Feb 13, 2013
Posted by Gregory Aftandilian
As a film buff, I was watching the classic
1952 movie "Viva
Zapata!" the other night and it made me think
of Egypt. The film is
about the Mexican Revolution in the early part
of the 20th Century, with
Marlon Brando playing the role of Emiliano
Zapata, one of the militant
leaders of the revolution.
In one of the
opening scenes of the movie,
before the revolution started, Zapata and his
fellow peasants from a
southern province come to see the Mexican
President Diaz, a corrupt
dictator, to complain about land confiscations
in their province.
Zapata emerges as the most outspoken
leader of the group, and when he
challenges the president, Diaz demands that he
tell him his full name
and then circles it on a piece of paper listing
the attendees,
presumably to ensure that Zapata be
watched.
Later in the movie, which
depicts the unfinished goals of the revolution
and the corruption of
power, Zapata emerges as the temporary leader
of Mexico. A group of
peasants from his same southern province comes
to see him to complain
about his brother, played by Anthony Quinn, a
fellow revolutionary, who
has become a corrupt landowner in the province.
Zapata becomes agitated
when he hears their complaints, and when an
outspoken member of the
group challenges him, he demands his name and
then circles it on a piece
of paper. Zapata soon realizes that he
is acting the same way that
Diaz did several years prior. In a
dramatic moment, he then crumples up
the paper, leaves the presidential palace, and
returns to his province
to restart the revolution.
Although Mexico and Egypt
are different countries
and their revolutions took place in different
centuries, what is
revealing to me watching this movie is that
Egyptian President Morsi has
not had his "Zapata" moment. In other
words, he has not come to
realize--or, more tellingly, does not want to
realize--that he is acting
as an authoritarian leader, a Mubarak-type
character. The events over
the past few months indicate that Morsi,
originally from the
long-persecuted Muslim Brotherhood
organization, is ruling with an iron
fist, using the un-reformed interior ministry
to crack down on his
opponents, torture some dissidents, jail some
journalists who are
charged with "insulting the president," and
issuing draconian and
dictatorial laws from time to time to further
his agenda.
Morsi has stated that he
wants to be the president
for all Egyptians and seems to think that
opposition to his rule is a a
conspiracy by remnants of the old Mubarak
regime. Although some
elements of the opposition are probably
Mubarak-era supporters, the vast
majority are not. They simply do not
want one authoritarian system to
be replaced by another and are against what
they see as the
Brotherhood's monopolization of power.
And while most Egyptians are
religiously-oriented, they make a distinction
between religion as a
personal matter (with the family deciding which
religious norms to
follow) rather than as state policy. As
one Cairo taxi driver told me,
"we do not want to live in an Iran."
Moreover, most Egyptians
also realize that an
Islamist agenda is not going to solve their
daily needs. A recent press
piece found that in Mahalla al-Kubra, a large
factory town in Egypt's
delta, industrial workers are protesting what
they are calling the
"Brotherhoodization" of the state. One
labor leader was quoted as
saying: "The revolution's demands have
not been met, neither have the
workers' demands for justice and a minimum
wage." Some workers also
complained that they have been kidnapped and
assaulted by the police or
members of the Brotherhood's Freedom and
Justice Party. In other words,
Morsi's administration is acting the say way
to worker demands as did
the Mubarak administration. The police
are being used to to keep
workers in line, and the Freedom and Justice
party, at least in some
parts of Egypt, is acting like Mubarak's
National Democratic Party.
Morsi, in the face of
mounting opposition, keeps
touting the need for a national dialogue, but
the opposition sees it as a
ruse--dialogue merely for dialogue's sake, not
dialogue for a more
inclusive government. His cabinet
ministers are either Brotherhood
members or technocrats who are sympathetic
towards the Brotherhood. He
is counting on a Brotherhood win in the April
elections to the lower
house of parliament to consolidate his and the
Brotherhood's rule.
Most of Egypt's
revolutionaries from 2011 feel
cheated. They lent Morsi crucial support
in the second round of
presidential elections in June 2012 because
they took him at his word
that he would be the president of all Egyptians
and to forestall the
election of his opponent, Ahmed Shafik,
Mubarak's last prime minister
and a symbol of the old regime. They
clearly misunderstood Morsi's
agenda, which was to pave the way for the
Brotherhood to become the
dominant political force in the country while
neutralizing the military.
Brotherhood leaders like Morsi believe
that since the organization was
established in 1928, it now has the
opportunity to win all the levers
of power, with the exception of the
military.
The problem for Morsi (and
what he apparently
discounts) is that the Egyptian revolutionaries
are not going to roll
over and accept his authoritarian policies.
The revolutionaries believe
they have invested too much blood and sweat in
the revolution for this
to happen. Hence, like Zapata leaving the
presidential palace, they are
likely to continue the fight. And what they
learned in January and
February 2011 is that street power is a
powerful force. Hence, while
Morsi and his Brotherhood allies are keen to
move ahead with their
agenda, they are likely to encounter strong
obstacles along the way.
Morsi has apparently
convinced himself that he is
not acting like Mubarak. As long as he
maintains this frame of mind, he
will see his opponents as enemies and will use
the draconian tools at
his disposal-like the interior ministry--to
attack them. All this
portends poorly for Egypt and Egyptian
stability.
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