Egypt's Army Is The Enemy - A View From Turkey
The problem all along, this Turkish writer argues, has been the Egyptian Army. And its takedown of the Muslim Brotherhood will only breed extremist terrorists.
Egyptian Army soldiers
SRA D. Myles Cullen, USAF
EgyptGeopoliticsSourcesRADIKALCountries
Ahmet Insel
ISTANBUL — Former dictator Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt amid a state of emergency for more than 30 years, and now after a two-year break, the Egyptian Army has returned the country to this state again. Army General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who effectively rules the country, was determined to take this step — which may well poise Egypt for a long-term and partial civil war or, at a minimum, to the kinds of assassinations, attacks and mass arrests that characterized the period from 1992 to 1998.
The operation to empty the two squares occupied by supporters of President Mohamed Morsi, ousted after mass demonstrations in July, has turned into a total massacre. The price of the so-called "cleaning operation" has been hundreds of lives, even among the security forces. Armed clashes occurred not only in Cairo but in many other Egyptian cities where there was backlash after Morsi's fall and arrest. The Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of their allies attacked Copt and Christian churches in many cities and torched them. The army, on the other hand, is hunting down Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers here and there.
Interim Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Al Beblawi has had a much different reaction than Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who characterized the bloodshed as state-sponsored terrorism. Al Beblawi said the police practiced "legendary heroism" when emptying the squares, claiming the police acted "with extreme caution."
Ironically, his justification for the army operation was very similar to Erdogan's during the recent civil unrest in Turkey. "No respectful state would allow two of its squares to be occupied by thousands of demonstrators for a month and a half," Beblawi said.
ElBaradei was late
Although the interim prime minister claimed the means of violence and a subsequent state of emergency were "necessary steps for free elections to be uphold," it is much more likely that Egypt is in for a long-term state of emergency. The prime minister remained loyal to the army's road map, since it is the army that gave him power in the first place. He said the government is determined to hold the elections by the beginning of 2014, but nobody believes Egypt will be free and secure enough for elections in a few months' time.
This second intervention of the Egyptian Army was also a blow to so-called liberals such as Mohamed ElBaradei, who had been looking for a third way between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood before the massacre. These circles have already lost a lot of credibility by beating around the bush and not calling a coup a coup, accepting cabinet positions — that of vice president in Elbaradei's case. Now, as ElBaradei already has, other liberals will have to resign and share responsibility for the massacre. ElBaradei's resignation as the state of emergency was being declared was a necessary move to save his own dignity but perhaps too late to save his political future.
A state of Muslim Brotherhood
A segment of Egyptians today supports the army against the Muslim Brotherhood. The Copt, or Christian, Egyptians and the Copt Church are foremost among these because they are the natural targets of the Muslim Brotherhood and other more radical jihadist organizations. Just as some Syrian Christians regard the Baas Party and the dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad the lesser of two evils, these people perceive the Egyptian Army as the last chance for their security.
Their worries were justified when Copt churches and buildings were targeted, alongside government buildings and security forces, during last week's demonstrations. A segment of the urban middle class has similar worries and is also on the army's side. Moreover, since the Muslim Brothers favored their own and alienated the secularist middle class during the one-year-long Morsi rule, they perceive the army as a way to preserve their economic status and way of life.
But these segments of society are insufficient to form the majority in Egypt. On the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood may regain its prestige, which it lost during the yearlong rule by its clumsiness, patronizing attitude and rush to create a state of Muslim Brotherhood. The mass arrests and killings may have given them a sympathetic edge, but it will be very hard for them to reorganize, for a few years at least. The space they will leave will be filled by other organizations, many of which might be more radical. In short, there will be enough "terrorists" and "terrorist actions" to prolong the state of emergency indefinitely.
The Western world that today condemns the army's violent actions in clearing the squares will find itself siding with the army tomorrow — when assassins and suicide bombers attack the Copts, a small group or tourists who dared to visit Egypt, or the army and the police directly.
Four days after the army toppled Morsi, I wrote an article saying the monarch had dismissed the vizier. The monarch — that is, the Egyptian Army — took down Morsi, the vizier, when its property was in danger. Now we have entered a period of direct military rule just like the year that followed Hosni Mubarak's ouster. The coalition around the army and its supporters is mostly dissolved. The Egyptian Army will be the target of the social opposition and the demand for democracy from now on. This means targeting virtually the whole of Egypt and the better part of its economy.
I wrote a month ago that a revolution is a radical exit from absolute monarchies, dictatorships and totalitarian regimes — the end of a financial-social regime and the start of another. Therefore, the revolution in Egypt is continuing. The claim I made at the end of that article is much more valid today: "The ultimate step of this revolution is the dethroning of the real monarch the army." Will this revolution give birth to a democracy in the short term? There is no guarantee of that. The result mostly will depend on the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Simon Benoit-Guyod
Radikal ("Radical") is an influential daily based in Istanbul and owned by Aydin Dogan. Founded in 1997, it stands out amongst other newspapers in Turkey for its arts and culture coverage, as well as its essays and op-ed pieces.
Across the border from the epicenter in Turkey, the Syrian region of Idlib is home to millions of people displaced by the 12-year-long civil war. The victims there risk not getting assistance because of the interests of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, reminding the world of one of the great unresolved conflicts of our times.
A destroyed residential building in Idlib after the earthquake
Anas Alkharboutli
GeopoliticsTurkeySourcesFRANCE INTERfeatured-postSyriaCountries
Pierre Haski
Faced with a disaster of the magnitude of the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria, one imagines a world mobilized to bring relief to the victims, where all barriers and borders disappear. Unfortunately, this is only an illusion in such a complex and scarred corner of the world.
Yes, there's been an instant international outpouring of countries offering assistance and rescue teams converging on the disaster zones affected by the earthquakes. It is a race against time to save lives.
But even in such dramatic circumstances, conflict, hatred and competing interests do not somehow vanish by magic.
Sometimes, victims of natural disasters face a double price. This is the case for the 4.5 million inhabitants of Idlib, a region located in northwestern Syria, which was directly hit by the earthquake. So far, the toll there has reached at least 900 people killed, thousands injured and countless others left homeless in the harsh winter.
The inhabitants of Idlib, two-thirds of whom are displaced from other regions of Syria, live in an area that is still beyond the control of Bashar al-Assad, and they've been 90% dependent on international aid... which has not been arriving.
To put maximum pressure on these millions of people, the Syrian government and its Russian ally have gradually restricted the ability to get humanitarian aid to them.
There used to be four border crossings between Turkey and this region of Syria; now there is only one, Bab al-Hawa. Every year, this border crossing is subject to renewal at the UN Security Council: last year, Moscow threatened to veto, before renewing it for a year. It's a standing blackmail, as all are well aware that a closure of the border would condemn to death those millions of people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2021
Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin Pool
Terrifying for millions
However, the chaos and destruction caused by the earthquake, with its epicenter right across the border in southern Turkey, means that international aid is no longer getting through to Bab al-Hawa. And this is the moment that the population needs it most.
"This situation is terrifying," a Syrian doctor told Dr. Raphael Pitti, a French humanitarian worker in the region.
Millions of people are therefore deprived of aid in the midst of this disaster: 4.5 million to be exact, including many displaced people living in total poverty, suddenly made dramatically worse by the earthquake.
Geopolitical nightmare
We are witnessing a geopolitical nightmare. Syria has been in the midst of a civil war for 12 years, ever since the population first tried peacefully to overthrow a dictatorship.
Assad is now insisting on the centralization of all international aid.
Since then, the country has been ravaged by war, and the Assad regime, assisted by Russia and Iran, has regained control of most of Syrian territory. And it is now insisting on the centralization of all international aid.
But there remains the area of Idlib, towards which survivors of the besieged cities were directed, and the northeast in the hands of the Kurds, allied with the United States and France. This Syrian jigsaw puzzle, seen in the midst of the earthquake disaster, is a reminder that this conflict is far from over.
The urgency of the matter requires that all humanitarian aid can reach the victims, wherever they are, without delay or questions. But looking to the future, let's not forget how far away we are from any kind of political solution in Syria that would allow millions of refugees to return home.
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Inès Mermat
France Inter is a major French public radio channel and part of Radio France. It is a "generalist" station, aiming to provide a wide national audience with a full service of news and spoken-word programming, both serious and entertaining, liberally punctuated with an eclectic mix of music.
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