With the recent changes to Egypt's constitution in December, following a long period of civil unrest and protests within the country, what do you see for the future of Egyptian politics over the next year?
Scott Weathers
U.S. should take a vacation from intervening
John Foti
Democracy requires separation of Islam and state
Marshall Bornemann
Change of leadership has not benefitted Egypt
U.S. should take a vacation from intervening
By Scott Weathers
Ask me to tell you what will happen next year in Egypt — I have no idea. In an interview with Time Magazine, Nate Silver recently derided these types of predictions as the guesses pundits make that are only valuable by being purely speculative and controversial.
But I can tell you the decades-long trend: the U.S attitude and policy in many places, particularly the Middle East, is unnecessarily domineering, often simply because it is allowed to be. And while democracy doesn’t always produce leaders who we like, this doesn’t mean that they are leaders we should overthrow. Implicit in democracy is the intrinsic value of self-determination, and we shouldn’t ignore procedural values like personal governance for the leaders we want in power. Egypt’s current government bears the signs of tension — protests, electoral fraud, constitutional disagreements — but this is the natural growth of democracy, and we would do well to recognize this in all facets of our foreign policy.
Certainly, we may have reason to invade or use every tool short of war, like drone strikes, in a region that has as many of our political interests as the Middle East. However, it’s often easy to think that meddling in a region’s domestic affairs will produce a better outcome.The fact is that using every opportunity to exert power simply weakens international relationships. Individually, some of the acts we take to secure our interests may seem justified. But as a whole, they just reinforce the perception that the U.S. is a power-hungry state.
The U.S. should consider taking 10 years off. Seriously, let’s just let the decade go by. For the most part, our recent involvement in the Middle East has been fairly destructive, perhaps even to our interests, meaning that there’s much to be said for gaining perspective by taking a break.
We might lose an oil contract, and there’s a good chance Israel will forsake us. I provide this geopolitical insight with the stipulation that I don’t know what the U.S’s exact losses will be or how to replace them. But from my limited understanding, I am pretty sure that we are underperforming in the Middle East by over-exerting ourselves. If soft power truly does guide foreign policy, then the country could rehabilitate its reputation just by taking a vacation.
This should be easy. The next 10 years — no wars, no political overthrows and no drone strikes.
Promise.
Scott Weathers is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Democracy requires separation of Islam and state
By John Foti
With the implementation of a new constitution, Egypt will now have to reflect on whether it is going to be an Islamist dominated government or a free society for all. With turmoil spreading across North African and Arab countries, Egypt must remain the gateway between the Arab world and the West.
Egypt’s new constitution was supposedly created to protect religious and ethnic minorities, but it was drafted without any representation of the minority religions or ethnic groups in the country. The rights of Egypt’s minority groups are severely undermined by a government that is now influenced by Shariah law, which means that laws are derived from the Quran and its teachings. This provision is detrimental to a democracy because its laws are based off of religious teachings rather than a consensus of the people.
Egypt is treading a thin line between becoming either a free state or an Islamic republic. Should the country continue its endorsement of extremist positions, it will soon find itself isolated in the region. As a result, Egypt’s economic problems will almost certainly become more severe if the international community applies the same standard as they do for Islamic states like Iran.
The right path for Egypt would be to sever the ties between Islam and the state and to not allow the extremism of the Muslim Brotherhood to transform the country into another Iran. This delicate balancing act between democracy and the rule of an Islamic republic that the country is attempting will only stifle any progress they hope to make.
Without the separation of Islam and the state, democracy cannot exist. Laws simply can’t be enforced because someone says it is what God wants. If only one person claims to hear God speak, how can the rest of the people verify what that person heard?
In addition, the constitution states that there will be separate laws governing Christians and Jews, but how is this possible? If the point of the new constitution is to give equal justice to all citizens, then creating a separate set of laws for other faiths almost immediately undermines that goal. It is wrong to govern a religiously diverse country by one faith’s tenets and ignore the members of other faiths’ rights and beliefs.
The rule of law no longer exists when governed by religious law, and tyranny is almost certain. We have already experienced the Dark Ages, and the last thing the world needs is another tyrant who will act maliciously while claiming to do God’s work. If Egypt wants to thrive as a democracy, it needs to cut the state’s ties with religion and embrace the Western concept of rule of law over the rule of religion. Unless the government does this, Egypt will fall into the hands of extremists, and it will be too late.
John Foti is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs.
Change of leadership has not benefitted Egypt
By Marshall Bornemann
It is questionable for a nation such as the United States to support someone Egyptians deem a tyrant. However, it is one of the only options the West has of somehow ensuring Egypt’s at-best lackluster transition into democracy. Too bad that is not the case.
Egypt has at least had the luxury - yes, the luxury - of an affirmative umbrella to guide its political system for a number of years. That umbrella, the tyrannical rule of Hosni Mubarak, kept the potential chaos on hold until two years later on Jan. 25, 2011. The executive, legislative and judicial branches guide the U.S, affording us the benefit of a system of checks and balances. Egypt, however, is unquestionably in disarray due to the number of provisions that cannot be agreed upon in their hurriedly constructed constitution. One such measure is the near-zero oversight of military affairs, by which military personnel now act as the auxiliary police force.
Unfortunately, this is the perfect opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to counteract what the opposition has been trying to prevent: Islamist rule combined with Shariah law. But which sounds worse: leadership under Morsi, who will likely be overthrown, or the Muslim Brotherhood, whose motivations are no different in that power is the main reward? “Democracy” and “order,” under the terms of the Brotherhood, would come to mean a loss of both women’s rights and citizens’ privileges to private property.
With the U.S. trying to balance its conflicts with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, and Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the likelihood of militarily intervening on Egypt’s behalf is close to none. If a third party in Egypt were to take the lead, one that could somehow navigate the complexities of an ineffective constitution, the area might have a chance at stability – but who knows for how long? After all, the previous revolution of the past two years have only been effective in replacing Egypt’s president with a new one who is arguably just as corrupt as the former. Morsi has failed to protect demonstrators who are unhappy with his current leadership and is not afraid of being viewed as a dictator with autocratic power.
Had Morsi stepped down and forbid military forces from cracking down on demonstrators, the tension of Cairo’s opposition would likely not have escalated at all. However, let us hope that democracy prevails, while minimizing the deaths that could accumulate as a result of his false promises of restored order. This really is Egypt’s big break for an inevitable political turnaround.
Marshall Bornemann is a junior in the School of International Service.
