A land without Freedom

http://www.georgejonas.ca/recent_writing.cfm?id=950

In times ancient and modern -- whether styled king, sultan, colonel, wali, 
khedive, pasha or viceroy -- Egypt's rulers have been autocrats

by George Jonas
National Post
February 16, 2011

Last week, a military dictatorship replaced a civilian dictatorship in 
Egypt. This may have opened the door to something good (democracy) or 
something bad (theocracy) or, very likely, more of the same (autocracy). 
Nevertheless, it's hailed everywhere as a triumph for freedom.

Why? Perhaps because when people don't like what they see, they see what 
they like.

Egypt has traditions of several great civilizations, none remotely 
democratic. The ancient land of the pharaohs and pyramids was an 
autocracy. So was the Egypt of Ptolemaic rulers and Roman times that 
bequeathed us the story of Antony and Cleopatra. The Byzantine period that 
followed the Hellenistic period was famously autocratic. When the 
Arab/Muslim tide washed over the early Coptic Christian Church between the 
7th and 13th centuries, the Islamic caliphate's rule was just as 
autocratic as Byzantine Christianity's. And after the Ottoman Turks took 
over Egypt in 1517, literally making it a province of Turkey, autocracy 
matured into Oriental despotism.

As the Turkish porte's power declined in the late 18th century, the great 
seafaring nations of Western Europe began flexing their muscles. They may 
have been an influence for democracy, but unfortunately, their taste for 
enlightenment and imperialism developed at the same time. As they became 
less autocratic at home, Europeans became more autocratic when projecting 
their power abroad. One champion-of-liberty-turned-emperor, Napoleon 
Bonaparte, even made a brief foray into Egypt as Europeans began snatching 
up Ottoman possessions.

In the turmoil of the Napoleonic era, it was a Napoleonic figure that 
emerged victorious among the contenders. Muhammad Ali, often viewed as the 
founder of modern Egypt, started out as commander of an Ottoman regiment. 
Just as Napoleon, a Corsican, ended up establishing a French dynasty, Ali 
Pasha, an Albanian, ended up establishing an Egyptian one. Actually, the 
Albanian Napoleon's dynasty lasted longer than the Corsican Napoleon's. 
Although eventually enfeebled by British tutelage, Ali Pasha's dynasty 
didn't end until the 1952 abdication of King Farouk, followed by the 
declaration of the Egyptian Republic in the summer of 1953.

Modern Egypt's founder was an autocrat. So were Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser 
and his nationalist officers who put an end to his dynasty. Ali Pasha's 
heirs let Europeans build the Suez Canal; Nasser and his officers turned 
it from Europe's swimming pool into Egypt's waterway. Nasser's successor, 
Anwar Sadat, signed a historic peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and was 
assassinated for it two years later. Otherwise he was just as autocratic 
as his predecessor -- or his successor, Hosni Mubarak, the strongman 
deposed last week.

The point of this hasty historical bulletin is that the rulers of Egypt, 
in times ancient and modern, whether styled king, sultan, colonel, wali, 
khedive, pasha or viceroy, were autocrats. Autocracy sucks -- but doesn't 
stand in the way of great civilizations.

The mere fact that a nation's past consists of nothing but autocracy 
doesn't mean that there can't be democracy in its future, but transforming 
autocracy into democracy is a long process, and for spontaneous assemblies 
of unorganized demonstrators to change millennia of history in two weeks 
would be miraculous.

I don't think Cairo's protesters worked miracles. What they did was lay 
down a smoke screen. They camouflaged a coup d'etat by Egypt's military.

The armed forces, de facto rulers of the country since Colonel Nasser's 
days, last Friday took back the powers they delegated to Mubarak 30 years 
ago. The 82-year-old president had outlived his usefulness. The feebler he 
became, the more he was developing illusions of grandeur, manifested in 
dynastic ambitions for an inadequate and unpopular offspring.

Mubarak had to go. Having him deposed by popular demand, cheered on by a 
deluded world media and a nave White House, was preferable to a palace 
revolution. If initiated by a military putsch, the Mubarak ouster might 
have had the international elites protest and the media scream bloody 
murder. Even some street mobs that called for Mubarak's head might have 
marched in his support if they thought he was being pushed.

Israel's expressions of dismay, though wisely subdued, fuelled the flames. 
Words of praise for Mubarak by Israeli President Simon Peres and others 
were the kiss of death. They had little effect on Cairo mobs, but 
galvanized Western media simpletons and Arabists in the U.S. State 
Department into supporting the putsch.

From the army's point of view, ousting Mubarak now means his succession 
could be planned instead of having to be improvised. Why wait for the old 
man to die in office? It's when everybody makes a grab for a dictator's 
mantle that Muslim Brotherhood-types get their hands on it. Free-for-alls 
are for civilians. Military minds prefer synchronizing watches for history 
to begin at 0500.

Questions: Have we confused a changing of the guard, Egyptian style, with 
the birth of democracy? Yes. Did the army plan the events of the last two 
weeks? No. Did spontaneous demonstrations inspire quick-thinking officers 
to take advantage of events as they unfolded? Probably. Now that the 
generals have mounted Egypt's great Arabian of protest, can they ride it 
or will it run away with them?

That's one for the sphinx.

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