BARELY a month and a half into a government dominated by a general who had displaced a Muslim Brother in a coup that was cheered on by most of the people, Egypt is once again plunged into violence. On August 14th armed police, backed by helicopters in the skies and bulldozers on the streets, stormed thousands of the Brothers’ supporters encamped beside a mosque and a university in Cairo. Hundreds were killed and nearly 3,000 injured and the violence spread to other cities, including Alexandria and Suez (see article). A score of churches were burned by angry Islamists. The government declared a curfew in some provinces and a month-long state of emergency across the country. The last time that happened, when Hosni Mubarak took over as president after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, the state of emergency remained in force for 30 years.
The government has pleaded that it used “the utmost degree of self-restraint” this week. In fact, its choice to unleash deadly force against its own people was brutal and reckless. Far from marking the closing chapter in a popular coup, the killing threatens a period of strife that could drag the country towards civil war. At worst, the spectre of Algeria looms: the army there prevented Islamists from taking office after they won the first round of an election in 1991, and as many as 200,000 died in the decade-long bloodbath that ensued.
Thankfully Egypt still has a long way to go before that fate befalls it. But its 85m people are as deeply divided today as at any time since Egypt became a republic in 1953. The question is whether suppression really is now the way to deal with the Muslim Brothers, or whether it simply adds to the mayhem.
Death on the Nile
One view holds that the Muslim Brothers never intended to share power or to relinquish it in an election. There is no doubt that Muhammad Morsi’s performance as president was a disaster. He won about a quarter of the eligible vote and proceeded to flout every sort of democratic norm. His government packed a constitutional committee with Islamists, rushing through electoral and other laws without due consent. It let sectarian hatred against Muslim minorities and Egypt’s 8m-odd Christians rise unchecked. Combined with sheer incompetence in its stewardship of the economy, this destroyed the standing of Mr Morsi among ordinary Egyptians. More than 20m people—half the adult population—were said to have signed a petition for a referendum on his presidency.
Since his forced removal on July 3rd and subsequent incarceration, he and his fellow Brothers at large have refused any hint of compromise, and have demanded his reinstatement. How much more exhilarating was opposition than the tricky realities of governing. Victimhood, martyrdom even, has seemed a more potent political weapon than policymaking.
But that does not excuse the generals—for either the coup or this bloodshed. The coup was not only wrong, it was also a tactical mistake. The Brothers would probably have lost any election handily; and if they had refused to hold a vote, then the people would have risen up. The army’s violence since then has been disastrous. When it shot scores of people on July 8th, it drew a baleful lesson from the tepid Western response: that it could get away with it. In fact violence has served to unite Egypt’s various Islamist factions—some of which had previously rejected the Brothers almost as keenly as secular Egyptians did. The Brothers’ incompetence and abuse of power is now disappearing under a mantle of injustice and suffering.
The generals’ worst mistake, however, is to ignore the chief lesson of the Arab spring. This is that ordinary people yearn for dignity. They hate being bossed around by petty officials and ruled by corrupt autocrats. They reject the apparatus of a police state. Instead they want better lives, decent jobs and some basic freedoms. Egypt’s Islamists, in their reduced state, probably still make up 30% or so of the population. The generals cannot suppress them without also depriving millions of other Egyptians of the freedoms that they crave—and which they have tasted, however briefly, since the overthrow of Mr Mubarak. Henceforth jihadists, in Egypt and beyond, who sympathise with al-Qaeda will find a more willing audience when they preach, as well as a supply of newly radicalised recruits. Likewise, each Islamist challenge will strengthen those in the army arguing for further suppression.
Go back to your barracks
If the generals want a stable Egypt, in which they command the loyalty of ordinary Egyptians, they should therefore draw back from the brink. Given their treatment at the hands of the army, it is hard to imagine the Brothers agreeing now to take part in a new political circus. But General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the power behind the throne, and his interim president, Adly Mansour, can create the conditions for a functioning economy and an inclusive politics. To do so they must set a timetable for parliamentary and presidential elections. The committee they have entrusted with amending the constitution should be widened to include more Islamists. And other Islamist parties, if the Brothers refuse to participate, should be wooed into playing their part in politics—eventually, if not now.
The world must also act. This newspaper warned Western leaders that their lack of response to the July shootings would cause trouble; it has. It should not repeat the same mistake today. America should cancel joint military exercises due in September and withhold its next tranche of military aid (already disbursed for the current year) until a civilian government has been elected and takes office. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries should not write the generals a blank cheque just because they share a dislike of the Brothers.
No one could ever have thought that reinventing Egypt was going to be easy. It has never had a proper democracy. Much of its populace is illiterate. Most of its people live in poverty. And the question of how to accommodate Islam has everywhere proved vexed. But the generals should stop and think: in modern history such immense obstacles have never been overcome by violence.