Egypt rising

A dictator leaves office after widespread public unrest. It appears that people have won power. Except, they really haven’t. A few months later, the now-unpopular democratically elected head is deposed by the military in an operation clearly engineered by the head of the army, a man whom the democratically elected head had handpicked with the expectation that he would become a loyalist. The soldier says he is only there as a stopgap till elections are called. He is hailed as a saviour, a man who will end the systemic corruption and nepotism that plagues the country’s government. But the entire time, he has been engineering a way to keep himself in power. Years later, a miserable populace rejoices as the new dictator’s time comes to an abrupt end.

Now repeat.

This may be an oversimplification of the historical cycle that militancy infested states are trapped in, but cut out the democratic intervals, and it may as well be Egypt. One dictator after another, each claiming to represent the interests of the common man, but really just interested in becoming pharaoh. When democracy did come, a few unpopular decisions saw the army step back in to depose the government, jail most of the elected leadership and ban the ruling party.

And then, it becomes clear. The death of democracy always seems to be met by thundering applause.

Democracy may be an imperfect system, but dictatorship is a disaster waiting to happen. The Brotherhood did not lead the Tahrir Square protests. But it skillfully used anti-establishment sentiment to get votes.

In Egypt’s defence, the country has never had an extended democratic run, while other states have had decade-long patches of democracy, even if they were mostly sham democracies with the results decided months in advance.

And therein lies a lesson for such countries: it is high time we cut the strings. The militaries of both countries have spent more time creating corporate empires than creating productive citizens. Moreover, they believe journalists are scum for reporting on their misdeeds and forget that it is part of a journalist’s duty to his reader to name and shame soldier, politician and civilian — if action merits it.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2014.