EGYPT ERUPTION: DILEMMA FOR DEMOCRACY

Limits of US power will be exposed if Mubarak now appears the central character in Egypt, and in the Middle East. People’s quest for democracy in Egypt has torn away the façade of legitimacy Mubarak was covered with, and has thrown him onto the heap of the despised. His, the once-ablest representative of the Egyptian ruling elites, destiny was decided long ago as it turned that the regime was breeding discontent that could endanger the ruling machine and strategic alliance.

Two factors are now defining the character and extent of democracy with opposing goals in Egypt: the people and the external king makers. Both of the factors are maneuvering within respective limits and with respective strengths, and array of political forces are changing fast. The moves by both the factors show respective limits of strength and weakness.

The elated Egyptian people challenged state power, kept it perplexed for days, made cracks in the wall of authority, but offered it opportunity to reassert its power of authority. While a section of the ruling elites appeared appeasing the revolting people the other, stupid thieves, relied on thugs to quell people’s rising. People’s political initiative faced hard days and significant sacrifice: at least three hundred citizens died for democracy. One journalist has virtually been murdered.

The king makers from an Empire afar used all diplomatic tact and powers including public diplomacy to manipulate the boiling situation. People gradually retreated to the backyard of uncertainty with their unfulfilled desire for democracy as jockeying for leadership overwhelmed people’s political actions and people were used as weight in emerging balance of political forces. First scene of first act of contemporary Egyptian politics has virtually come to an end.

Two weeks of demonstration by people, and clash, arson, loot by Mubarak hirelings sent the dictator to his disgraced political demise. His days were numbered a few years back by his external master, friend and guide as reports emerged from Washington DC. His friend turned foe was pulling strings to ensure his down fall.

Unemployment, rising food price, poverty, inequality, corruption and autocracy in all its forms in Egypt galvanized the protest. People there along the Bahr al-Nil, the Nile, and near coast had energy and courage to challenge autocracy patronized by Empire. The force people power showed was not astonishing to Egypt observers as it is the normal expression of people deprived, subdued and silenced for decades. Only autocrats, appearing wise but ignorant in essence, fail to fathom depth of hatred and anguish they germinate. They live happily as they feel assured with force and intrigue.

Two powers stood face to face in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez: an old, over-stretched autocracy overburdened with its corruption and non-responsiveness inherent in its body and soul, and a new political action unorganized, uncertain, appearing undefined, almost spontaneous and dependent on other internal and external political actors. Days of protests entered into static action in a city square for days with a broader demand and without specific political course, and with all possibilities of getting steamed out. Initiatives were handed over to parties to autocracy as autocracy was allowed to regroup as well. Swinging days kept door open for status quo. Those were the days of bold, fearless action and of unaware inaction.

People’s courageous days witnessed historic moments: fled away tools of repression, public fraternizing soldiers, unarmed peaceful mass demobilizing tanks. Montgomery’s and Rommel’s tanks had no such experience; Gamal Abdel Nasser’s The Philosophy of Revolution has not mentioned similar mobilization. Equations of powers and ruling factions, stalemates and tensions within ruling camp got mirrored in these fleeing acts, accommodating fraternization and getting demobilized. The Cairo political panorama was of revolt, not of revolution, ready to get cheated influenced by euphoria of a section of scholars.

And, the game was concluded long ago. Only a mass was kept aimlessly active to ensure an “orderly transition”, so that strategic alliance does not face uncertain future. At least two major Egyptian actors were in Washington during the initial days of protest, and they returned home in the midst of Mubarak meltdown. By then, on January 29, demonstrators started celebrating atop tanks in Tahrir Square and sharing food with soldiers sent to restore order. Egypt's defense minister spoke by phone to Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, the US vice-president spoke to the newly appointed Egyptian vice-president, Admiral Mullen, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talked to the Egyptian army chief. The US secretary of state unswervingly continued pulling levers of public diplomacy. The US president was not negligent to his duty. Mail from EU to Cairo carried the same message: exit of Mubarak was the call of the hour as the old friend has now turned a liability. The World Security Conference in Munich also made the same conclusion. Mubarak’s fate was sealed by his masters. They were utilizing mounting pressure from streets.

The political upheaval that sent shudders through the Middle East and among global investors turned dependent on military for a democracy that will usurp the seat of power riding tank. Financial markets as well as Israel can only depend on the Egyptian army as speculators and Israel have limits. All, the Muslim Brotherhood and ElBaradei, showed the same limit. The Egyptian army with the prowess to ensure stability and continuity of strategic arrangement tolerated the protesters that showed sign of rift within the ruling machine.

The other aspect was also revealed. In absence of people’s democratic leadership the army appeared as the only institution in the society that could make and unmake political deals in Egypt. The ruling elites have efficiently obstructed development of institutions that could have nurtured democratic practices, and have developed institutions that are in alliance with army, a politicized institution that claim to be apolitical. It, in essence, confirmed its position as a tool for manipulation by masters. Limits of strength of the imported section of leadership in protest also got exposed. ElBaradei, a non-leader turned leader to a movement that lacks a leader, appealed to Obama while he was among the protesting people in Tahrir Square, to time on Mubarak: “Obama is the last one to say to President Mubarak, ‘It’s time for you to go”. The Empire’s tribune indeed!

Mubarak meddling is not the dictator’s crisis. It shows inefficiency, corruption, etc., and the dwindling power of the Egyptian ruling elites to keep people subdued. It is a crisis of those ruling elites. Its thievery has devoured its credibility, an almost universal process among ruling elites in the periphery. Its tools of torture have now turned blunt with the only hope of sharpening it with new face. Now, it is inching back with a hope of making a master stroke to reclaim its lost ground. The people of Egypt will experience new pharaohs in unstable political period.

Relying on youth and “wise men” will not ensure victory for the people. A democracy that can spell the end for tyranny is still a far cry. People, however, can win a breathing space, which can also be snatched away if people’s initiative loss thrust. But the political experience they will gather will be valuable: a pseudo victory will visit without people’s organization and leadership, and with static political actions that rely upon external powers to unseat a tyrant.

Taking help of part of the establishment, the military, and of the Empire for dumping away the dictator and establishing democracy is the dilemma the people are facing. The reality of the dilemma is the product of the society, not any individual’s or groups of individuals’ choice. People’s movement failed to conserve, develop and master strength that could have allowed it to take lead and foil deals. It has to partner with forces that stand for status quo, the unloved reality of deprivation and inequality in economy and politics.

Democracy: Yearning of People

The great divide, the Wall Street and the Main Street, is becoming stark everyday. This affects democracy, which is not class-neutral.

There is now not a gulf, but ocean of difference between the CEOs’ bonuses and the farm workers’ wages: “Even CEOs think CEOs are overpaid” (Reuters, Dec. 19, 2008), and: “Fatal Sunshine: The Plight of California's Farm Workers” (Time, early- August, 2009). Geyer and Rihani observe: “Western democratic systems have not reached a state of perfection …the danger signs are steadily mounting.” (“Complexity Theory and the Fundamental Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century”, April 10-13, 2000)

Democracy of the dominant classes is in crisis both in the centre and in the periphery giving rise to the fear of being toppled down. This reality has pushed the centre to embark on campaign for democracy in the peripheral societies and in the newly won turf in east and central Europe and in central Asia. “A democracy campaign should become an increasingly important and highly cost-effective component of … the defense effort of the United States” (Raymond D Gastil, “Aspects of a U.S. Campaign for Democracy”, in Ralph M Goldman and William A Douglas (eds.), Promoting Democracy: Issues and Opportunities, Praeger, 1988). So, “[t]he cold warriors gave way to the political operatives of the ‘democracy network’, who launched their global ‘democracy offensive’” (William I Robinson, A Faustian Bargain, Westview Press, 1992).

But the seeds of contradiction refuse to die down in the societies divided along class interests that carry the seeds of crisis. The seeds of contradiction are embedded in the economic interests, in the appropriation of entire society by the dominant few. Exposed cases of manipulating state machine by interest groups confirm Lenin: “[F]inance capital, in its drive to expand, can ‘freely’ buy or bribe the freest democratic or republican government and the elective officials of any, even an ‘independent country’” (vol. 22, p.144). Other crises, especially the financial crisis, when, in the words of Franklin D Roosevelt, “Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion” (First Inaugural Address, 1933), have worsened the situation and have sharpened the line of conflict.

Despite the manipulations with the slogan of democracy, with the slogan of a political system which is accountable and transparent, and despite efforts to hide the interest of the globalizing capital under the cloak of democracy the efforts provide breathing space, at times and in relative terms, for people under absolute autocratic rule and create scope for maneuver for people’s movement, depending on maturity of the movement. A wide environment allows space, through legislation of democratic, human, labor, ethnic, gender rights, etc., and/or possibilities for creating space by the dominated for broader, open and conscious debates, initiatives and struggles. This is the importance of the political arrangement for facilitating “democracy”.

Practices with democratic norms and rules including accountability and transparency engenders democratic aspirations among the masses, create institutions conducive to democracy; but at certain point of development the striving for democracy by the masses and the denial of it by the dominant interests will intensify conflict along economic interest line.

Whatever the geostrategic game and its needs for satellites under the umbrella of imposed democracy the yearnings of people around the world for a democratic system do not get lost. The onslaught of capital, yesterday wearing the mask of neo-liberalism, today of the public-private partnership, and tomorrow, most possibly, going back to the neo-cons, to the private sector, is consistently increasing as its crises are compelling it to intensify the offensive in search of a recourse to its problems. Thirst for accumulation is driving capital to reckless game and thus bringing imperil in the lives of the people. Thus, it tries to distort peoples’ efforts for a democratic life by manipulating and misguiding peoples’ aspirations, with its vast resources. This creates the biggest crisis in the arena of democracy for the people. The spirit of democracy gets lost by capital’s grip over the entire globe. Other crises created by the dominant capital have made people’s struggle for democracy difficult, have created threat to people’s initiatives to organize democratic system.

Capital cannot tolerate people’s democratic life as it is opposed to the interests of capital. The overwhelming power of capital spread over the globe in collaboration with its compradors is the biggest obstacle to people’s initiatives, to their striving for democracy.

People at the same time are facing other crises. In many places the physical existence of people are facing threat either due to climate change, the extreme weather, loss of habitat and crop land, forests, washing away of infrastructure built up with people’s money, or due to ethnic, and other clashes fanned by capital in its quest for strategic resources. This situation obscures the fundamental question of democracy: “of the people, by the people, for the people”, the hope Lincoln expressed in his Gettysburg address, the rule of the majority, not the aggrandizing absolute minority. The near-complete globalization by capital has thus created the crisis of democracy. But, Whitman’s Song resonates:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good as
belongs to you.

(Song of Myself)

[This is the concluding part, slightly modified, of a chapter from The Age of Crisis, 2009.]

Manufacturing “Democracy”

Democracy remains unfulfilled aspiration of people living in most of the peripheral societies as the ruling classes/segments, accomplices/compradors of the dominating capital, are historically incapable of delivering the political form. The ruling classes’/segments’ incapability generates contradictions, between people’s aspiration and rulers’ interests, the rulers fail to resolve. The failure is also historical. But the reaction that comes up threatens ruling system, and turns dangerous to strategic needs of the world masters. So, they step in with their design for “democracy”.

So, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA), and others “play an instrumental role” (annual report, 2008). Fundamentally the same views the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the wing of the USAID, owns. So, partners are organized.

But does democracy thus instrumented work? Andrew J Enterline and J Michael Greig of the University of North Texas provide a partial answer in their paper “Historical Trends in Imposed Democracy & the Future of Iraq & Afghanistan” (Jan., 2007). They examined 40 “imposed democratic” regimes, from 1800 to 1994.

“[I]mposed democracy,” they said, “is a phenomenon occurring primarily during the twentieth century.” They identified three cases occurring in the nineteenth century (Yugoslavia in 1838, New Zealand in 1857, and Canada in 1867) and the remainder of the sample occurred in the twentieth century. “Lebanon and the Philippines, that are ultimately failures” persist for long durations (50 and 38 years, respectively). These are exceptional cases. Several cases of imposed democratic regimes failed rapidly (Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Nigeria). These bear similar characteristics to the contemporary cases of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only do nearly 60 percent of the 40 imposed democratic regimes fail during their period of observation, but the mean durability of this group of imposed democratic regimes is approximately 16 years. The principal conclusions they draw are: (1) Half of the imposed democracies fail by their 30th year of persistence. (2) Half of the institutionally weak imposed democracies fail by their 15th year, and 70% of these regimes fail by their 33rd year. Conversely, 37% of the institutionally strong imposed democracies fail by their 15th year, with no failures thereafter. (3) Weak imposed democracies rarely become more democratic, and 53% of the 40 imposed democracies experience a weakening in democratic institutions.(4) The failure of imposed democracies reduces the likelihood that a host state will experience democracy subsequently, as well as reducing the durability of democracy if it does return.

Dr. Robert Geyer and Dr. Samir Rihani in their paper “Complexity Theory and the Fundamental Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century” (presented at the 2000 PSA Conference at the London School of Economics, April 10-13, 2000) said: “As the 20th century came to an end, Western style liberal democracy and free market economics appeared to be completely triumphant. Developing countries, possibly in response to pressure from the IMF/World Bank, international opinion, and international forces, were becoming increasingly … free market oriented. The academic zenith of this position can be found in Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and The Last Man.” They argue that the claims of triumph “are actually troubling indicators of increasingly stultifying rigidities in the democratic and economic processes of advanced industrial countries” and these models when imposed upon the weak and impoverished countries of the Third World, yield highly uncertain results at best and growing economic impoverishment and social and political disintegration at worst.” They continue: “linear systems … thrive on … distinct hierarchical structures” and the systems cannot handle the “problems, solutions, opportunities, and challenges in the social science arena, and hence in democracy … a concept … neither simple nor clear. It is made even more obscure because it has been adopted … as a marketing slogan…” To them a Newtonian foundation is there in the core structure of Western liberal democracy.

Thus, they questioned the Western democratic system, a section of which is trying to impose its democratic design on other countries, especially in the periphery. To Geyer and Rihani the “more serious threats to democracy … include: (1) the continuing belief in and pursuit of an ‘end’ state for democracy based on Western experience, (2) economic globalization and associated inequalities, and (3) the internationalisation and imposition of preconceived models of democracy. Reduction of choices and variety are the biggest dangers in view of the dynamic nature of the process involved in the emergence and development of democracy.” As example they cited the “Third Way, advocated by Bill Clinton and Blair and articulated by Anthony Giddens…” (The Third Way, 1998 and Beyond Left and Right, 1994.) According to them the “Third Way” is “patently attractive and deceptively innocent” that uses “a fundamentally linear logic.” Their next argument is: “The growth of market based economic forces” is a “major challenge” to democracy. They said: “At both the national and global levels, economic developments based on superiority of market forces and free trade across boundaries are themselves powerful challenges to democracy…. [T]heorists of democracy cannot ignore the economic context within which democracy is nestled … It is still unclear … whether the cherished right to criticize a prime minister or a president … without fear of persecution by the state is more or less valuable than other rights relating to jobs, food, health, education, old age, and incomes…. [I]f the political parties offer almost identical policies, elections become irrelevant in practice. They would simply result in rotation between a group of people intent on retaining the status quo…. The unwillingness, and in fact inability, of governments to ‘intervene’ in business and the virtual impossibility of having an effective global trade union movement leaves the field clear for the economy to triumph over all other considerations.”

They identified “the internationalization of linear models of democracy” as another major challenge to democracy. They said: “[T]he dominance of certain leading economic and political powers and their wish to impose precise models of democracy … on other nations is equally alarming. There are suggestions that the leading powers are simply promoting their particular interests.” As examples they cited Nigeria, Algeria, Chile, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are other countries also.

They concluded: “policies and actions grounded into a top-down command-and-control style of management … are seen as potent threats to democracy….[D]evelopment of lasting democratic beliefs and practices is a complex process that requires time as well as helpful global and local conditions. External influences are immaterial at best and harmful at worst. Such efforts have not succeeded in the past and could not succeed in future because they ignore, intentionally or otherwise, the true nature of the processes involved.” Collier also argued that monopolizing rewards by a small group of persons bring damaging conflicts (The Political Economy of Ethnicity, 1998). He also argued that democracy and personal incomes are important factors in determining the possibility of conflict.

The ruling regimes or regimes installed by world capital cannot take away seeds of conflict and deliver functionally responsive, transparent, accountable, and non-repressive political system. They have been/will be installed to make appeasement, sell out people’s interests and cheap labor, and facilitate loot of natural resources. They have to repress people as people stand for common interests.

[This is a modified version of a part of a chapter from The Age of Crisis, 2009]