President Mohammed Morsi and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Cairo, June 30, 2012. Egyptian Presidency/ Xinhua Press/Corbis
After sixty years of enduring a military regime, the post-colonial
state in Egypt is finally witnessing a transition. Independence from British
occupation gave birth to a militarized autocracy that survived through
repression for decades, led by a succession of four presidents coming from the
military and, recently, a ruling council of generals. Since 1952, the armed
forces have enjoyed a high degree of control over the economy, the bureaucracy,
and the legal system. In June, when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF) officially handed over power to the first civilian president, Mohammed
Morsi, the handover signaled a fundamental shift that came after a long
historical wait.
Clearly it is not a complete transition to democracy—given the
omnipotent constitutional status that SCAF has bestowed upon itself and the
resulting conflict between the new president and the old military institution.
Yet, in spite of the dispute, the rhetoric of Morsi, a faithful member of the
Muslim Brotherhood, has not broached the issue of demilitarizing the Egyptian
state.
A better understanding of the meaning of Egypt’s transition and
what it portends for Egypt’s generals requires an overview of the long
historical process of militarizing Egypt’s political and economic structures.
When SCAF carried out its so-called “good” coup after the January 25
revolution, it was merely the latest chapter in a long story of the military’s
deep involvement in Egyptian politics and society. It is important to review
Egypt’s national myths related to the opposition to colonialism, Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s coup and his militarized socialism, Anwar Sadat’s attempt at
demilitarization, and the expansion of the military’s economic influence in the
Hosni Mubarak era. In light of this past, will President Morsi be able to
challenge the military’s hegemony?
A National Myth
Egyptian history maintains a myth about noble
coups that aimed at genuine ‘nationalist’ goals. The origin of the myth of ‘good
coups’ goes back to the ‘Urabi revolt of 1881. The notion resurfaced in 1952
with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Free Officers coup against the monarchy, and again
during the 2011 revolution that was supported by SCAF. The nationalistic ruling
elites and intellectuals of Cairo forged the myth, and have perpetuated it for
decades.
In 1881, when Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi led his
fellow officers and overthrew the government of the day, contemporary writers
insisted it was a revolution that represented the native Egyptian masses rising
up against the Turkish ruling elite and foreign financial dominance. In
reality, ‘Urabi’s movement had a very specific demand—basically installing
equality between army officers from native and Turkish origins—and it primarily
represented the interests of the ‘landed gentry’ within the country. The allies
of ‘Urabi’s coup were mainly of the Cairo bourgeoisie, landowners, and the
educated urban middle class. For these social groups the ‘Urabi revolt amounted
to a blow for reform against foreign financial hegemony. ‘Urabi’s short-lived
coup did create a new cabinet of ministers and a new parliament and both
dominated by the military. These ministers belonged to the same social class as
Turkish pashas and, consequently, only the rich enjoyed any suffrage. ‘Urabi’s
reformed parliament brought back the same major landowners to their old seats.
In 1952, when Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser successfully led the next
coup, he revived ‘Urabi’s narrative—the myth of national heroes in uniform—and
re-introduced it to the lower classes. To foster the public image of ‘good
coups’ for the sake of military propaganda, Nasser also republished the 1937
book by the nationalist historian ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rafi’i, which glorified ‘Urabi
as the man who founded a parliament “to represent the power of the nation and
secure the rights and freedoms of the Egyptians.” The state publisher made sure
to place Nasser’s photo in full military garb next to ‘Urabi’s on the first
page of the reprint of Al-Rafi’i’s book.
In 1957, an Egyptian movie titled Rudda Qalbi (Return my Heart) narrated
the romantic epic of a poor, young army officer who falls in love with the
daughter of an aristocratic pasha in colonial Egypt. As his father is but a
humble gardener in the Turkish pasha’s palace, the officer cannot marry his
sweetheart, who is also in love with him. Then came the fateful year of 1952,
and this young soldier joins the Free Officers—who in real life were led by
Nasser and took down the dynasty of Mohammed Ali, the Turkish aristocracy, and
the British in one blow. Our male protagonist’s influence increases after
Nasser’s ‘revolution,’ and he finally manages to marry the aristocratic young
lady, but only after the military regime had confiscated her wealth. She is thrilled
to be able, finally, to wed her childhood love. In this classic romance
repeated annually on state television for the anniversary of Nasser’s coup,
this apparently innocent love story actually reflects the new socio-economic
realities of Egypt following militarization. And the marriage is a marriage of
convenience, which did emerge between the old aristocracy, recently bereft of
their property, and the new ruling elite, bearing uniforms and with low and
middle class origins and seeking social refinement. This officer’s marriage
reflected the reality of military personnel’s rapid social mobility.
A few years later, in 1962, the military ruling elite decided to
adopt socialism and turned the coup into a social revolution by embracing the
demands of the masses. Young putschists gained legitimacy and the rest of the
story is history. During this era, the state came to own all economic assets
through nationalization, and then built numerous public enterprises, aiming for
an ambitious goal of industrialization. Army officers installed themselves as
the managers of these state-owned enterprises—a task for which they were
largely unqualified. The military issued a new socialist constitution that
stated that “the people control all means of production,” and army officers
were the self-appointed deputies of the people in controlling these means. As
corruption and mismanagement proliferated throughout the public sector, Nasser’s
project ultimately failed to deliver the promise of economic prosperity. And
after neglecting their main task of defending national security—and instead
interfering in economic and political affairs—the Egyptian military was struck
by the humiliating defeat and massive loss of territory at the hands of Israel
in the 1967 war.
Once he ascended to power as president, Anwar
Sadat staged his own coup against Nasser’s regime by demilitarizing the state.
In order to consolidate his authority against the remaining influential figures
from Nasser’s years, Sadat reversed the policies of the 1960s by taking
measures that marginalized the military in politics. These measures were also
applied in order to bring professionalism back to the military and regain the
Sinai Peninsula from Israel. Despite being a military man himself, Sadat
applied a policy that increased the number of civilian technocrats in
bureaucracy and the cabinet. Furthermore, the army’s control further declined
because Sadat decided to liberalize the economy. Through his “open door”
policy, he took steps to privatize parts of the state-owned sector that
military leaders had previously dominated. Military leaders then had to share
influence with a rising community of crony capitalists.
Fortunately, from the perspective of the military leaders, this
situation did not last very long. The 1979 peace treaty with Israel came to
rescue their position, and helped them recover some of the economic influence
they had lost during Sadat’s presidency. After ending the state of war with
Israel, Egyptian leaders reasoned that laying-off thousands of well-trained
army officers was politically undesirable. Thus, the state founded an economic
body known as the National Services Projects Organization (NSPO), which
established different commercial enterprises run by retired generals and
colonels. Through various subsidies and tax exemptions, the state granted
military-owned enterprises privileges not enjoyed by any other company in the
public or private sectors. The military’s enterprises were not accountable to
any government body, and were above the laws and regulations applied to all
other companies.
Return of the Generals
The years of Hosni Mubarak, the fourth military president of the
Egyptian post-colonial state, witnessed a conspicuous return of the military to
dominance. A highly militarized state evolved during Mubarak’s thirty years in
power through three different phases. The last phase in particular saw the
military rise to an impressive hegemony—on the eve of the January 2011
uprising.
The first phase was in the 1980s. Following
Sadat’s move to marginalize the generals, the military institution continued to
play a relatively humble role in the economy and politics. Its economic role
was mainly through NSPO’s contribution to public infrastructure projects and
positively engaging in the national economy at large through producing cheap
goods. The second phase was in the 1990s, after Mubarak applied a full-fledged
economic liberalization plan. The military men were allowed to expand their
business enterprises with the establishment of new companies and factories that
had the status of public sector enterprises but on the margin of the privatized
economy. Finally, the last ten years of Mubarak’s reign witnessed a
considerable presence of army officers, especially retired generals, in
bureaucracy and the public sector. The military institution had expanded
considerably its profitable enterprises. Mubarak granted the generals such
influence in order appease the military and to realize a dream: engineering the
eventual succession of his son, Gamal, to the presidency.
Thus, by the end Mubarak’s reign, Egypt had become a country run
by retired generals and colonels, who filled numerous high-ranking positions
almost everywhere in the state structure. A distinct class of military
administrators and managers grew in bureaucracy, the public sector, and
military enterprises. While the former army officers took positions in every
part of the country, they preferred certain locations where influence and
wealth were concentrated. For example, eighteen of the twenty-seven provincial
governors are retired army generals. Typically they run administrations in key
places such as the tourist regions of Upper Egypt, all the Suez Canal
provinces, the two Sinai provinces, the major Nile Delta areas, and Alexandria.
And if they don’t make governor, then they serve as governors’ chiefs-of-staff,
or as directors of small towns, or heads of both the wealthy and the poor but
highly populated districts in Cairo. The state-owned oil sector also became
highly militarized as retired generals were put in charge of many natural gas
and oil companies. They also tend to control commercial transportation. The
head of the Suez Canal is a former military chief-of-staff. The heads of the
Red Sea ports are retired generals, as is the manager of the maritime and land
transport company.
The military’s economic enterprises that were engaged in civilian
products became rich fields of opportunity for ex-officers. The military
expanded their enterprises during the last years of Mubarak to incorporate hundreds
of factories, companies, farms, and hotels. Generally, there are three major
military bodies engaged in civil production: the Ministry of Military
Production, the Arab Organization for Industrialization, and, of course, the
NSPO. The first owns eight manufacturing plants and 40 percent of their
production is geared toward civilian markets. The Arab Organization for
Industrialization owns eleven factories and companies, with 70 percent of their
production going to civilian markets. And the NSPO is engaged in civil
manufacturing and service industries, producing a wide variety of goods
including luxury jeeps, infant incubators, butane gas cylinders, and even a
variety of food. It also provides services such as domestic cleaning and gas
station management.
Despite Mubarak’s efforts at co-option, the
military both in and out of service largely disapproved of the “Washington
Consensus” style of economic reform as advocated by Gamal Mubarak. They quietly
resented his plans for privatization in Egypt’s public sector. Two 2008 cables
revealed by Wikileaks indicated that Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and
the Egyptian military hierarchy were largely critical of economic
liberalization because it undermined state control. The military views the
government’s privatization efforts “as a threat to its economic position, and
therefore generally opposes economic reforms,” said Margaret Scobey, the then
U.S. ambassador to Egypt, according to Wikileaks. She continued, “We see the
military’s role in the economy as a force that generally stifles free market
reform by increasing direct government involvement in the markets.” Tantawi
clearly resisted privatization due to the threat that it would pose to the
military’s economic empire.
Above all, the military under Mubarak enjoyed great leverage in
politics through its maintenance of a close relationship with Washington and
the U.S. military establishment. In accordance with the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli
peace agreement, the Egyptian military receives $1.3 billion dollars in annual
aid. As part of the military aid program, Egyptian army leaders and young
officers travel regularly to the U.S. to study in American military schools and
receive training. And by developing relations with their counterparts in the
Pentagon, Egyptian military officers gained power in Egyptian foreign
relations.
A Coup and Democracy
In February of 2011, protesters in Tahrir Square celebrated the
ousting of Mubarak. SCAF offered to run the country for a transitional period
of six months. Grateful for its support in the fall of the dictator, Egyptians
chanted: “The army and the people are one hand.” State-owned media played the
patriotic songs of Nasser’s era, and its talk shows enthusiastically revived
the historical myth of ‘good coups.’ The army always comes at the right time to
rescue the nation from distress, state TV repeated and the cheering masses
believed SCAF’s move was yet another great event in Egyptian history where the
army intervened for the good of the nation. Victorious protesters and ordinary
families took photos next to army tanks and smiling officers.
It was indeed a coup, but far from being a
good coup. SCAF stayed in complete power for a full seventeen months, and
proceeded to entrench its control over essential institutions of the state. The
main pillars of a successful coup are all there: control over the media, the
bureaucracy, security apparatus, and the legal system. Yet this was a coup that
relied less on tanks and guns, and relied much more on democratic features.
After giving Mubarak the final shove from power, SCAF immediately adopted a
democratic discourse and held elections. It oversaw four different elections: a
referendum to amend the constitution, ballots for both the lower and upper
houses of parliament, and the presidential election.
As a matter of fact, the Egyptian coup in the guise of democracy
fits a global pattern. A recent study, Coups and Democracy, by the North American Congress on Latin America, draws
distinctions between old and new coups. During the Cold War, old-fashioned
military takeovers became stigmatized as anti-democratic. Whether these coups
were backed by the U.S. or the Soviet Union, they usually installed armed
leaders as presidents—or dictators, rather—until they died or another coup
removed them. From 1990 to the present day, putschists have increasingly
adorned their coups with the trappings of democracy.
That is especially true if substantial military aid originated
from the United States. In a unipolar global system where the U.S. is the only
hegemonic power and benevolent patron of Third World regimes, adhering to the
American rhetoric on democracy—such as the Bush Doctrine of the 2000s—is
essential to the survival of any coup. Federal law in the U.S. prohibits
granting any financial assistance “to the government of any country whose duly
elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.” The Egyptian
military, nonetheless, has resorted to overt violence on several occasions and
there have been no immediate repercussions on American aid. The number of
civilians killed by security forces since SCAF came to power is unknown, but
many assert that it far exceeds the number of dead during the eighteen-day
uprising that led to Mubarak’s ousting.
To legitimize their coup—via presidential and
legislative authority—the ruling generals installed loyalists in civilian posts
within the bureaucracy and took legal measures to protect their economic
empire. They appointed two weak prime ministers, Essam Sharaf and Kamal
El-Ganzouri, who signed letters of appointment for an ever-increasing number of
retired army generals at almost every level of the state bureaucracy and the
public sector. And by assigning itself the powers of the legislature, SCAF
issued a law giving allegedly corrupt army officers, even after retirement,
immunity from prosecution even in civilian courts. After SCAF issued this law—Decree
of Law No. 45 of 2011—many whistleblowers’ documents against retired army
generals who held civilian positions such as governor, simply disappeared after
reaching the military prosecutor.
After SCAF’s ‘good coup,’ a wave of labor
protests and strikes spread throughout the country. The military accused the
striking workers of stalling the wheel of production and harming the national
economy. In reality, the actions mainly threatened the military’s immediate
economic interests. The largest labor strikes targeted entities run by retired
generals, either in the public sector or in enterprises owned by the military.
The protesters were demonstrating against corruption and mismanagement; while
the retired generals in many instances called on the military police to repress
the strikers.
For example, some two thousand workers and
engineers in the petroleum sector protested their poor conditions and the increasing
militarization of jobs in the sector. The retired army generals at the top were
receiving thousands of pounds while the workers were earning very little.
Within this sector, workers rebelled in companies like Petrojet and Petrotrade
and the military’s response was aggressive. It sent protesters to military
trials, and then sentenced them to prison. The Suez Canal workers also staged a
series of protests against unjust treatment. In one of the protests, the
workers blocked trains. And in a similar response, the Suez Canal Authority
referred some of the workers to military prosecution in order to intimidate the
rest into silence.
Demilitarizing Egypt
After months of repression, economic crises, and bloodshed under
the SCAF regime, Mohammed Morsi became Egypt’s first civilian and
democratically elected president. Afterwards, SCAF brought Morsi to view a
military parade in celebration of delivering him power. Under a burning June
sun, SCAF bestowed Morsi with an army shield and had a group picture taken. The
spectacle, some say, symbolizes the marriage of convenience that SCAF has made
with the Muslim Brotherhood.
By accident or design, thus far all the ballot results since the
revolution have favored the position of Egypt’s Islamists. In a dramatic reversal
of the policy of the Mubarak era, the Egyptian military acquiesced to the rise
of Islamist power through democratic elections. In turn, a reading of Morsi’s
rhetoric and performance raises serious doubts that a process of
demilitarization might begin anytime soon. This is in conspicuous conflict with
the demands of the protest movement, which has called for the removal of SCAF
from power. Demilitarization was absent from Morsi’s electoral platform as well
as from his campaign rhetoric. Severe disputes have arisen between the Muslim
Brotherhood and SCAF—such as over the court order dissolving the
Islamist-dominated parliament. Yet, never has Morsi questioned the military
budget or raised the issue of military domination over high-ranking civilian
positions throughout the country.
The election of Morsi is, undoubtedly, a colossal event for the
post-colonial state of Egypt. After sixty years of dominance by a military that
seized power in a coup, finally the first civilian president has arrived. We
are witnessing an initial, principal step of transition from a military regime
to democracy. Nevertheless, Egypt has not been demilitarized yet. Morsi is a
civilian president, but he is the adopted son of the latest coup that loves
ballot boxes and adheres to discourses on democracy. SCAF and the Muslim
Brotherhood might contest and confront one another, but the two parties have
developed a relatively stable power sharing arrangement since the revolution.
They are the de facto power in the country; liberals have significantly
weakened and the protest movement still lacks centralized organization. Despite
jockeying for advantage, SCAF and the Brotherhood seemed to have unified in
opposing groups that want neither a military regime nor a theocracy in Egypt.
However, this alliance between the civilian
president and the military institution is a complex one. Each side has a
different vision of how their relationship should operate in practice. The
military would favor the so-called Pakistani model, where the army owns a vast
economic empire and installs Islamists in places of power through elections.
Islamist parties in Pakistan largely follow the rules of the game set by
military intelligence, except when extremists disturb the harmonious order of
things. In applying the Pakistani model, the Egyptian military would rely on
the Supreme Constitutional Court and the law at large to force the Muslim
Brotherhood to observe the rules of their game. On the other hand, the Muslim
Brotherhood could be imagining the Turkish model, where an Islamist party won
elections and gradually, over the course of ten years, changed the composition
of the constitutional court and saw military leaders, who staged old coups
against fellow Islamists, sent off to jail. Despite the contrasting outlooks,
the two parties will observe some ‘red lines’ in respect of each others’
prerogatives. The Muslim Brotherhood will never raise the issue of the budget
and the economic empire of the military institution, and it will ignore the
retired generals’ penetration into the bureaucratic structure of the state. For
its part, the military institution handed back commercial enterprises and
capital that Mubarak’s regime confiscated from the Brotherhood through military
trials, and has let the group win elections.
The prospects for demilitarization may seem
bleak for the moment. The Egyptian military is entrenched, but at least the
cycle of military autocrats has been broken. SCAF will continue to feel
pressure from the street over its continued role in governing. Morsi, for his
part, will also face discontent from different social groups, especially if his
“Renaissance Project” fails to reverse Egypt’s serious economic slump. While
Mohammed Morsi’s election is a significant step, it is only part of a
transformation that will last many years, and most likely will take another,
non-Islamist, president to complete.
Zeinab
Abul-Magd is an assistant professor in the History department at Oberlin
College and Conservatory. She writes for the Egypt Independent and Foreign Policy.