Further Reign of the Ptolemies
Over a year ago, the citizens of Egypt stood up for themselves and their rights, took to the streets and managed to depose a regime that had been in place for decades. It was a tremendous feat for revolution and it gave full legitimacy to the notion of Arab Spring. It was, by all accounts, relatively bloodless and did not sink to the depths of civil war like Libya and Syria. The military stood mostly on the sidelines to secure order and national treasures while the people challenged the government and won. A new constitution was drafted, a new national assembly created, new representatives were elected and there were even presidential elections. Things were looking good. Until the past couple of months when the military, who had been nominally holding party, invalidated the constitution, dissolved the assembly and have been holding back the results of the presidential elections. While the top presidential candidates had been seen as controversial, this is even more controversial. The military group at the head of the country, known as Supreme Council of Armed Forces, or SCAF, had been pretty well respected before this and is now getting more and more feared. Traditionally, the military had been seen in Egypt as a pretty neutral broker between the various political forces that ran the country. Under Mubarak, there had been the interior security forces who were used to black bag people and do terrible things in the name of the state while the military itself concentrated on actual defense and dealing with other nations. For a very long time, they were considered the most stable force the US could deal with inside Egypt, and deal with them, they did. Sadly, this is a reversion to history.
A small history on Egypt would take longer than the entire rant, so let's go with the supercondensed version of Egypt's history, in so far as it concerns recent events. When Alexander the Great conquered a whole lot of the world, he conquered Egypt from the Persians, who actually DID greet him as a liberator. Alexander had the bad taste to die at age 32 without a clear heir (his only son was born AFTER he died), and he famously left his empire "to the strongest". After a couple of others fought over Egypt, one of his generals took command of Egypt. This general's name meant "warlike" in Greek and was rendered in Greek as Πτολεμαῖος (Ptolemaios). The Ptolemies ruled Egypt, even after they were conquered by the Romans and turned into a vassal state. By the time it came time for Ptolemy XII, a tradition had started that, to keep the bloodline pure, they married their own family members. Ptolemy XII was married to his sister, whom he kept in captivity a lot of the time. Her name was Cleopatra, and now it makes sense why she was looking to hook up with any powerful Roman who came along with an army and cool armor. But, the tradition of generals running Egypt has kind of come to be the norm. Caesar ruled there as a general, Marcus Antonius (sigh, Mark Anthony) was a general when he was ruling from there as well. As generals have been running the country, this is almost combing back to the norm.
Of course, the thing is, in this day and age, this is not the norm. Egypt had been ruled by kings until the early 20th century when the last king, Fuad II was deposed in the 1950s. He was deposed by a revolution in 1952 led by an upstart, brilliant colonel named Gamal Abdel Nasser. He led anti-imperialist and nationalist ambitions all over the Arab world and all but single handedly declared war on Israel. He figured a war of attrition would bring about the goals of ending Israel, not counting on the fact that Israel was happy to kill as many Arabs as possible. Nasser set up a government with an assembly, but with him firmly at the head of both the military and civilian government. he ruled until his death in 1970, and then Egypt was ruled by Anwar Sadat until he was assassinated by rogue members of the military aided by Ayman al-Zawahiri (current head of Al-Qaeda). Mubarak had ruled since Sadat's assassination, so about 30 years. This is a country sadly used to strong leadership, especially in the form of military might.
Except, that's not quite true anymore. Times and people change. That tends to be what revolutions are, changing of mindsets and people in ways that had not been done before. People always try to say "oh, this country isn't ready to democracy since they don't have a history of democracy" which tends to forget America didn't have a history of democracy when we broke off from the British Empire (an act considered lunacy) to form some kind of republic (which at that point was considered to be a failed form of government from ancient times). Egypt at least had a better guide in how to pull it off and a direction in which to aim. The first thing they did was to write a new constitution, which is a great step. They held elections, and even though they didn't do the way a lot of would have liked, they were pretty fair all things considered. However, given that a Muslim party who is a borderline terrorist bagman, a lot of people were worried. Apparently, none were more worried than SCAF, who pretty much then dissolved almost everything except the presidential election. And now, they have recently announced that they will announce the winner of the presidential election at 9am EST (3pm local). The candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood is already claiming victory, but he's been saying that for a while, as has his opponent, the last prime minister under the last regime.
So what we have is a military barely holding control over a country that can't quite decide which way it wants to go which may end up going nowhere if the SCAF don't want it going a certain direction.
So it is written, so do I see it.
A small history on Egypt would take longer than the entire rant, so let's go with the supercondensed version of Egypt's history, in so far as it concerns recent events. When Alexander the Great conquered a whole lot of the world, he conquered Egypt from the Persians, who actually DID greet him as a liberator. Alexander had the bad taste to die at age 32 without a clear heir (his only son was born AFTER he died), and he famously left his empire "to the strongest". After a couple of others fought over Egypt, one of his generals took command of Egypt. This general's name meant "warlike" in Greek and was rendered in Greek as Πτολεμαῖος (Ptolemaios). The Ptolemies ruled Egypt, even after they were conquered by the Romans and turned into a vassal state. By the time it came time for Ptolemy XII, a tradition had started that, to keep the bloodline pure, they married their own family members. Ptolemy XII was married to his sister, whom he kept in captivity a lot of the time. Her name was Cleopatra, and now it makes sense why she was looking to hook up with any powerful Roman who came along with an army and cool armor. But, the tradition of generals running Egypt has kind of come to be the norm. Caesar ruled there as a general, Marcus Antonius (sigh, Mark Anthony) was a general when he was ruling from there as well. As generals have been running the country, this is almost combing back to the norm.
Of course, the thing is, in this day and age, this is not the norm. Egypt had been ruled by kings until the early 20th century when the last king, Fuad II was deposed in the 1950s. He was deposed by a revolution in 1952 led by an upstart, brilliant colonel named Gamal Abdel Nasser. He led anti-imperialist and nationalist ambitions all over the Arab world and all but single handedly declared war on Israel. He figured a war of attrition would bring about the goals of ending Israel, not counting on the fact that Israel was happy to kill as many Arabs as possible. Nasser set up a government with an assembly, but with him firmly at the head of both the military and civilian government. he ruled until his death in 1970, and then Egypt was ruled by Anwar Sadat until he was assassinated by rogue members of the military aided by Ayman al-Zawahiri (current head of Al-Qaeda). Mubarak had ruled since Sadat's assassination, so about 30 years. This is a country sadly used to strong leadership, especially in the form of military might.
Except, that's not quite true anymore. Times and people change. That tends to be what revolutions are, changing of mindsets and people in ways that had not been done before. People always try to say "oh, this country isn't ready to democracy since they don't have a history of democracy" which tends to forget America didn't have a history of democracy when we broke off from the British Empire (an act considered lunacy) to form some kind of republic (which at that point was considered to be a failed form of government from ancient times). Egypt at least had a better guide in how to pull it off and a direction in which to aim. The first thing they did was to write a new constitution, which is a great step. They held elections, and even though they didn't do the way a lot of would have liked, they were pretty fair all things considered. However, given that a Muslim party who is a borderline terrorist bagman, a lot of people were worried. Apparently, none were more worried than SCAF, who pretty much then dissolved almost everything except the presidential election. And now, they have recently announced that they will announce the winner of the presidential election at 9am EST (3pm local). The candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood is already claiming victory, but he's been saying that for a while, as has his opponent, the last prime minister under the last regime.
So what we have is a military barely holding control over a country that can't quite decide which way it wants to go which may end up going nowhere if the SCAF don't want it going a certain direction.
So it is written, so do I see it.