After 5,000 years of pharaohs, kings, sultans and dictators, a dozen foreign invasions, liberations and military coup d’etat’s, Egypt has its first democratically elected leader.
And America is ticked.
Mohamed Morsi waded through two rounds of balloting and 13 competitors to be sworn in Saturday in front of the watchful eyes of Egypt’s ruling military junta and the Supreme Constitutional Council.
In many respects, Egypt’s election couldn’t have been more American. Morsi – who got his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Southern California ­and has two children who are U.S. citizens – won by a narrow margin over an equally-despised candidate who was widely viewed as an establishment hack.
Congratulations Egypt, you’ve just learned about the lesser of two evils.
Now, if you could only convince your supreme court to allow unlimited and anonymous corporate sponsorship of political candidates – then you’ll really be playing in the big leagues.
So what’s the United States’ problem?
Morsi was backed by the until recently-banned Muslim Brotherhood – a sort of social reform movement turned Islamist paramilitary organization turned political party.
The Brotherhood began in 1928 under the directorship of Muslim cleric Hassan al-Banna, and as is the case with most well intentioned ideas, the M.B. started off on the right foot. Banna eschewed violence and encouraged reform through charity and good works.
His organization advocated Egyptian autonomy from Britain and opposed corruption in the monarchy. They organized charity drives, established hospitals and provided essential social services the corrupt regime would not.
For the first half of its life, the Muslim Brotherhood was a sort of Islamic version of the Knights of Columbus.
In 1949, however, Hassan al-Banna was gunned down by government thugs – a long-standing Egyptian tradition – and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were rounded up, imprisoned and tortured, also a long standing Egyptian tradition.
The Egyptian government officially dissolved the M.B., and with its enigmatic and level-headed leader dead, the Brotherhood and took a turn for the worse.
They kept up the charity – which accounts for its widespread popularity in Egypt today – but added bombing and assassination to its repertoire of tactics.
It’s like the Salvation Army, if it were actually an army – and less concerned about salvation and more concerned with the violent overthrow of the government.
And so for the last sixty years, the Brotherhood has waited in the wings for just this opportunity, and as a peaceful and popular revolution ejected Hosni Mubarak from power, the Brotherhood was ready to step in and take over – and Mohamed Morsi is its man.
But instead of stepping out of the gate with a package of draconian reforms aimed at making Egypt look like Afghanistan in the ’90s, Morsi has promised a skeptical international community a kinder, gentler Egyptian government.
He has resigned from the Brotherhood and announced his intention to appoint a woman and a Christian as his vice-presidents, and he has vowed to honor Egypt’s erstwhile treaty with Israel.
Whether or not Egypt’s commanding generals who are “easing the transition to democracy” will allow him to do any of that has yet to be seen.
As for Morsi’s ties to the Brotherhood, it wouldn’t be the first time in history a radical revolutionary group had to bend to the political realities of assuming power – the IRA and the PLO both had to temper its rhetoric and face reality when it came to actually governing its people.
In the end, the election of Morsi is not necessarily a bad thing. An election, any election, is a step in the right direction, after all our own founding fathers were once considered radicals and brigands.
Within the first 100 years of our existence, we wrote and rewrote our constitution, wiped out the native Americans and fought a civil war – and hey, we turned out all right. So here’s to you, Egypt, and your crazy new president. God speed and good luck.
Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year old history senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_nabdulpierc.
Contact Nicholas Pierce ay [email protected].