EGYPT UPRISING: LESSONS FOR THE ‘PHARAOHS’ The recent events in Egypt illuminate the challenges any country faces when making the transition to democracy: Authoritarian leaders may come and go, but the security forces that back them seldom submit so easily to the will of the people. There are lessons Egypt could learn from the Asian experience, in particular from Indonesia, where the army was slung out of power with the downfall of the Suharto regime in 1998. Since then, the military has been effectively contained by a legal framework grounded in civilian supremacy. One of the weaknesses of political development in both Asia and the Middle East has been the failure to build a strong institutional foundation for democratic reform. Part of the problem is the archaic security and legal frameworks inherited from the colonial era that were designed to protect those in power. The first priority after any popular uprising is to hold elections, but people end up voting along emotional, often sectarian lines at a time when politicians give little thought to what they should responsibly and collectively do with their newly won freedom, other than seek power and promote their own interests. With the ensuing chaos and disappointment, the military becomes a life raft. Thailand offers a salutary lesson: Even after more than two decades of democratic government the military can intervene when it feels its interests have been threatened. The 2006 military coup took everyone by surprise. Yet just as in Egypt today, there were many liberals who embraced the military-led junta because they felt that the army was turfing out a corrupt government. But the legacy of that intervention is a deep societal divide that has bred violence and proven impossible to reconcile. In the end, the middle classes who are at the forefront of these transitions are mainly to blame. On the one hand, they aspire to the freedom promised by democracy; they have the resources and education to mobilize mass protests and articulate demands. On the other hand, there is ambivalence. In Pakistan the landed elites stood by while the military stepped in to protect their wealth by restoring stability. But today if you ask middle-class Pakistanis whether that was worth it, they are filled with regret, which is why one of their former rulers, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is under house arrest and will stand trial for treason. As one Pakistani tweeted to Egyptian friends: If you think the military is the answer, big mistake.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:07:53 +0000
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