The Passing of a Pharaoh

The Caliph is Going; Long Live the Caliphate

Civic freedom is a fragile thing. Without proper, substantial foundations, it is gossamer thin. In the West, most members of the Commentariate--the pundits, the politicians, the media--celebrate popular uprisings against tyrannical governments. They are usually showered with plaudits from both left and right. The left celebrates the supra-national, supra-cultural universal "rights of man" being recognised afresh. The right celebrates the expression of individual liberty and freedom to choose.

Hence, most have been pleased, if not excited, with what is happening in Egypt. But the fragility of freedom is overlooked. As Rich Lowry puts it:

Every revolution against autocracy is initially stirring. Who wouldn’t have cheered when Louis XVI was forced to convene the Estates General, or when a liberal provisional government took over from Czar Nicholas, or when the rank and file of the Shah’s army refused to fire on protesters in the streets?

All these inspiring events were mere prelude to catastrophe, making the years 1789, 1917, and 1979 synonymous with the onset of tyranny and bloodshed.

As the days of unrest unfold in Egypt more reports are emerging of it being (or becoming) a broadly based popular, people's movement. In other words, it is being embraced by Egyptian people in all walks of life who have become fed-up with over thirty years of tyrannical, capricious corrupt government. The public protests are becoming larger and are peopled by young and old, rich(er) and poor, urban and rural, women and men.

The crowds - determined but peaceful - filled Tahrir ("Liberation") Square and spilled into nearby streets, among them people defying a government transportation shutdown to make their way from rural provinces.

Protesters jammed in shoulder-to-shoulder, with schoolteachers, farmers, unemployed university graduates, women in conservative headscarves and women in high heels, men in suits and working-class men in scuffed shoes.

But we still have no idea precisely how it will play out. But the precedents and portends are not good. Rich Lowry again:

The scholar Bernard Lewis writes that in the 19th century, both Tunisia and Egypt, then under Ottoman control, experimented with parliamentary reforms. They wanted to ward off the Europeans but couldn’t halt a “plunge to bankruptcy, disorder, control and occupation.”

After decades of British occupation, the mid–20th century brought the revolution of 1952, and eventually the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Historian David Pryce-Jones calls him “the first Arab to have created a police state,” complete with the “whole grim and bloody apparatus of control through bureaucratic terror.” Nasser died in 1970, but his system lived on. Egypt has been ruled by emergency decree almost continuously since 1967.

Governments in the West have had a monochromatic perspective, not just on Egypt but on the entire world for that matter. Their first, and all-to-often only, concern, has been whether Egypt was pro- or anti-western. Nothing much else has mattered. So the underlying focus in Washington and Europe about events in Egypt continues to be whether the eventual new government in Egypt is pro-Western . . . or not. We don't know. If it turns out to be an anti-Western Islamist regime, most in the West would regard the outcome as a "worst nightmare". If it turns out to be secular Islamic--at this stage probably the most likely--much less so. The most likely outcome at this stage is some sort of secular military regime.(The army is reportedly pro-Western--similar to Turkey.) 

But we are more certain that whatever the eventual shape of the new regime in Egypt, it will be authoritarian and autocratic. It is highly unlikely that it will be a limited-government, pro-personal-freedom regime. This is because the overriding dominant culture is the Islamic religion. As we have often reminded our readers, "Islam" means peace, but the kind of peace indicated thereby is all important. It is the "peace" of universal submission to the will of Allah. The deity of Islam represents the "One ring to rule them all". In Islam there is no equal ultimacy of the one and the many: there is only the one. Moreover the fundamental animus within Islam is "comply or die". In Islamic societies, the will of Allah is ordinarily mediated through the state--because it is the ultimate expression of power. Islamic believers have no appeal to Allah beyond the dictate of the state. The will of power is the will of Allah. If government were believed to be doing anything contrary to what is conceived of as Allah's will, the state must be overthrown by force. It has become apostate and jihad must apply.

You cannot build a culture of civic freedom upon such foundations. That is why almost without exception Islamic countries around the world have authoritarian, even tyrannical governments. Those that do not (Pakistan, Indonesia, for example) maintain a semi-democratic form while wielding tyrannical powers through the courts.

Those hoping that Egypt will suddenly transform into a Western style liberal democracy are naive. Until the people and the culture turn away from Islam it will not happen. In the meantime, normal Caliphate service will resume shortly.