Ever
since Morsi was elected, I have been taking a mental break from
Egyptian politics. I was also busy with other things which could
potentially serve as an excuse for the silence that reigned on this
blog in the last weeks. But let's face it: I simply embraced the
relief that Morsi's victory meant for me and many Egyptians and used
the occasion to not think politics for a while. In the eyes of an
activist friend of mine, this is what most Egyptians have done as
well. But from his point of view this is a fundamental mistake,
reproducing the people's failure to be active and resilient citizens
in the last 30 years. In my friend's eyes, by not paying attention,
people give SCAF a free hand in preventing Morsi from actually
governing. And my friend himself was already worried because "it's been
a week and Morsi has not done anything."
 |
| Even though it was clear which struggles where lying ahead of the newly elected president, this couldn't dampen his supporter's joy on the day of celebration. (Unfortunately I have not recorded the woman ululating.) |
By
now it's been a bit more than a week, and indeed, Morsi has not yet
solved the traffic problem in Caro. But obviously it is not the case
that nothing has happened since he was officially announced winner of
the 2012 presidential race in Egypt. Rather, a lot has been ging on since
then, even though the outcome remains unclear: Morsi was sworn in,
gave speeches in Tahrir and at Cairo University, and allowed for a
lot of speculation about potential ministers in his cabinet. Morsi
also met with the heads and ministers of other states, among them the
king of Saudi Arabia and Foreign Secretary Clinton, and maybe most
importantly he decreed that the parliament be reinstated. Reinstating
the parliament was possible (and maybe necessary?) because it had
previously been dissolved by SCAF after the Supreme Court had
declared parts of the electoral law unconstitutional. SCAF and the
Supreme Court on the other hand refuted the legitimacy of Morsi's
decree, but up to now the case is still pending as the administrative
court also has a word to say in that issue.
The
issue of the dissolved - reinstated - pending parliament is
illustrative of the overall situation: none of the power struggles
has come to closure yet. And: there is a lot of unfinished business,
in pretty much any field that you can think of.
While
this was to be expected from an ongoing revolution facing a
counterrevolution (or at least a resilient military regime), what's
shocking me is the lack of sound analysis in both Egyptian and
international, commercial and non-commercial media and in the public
discourse. Take the parliament issue: Barely any journalist,
politician or self-proclaimed commentator (like I am) discusses the
question whether SCAF's decision to dissolve parliament was legal or
legitimate in the first place. Hardly anyone makes the effort of
distinguishing between the judiciary's verdict (= Supreme Court
declaring electoral law as unconstitutional) and the executive's
action (=SCAF dissolving parliament). I started going through the
English version of the court's decision, in an (eventually futile)
attempt to figure out what exactly the court had decreed. In face of
several pages of legal slang (Arabic legal slang translated to
English might even be worse than legal slang per se), I soon threw in
the towel and gave up to make up my mind about the legality of
Morsi's reinstatement-decree. Thanks God, the absolutely incredible
journalist Issandr El Amrani was more persistent and eventually
commented on the issue in his post "Moustafa:
Don't call the SCC's decision on parliament a dissolution"
on his blog The Arabist. Yet, and this is the surprising part: hardly
anyone else does.
People
dozing away in the summer heat, giving in to exhaustion after 17
months of revolutionary turmoil and worries, helpes SCAF and the
judiciary clinging to power and preventing democratically elected
politicians from actually ruling. But the mediocre quality of
political analysis in media and public discourse might do the bigger
share. What we see is the endless swamping of the audience with
rumours, conspiracy theories, and dramatic catchphrases. What we need
is transparent, well-informed, and analytically sharp writing.
The
above mentioned blog "The Arabist" and the website
"Jadaliyya" are proof that this is possible.
