Egypt
caught in spiral of disaster By Victor Kotsev
Many things that are
hard to believe - or explain - happen in Egypt;
unfortunately, it all looks more like a spiraling
nightmare than a fairy tale in the last year or
so. The latest violence on Wednesday, which
resulted in at least 74 dead and over 1,000
wounded, and which The New York Times described as
"the deadliest soccer riot anywhere in more than
15 years", is a fitting example of that.
The calamity came in the wake of another
large brawl on Tuesday, between members of the
secular opposition and Muslim Brotherhood
supporters who reportedly attempted to block their
march against the military government of the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Over 70
people were wounded in the clashes. [1]
Both events coincided almost perfectly
with the anniversary of
another odd episode of
recent Egyptian history, the February 2, 2011
attack against the opposition in Tahrir Square by
supporters of former Egyptian president Hosni
Mubarak on horses and camels. [2] The timing,
whether a coincidence or not, is unlikely to be
that important, but all three events emphasize the
unpredictability of the domestic currents in
Egypt, and raise suspicions of an invisible hand
trying to stir those currents, with a varying
success rate.
Other events in this
broadly-defined "odd" series include the bombings
of the gas pipeline leading into Israel and Jordan
and the mob attack against the Israeli Embassy in
Cairo in September 2011.
While new
information about what happened on Wednesday in
the Egyptian city of Port Said is still coming to
light, the gist of the official story is that fans
of two rival Egyptian football teams, the local
al-Masry and Cairo's al-Ahly, clashed after a
game.
Police had reportedly failed to
prevent the smuggling of knives and other
dangerous objects inside the stadium (even rumors
of gunshot wounds have been reported), and their
deployment at the game was insufficient to prevent
the disaster, raising further suspicions and
accusations.
Some question whether the
instigators were football fans, despite the
latter's notoriety for violence inside Egypt. "I
don't think this is about football," a former
player for al-Ahly told the BBC. "These
trouble-makers were not football fans." [3]
James Dorsey, writing for Foreign Policy,
provides several valuable insights:
As in April, when fans of Al Ahly's
arch-rival Zamalek club invaded the pitch during
the post-Mubarak era's first African Cup match
against a Tunisian team, rumors were swirling in
Egypt about the reasons for Wednesday's
incident. Some Egyptians speculated that the
security forces deliberately allowed the clashes
to take place to prove that the police are
needed to avoid a breakdown of law and order.
Others suggested that Egypt's military
rulers engineered the lack of a police presence
in a bid to provoke the ultras and further
undermine their credibility in a protest-weary
country frustrated with the country's downward
economic spiral ... The conspiracy theorists may
be on to something: The riots in Port Said will
likely strengthen the hand of those in the
ruling military council who want to crack down
hard on the ultras, who have formed the backbone
of street protests that have not quieted down
even though Egypt has seated an elected
parliament and will soon choose a new president.
[4]
The country's military leadership
responded by deploying the army to Port Said,
declaring three days of national mourning and
blaming the police for not doing their job. The
interior minister in turn reportedly announced
that 47 people linked to the violence had been
arrested. [5]
Oddly enough, just as in
Tuesday's clashes, the Muslim Brotherhood took a
very similar position to that of the current
military government. "The reason for this tragedy
is the deliberate neglect and absence of the
military and the police," a senior member of the
Muslim Brotherhood's political party told The New
York Times. "This will not pass without
punishment, a thousand punishments," he added
elsewhere in the interview, [6] leaving some
ambiguity as to whether he was talking about the
police or the participants in the brawl.
The striking shift in the positions of the
Muslim Brotherhood [7] can be attributed to its
impending status upgrade from opposition to
government. The coalition led by them won 47% of
parliament seats in the elections that took place
in stages over the past months, followed by an
ultra-conservative Islamist party, al-Nour, which
won 25% of the vote. [8] Despite many ideological
differences, some observers see them as potential
allies on many issues; certainly, it is
practically inconceivable for a government to be
formed that is not dominated by the Muslim
Brotherhood.
While, especially after the
initial rounds of voting, many saw the results as
a potential calamity for the military, in some
ways what is happening can be seen as a coup for
the generals. It is a golden opportunity to both
rein in their archenemy, the Muslim Brotherhood
and, down the road, to scapegoat it for all the
daunting problems that Egypt faces.
Egypt’s economy, as is becoming
increasingly clear, is headed for a disaster.
David Goldman (Spengler), writing for Asia Times
Online, provides fascinating accounts of both the
lack of confidence of Egyptians in their own
financial system and the hidden wealth of the army
(which reportedly lent the government $1 billion).
[9] Various reports over the past months have
claimed that large chunks of the Egyptian economy
are owned or controlled by high-ranking current
and former military officials.
Egyptian
foreign currency reserves are dwindling and a
major crisis can be expected later this year. Even
the urgent aid packages that the World Bank, the
European Union and the United States are rumored
to be preparing are unlikely to solve the problem
for more than a few months. There can be no better
time for the military to transfer power to the
Muslim Brotherhood.
Yet the army’s tricks
- if this is what we are observing - come at a
risk, and carry a price. As of early Thursday
morning, thousands of Egyptians were reportedly
protesting in Cairo and in other cities against
the military rule. If the regime ends up absorbing
some of the blame for the disaster, it stands to
lose more than it could possibly gain. Now, at
least, it may be able to share the losses with the
Muslim Brotherhood. Then again, stranger things
have happened on the Nile ...
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