Africa and Mohammed Morsi

a multimillionaire and financier of the party, was disqualified by the Election Commission because of his criminal record during Hosni Mubarak’s regime. The bloc grabbed power in an internal election in 2005 and showed its hand in 2007 when it issued a policy platform “barring women and non-Muslim men from running for president” of Egypt; […]

a multimillionaire and financier of the party, was disqualified by the Election Commission because of his criminal record during Hosni Mubarak’s regime. The bloc grabbed power in an internal election in 2005 and showed its hand in 2007 when it issued a policy platform “barring women and non-Muslim men from running for president” of Egypt; and viewed  Coptic Christians as non-citizens who must migrate out of a Muslim country.
This position alienated Christians and served as a useful cover for both those keen on sabotaging Morsi’s administration (by burning churches and killing Christians), and fanatical elements in the party a legitimate cover which eroded the democratic flavour of his administration. The violence-prone  wing  joined with those who saw ‘democracy’ as a Euro-American weapon for blunting the teeth of Islamic injunctions, and opportunistically welcomed it as a mere subterfuge for gaining power. Operating under the grip of a top leadership who yearned for power to implement a purist Islamic agenda, Morsi recalled the 1948 prime minister of ‘grand apartheid’ of the National Party in South Africa. It would provoke unrelenting armed struggle to crush it. That historical lesson was there for the taking.
A Cairo-based Egyptian Bureau Chief of China’s CCTV claimed that ‘Global Muslim Brotherhood’ had conspired with Turkey to break-up Egypt into three states. Presumably, Morsi was heading for a civil war in Egypt. NATO would revisit its invasion of Gaddafi’s Libya, with the Muslim Brotherhood carving up a Muslim State for itself. From that ‘revolutionary base’ it would give Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship a fatal challenge. NATO would earn a more moderate ally than the radical Sallafists. In Omar Ashour’s view, the powers behind Morsi did not  ‘believe much in reaching out to the opposition genuinely and realistically.’ They stood outside democracy’s game of bargaining in search of consensus politics; very much like the ideological Republicans in American politics since 1976.
In this regard Morsi fit Kofi Annan’s lament that Africa’s politicians have conducted  ‘democracy coups’ by winning  elections, only to turn around and start a regime of winner-take-all presidential powers which must not be questioned by the opposition and the courts. That Egypt’s judges who run  courts had their roots in 30 years of Mubarak’s ruthless persecution of the Brotherhood only made their potential obstructions part of the frustrating rules of American-type games of democracy. It is a core value to the principle of ‘checks and balances’ in relations between institutions of a democratic state. In pre-2010 Kenya, however, a corruption-ridden judiciary was in alliance with a corruption-rich executive.
Morsi’s opponents caused artificial shortages of petrol and food, causing long queues at petrol stations and escalating increases in prices of scarce food items. Morsi’s appointment of a supporter accused of being part of those who killed 28 tourists and ransacked museums (in the name of purifying Egypt from an idolatrous tourist economy) earned him anger among one million traders in the sector. He joined ranks of politicians across Africa who ruin local artisans by importing goods as a device for capital flight and selling goods. Such goods range from hair-wigs (from peasant women in India, Korea, Japan and Brazil) to private aircrafts. Morsi who got his doctoral degree on hard metals and was bound not to be for melting; being as resilient as corrupt officials in Africa.
The Muslim Brotherhood had a home-grown model in the ‘Free Officers’ coup of 1952 against ‘unpatriotic’ politicians and a British-backed monar-chy. They grabbed absolute power. Morsi had no local democratic legacy to turn to for lessons. From 1928 to 2012 his movement had grown under hostile colonial and military regimes (of Gamal Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak). None taught lessons in democratic politics. The Muslim Brotherhood had received  lessons from Hitler’s agents during World War II and from Zionist fighting for Israel.  Assassinations and arson, including burning down central Cairo in 1952, had diverse roots. They continued to avoid the model of liberation struggles in Algeria and Southern Africa. Dictums by Mao Zedung and Lenin for making one step backward to gain two forward were ignored. Perhaps Morsi saw retreat as a sure road to failure in the face of open fangs of past persecutors.
The Muslim Brotherhood had not joined in the relentless mass demonstrations in the face of death, brutality and lack of support by NATO’s democracies against Mubarak’s regime. The military had survived the 2011 and 2012 ‘revolutions’. Perhaps the Brotherhood concluded that the road to power lay in terminating a military contaminated by political power. It was, however, a line of policy which would drive ‘Liberals’, Arab Spring youthful flowers and the military into a resolute alliance which saw a coup by a mass protest backed by military’s institutional self-defence as the only way out. Mass demonstrations as a tool of rejection of state power was justified as expressions of “freedom of speech” and ‘freedom of assembly’; core values of democratic politics. These technologies and values were treated as superior to Morsi’s freedom and right to hold on to and enjoy a mandate won in a free and fair election. Presumably, a ‘right of self defence’ against a perilous power justified a murder against the attacker. Military regimes in Africa justified coups with variants of this doctrine.
The African Union condemned the ‘mass self-defence coup’ and defended Morsi’s mandate. It avoided the freedom to be hypocritical like President Obama. The goal of protecting against a possible future second ‘apartheid’ regime on African soil was ignored. The AU’s shameful role in Gaddafi’s fate crippled its voice. The heavy casualties in Egypt injures merits of the AU’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ walking away from a ‘military coup’. Also, an organisation with deep Egyptian footprints should  give much weight to her claims of NATO’s secret plans to dismember Egypt.