Photo via Straits Times, REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
3rd July 2013 is a dark day in the history of Egypt and indeed in the democratic world. It was the day the deep state in Egypt in collusion with the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates struck a deadly blow to the nascent democracy that is being established after 30 years of military dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. It used an artificially manufactured dissent group called ‘The Rebel’ created on 30th May to cover the military coup with a democratic garb. It is unprecedented in the 21st Century political history to depose a democratically elected president on the eve of celebrating the 1st year in office of a term of four years. This is hilarious as well and displays how flimsy the nature of democracy in the modern world is. Post revolution Egyptians elected President Mohamed Morsi in a free and fair election gaining more than 50% vouched by the international election monitors as free and fair, one year later the deep state and the U.S. funded mercenaries put people on streets and robbed the presidency and the constitution popularly adopted by people with more than 63%. This reminisces the return of the Shah of Iran by deposing the democratically elected Musaddek in the 1950s. This shows how the deep state stayed dormant to strike back to reinstate the previous pro-military, U.S/Israel friendly government to power at the expense of the legitimate democratic rights of the Egyptian people, and shows how the so called paragons of the democratic world overtly became silent in condemning the coup whilst looking for alternative words to call it something less than a coup. Western hypocrisy is blatantly visible in many conflict zones, when Saddam Hussain was killing his citizens, they were silent and colluded, and called him their bastard, but when he reneged to obey them, he and his country was bombed to the stone age by them. This is how the West deals with their client states and use democracy as tool to stifle and manipulate subservience to them and not to be free and independent nations. Evidently, this also shows the very evil nature of the ‘Rebel’, the military and those who colluded to rob the revolution. As of now that there are a multitude of more Pro Mursi and Pro Constitution Egyptians citizens on the streets demonstrating against the coup, many times more than the Rebels and opposition prior to their coup. If Egyptian democracy is a number game as displayed by the proponents of the coup, then by now President Mursi and the Constitutions should be reinstated back as legitimate and democratic. This will not happen. The reason the deep state struck back was that President Mursi and the Constitution was mandated to serve Egypt and its citizens only and they did. They did not serve the interests of the U.S the other Arab client states of the U.S.
The U.S, Israel and the Western powers fear that establishment of democracy in Egypt and its consolidation would spread democracy to the rest of Middle East and would be a challenge the U.S, Israeli and Western hegemony. Hence they masquerade as democratic whilst being imperialist yet in the 21st century.
Why fear democracy, when a people of a nation by use of their free choice appoint a leader to serve them and their country. This does not harm others. Nations which people rule themselves democratically need not fear others and the others need not fear them. But in the case of Egypt, Turkey or any other Muslim country adopting pristine pure democracy is an anathema to the West. They fear that when the rulers of Muslim countries start listening to their people and serving their national interests, it would undermine the post colonial infrastructure laid by the Western powers to suck their. These are crucial times to the Western world; their economies are in decline, their unemployment rates rising, their public institutions are underfunded and collapsing due to plunder of their nations by the 1% and the banksters’ market economy stifling their democracy. At a time like this democratization in the Middles East would contribute to loss of income, cheap oil and instability of their markets that vitiates their power and sustains them.
The other discernible fact that it shows is that the post-coup democracy in Egypt is manufactured, funded and stage managed to suit the whims and fancies of the deep state and those whom it serves. If this is the reality of the life cycle of contemporary democracy, this calls to question the validity of democracy as a system of governance the world over. As today, democracy is often manufactured and stage managed than the original authentic use of democratic rights as displayed in the origin of democratic society in Athens in ancient times.
Modern democracies aren’t like the Athenian democracy in ancient Greece where the use of one’s franchise to appoint leader is not stifled by any external forces or influences as it is today. Today the franchise used to appoint a leader is not direct and done under an ambience of influence, intimidation and indirect coercion. The use of franchise in the olden Greece was direct, uninterfered and voluntary. If we dissect the structure of a vote in modern times, it would have as its constituent parts the influence of the pressure groups, the advocacy lobby, influence of disinformation and media manipulation, emotional drives inciting religious, racial or ethnic feelings and influence by multinational corporations and the deep state etc. No single vote today is free of these influences and the voters however much educated are gullible, they are manipulated and influenced by the powerful alliances of the contenders in politics in favour of him/her or his/her group to catapult to power.
The threat to Egyptian democracy by the deep state and their foreign collaborators now is because the unexpected instance of the January 25 revolution caught them off guard and fossilized for a moment the deep state, the media and all those who usually influence democracy. Therefore, the Egyptian election that brought Mohamed Mursi to power was by pure and authentic votes that did not have the influence of other stakeholders of economy and politics that usually influence vote. It is this authenticity of this democracy that the coup leaders and its colluder both local and foreign fear that consolidation of Mursi and the democracy would put a permanent end to the influence that stifles against democracy.
Today’s challenge in Egypt is not about who should be the president or which party but the reinstatement of the peoples’ constitution and the peoples’ president. The coup leaders and their surrogates fear reinstatement of the constitution than reinstatement of President Mursi since this popular constitution adopted by more than 63% votes does not have space for the residuals of the Mubarakites, the deep state and their foreign minders to stifle democracy in Egypt. They are sure that consolidation of democracy in Egypt leaves them with no room to influence politics and power.
It is the duty of the international community and the freedom loving peoples of the world to help Egyptians at this darkest part in their struggle for democracy to help them to restore the robbed revolution and the constitution to guarantee that Egypt emerge as model democracy in the Middle East that serves the interest of its people and the world without succumbing to the machinations of global and local powers that masquerade as democrats ‘like wolves in sheeps’ cloth’.
Emerging trends in Egypt has good examples and parallels with Sri Lanka. Egypt with the end of the 1967 war with Israel emerged as a nation seemingly free of colonial vestiges under President Gamal Abdul Nasser but unfortunately it was also the time the seed of ‘Deep State’ was sown that germinated and spread far and wide consuming the civilian society and gradually militarizing leading to military dictatorship in civilian garb. The furore and euphoria about the outcome of 1967 war was capitalized to entrench the military in politics and civil administration. Then, the only civil political force that was capable challenging the status quo of the time was the Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned and its members murdered in large numbers and others incarcerated with the connivance of the world powers then. With this the military stamped its authority over the Egyptian society influencing every gamut of life of administrating local authorities, to civil administration to operating business conglomerates making up about 40% of the economy at the time of the exit of President Husni Mubarak. The danger that this could bring to democracy is that such that a central autocratic control of society without answerability to its people makes power a sellable or rentable commodity, where global or regional powers can use to control the geopolitics of the region by partnering with autocracy on mutually beneficial terms like the United States paying the Egyptian military a doll amounting to US$1.5 billion/year and other benefits to perpetuate geopolitical control of the region. This as a result keeps the ‘Deep State’ in power preventing civil democracy from emerging in the Egyptian society and disposal of President Mursi is the outcome of such a state of affairs.
Seemingly, emerging trends in Sri Lanka portend similar signs. The end of the three decade old war against separatist LTTE, the furore and euphoria of winning the war by decimating the LTTE is used by the political power that be and its affiliates to reward the military at the cost of the society by allowing military to venture into civil society administration, development and controls atypical of ‘changing swords into ploughshares’. Though there are short term benefits to the country especially in the former war zones during transition to civil administration, blanket spread of this country wide is not healthy. As in reality these are dangerous and lead to militarization of society and decimation of civil society as a result like in Egypt. In the short term the civil political powers would feel that such collusion is a good insulator to prop up and perpetuate power. But in the long run they fail to realize that they are sowing seeds to create the genesis of a contending power that can turn into a Frankenstein monster devouring up the democratic civil political edifice of Sri Lanka. Analogous to this, emerges the ‘Deep State’ with its tentacles like octopus gripping the civil society and sucks and sustains itself thereby making it unchallengeable in future by any democratic force in society. The present civil democratic governance would be threatened by such emergence and potentially would be taken advantageous of by global/regional powers to make deals with the ‘deep state’ like it was in Egypt, Turkey and some other nations before, to maintain geopolitical leverage in the region. Hypothetically what if China, India or U.S. pay a doll of U.S.$ 1 billion/year to such a power to ensure that their geopolitical interests are safeguarded in the region. This for them will be a pittance considering their cost to energy or security but to Sri Lanka this would be debilitating noose perpetually squeezing the democratic civil society for generations.
Democratic governance in post war society require clarity on national priorities not only on development and defense but also to ensure that there are checks and balances to ensure that civil democracy and democratic governance is protected against challenges of the emergence of the powers of the ‘deep state’ and foreign interference/collusion through them stifling democratic fabric of nations.