It has occurred to me that the recent elections have made another, unanticipated outcome possible in the Egyptian uprising.
The military could very easily co-opt the Islamists by offering them Islamic law in exchange for continued military rule. The Islamists would be fools to reject that deal…and fools to accept it.
What got me to thinking that is looking at what is going on in Egypt. The people fighting in Tahrir Square are mostly westernized youth, although the woman who was assaulted by the military police, beaten, and nearly stripped naked was apparently wearing a hijab [the world owes RT a debt for being one of the few media outlets that got its film out. Most media outlets were stripped of their cameras by the military].
Meanwhile, the Islamic parties are doing even better in the second round of elections than they did in the first. The Muslim brotherhood will have a near majority, and the Islamic fundamentalists about 30%. The assault on the woman should have been an absolute outrage to the Islamists, but they seem to be more interested in putting down the Coptic minority. If they wanted to resist military rule, the humiliation of a conservative woman seems like a helluva missed chance. [Added: the Muslim Brotherhood has filed a complaint about the murder of protesters]
Sharif Abdel Kouddous from Democracy Now:
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Just with regard to the elections, as you mentioned, the Muslim Brotherhood has captured about 40 percent of the seats. The real surprise has been the ultraconservative Salafis, who have made very big gains. And liberal parties have come a very, very distant third. And revolutionary youth parties have captured almost a negligible amount. The Muslim Brotherhood has not really participated in these protests whatsoever. They want the elections to go forward as planned, because they stand to gain the most from them. And they are being very severely accused by the revolutionary youth of political opportunism in the face of a real clampdown by the army 10 months after this revolution began.
If the Islamists go along with the military, they will have absolute power over the government. And the military will have absolute power over them, because they have been so conspicuously absent from the Resistance since the elections were announced that they have no bargaining power with the military. But since the secular Resistance has been isolated and beaten down, the imposition of Islamic law would be very easy. Since the Islamists , especially the fundamentalist among them, are not all that concerned with civil liberties, what do they have to lose by forming a tacit alliance with the military?
Except, of course, any freedom that the uprising might have gained. It’s a deal that even Israel could easily live with.
