Democracy or Justice! – A. Hany Hassanain

What do people in the Middle East or in the third world countries need during this phase of their political and social development? Democracy as a value took not less than one thousand years to be developed in the Western part of the globe. The Greek invented it but the renaissance developed it. The political scientists and philosophers whose ideas developed it studied the social changes in medieval Europe first then they devised their theories.

In the East and in the Middle East and especially in Egypt, there is another complete different culture. People praise the strong leader who acts like a father or a big brother more than a democratic one who is ready to receive critics and humiliation to keep the voting mass that is necessary for the ballot. Another thing they value social justice more than democracy. They think that democracy is the free speech. When democracy brought religious fascists they lost faith in ballots and in voters who cote for money. When it happened there was a tendency to express the interests of those who voted for the elected more than the people as a whole. The independency of the political decision of the country and the president’s ability to act independent even if he confronts a super power plays much in his popularity.

After 25 January 2011, The Egyptians felt that they were deceived and even betrayed. The mechanisms devised by the Americans and the west in general brought the religious dictatorship and threatened the very core of the national unity which is the Egyptian identity or what is called now the Egyptianism. The new fascists and their ousted president Mohamed Morsi simply did not respect the constitutional declaration that brought them and when they wrote the new constitution they gave Morsi power more than any previous president. Later on when he was ousted it was clear that they conspired with the Americans and the Palestinian terrorist Hamas to give them about forty percent of Sinai desert to establish the new Palestine. The elite who proclaimed liberalism were trained in Serbia and other countries and they supported the fascist government and claimed that this is the democracy.

The democracy is not only about the ballot only. It is about justice and opening the door for all sectors to act politically. As a result of the American intervention using democracy as a title to lead to the division of the country and to chaos not to build a true democratic state, now the word democracy has bad reputation in Egypt and in the Middle East. People compare Iraq and Afghanistan before the fascists and after they took power by the American devised democratic methods. The new fascist rulers are the new American poodles who act to serve and to keep the American interests in the area.

The 30 June 2013 revolution that angered the American administration and evaporated their agreement with the new fascists and terrorists was supported by the Egyptian people and their delegation for the army and its commander made the biggest demonstration in history. Call it militarism mood or call it despair, but I call it the people democracy that corrected the faked ballots mistakes as it was also proved that the Americans helped the brotherhood to counterfeit and fake the presidential elections. Even when their man Morsi was the loser they manipulated to declare him a president against the rules of their democracy.

History tells that the Egyptians praised military leaders who fought to liberate land and who fought for Independence and or building an empire like the Pharaohs Ahmus and Ramsis II, and Salah Al-Din and Papurs and Qotoz, and Mohamed Ali and Orabi, and Naser and Sadat. These leaders experienced some social justice and led the country to advancement and modernizing as well.

The role of the first army in history in the Egyptian politics cannot be forgotten simply. When there is any crisis, after swearing at and telling jokes about the president and the government the ordinary Egyptians usually ask about the army and what it will do. That does not mean that the militarization of government in Egypt is the solution but there is a space that is occupied by the military institution that cannot be replaced by any internal force in the Egyptian political system.

Most Egyptians think about democracy as the freedom of the speech. The sons of the oldest state refuse manipulations from any foreign part and even they are very sensitive to advises from foreign experts. They believe in the conspiracy theory and that is why they feel safe when matters are controlled by the national army. In fact those who received political training abroad and or met and consulted with Ann Paterson the American Ambassador who left Egypt after she harmed the Egyptian-American relations to the extreme, wrote their political death certificate. Their trips and photos of their meetings will be used against them during any forthcoming elections. The agreements between the brotherhood and the White House to sell the national land destroyed them and now most people see them traitors and many ask the government to prevent their riots and to shoot them. The Salafists who go to pilgrimage at the White House proposing that they can continue the sinful betray instead of the brotherhood deleted themselves from the future in Egypt. The elite who ask for reconciliation are seen as traitors who want to resume political cooperation with the traitors who sold the Egyptian land and betrayed the army and its martyrs while fighting terrorism.

Egyptians in fact seek justice, social justice, well devised plans to eradicate poverty and to modernize education and health while keeping the army strong enough to protect the country and its hope in development and modernization. Whether it will be a civilian man who gather people around his national project, a leader with a military background or even a military general the Egyptians do not care much. They care about national independence and the internal justice that apply law to all without favoritism. The man who can center himself in the triangle that its boundaries are national independency, social justice and modernization will have the best chance to be both supported from people and the army and to be the next Egyptian president.