The Deep State’s Dinosaurs are moving to the Edge of a Cliff

By Magdy Samaan
Fikra Forum - 9-8-2012

The relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Supreme Council of the Military Forces (SCAF) is like that of a man and a woman behind closed doors of a cockpit in a ship sailing in rough seas. Outside the cabin, there are children listening to the woman screaming. The children call out to the passengers, “a man is hitting a woman who is fighting to save the ship!” However, when the passengers get close to the cockpit, they realize that the voice of the screaming woman is nothing but the sound of enjoyment between two people in an intimate relationship. The passengers realize that the only solution to saving the ship is to break down the door and push them out!

This is what I tried to explain to my foreign correspondent friends who came to Cairo to follow up with what they thought was a clash between the new President Mohammed Morsi and the SCAF, which Morsi’s recent decisions seem to suggest. However, with time, actions on the ground have proven that analysis portraying the two totalitarian powers (the military and the Islamists) in conflict was misleading. One example of such an action was the new government appointment of Dr. Hesham Kandil, a person with an Islamic direction, but also belonging to the old regime. Likewise, Morsi was keen on giving credit to the military council for protecting the revolution at a time when its leaders were being accused of killing protestors.

In the meantime, Morsi, a member of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, was found honoring former Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri’s government, while previously the FJP had led a campaign against Ganzouri’s government and accused it of failure. Thus, it appears that this campaign was among the misleading messages propagated to falsely portray a conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military council. The resulting reality shows that we are facing a coalition government between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood under which they share power and influence.

Of the 35 ministries in total, the SCAF has kept the upper hand in appointing the key ministries such as the Ministry of Defense, Interior, Finance, and Foreign Affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood, meanwhile, won five seats in service-oriented ministries. The formation also includes 8 ministers from Ganzouri’s government, while the rest are senior staff, figures from academia, or the Islamic movement.

This is how the military administration of the country has looked since the military coup in July 1952. It lacks imagination and shows how distant politics are from the decision-making process. This has led to the accumulation of significant problems, such as issues of subsidiary funding, corruption, bureaucracy, and the rise in slum areas. The military then handed over power to a theocratic government that lacks modern tools with which to deal with today’s problems. Given these chronic problems, which are becoming more inflated, the state has been unable to provide its citizens with their basic needs. Recently, in most of Egypt’s governorates, electrical power outages have been frequent.

Following the fall of Mubarak’s regime, there was a need for a leader who has the qualities of a ‘dinosaur herder’ in order to properly manage the state’s institutions, which are currently fighting to survive, while continuing to resist reform. These entrenched institutions are in need of courageous initiatives, creative solutions, and popular participation. Instead of finding a true leader, the job was filled by a dinosaur whose first steps led the herd to the edge of the cliff.

In light of the aforementioned problems, Morsi did not present a technocratic government, nor did he form a national coalition to tackle these crises. Instead, he presented Egyptians with mundane government employees -- the best of the former state -- who are unable to think outside the box.

In Al Masry Al Youm newspaper (Egypt Today), Dr. Mohamed Habib, former deputy of the supreme guide (Al Murshid) of the Muslim Brotherhood, describes the contradiction between the new government and the revolution by saying: "Imagination and ambition are the godfathers of the revolution, without them there would be no revolution ... the selection of Dr. Hesham Qandil as prime minister ... is devoid of any imagination or ambition … they are merely a collection of academic employees who have climbed the bureaucratic ladder, attaining desk jobs or acting as directors of departments within failed ministries, shown to be inefficient. "

The current situation in Egypt is in a way similar to the Pakistani-style domination of Islamists and the military on the one hand, while on the other hand it reflects the disappointment of the civilian revolutionary current and its feeling of defeat. In time, it will be revealed that the transitional period in Egypt has been intended to achieve this result, one that is not in favor of creating real democracy, opening the way for public freedoms, but instead one that puts restrictions on them. In the end, this will lead to a new wave of protest against the two totalitarian powers, which have divided roles and power. This has perhaps already begun with the call for demonstrations on August 24th to topple the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, a call, though hasty in its judgment of the performance of the new president, reflects a popular mood insisting not to allow "the revolution" to be derailed.

Magdy Samaan is an independent Egyptian journalist.