I’ve read Ezzedine Fishere’s article describing how the military will eventually relinquish power. I like Fishere, and I’ve liked him since he showed up on my TV screen one day and suggested that the viewers use their remote controls to turn off a lying media.
Fishere, at some length, constructs the four pillars of his argument, describing them as such and indicating that since each bit of logic is sound, the conclusions have proven reliable.
What Fishere seems laxer towards, and what the reader might miss, is that all these four pillars eventually come to rest on ONE basic supposition that is required for all this to happen, and that is (in his English version) that “wiser minds [in the military] would prevail”!
In Arabic, he phrases it far more cynically – saying that staying in power would amount to a “foolishness which rarely involves everyone.” (my translation)
The notion that wiser minds would prevail is, well, you can make up your own mind about that. I personally remembered flashes of headlines from the last few years and laughed. Whether or not you think it’s possible, it’s hard to argue that this has been the pattern. We’re in Egypt. Wiser minds get jailed or are pressured into silence.
The alternative notion, present in the Arabic, that foolishness rarely engages everyone is somewhat stronger, except that it forgets that foolishness does not NEED to involve everyone, just as we know that Field Marshall Sami Anan wasn’t too keen on handing over the Islands of Tiran and Sanafir to our Arabic Benefactor, and just as know what happened to the officers of April 9th. Foolishness doesn’t need to be unanimous; it need only be well-armed.
Again, wiser minds get jailed or pressured into silence.
Now, it’s no academic or intellectual feat to declare that sooner or later, military rule would end, and Egypt will become a civil state with a military rather than the reverse. Fishere knows enough history to know it’s inevitable, and we’ve seen it happen all over the world.
Egypt, as usual, we’re running late.
There is a potential danger in reducing people’s agency by making their desires sound inevitable and making it out to be an eventual result of the burden that their oppressors could no longer bear rather than as a victory taken by the people. It is a sweet pill. It sounds comforting. It sounds inevitable. It sounds like we just need to survive the transition and watch history unfold.
Sure, you can wait it out and live with the probability that you won’t see change during your lifetime, or you can assume that wiser minds will NOT necessarily prevail, at least not anytime soon because so far they haven’t. You can assume that foolishness is well placed and well-armed and doesn’t give a crap about being universal – that’s what the education ‘system’ is for.
Every single day, people are being subjected to injustice in Egypt. Oppression is a fact, and the people are reminded of this every day by the sycophants on TV. Azmi Megahed literally insulting his viewers and telling them that they should shut up because their choice is between dignity and bread. Every day, political prisoners are languishing in their cells, trying to survive another day under deteriorating medical conditions. Every single month dozens are sentenced to death by a judicial system we do not all consider just. Every few months, prices are raised, and wages remain woefully insufficient.
Every single day an Egyptian is broken.
If you think they’re going to relinquish, then by god, there are things to do; prepare a viable leadership, prepare a holistic developmental and financial plan for the country, prepare a new constitutional draft, and structure attractive relinquishment offers (is it possible the recent military treatment laws are playing into that? I wouldn’t know), form some kind of truth and reconciliation committee that hopefully won’t get arrested while working on the truth part by saying its fully committed to some form of reconciliation, all of this would provide a backbone for a revolutionary movement to adopt if the military eventually chooses NOT to relinquish or drag their heals about it. And if you don’t think they’re going to relinquish…
Well, “We all know where Tahrir is, right?”
