Jeff, if I may provide some context…the Egyptian “liberals”
described by the New York Times aren’t the folks we scrap
with here at The Spectacle.
In this instance, the author is describing a political ideology
that should sound familiar to us — one founded on secular
constitutionalism, due process, and property rights. That
emphasizes the liberty of individuals to enjoy freedoms of
religion, speech, press, assembly and markets. A philosophy that
demands rulers are subject to the consent of the governed, grounded
in an individual’s natural right to life, liberty and property.
I’m talking about an intrinsically
Western liberalism — an ideology that came to
fruition during the Age of Enlightenment. Its progenitor, John
Locke, planted the seeds of natural rights, the social contract and
rule of law in contrast to absolutism, aristocracy and the Divine
Right of Kings. This is the liberalism of the American and French
Revolution that justified the ouster of tyranny. This is the
universal liberalism that motivated many Egyptians to
depose Mubarak.
We do a disservice to Egyptian liberals (yes, they
exist) when we lump them in with folks like Krugman, Moore, and
those Occupiers, writ large, who long for a government of
enlightened autocrats to dictate social and economic justice.
These are the folks we should be rooting for in Cairo. They’re
disorganized, naive and green…but they’re ultimately Egypt’s only
hope.
So why do leftists (read: socialists, and even communists in the
Egyptian instance), Islamists (the MB, et al.), and
liberals find themselves — suddenly and implausibly —
allied? Well, they’re all living through some strange days over
there, and the tired cliché that politics makes strange bedfellows
applies.
To be clear, this marriage of convenience is incredibly unlikely
and wholly unnatural. Liberal Egyptians — who are often
university educated, and envious of basic freedoms enjoyed here in
the West — have little tolerance for Islamists who’d rob them of
those natural rights I mentioned. As we’ve learned since the time
of Marx and Engels, communists and socialists don’t tolerate
religion particularly well, so they’re not particularly fond of
Salafi aesthetics that would drag the country back to the seventh
century. And while the Islamists exist as the most organized
faction — they were vaguely tolerated by Mubarak as a shadow
opposition to his now disbanded NDP — as you might have guessed,
they’re not particularly charitable to their rivals.
However, to co-opt an ancient Arabic proverb, “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend.” In Cairo, such disparate parties as
Communists, Islamists and Liberals are working together to advance
their common goal — namely, uprooting a calcified, Mubarak-era
police state that has proven loath to surrender its political and
economic stranglehold on post-Tahrir Egypt.
I’m describing the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) — a
military junta that isn’t ominous in name only. Rather, upon
reactivation of the country’s “emergency law” the SCAF has come to
represent stratocracy, in the extreme.
Their decision to disband the government was alarming, but
foreseeable — as I predicted
back in April:
If [the Muslim Brotherhood] were to capture the executive office
[in addition to the 50% of the parliament they already controlled],
the movement could threaten the ruling junta’s significant
business interests — which are currently shielded from government
oversight. A win at the ballots would mean MB control of
the parliament, the constitutional assembly and the
presidency…not to mention the bank vaults, national
industries and corporate rentiers that line the pockets of the
strongest and most enduring elements of Mubarak-era
oligarchy.
Now, the tension has reached such frenzy in Cairo that wolves
are dwelling with lambs, and the liberals and Islamists have found
themselves locked in an unlikely alliance against an unholy
adversary.
Please note, I’m not defending or deferring to Islamists or
communists. They exist in diametric opposition to my system of
values. In this case, I am simply attempting to provide some
relevant context to the plight of “liberals” in Egypt.
However, as a sidenote, I would conclude
that:
Per terms established by Congress last December, the Egyptian
“government” must demonstrate a commitment to a free, fair, and
tolerant civic society to receive American assistance. It’s obvious
to anyone with a pulse — including the majority of Egyptians —
that they’re not living up to their end of the bargain.
Now we know the SCAF never had any intention of meeting that
measure, in the first place. Well, don’t look now, but Obama’s
still financing their debacle with American dollars.
Your taxes at work in Egypt. Just sayin’…
