The events unfolding in Tahrir Square in Cairo are epochal. A cross section of the Egyptian society has converged on Tahrir. Their demand resonates in a single word: “Erha! (Leave!”). It is a call to the remnants of the authoritarian system of the Hosni Mubarak era to quit, so that Egypt's incomplete revolution of February can be successfully rounded off. A bloody crackdown seems no more sustainable.
The protestors are demanding that the military should return to the barracks from where they marched out into the civilian world nearly six decades ago in 1952 under the charismatic leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser. However, as of now, the military continues to probe where the fault lines run within the opposite camp. The political discourse principally dwells on the supremacy of elected civilian governments in a democratic environment. In a manner of speaking, it is a strain of the regional malady of a civil-military “imbalance” that has its roots in the political culture that Turkey spawned. The Egyptian military demands a “Turkish model” of democratic governance. Surely, Turkey cannot influence the course of events in Egypt, which is an ancient nation that is disdainful of Ottoman claims to grandeur. All the same, the “Turkish model” bears some scrutiny in the emergent context in Egypt.
Read Full Article »