The military coup in Egypt that overthrew Mohamed Morsi has raised mixed feelings in the international community—Morsi was democratically elected. The Muslim Brotherhood has made its position clear: elected officials must be voted out of office, not forcibly removed. Many have criticized the United States’ for its support of the new interim government, even though that support has been half-hearted at best. There is ample evidence, however, to support the contention that Morsi’s administration failed its office with willful negligence by acting contrary to the common good of the Egyptian people.
The first signs of trouble came in November 2012 when Morsi barred the judiciary from reviewing executive orders, ostensibly to protect the work of the Constitutional Assembly. Liberal and secular groups boycotted the Assembly, and by early December he was forced to recant. Constitutional expert Raafat Fouda, writing in the Daily News Egypt, said “Morsi didn’t prove that he respected judicial verdicts; on the contrary, he eliminated judges and campaigned against them.” Morsi, he said “through the last year the presidency played the role of the Court of Cassation, criticizing verdicts and undermining the judiciary, although he is the head of the executive authority governed by the law.”
The concept of a polyarchy, in which power is vested in a group of diverse people with equal say, is fundamental to the modern notion of political legitimacy. By attempting to remove the judiciary from the executive decision-making process, or at least in being perceived to do so, Morsi sent a clear message that he felt himself above the law.
Morsi’s administration was also plagued by poor financial decisions. Egypt accumulated billions in overseas debt while the country’s infrastructure continued to deteriorate. Blackouts became more frequent under Morsi than they had been during Mubarak’s regime, and farmers were often left without power for irrigation. Foreign currency reserves dropped to half their previous level, and the value of the Egyptian pound fell ten percent against the U.S. dollar within a year. Despite substantial foreign aid, food prices skyrocketed and long-lasting staples like canned goods, grains, and frozen vegetables disappeared from grocery-store shelves. Tourism also tapered off.
Perhaps more troubling was the spiraling crime rate. Street robberies became commonplace. The police had become inactive after the revolution as they nursed their own grievances, including those born of a long history of conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood. Although Morsi tried to appease the Ministry of the Interior by avoiding the revolution’s demands for police reform, he failed to do enough to quell tensions. Morsi appointed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as Minister of the Interior, angering the police. The violence that marred both the Port Said soccer match in February 2012 and during the final months of Morsi’s presidency showed Egyptians that they could not rely on the police for protection.
A lesser known aspect of Morsi’s rule was its impact on the arts. The health of a democracy can often gauged by the vibrancy of artistic expression. Morsi’s restrictions on the open celebration of the arts, while not as tight as it is in more strict Islamist countries like Iran, had wider repercussions that augured badly for the nation’s future.
In August of last year, Morsi’s administration, without stating a reason, banned a textbook titled A History of the Modern Middle East. It caused a small controversy because apparently the American University in Cairo used the book. Then, in October, the censorship authority rejected a film script by Amr Salama about the preferential treatment of Copts on the grounds it might incite religious discrimination. In November, the authority proposed changes to director Mohamed El Sharkawy’s play Ashekeen Torabek because it contained scenes critical of Morsi’s regime, but after a media outcry it was staged without the changes. In March 2013, the Egyptian National Security Agency banned director Amir Ramses’s documentary Jews of Egypt from being screened, although it later allowed the film to be shown in cinemas.
Tawfiq Okasha was accused of insulting the President in October 2012, but he was later found not guilty of the crime. In November the satellite TV Dream channels were forced to stop broadcasting by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, and anchor Lamees El-Hadedy was investigated for contempt of religion. Comedian Bassem Youssef was accused of insulting the president and Islam in March and April of this year, prompting the government to threaten to shut down the channel on which his show aired.
In May, Morsi appointed Alaa Abdel Aziz as Minister of Culture. Aziz quickly removed a handful of prominent intellectuals from office, causing an uproar in the artistic community. The removal of Dr. Ines Abdel Dayem, head of the Cairo Opera House, triggered a strike and led to sit-in protests at the Ministry of Culture and in Alexandria aimed at bringing about Aziz’s dismissal.
Morsi seems to have been set on promoting his political supporters to positions of power without regard for democratic processes. Democracy, however, is not simply a matter of winning of an election. A truly democratic government must be responsive and accountable to all its citizens, across the socio-political spectrum, including those in the arts.
Akshan de Alwis teaches participatory democracy to groups of young people in Burma and writes on the democratic transition in Burma. He is a senior at the Noble and Greenough School.
Photo: Gigi Ibrahim (cc).
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Morsi’s Assault on Democracy and the Arts in Egypt
July 26, 2013
The military coup in Egypt that overthrew Mohamed Morsi has raised mixed feelings in the international community—Morsi was democratically elected. The Muslim Brotherhood has made its position clear: elected officials must be voted out of office, not forcibly removed. Many have criticized the United States’ for its support of the new interim government, even though that support has been half-hearted at best. There is ample evidence, however, to support the contention that Morsi’s administration failed its office with willful negligence by acting contrary to the common good of the Egyptian people.
The first signs of trouble came in November 2012 when Morsi barred the judiciary from reviewing executive orders, ostensibly to protect the work of the Constitutional Assembly. Liberal and secular groups boycotted the Assembly, and by early December he was forced to recant. Constitutional expert Raafat Fouda, writing in the Daily News Egypt, said “Morsi didn’t prove that he respected judicial verdicts; on the contrary, he eliminated judges and campaigned against them.” Morsi, he said “through the last year the presidency played the role of the Court of Cassation, criticizing verdicts and undermining the judiciary, although he is the head of the executive authority governed by the law.”
The concept of a polyarchy, in which power is vested in a group of diverse people with equal say, is fundamental to the modern notion of political legitimacy. By attempting to remove the judiciary from the executive decision-making process, or at least in being perceived to do so, Morsi sent a clear message that he felt himself above the law.
Morsi’s administration was also plagued by poor financial decisions. Egypt accumulated billions in overseas debt while the country’s infrastructure continued to deteriorate. Blackouts became more frequent under Morsi than they had been during Mubarak’s regime, and farmers were often left without power for irrigation. Foreign currency reserves dropped to half their previous level, and the value of the Egyptian pound fell ten percent against the U.S. dollar within a year. Despite substantial foreign aid, food prices skyrocketed and long-lasting staples like canned goods, grains, and frozen vegetables disappeared from grocery-store shelves. Tourism also tapered off.
Perhaps more troubling was the spiraling crime rate. Street robberies became commonplace. The police had become inactive after the revolution as they nursed their own grievances, including those born of a long history of conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood. Although Morsi tried to appease the Ministry of the Interior by avoiding the revolution’s demands for police reform, he failed to do enough to quell tensions. Morsi appointed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as Minister of the Interior, angering the police. The violence that marred both the Port Said soccer match in February 2012 and during the final months of Morsi’s presidency showed Egyptians that they could not rely on the police for protection.
A lesser known aspect of Morsi’s rule was its impact on the arts. The health of a democracy can often gauged by the vibrancy of artistic expression. Morsi’s restrictions on the open celebration of the arts, while not as tight as it is in more strict Islamist countries like Iran, had wider repercussions that augured badly for the nation’s future.
In August of last year, Morsi’s administration, without stating a reason, banned a textbook titled A History of the Modern Middle East. It caused a small controversy because apparently the American University in Cairo used the book. Then, in October, the censorship authority rejected a film script by Amr Salama about the preferential treatment of Copts on the grounds it might incite religious discrimination. In November, the authority proposed changes to director Mohamed El Sharkawy’s play Ashekeen Torabek because it contained scenes critical of Morsi’s regime, but after a media outcry it was staged without the changes. In March 2013, the Egyptian National Security Agency banned director Amir Ramses’s documentary Jews of Egypt from being screened, although it later allowed the film to be shown in cinemas.
Tawfiq Okasha was accused of insulting the President in October 2012, but he was later found not guilty of the crime. In November the satellite TV Dream channels were forced to stop broadcasting by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, and anchor Lamees El-Hadedy was investigated for contempt of religion. Comedian Bassem Youssef was accused of insulting the president and Islam in March and April of this year, prompting the government to threaten to shut down the channel on which his show aired.
In May, Morsi appointed Alaa Abdel Aziz as Minister of Culture. Aziz quickly removed a handful of prominent intellectuals from office, causing an uproar in the artistic community. The removal of Dr. Ines Abdel Dayem, head of the Cairo Opera House, triggered a strike and led to sit-in protests at the Ministry of Culture and in Alexandria aimed at bringing about Aziz’s dismissal.
Morsi seems to have been set on promoting his political supporters to positions of power without regard for democratic processes. Democracy, however, is not simply a matter of winning of an election. A truly democratic government must be responsive and accountable to all its citizens, across the socio-political spectrum, including those in the arts.
Akshan de Alwis teaches participatory democracy to groups of young people in Burma and writes on the democratic transition in Burma. He is a senior at the Noble and Greenough School.
Photo: Gigi Ibrahim (cc).
