{"id":58436,"date":"2015-05-25T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=58436"},"modified":"2015-05-19T20:54:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T19:54:07","slug":"egypts-crisis-today-the-deep-power-of-the-generals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/egypts-crisis-today-the-deep-power-of-the-generals\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt’s Crisis Today: The Deep Power of the Generals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The current crisis in Egypt extends beyond the battle between the Muslim Brotherhood and Sisi’s supporters, to a power contest amid the military elite.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The 1952 Egyptian revolution brought the military generals to power [Getty]<\/p><\/div>In Egypt, the\u00a0totalitarian ruling elite is\u00a0fighting for survival at the expense of the people’s aspirations for increased political participation and social justice.<\/p>\n

To understand what is happening we have to look at the 1952 upheaval that profoundly distorted the social and political order in Egypt.<\/p>\n

The 1952 “revolution” was meant to promote social justice and equality, but the military generals\u00a0took control\u00a0of the\u00a0political\u00a0sphere and the exact opposite happened. Economic and social conditions have been deteriorating ever since.<\/p>\n

The sociopolitical drawbacks of the 1952 revolution are countless and pervasive. The\u00a0main feature\u00a0was the transformation of the ruling elite from feudalist royalists to powerful military generals.<\/p>\n

The 1952 military junta established an order that created an authoritarian sociopolitical structure, and established shared values of governance among its members and agencies. The generals tightened their iron grip over state institutions to\u00a0strengthen\u00a0their hold on the country.<\/p>\n

Members of the key state authorities such as law making, law enforcement and judiciary fell under the control of the generals. Those who\u00a0showed they were faithful\u00a0to the\u00a0new regime were welcomed and rewarded. Those who did not faced being charged with\u00a0treason, which carried the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Since President Nasser’s time (1956-1970), military generals have dominated the ruling elite.<\/p>\n

However, towards the end of the\u00a020th century, demands\u00a0for political and economic reform grew, as\u00a0the global evolution of mass communication\u00a0pushed forward\u00a0liberal democratic values.<\/p>\n

The rigid military ruling elite\u00a0needed to adjust to avoid disintegration and isolation.
\nHowever, it chose instead to add new segments\u00a0to its elite such as senior judges,\u00a0police officers\u00a0and wealthy business tycoons.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0hoped to\u00a0strengthen\u00a0its\u00a0grip on ground instead of putting forward actual reforms.<\/p>\n

The new segments blended quickly into this meticulous structure. However, they wanted their children to inherit their jobs. Career inheritance was seen as both a reward from the regime for loyalty, and a good way to reproduce regime loyalists\u00a0and exclude strangers who\u00a0could disturb the system.<\/p>\n

Career inheritance became customary in all government sectors including the judiciary, military, police, and foreign service. Corruption, nepotism, and injustice become the norm\u00a0for institutions that systematically marginalised large segments of the population.<\/p>\n

This system worked well until the influence of business owners\u00a0and the police over state institutions grew excessively.\u00a0Their power exceeded the limits set by Gamal Mubarak, son of then-Egyptian\u00a0president Hosni Mubarak. With his father’s support, Gamal had given the elites a wide range\u00a0of powers\u00a0to handle sensitive state\u00a0issues at the expense of the military.<\/p>\n

During Mubarak’s time, the police gained more influence than any other institution, to such an extent Egypt was seen more as a police state than a military dictatorship.<\/p>\n

Powerful generals who – had Gamal Mubarak succeeded his father – would have been replaced by\u00a0increasingly powerful\u00a0business tycoons and police officials\u00a0began to feel threatened.<\/p>\n

However, the January 25 revolution turned things in favour of the senior generals, who did not hesitate to throw Mubarak out with his supporters.<\/p>\n

While the masses in the street celebrated Mubarak’s fall, the generals were opening bottles of halal champagne to celebrate the phasing out of their annoying competitors from the ruling elite. But this could have been their biggest pitfall. They did not win, and perhaps they never will.<\/p>\n

Egypt’s current turmoil is not about the fight between the Muslim Brotherhood and President Sisi’s supporters. That fight might be the smallest symptom of all.<\/p>\n

Remnants of Mubarak’s businesses tycoons and former police officers who do not support Sisi, plus the likelihood that Sisi himself is entirely supported by the generals, means the battle is far larger than between two or three political groups.<\/p>\n

Although January 25 was undeniably a genuine uprising after decades of marginalisation, autocracy and social injustice, it was\u00a0– in a parallel world – a tug of war between powerful ruling elites over power assumption.<\/p>\n

The 1952 revolution\/coup fundamentally changed Egypt’s social and political order, because it smashed the royalist elite.<\/p>\n

In 2011, however, Egyptians were barely able to change the names and figures of the old regime.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Abdallah Hendawy is a political researcher. For over 10 years he has been working for several governmental and non-governmental political entities focusing on the Middle East and North Africa region. Hendawy is currently pursuing a PhD in Political Sociology at George Mason University. He holds an MA in Conflict Transformation from the European Peace University-EPU in Austria. <\/em>@Hendawys\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 alaraby.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1952 military junta established an order that created an authoritarian sociopolitical structure. The current crisis in Egypt extends beyond the battle between the Muslim Brotherhood and Sisi’s supporters, to a power contest amid the military elite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}