Caugh in the Middle

Many of the bloodiest battles that caused millions to loose their due to arrogance. Pride is one of the biggest sins caused by pride in oneself while looking at the others as inferiors. It comes from an inside feeling of emptiness and low self esteem. To compensate the afflicted person or entity attempts to glorify itself and down-look on others. The arrogant demands rights and privileges that he/she does not deserve and can not be fulfilled at the current circumstances.

Egypt has had more than its fair share of arrogant people from ancient times up until now. Egypt suffered under the stubbornness of Pharaoh against Moses, Abdul-Nasser and Mubarak. The tyrants have always refused to heed advise and went even against their best judgments to their doom. Pharaoh has drowned, Abdul-Nasser got defeated by Israel in the six days war and Mubarak left a nation in shambles.

Now lets take lessons of the past and apply it to the present situation of the transitional period. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) is made up of the army commanders is now in charge of the transitional period. It has absolute power; it has the executive powers of the president and the legislative power of the parliament. SCAF from the time it took power from Mubarak have been down looking at the youth of Tahrir Square as irresponsible kids that need to be schooled, fooled and beaten. After the youth have proved their strength and political ability, SCAF have attempted to vilify them by claiming they have foreign agendas.

From the other side, the youth have been very suspicious of SCAF, they saw the army as an extension of the Mubarak regime. The youth saw SCAF as a group of old fashioned generals that have outlived their times. They believed that the generals are as easily beatable as the old regime and will bend under intense pressure. The arrogantly forgot that the Egyptian Army receives annually $1.8 billion in US-aid. They have state of the art weaponry like F16, tanks and chemical weapons, unlike the outdated police force that folded during the revolution.

The political parties secular and Islamist are full of vanity. The Secular parties are living in their ivory tower believing that the public chose their opponents out of their ignorance. They forgot that they lack the ability to provide a clear understandable election platform and stop squabbling about their petty pedantic issues. The Islamists are no better, they are basking shamelessly in their election victories. They are machiavellianly allying themselves with SCAF or the youth depending on the situation to get the most privileges during the transitional period. They conveniently forgot the voters' interests and many of their candidates broke the election commission rules to win.

Hence, it is important for each side to be humble and remember that we are all in the same boat. For this country to survive the youth, SCAF, the secular and Islamic parties need to learn to cooperate. Each should compromise and learn the etiquette political dialogue. All political participants need to exercise self restraint. SCAF needs to refrain from using violence and youth needs to halt protesting giving the country a chance to heal. The secular parties need to learn respecting the will of the voters. The Islamists show that they genuinely believe in democracy and stop intimidating women and minorities and actively care for the people who gave them their vote.

How a dictatorship forms

Democracy is defined as the rule of the people through elected representatives. For the system to work for the interest of the electorate, there should be a balance between the government, the market and civil society. The government should regulate the market ensuring fair distribution of wealth, sustainable business practice and labor rights. Civil society monitors the government to prevent government abuse of power, maintain civil & individual rights and educate people. The market provides goods and service, provide employment for most of the population and pressure the government for economic reforms.

The government itself is divided into executive, judiciary and parliament, thus creating a system of checks and balances. Currently in Egypt, the military, a part of the executive branch, is taking over the role of parliament passing laws like the election laws. The juntas are also replacing the judiciary by subjecting civilians to military courts. Hence the military has unchecked powers in a critical transitional period.

The juntas are not using this power wisely; they are gradually rolling back the civil rights of citizens. Many activists are being prosecuted like Assma Mahfouz for exercising her free speech right of criticizing the military. They have used violence to disperse peaceful protesters in Tahrir square. They also subjected female activists to virginity checks in order to intimidate and humiliate them. Furthermore, they are also gradually taking the Islamist side, hence they are not neutral party in the political game.

Finally, to avoid a new dictatorship, citizens need to be vigilant by maintaining pressure on the military to stop trying civilians in military court, create a civilians transparent process to write the constitutions and put a firms deadline for handing power to a civilian government

Why the Army can not lead a country

Although, the Egyptian army is full of brave men and women who are willing to put their lives on harms way to protect our homeland, I believe that it is important for the army to remain neutral from politics. I have nothing personal against my brothers and sister in uniform, however, I have serious doubts about the military as an institution and as a culture could undermine our nascent democracy.

The army is built on culture of blindly following orders,it is important during military operations that the commander have full control of the troops, thus maintaining a close link between higher military strategy and tactical operation on the ground. To optimize operational security it is important to keep as few people as possible in the know and only the few high rank officers have the whole strategic picture of the war theater. It is important to trust the fewest people as possible, those key military leaders have to pass background checks to minimize the infiltration enemy intelligence.

On the other hand, an open political process depends on diversity of opinion, decent is encouraged to provide the widest array of solutions. This is followed by deliberations between different political factions that is covered widely by the free media. The informed electorate then pick wining vision to prevail and in some cases a compromise have to be reached. In the democratic system, freedom of information is critical so that the electorate can account the government based on accurate media reports. For the political process to work rival factions have to trust each other and compromise, especially if neither have electoral majority and to maintain social peace.

The militarily culture is not inherently evil, it best used to defend our homeland. The military can not manage a democratic process or even a democratic transition because democratic values and norms are not part of the institution culture or individual officers psychology. Asking the military to be democratic could be like asking pigs to fly.