Lesson About Autocracy from Egypt

Alaa Al-Aswani is one of Egypt's leading public
 intellectuals. I occasionally transcribe one of his weekly
 columns at Deutsche Welle for future reference.

This latest column by Alaa al-Aswany is about politics in Egypt, but the larger lesson is how autocratic leaders toss aside democratic principles when dealing with each other. America is not mentioned but the parallels are obvious. All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

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My father, the late Abbas Al-Aswany, was a prominent writer, lawyer, and socialist fighter who was arrested several times for his participation in the struggle against British colonialism. When the military seized Egypt’s rule in 1952, my father was opposed to the Nasser regime because of tyranny and oppression.

I was a child when the war erupted between Egypt and Israel in June 1967 and I was surprised by my father enthusiastically following the news of the fighting on the front, then he told me "God willing, Egypt will win."
I asked him "Are you not against Abdel Nasser?"
He replied "My opposition to Abdel Nasser is one thing, and my support for Egypt in the war is another."

This was a lesson I learned early on and I remember it these days. I am opposed to the Sisi regime, but I support Egypt in its battle against Ethiopia, which built the Renaissance Dam, which will prevent the Nile from Egypt. Egypt is now going through the most difficult crisis it has suffered since the 1967 war because filling the Renaissance Dam with water without observing Egypt's water rights will lead to the loss of Egypt a large part of its cultivated land and the displacement of millions of Egyptian farmers in addition to the severe damage to the electricity produced by the High Dam in Egypt. Here we must understand the following facts:

First: Experts affirm that all that Ethiopia will earn from the Renaissance Dam was possible without infringing on the rights of Egypt, for which the Nile is the only lifeline because it depends entirely on it for agriculture, while Ethiopia relies on rain water. Add to this the presence of many other rivers in Ethiopia and other means of generating electricity in much larger quantities than would be provided by the Renaissance Dam. All these facts confirm that the Renaissance Dam is a political project in the first place and its aim is to place Egypt under the full control of the major powers behind the dam.

Second: The first responsible for this crisis is Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who was in power since the construction of the Renaissance Dam in 2011 until now. Al-Sisi was the head of the Military Intelligence, then the Minister of Defense, then the President of the Republic, and in all these positions he failed to perform his duty and misbehaved the file of the Renaissance Dam until we got to the current crisis.

As historians record the period in which we live, they will certainly be surprised by the lightness with which Sisi dealt with this crisis. He signed a principles agreement with Ethiopia in 2015 without specifying the conditions to protect Egyptian rights, which gave Ethiopia what it did not dream of: an official approval to build the dam From Egypt (the country most affected by it), after that it was clear that Ethiopia dodged and maneuvered in order to gain time and finish building the dam to be a reality, but Sisi did not understand this and was drawn into endless rounds of sterile negotiations until Ethiopia finished building the dam.

If we add to all that absurd scene that Sisi made when he asked the Prime Minister of Ethiopia (a Christian who does not speak Arabic) to swear by God the Great that he would not take the water share from Egypt. Of course, the Ethiopian official swore while he laughed at the naivety and frivolity of the scene. Unfortunately, Sisi, like every dictator, reassured the Egyptians that he preserved their rights and that it was not possible to excel from what was until we agreed on the disaster and we saw the Egyptian government begging Ethiopia to delay the filling of the dam even for a few weeks and Ethiopia refuses.

Third: This miserable failed performance by Abdel Fattah El-Sisi accompanied by a campaign of propaganda that depicted the failure as a great success and continued to numb the minds of the Egyptians with lies about the achievements of Sisi and his ability to problem the Renaissance Dam. The Egyptians lived in these lies until they woke up to the catastrophe exactly as happened in the year 1967 When the Nasser propaganda convinced us that we are the biggest striking force in the Middle East and that we will throw Israel at sea, then we agree on the worst defeat in the history of Egypt.

Fourth: Like all dictators, Sisi uses the people of trust, not the people of experience, and he always prefers to surround himself with the drummers and hypocrites. Many experts have warned against the Renaissance Dam and suggested methods for international movement, but the system was excluding them and even Sisi media accused them of employment and treason.

I still remember a lecture I heard five years ago of the global engineer, Mamdouh Hamzah, in which he proved with solid scientific evidence that the Renaissance Dam is a political project in order to subjugate Egypt and even predicted everything that is happening now. Instead of the Sisi regime benefiting from the knowledge of Mamdouh Hamzah, he was referred to trial before the Terrorism Court on the usual fabricated charges: broadcasting false news, questioning the state’s achievements, threatening social peace, etc. .. Thus Sisi excluded loyal national experts and arrested many of them. the crisis.

Fifth: Egypt stands completely alone in this crisis because the Sudanese government has taken a vague, swinging position that is unreliable, and the Gulf countries and Western governments do not move a finger and watch over Egypt as it is fighting a battle that threatens its existence. Regardless of our position on Sisi, it is our duty as Egyptians to support our country in this crisis. As a first step, I suggest that Egyptians residing in America and Europe persuade public opinion in the West of Egypt's legitimate rights that the Renaissance Dam, which violates international law and violates numerous international agreements, will be wasted.

My peace, Egypt

Democracy is the solution.

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Addendum:That was three days ago. Today, underscoring his points, the online platform Middle East Eye published a link illustrating several points he made about Sisi.

Egyptians who demonstrated in support of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s coup in the summer of 2013 likely expected, at a minimum, increased political freedom and an improved economic situation. 

Seven years later, it is clear that demonstrators did not get what they hoped for.

Today, Egypt is more repressive and worse off economically than it was under Mohamed Morsi, the nation’s first democratically elected president, ousted by Sisi just a year into his first term in office.

Military coups almost never lead to greater levels of political freedom, democracy or human rights. Egypt offers a textbook illustration.

Although the one-year Morsi period wasn’t necessarily a model of democratic perfection, it was relatively open, free and competitive, particularly when compared with the current political climate.

The Sisi regime began its reign by promptly rolling back nearly all of the gains accrued after Egypt’s 2011 democratic uprising, including those advanced by Morsi during his brief stint in office. 

The post-coup regime, led by Sisi, immediately shut down opposition media outlets, arrested political leaders, banned leading political parties, and carried out several massacres against protesters. The 14 August 2013 massacres at Cairo’s Rabaa and Nahda squares may constitute the largest single-day slaughter of protesters in modern world history.

Importantly, the post-coup government also passed draconian legislation. A protest law that criminalises anti-government demonstrations has helped the state to imprison tens of thousands of people. Egypt currently holds more than 60,000 political prisoners.

Given the protest law and the broader climate of fear that has enveloped Egypt, it is perhaps unsurprising that Egyptians aren’t participating in ongoing, global Black Lives Matter protests. While there are undoubtedly many Egyptians opposed to police brutality and anti-Black racism, the Sisi government’s history of anti-protester violence, along with its oppressive legal framework, have effectively eliminated any possibility of protest.

Silencing of journalists

The Sisi regime has also succeeded in fostering a singular, pro-regime media narrative. This has been achieved through both the aforementioned media closures and a broader campaign of strong-armed intimidation. 

In particular, Sisi has used Egypt’s press law, penal code, new constitution, and new anti-terror law to silence critical journalists, with articles allowing the government to censor, fine and arrest journalists, particularly on issues relating to Egyptian “national security”. Today, Egypt is the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists.

In 2019, the government blocked tens of thousands of website domains set up to oppose government-proposed constitutional amendments allowing Sisi to extend his rule through 2030.

Earlier this month, the government announced censorship on news coverage of “sensitive” issues, including the coronavirus pandemic, the conflict in Libya, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the Sinai insurgency. 

The government also recently arrested journalist Mohamed Mounir over his coverage of the Covid-19 crisis, and relatives of Mohamed Soltan, a prominent human rights defender who writes critically of the regime from his home in the US. Last week, Nora Younis, editor of al-Manassa news website, was briefly arrested after police raided the outlet’s offices and searched its computers.

Meanwhile, pro-Sisi Egyptian media have used the 25 May murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis to deflect blame from brutal Egyptian police and subtly justify their history of violence. Broadcast journalists on pro-government channels have suggested that if police violence is an inevitability in the US, which claims to be governed by democratic norms and the rule of law, it should also be expected in a place like Egypt.

Economic regression

At the same time, Sisi’s major economic projects, including a new capital city and a massive Suez Canal expansion have, so far, been unsuccessful.

Sisi projected the August 2014 canal expansion to more than double annual revenues, from $5.5bn in 2014 to $13.5bn by 2023. Instead, canal revenues have either declined or increased only slightly in each year following the expansion. In 2018/19, revenues were $5.8bn, far below projections.

The Egyptian pound has been devalued from 7.1 per dollar in June 2013 to 16.1 per dollar today. Egypt’s main economic programme under Sisi has been to borrow tens of billions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, China and allies in the Persian Gulf, among other sources.

Egypt’s national debt has nearly tripled since 2014, from about $112bn to about $321bn. This week, Egypt secured an additional $5.2bn loan from the IMF. Nearly 40 percent of Egypt’s annual budget is devoted to paying off interest on loans.

Loans have enabled the government to boost foreign reserves and other macroeconomic indicators, but microlevel economic indicators suggest that the average Egyptian is struggling mightily.

The price of basic goods has increased dramatically since Sisi took power, and in particular since the launch of the IMF loan programme in late 2016. The IMF required the regime to slash government subsidies on essential goods.

Subordinate allyship

Overall, the country’s poverty rate has increased from 26 percent in 2013 to 33 percent in 2018. According to a 2019 World Bank report, about 60 percent of Egyptians are either “poor or vulnerable”.

Sisi has also received billions of dollars in grants from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. These grants have come at a great cost, leaving Egypt beholden to both nations.

In 2016, Egypt handed over two Egyptian islands to Saudi Arabia, and Egypt continues to do the foreign policy bidding of both the Saudis and the Emiratis.

Earlier this month, Sisi threatened military action against Libya’s UN-recognised government. Unsurprisingly, his remarks were received favourably by both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who have turned the money they’ve spent on Egypt into a relationship of subordinate allyship.

It’s possible that Sisi’s threat was issued with a multi-pronged purpose in mind: to appease his supervisors in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, and to distract from his government’s gross mishandling of both the coronavirus pandemic and the GERD project.

What does the future hold?

It was difficult enough to make sense of hardline Morsi critics in 2013, when Egyptian liberals claimed, quite absurdly, that Egypt was witnessing a dictatorship more repressive than the one presided over by Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s dictator from 1981 to 2011. It is almost impossible now.

Indeed, the Morsi period now appears as a lost opportunity. Morsi was obviously not a perfect leader, but the political system enshrined by the post-2011 uprising and 2012 constitution would have allowed for political contestation, and, over the long haul, the breakup of Egypt’s deep state.

Egyptians critical of Morsi, who was killed while in jail last year, would have been better served by seeking to impeach Morsi through the 2012 constitution’s impeachment mechanism, or simply seeking to vote him out of office.

The weeks, months and years ahead under Sisi may prove even more difficult for Egyptians than the past seven have been. The nation has proven itself ill-equipped to handle the ongoing coronavirus crisis, and the ramifications of the GERD project could be far-reaching and devastating for Egypt, which depends on the Nile River for most of its water supply.

Ironically, Egypt’s only hope may be another popular uprising. The hope, for many Egyptians, is that the next popular protest movement leads to more democracy, and not more dictatorship.