is professor in Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science. This article was written before the second anniversary of fatal clashes at Mohamed Mahmoud street marked on Tuesday.
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