There is still time to side with those committed to democracy in Egypt

The irony for some is that the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters remain the upholders of the ballot box's legitimacy

• 
• • Maha Azzam
  • The Guardian, Thursday 15 August 2013 21.05 BST

Supporters of Mohamed Morsi: 'The security apparatus is taking revenge for the last two years when it felt threatened by the possibility of any new order.' Photograph: Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters

The military and police state has returned in full force to Egypt. A country that for a brief period after 60 years of dictatorship was on a path of democratic transition saw a reversal of that process with the coup on 3 July against Egypt's first freely elected president. The coup was justified on the basis of a mass popular outpouring on the streets, although it is generally accepted now that the numbers were a fraction of those claimed by the military and its supporters.

Those calling for a return to the days that preceded the 25 January revolution in 2011, which brought about the fall of Hosni Mubarak, were not only the military high command, the interior ministry, the security services and the police, but critically the judiciary and the state media. These coteries of power actively worked together to block the smooth functioning of the state.

This went hand-in-hand with a vicious campaign to vilify and demonise the party in power, namely the Muslim Brotherhood. Propaganda campaigns against them had been a feature of Egypt's dictatorships from Nasser to Mubarak in an attempt to weaken the main challenge to the regime. But the secular and liberal opposition, having failed to win enough votes themselves, played spoilers rather than engage in the political process, accept the results and campaign for the next elections.

And so the military and this opposition to Mohamed Morsi were to come together in an alliance of convenience with at least a nod from the US and UK to bring down the elected government through unconstitutional means. The street would have to be the way out if the ballot box was not delivering desired results. The method was a well-choreographed campaign that, despite genuine popular support, was essentially directed by the interior ministry and military.

As we examine the debris of Wednesday's massacre (where mounting casualty numbers are suggesting more than 1,000 deaths), there are two parties in today's power struggle. On one side is the ancien regime and its liberal allies – that small core of revolutionaries opposed to the Brotherhood and the politicking Salafi parties. On the other side is the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, including pro-legitimacy liberals who refused to broker the idea that votes suddenly counted for nothing. The irony for some is that it is the Islamist side that is upholding the legitimacy of the ballot box and the commitment to a civil state.

During the elected government's year-long term some said that the ballot box was not enough and that Morsi was not inclusive enough, but the fact remains that the ballot box is an essential part of the democratic process. Politically, what Egypt lacked during its experiment in democracy was a loyal opposition. Instead, the opposition that came together under the umbrella of the National Salvation Front decided to back a military coup.

The public is told through the state-controlled media that the sit-ins that have filled Egypt's squares were hijacked by terrorists bent on destroying state institutions. The west is told that part of the roadmap that General Sisi has sanctioned includes a limited number of cabinet posts for the Muslim Brotherhood. Notwithstanding such blatant distortion of electoral will, the vast majority of the Brotherhood's rank-and-file are determined that its opposition to the military coup be peaceful and its leadership categorically reject violence.

What Egypt has experienced since the coup has been the systematic return of the military and police state through arbitrary arrests, media clampdown and the shooting of protesters. Egypt's state institutions, as in most dictatorships, are corrupt and fearful of change. The security apparatus is taking revenge for the last two years when it felt threatened by the possibility of any new order that would eventually hold it accountable. Since the coup began it feels it has taken control again and is ready to strike hard at anyone who challenges it, whatever their ideology.

The civilian facade to this regime is no guarantee against human rights abuses. On the contrary, it provides them with greater shelter. Egyptians are divided today between those who long for security and economic stability, and those who know that although the price is high, the country is at a crossroads of military dictatorship and the possibility of a civil society.

There is still a window of opportunity to side with those committed to democracy in Egypt, and to put pressure on the military by cutting off aid from the United States and by ensuring that it has to be held accountable for any crimes against humanity.

Egypt: Why I cannot rejoice in Morsi’s downfall

Yasmin Alibhai Brown in The Independent

On Thursday night, I was at an event organised by Islamic Relief, which raises millions of pounds from Muslims to fight global hunger.

Ramadhan starts tomorrow, a month of fasting and giving, a good time for such charities and to reaffirm the best aspects of our faith. But events intervened as always, and instead of tranquillity and goodwill in the room, at many tables people were arguing heatedly about the crisis in Egypt, some supporting the military takeover, others lamenting the quick, callous demolition of a freely elected government.

Three men and a woman were so agitated they almost came to blows. In the toilet one Arab lady was sobbed and said her heart was in pieces. She supported the Muslim Brotherhood because, she told me, her old mother-in-law had been given free medical care by a doctor from the movement. “And now again, the army will torture and kill these good people.” Her fears have been brutally confirmed. By the time I write this, about 50 Morsi supporters have been killed by the army and the leaders of the Brotherhood are in prison or house arrest.

I myself have mixed feelings about the rapid deposal of the Islamic government after only a year in power. The political and moral lines dart about in my head, making crazy patterns, and ethical imperatives seem to be crashing into each other. I unconditionally abhor the deeply conservative, Islamic ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Cairo, after the fall of Mubarak, I saw almost no female hair and met some very aggressive men who asked me why I didn’t wear a headscarf. Though most Caireans were still warm and hospitable, they clearly felt under social pressure to conform to and display conspicuous religiosity. This was not the Cairo I had previously visited. Several dejected intellectuals told me the country would soon be like Iran. Morsi’s victory was a blow to them.

His rule, as we know, was pushing the Muslim Brotherhood ideology on to the citizenry; he grabbed control of the courts, manipulated the nascent political reform and rewrote the constitution. Torture, corruption and state thuggery were back and the economy was slowly collapsing. He used democracy but was no democrat. And yet, and yet, I cannot rejoice in Morsi’s downfall, the way his party is now hounded and this abrupt and swift abdication of fundamental democratic principles and practice. Democratic elections won’t always produce the results that true democrats want. That is the price humans pay for this imperfect but most inclusive political arrangement. To expel and exclude a popular Egyptian segment from power is wrong, as wrong as punishing Palestinians for voting in Hamas. The Brotherhood will turn away from the ballot box and Egypt will never be at peace again.

Good Egyptian friends, who have fought long to rid their nation of despotism, are euphoric and support the military coup, which is what it is, though they say it is not. They know their own nation better than I do, of course, and their opinions and feelings matter a good deal more than mine. But still, from a distance, Egypt’s spring seems to be turning dark, losing sight of its ideals, and I am nonplussed and fearful.

I reckon the UK, the US and rest of the world are finding it just as bewildering, though Western leaders preposterously posture and pronounce on the crisis, which they don’t and can’t possibly really understand or interpret. The colonial mindset never really receded; it is alert and ready, routinely invoked in Europe and North America. It may impertinent of me to question the great powers, being, as I am always reminded, an unwanted Muslim immigrant. So read this by Sir Simon Jenkins on our nation’s neo-colonial mentality: “The British craving to set the Muslim world to right is as old as history. It lurks in the genes of British politicians and diplomats, as if the ghost of Lawrence of Arabia still stalked Whitehall.” Only even Lawrence, multilingual, devious and culturally a white Arab, would not presume to summarise or politically interfere with the volatile situation in Egypt today.

How naive we all were when this Spring started with the first amazing fall of an Arab dictator in Tunisia in 2011, followed by uprisings in almost all Middle Eastern and North African Muslim nations. It was a new dawn for those millions who had only ever known oppression. For us spectators, it was the most thrilling show in town, better than any movie. Now Libya, our great “victory”, is divided and bloody; Syria is purgatory with no release in sight as Assad holds on to power, while sectarianism and fanaticism divide the opposition and make them into monsters, some as bad as the regime.

Elsewhere, as in Bahrain, the autocrats who have held on are more ruthless than ever. They are buying bigger and more brutal arms – from us. And the people are cowed, wishing none of this had ever happened, saying better the devils you know than chaos. All the West can and should now do is watch and hope Egypt returns to civilian rule. No other intervention, overt or covert, will help. It’s a mess. Only Egyptians can sort it and make theirs a nation for all its diverse citizens. I trust they will, or how will the world ever believe in progress again?