Don't panic. Yet.
Issandr El AmraniThe official results of the first round of Egypt's parliamentary elections come out tonight, but a cursory look at initial results presented by parties and reported by the media paint a fairly clear picture: Islamists will be a majority in the next parliament, led by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and Salafists have exceeded expectations to be, perhaps, the second party in Egypt.
This news has profoundly depressed most educated, middle class Cairenes I know who had hoped that the overthow of Hosni Mubarak would be followed by a relatively liberal democracy that would be inclusive of moderate Islamists. It is particularly distressing to non-Muslims, who will now fear the Islamization of public life that has taken place in the last two decades will now be accelerated, with full backing from parliament and government leaders in the next few years.
That the Muslim Brothers would perform well was expected: after all their electoral machine is excellent, they have experience and a clear message, and are a known quantity. Six months ago, when they promised to only run for a limited number of seats, it was assumed that they would be about 30% of parliament. They may very well pass the 50% mark, having decided to contest a lot more seats than initially expected. They have done so without a broad alliance with other parties, since the Democratic Alliance they belong to is at least 80% FJP.
The success of the Salafists is more of a surprise, and must reflect their grassroots presence in Egyptian society. But it is deeply worrisome, because the Salafists have made clear in their statements that they are an illiberal party with extreme views on many topics, whatever their charitable works are. I'm my opinion they should have never been legalized, on the same grounds that far-right parties are often forbidden in European countries, and particularly since Egypt has a law against religious parties (either that, or don't have the law.)
The first choice the Muslim Brothers have to face (if they do not have a majority alone) is either to rally Islamists around them or try and create a broader coalition, as they have indicated over the summer they would prefer. It's also a choice for those parties that, in a sense, ran specifically against the Brothers. They have to decide whether pragmatism should trump whatever incompatibilities exist.
Among my Egyptian friends (most decidedly on the liberal side) there is now tremendous worry about a future in which politics is ruled on the one hand by identitarian Islamist politics and on the other by a populist, hyper-nationalistic army. I don't think it has to be so, and we could very well see a transition to a democratic (but not liberal) system which allows for rotation of power. Liberals now also have to make some tough choices about consolidating their presence, making alliances with both Islamists and people associated with the former ruling party. (And never mind the regional impact of this election, the subject of a future post.)
Personally, I think that there can be a positive outcome here: if the Muslim Brothers are serious about consolidating electoral democracy, and work hard on addressing that issue, there will be other elections for those that disagree with their conservative views (or foreign policy, or economic liberalism) to make their case. The biggest lesson from this election should be that the non-Islamists in Egypt need to strategize, organize and cooperate much better than they have done so far — and most importantly of all, reconnect with the average Egyptians who were not inspired to vote for them. The other reason I have for optimism is that even if the elections returned conservative candidates, the Egyptian uprising of 2011 unleashed many progressive ideas, notably with regards to the relationship between state and civilian. That battle will continue to be fought.
Reader Comments (40)
"This news has profoundly depressed most educated, middle class Cairenes "
Do you honestly believe that most educated middle classs Cairenes did not vote for a party with an Islamic ethos? Or perhaps should we put it " this news has profoundly pleased most uneducated poor Cairenes". Is that also what you think?
Are the middle classes so out of touch politically and so small numerically that they had no impact on the elections.
Are there not many (I would argue a majority) of educated middle class Cairenes running businesses, working in education, hospitals, media and all walks of life who are the powerhouse of the Islamic trend and a new generation of them bristling to get involved in the islamic political landscape now being forged (God willing).
Do you really hold to the glib assertion that "This news has profoundly depressed MOST educated, middle class Cairenes "?
Chiding aside I know you probably did this without thinking but the problem the liberal left or whatever one may call this disparate minority view is that it foists these ideas to a wider audience as fact hence why many in the West are saying what happend to our nice liberal revolution in Egypt. The fanatics are teking over. How can this be!
You say..."The biggest lesson from this election should be that the non-Islamists in Egypt need to strategize," I think this illustrate where you have no handle on the reality of Egypt. I would venture to say that the biggest lesson from this election should be that a non-islamist (christian or atheist) in Egypt needs to recognise they will only ever represent a minority interest. They should and can quite rightly look to protect their miinority community rights. The lesson for the Islamists is that by and large all succesful political parties will rise from an Islamic ethos it is quite natural in a mostly muslim society. We need to seperate religion from politics. Not in the way many atheists argue but by not identifying FJP or Ennhada or such like as the Islamic party. They may havwe an islamic ethos but their policies are simple fallible policies and anyway who ever liked politicians. They represent us, not Islam. If God Forbid a senior MB member is found in bed with a Latvian hooker will that be proof Islam is wrong? The sooner we stop referring to such parties as Muslim/Islamist the better.
Time for the Copts and other infidels to move to secular Syria. The arab spring was actually always an islamic winter, but western media is easy to fool. Instead of lecturing about democracy, the west should have been teaching them about religious pluralism and tolerance. Latifa, your online beard is showing.
Amen to Latifah's on opposing stereotypes
Latifah, please shave that beard
sorry to laugh but the two negative commnets illustrate the vacuity of the atheist position. Lie and insult.
Many women in later years do develop discrete stubble around facial areas. Egyptian women are infact prone to this and well accustomed to the complications of "dealing" with that. And of course a bit of scaremongering always hits the spot.
Why do we haste to issue our judgement on things even without waiting to see outcomes. Yes Islamic groups have won but we shall give them chance to see whether they will keep its Pledges. So this panic indeed irrelevent to the fact. If the author claims he/she a democratic than shall respect the public's choice.
Latifa
I think you missed the last two words of the phrase you quoted:
"This news has profoundly depressed most educated, middle class Cairenes I know"
In other words - he is only talking about those who are in his circle of friends and acquaintances. This says more about the circle of people he moves around in than the Egyptian society.
It is well known - and i am sure he knows it - that MB has a lot of support in the Egyptian middle classes as a whole. (Perhaps he needs to widen his circle of contacts? :) )
Let's get real.
Most of the educated and monied classes from Egypt are either already in the West, or are actively planning to leave.
The idea that large numbers of cultured, multi-lingual, well-educated Egyptians will choose to continue to live in what will assuredly become an increasingly dirt poor, intolerant, misogynist, uber Islamic society is dubious, to say the least, if not completely absurd.
It's all about get out while you can still take your money with you, now, and evade the kangaroo corruption trials that are sure to come.
Many of the upper classes already have Green cards and dual nationalities and foreign passports.
And many of the top generals and their minions in the Egyptian army and business associates already have their Swiss accounts filled to the brim and their Riviera villas waiting.
The military planes at the airports will soon be on permanent standby, as soon as the MB and the Salafist fully control the Judiciary.
Meawhile, the economic problems of Egypt are basically insoluble, until the population declines to sustainable levels.
This may never happen. Until then, it will continue to be kalb eating kalb or kalba. In other words, everyone for him or herself.
In the meantime, the freeloading Islamists in places like the UK and Northern Europe are welcome to leave immediately and peddle their hate in their own home countries. Let them see how that will work out.
Egypt was one of the most beautiful countries in the world, until Nasser and his acolytes destroyed her.
We should have stopped Nasser in '54, instead of running away, with tears in our eyes.
We believed, then, in the lie. And we became strangers in our own country and we said nothing.
Now that the tide is again turning, Egypt shall reap her just rewards.
Pity, that.
Lose gracefully and accept your role as loyal opposition by compelling the M-B to govern as openly as possible and holding them to account for any misdeeds. Continue to organize more united opposition parties. Don't fail to make your case to the people. And continue to demonstrate on the street; that's how you ensure there will be a next time, another election to give you another chance. You don't want this to follow the typical one-man-one-vote-once formula of postwar Africa.
RP and Latifa: I was talking about salafists. No big problem with mb.
Considering there was over 120 candidates running I don't think even an educated person could make good decisions about that. In the west we have maybe two dozen positions on a national ballot and it's hard enough to make a proper choice.
"An Egyptian" have you ever considered working for the Samaritans?
We'll see the true face of the Muslim Brotherhood once they start legislating (with proposals negotiated with their coalition partners the Salafis, i.e., proposals more conservative than the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood position). Who wants to bet they will advance the status of women in Egyptian society? Anyone?
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"An Egyptian" doesn't sound like an Egyptian who cares too much about other Egyptians. His only idea for improving the economy is to let the "population decline." Chilling. Fortunately for Egypt, the country is full of lots of bright people who have more ideas and energy than "an Egyptian," who probably doesn't live here, sounds a bit too gleeful at his picture of an Egypt sinking into the mire, and is old enough to still be ticked about Nasser. Is that you, Andre Aciman?
Let us hope their creativity is unleashed in this new era and that whoever holds power curbs the corrupt bureaucracy and harnesses new ideas.
Its weird reading liberals ridicule those Muslims that wear a Beard. I never hear them ridicule Jewish Rabbis or Amish elders. To me , shaving is culturally unusual, where does it come from? Pagan Greek aesthetics I presume, the idolization of the adolescent male, we shave in the west to look like pre pubescents. I remember reading a Hadith of some Arab women crying when they say the Roman men , beardless old men were grotesque, like a beard on a woman to a man today. The Abramaic faiths say it alters the creation, meaning it negates the biolgocial wisdom of facial hair, whatever that is. Scraping ones face with a razor every day cannot in the long term be that healthy, especially in a lifesyle of Bedouin oneness with nature in the desert its sun protection, curly hair air conditioning. To me, this is the beauty of monotheism, not trying apart from millenia of human tradition, rejecting the novelties decaying colonialist structures.
But besides the intolerance and illogic, I wonder what the Beard moniker assigned to a woman means for liberals. Its implicitly sexist, the bearded woman , the hag, the circus testosterone freak, worthless in a hedonist consumer mindset. Such a colonialist imposed mindset means that an educated person voting for the MB becomes unfathomable, despized, and feared. Hate fear createsv violence. My hope is that the West does not initiate another covert op syria libya civil war in egypt, Algeria deja vu all over again.It wont work, the West cannot hold Iraq territory, let alone Egypt.
Dear Issandr,
Am really sorry I did misquote you unintentionally. My point was a valid general point but didn't relate to your specific words as I missed the last part of it (those "you know") Sorry about that.
I can see I'm very late to the party. I think Issandr has it right, though - the key is not whether the government of the moment is liberal, but whether there is "a transition to a democratic (but not liberal) system which allows for rotation of power." As long as the governing party can be voted out, then the system will be as liberal (or illiberal) as the electorate wants it to be.
The ikhwan practices internal democracy - there have been several contested elections for positions within the brotherhood and there have been democratic transfers of power between ideological factions. This suggests that the MB would also respect democratic norms within the political system in general, and that if the voters ever returned a majority for secular parties, it would accept a role in opposition. (Internal democracy doesn't necessarily mean acceptance of overall democracy -- there have been several examples of parties that tolerated internal dissent but made damn sure they wouldn't be voted out of power -- but it's a major sign in that direction.)
The salafis, on the other hand, are an unknown quantity. All their parties are new, and their organizations don't seem to be well known. I have no idea whether they would play by democratic rules or accept a constitution in which secular parties could be voted into power -- does anyone here?
BTW, can anyone give information about the results of the August 2011 MB internal elections? Who won out, the older conservatives or the young guard?
The problem, Latifa, is that Islamist parties self-identify with Islam. That is the essence of their politics so the idea of “separating religion from politics” is a non-starter. There must be a million Muslim sites on the Internet that say “Islam is a complete way of life”.
Why anybody ever thought that the so-called “Arab Spring” would bring anything but more Islam, less democracy and less human rights (if possible) I have no idea. They must not have been paying attention to either history or Islamic dogma.
Saying the obvious about Islamists of whatever stripe is not stereotyping. There is little difference between the Brotherhood and the Salafis, it just a matter of how fast they go in a certain direction. In any case, Egypt is screwed and there is nothing anybody -- moderate, secularist, non-Muslims -- can do about it. The new powers that be in Egypt will enforce Sharia (whatever that is, since nobody can really figure it out) and because Sharia equates to Islam, nobody will dare speak out against it. No Muslims wants to be seen as anti-Islam. Oh yes, when things fall apart: 1. the Islamists will blame somebody else (probably the jews but there are about 15 other ‘usual suspects’ also); 2. they will call for “more Islam” because the answer to any problem (even those caused by Islam) is always “more Islam”. Ta-daaaa!
On the other hand, L, you do have a sense of humour (the discrete stubble comment).
This is the logic of Radical Secularism , any Islamic motivated party is a "non-starter" , meaning it is incompatible with Western separation of Church and State, nevermind that the thirteen colonies had disjoint majoritarian religious identities, eg puritan ma, quaker pa, catholic maryland. And of course, ignore the question of a "Jewish State" indeed going so far as to require athesits christians and Muslims to recognize it as such. Once the definition of human rights means nullification of religious influences, then these parties can be nullified at the ballot box, even banned from democratic participation; the irony being that the banners fall into the footsetps of Mubarak and Sarkozy.
It would be better if Kactusz consistently applied the same metric to the evangelical right in America, the settler and orthodox in Israel, and the Falun Gong (sp?) in China. Then we would all have a rubric from which to deny democratic participation to religious minorities or majorites as Liberal Secularists see fit But lets stop calling it Democracy at least, maybe semi-democratic would apply. Like Israel, it is democratic if u have the correct political idenity, less democratic, or even fascistic , if u fail their ethic or religious ballot test.
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So Egypt could become another Iran, no? Vienna, where I live, is full of well-educated Iranians who despise the mullahs.
On the topic of beards, I hear and appreciate what Bilal said about it, including that hadith about the women crying when they saw the Roman men. I lived for a little while with a rainforest tribe in Ecuador. They pluck the hairs off their faces, and in the past, even removed their eyebrows. Why? "Only animals have hair on their faces," I was told. So removing hair from the face doesn't always arise from idolization of adolescent males, though that's an interesting theory in the case of Greece and Rome, and might have some truth in it.
Everyone is assuming the Ikhwan will create a coalition with the Salafis, as if this is a given. I'm interested in how it will be depicted if the Ikhwan actually reject such a coalition and try to appeal to the liberal/independent parties in Parliament? Why hasn't anyone even considered this possibility?
Woah, this is the longest comment thread I've ever seen on the Arabist (Yay?)
I was wondering, with this result what are the chances of any progressive nationalist economic measures being enacted; i.e. land reform, rising wages, re-nationalisation of industries, progressive taxation etc. I'm not too familiar with the platform the MB were running on in these elections (apart from their opposition to corruption). Does this mean that all these things will be left up to unions a popular movements to achieve.
Also, I can't think of a liberal party which appeals purely on liberal social issues that has a mass base.
There are parties which have a mass base from previous labour oriented incarnations (like the UK labour party and the US democratic party etc), but while some their social policies are designed to appeal to middle class professional voters, they at least retain some of the machinery required for cultivating a mass base, like affiliated unions and rhetoric designed to appeal to working people.
So I wonder what the policy provisions are of the 'liberal' parties; did they try to appeal to or cultivate a mass base emphasising economic policies and how they will make life better for working people etc, were they just beaten out by the MB's more experienced organisation?
Also I've heard elsewhere that many of the secular liberal and left wing parties were attempting a boycott of the elections until the 11th hour, while the Brotherhood and salifists were devoting all their energy to campaigning, did this play a role, is this the highest vote the salifists will get? (and how did the gulf/Saudi money effect the salifist vote).
lol I don't really expect anyone to answer these questions¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Lastly, @Bilal (I pretty much don't agree with most of what you have to say but...) beards are coming back, loads of hipsters right now have beards (and hairy armpits for girls) in 'the west'.
Who is funding the Salafis in Egypt? The Saudis, the Qataris? Who and why? Please look into this. The Muslim Brotherhood has been a presence in Egypt for decades and has done charitable and social development works for as long as the group has existed. It is understandable that the FJP would score big wins. The Salafis have done nothing. They were against demonstrations in Jan/Feb and formed a party less than six months ago. They lived in hiding for years. How did they manage to raise the financing to score big gains? What is the profile of pro-Salafi voters? The reports of Saudi and perhaps Qatari funding of the Salafis ring true. Does Egyptian law ban foreign financing of political parties and candidates? Will the candidates and parties be required to disclose to the authorities and the government their sources of funding? Have the Salafis broken the law? If there is no law, why not? NGOs are prohibited from taking foreign funding without clearing very high hurdles but political parties and candidates can take foreign funding? A troubling double standard. The people must know who is funding the Salafis and all political parties and candidates in Egypt. The people also need to know that the Salafis are essentially agents of foreign interests. They do not represent Egyptian beliefs, traditions, or earnest religious belief. They are puppets. Who are their masters?
Jay, You misunderstand me, When I say religion be taken out of politics it is in so far that it is a given. Muslims if given the choice will freely choose to have their social, economic and political associations underpinned by Islam. We need to move on. If as we are hearing around 75% of Egyptians voted for MB or Al Nour I think it gives a strong indication of what the people want. Whether any particular political party delivers will be judged and rewarded or punished at the next election. There is no demand in Egypt for a secular ethos and it is this most commentators and biased media don't yet get. We have our own path. Militant atheism will be a very minor force in the region except through tyranny and foreign intervention.
Latifa, you are either delibrately or accidentaly equating secularism and atheism as the same, this is a fallacious argument as they are completely different. Indeed secularism had taking hold in the west long before atheism was even a outspoken topic.
Secularism is a creed that states that all matters of religion are down to the individual as all eartly religious institutions are man made and man is fallable. That an individual can worship whatever he/she wants in any way that he/she sees fit.
The vast majority of atheists do accept the creed of secularism as they have no problem with people worshipping how they want as long as aspects of religion stay out of their lives. Indeed many other jews, christains and muslims accept secularism, indeed probably one in 5 in Egypt do and 60% in Tunisia.
As everyone westerner knows people should be allowed the right to choice, even it is the wrong choice. Any democrat worth his.her salt will accept the Egyptian result, that does not mean everyone has to be happy about it :-).
Is letting people worship how they want to worship such a bad thing?
Garza, Is this better then.
When I say religion be taken out of politics it is in so far that it is a given. Muslims if given the choice will freely choose to have their social, economic and political associations underpinned by Islam. We need to move on. If as we are hearing around 75% of Egyptians voted for MB or Al Nour I think it gives a strong indication of what the people want. Whether any particular political party delivers will be judged and rewarded or punished at the next election. There is no demand in Egypt for an atheist ethos and it is this most commentators and biased media don't yet get. We have our own path. Militant atheism will be a very minor force in the region except through tyranny and foreign intervention.
I don't care much for the contortions the word secular or civil are put through. If they simply mean freedom of religion as you say, well the Quran enshrines freedom of religion. That comes from a religious ethos. For a lot of people it means distancing religion from the state if so what would you call a state that doesn't incorporate religious values? an irreligious state? an atheist state. The semantics of it are complex let alone the mature discussion of the philosophical and legal implications of what it means in practice. Lets leave that for another time.