Collision in Egypt

The coup in Egypt is a counterblow not only against the Islamists but also against the revolution of February 2011. The Tahrir Square demonstration took the whole army by surprise, as much as it did Mubarak himself. It came at a difficult moment, since many of the ruling class did not accept the Syria-like, hereditary-republic model that Mubarak was clearly moving toward. In the repression of the demonstrators the army kept its distance, leaving the dirty work to the police and the paramilitary gangs.

Meanwhile the United States, chief pillar of the Egyptian army (to the tune of $1.3 billion a year), expressed its support for democratic change, and its distrust of any hereditary succession for Mubarak Jr., in view of the instability that, for 30 years, Mubarak Sr. had barely been able to keep a lid on. So the army deposed Mubarak, with American assent, and with the support of an urban-minority revolution.

Since then, the army has never lost its grip on the country. Having let the Islamists win the elections, they imposed severe conditions on their government, such as an army officer as defense minister.

The Islamists soon showed their true face. Incapable of governing democratically, they made Islamism their political program - mobilizing against them the same modern sectors of society that had risen against Mubarak.

The coup is a counter-revolutionary phase in a process that began in February 2011

Meanwhile, the army fomented instability by organizing shortages in public services: electricity, water, policing of the streets... All these were blamed on the incompetence of the Islamists (which was real), and helped to bring out the demonstrators.

Then the soldiers, supported by the democrats and even by the extreme Islamists of the Nur party, took over in the coup. The Islamists were left high and dry, having overestimated their own strength. They were a minority. Half the electorate did not vote, and of those who did, almost half voted against the Islamists. In trying to Islamize the institutions, they failed to perceive the general secular spirit within society, and awakened the democratic forces, who regrouped: adherents of Mubarak, Nasserities who disliked him, lay democrats and a significant part of the hitherto "silent" majority. The soldiers could not have wished for more. Collision was inevitable, particularly thanks to the incompetence of Morsi, an engineer but no politician.

The coup does not mean a final victory for the soldiers. It is a counter-revolutionary phase in a process that began in February 2011. It does mean the failure of the Islamists, who are incapable of integrating democracy into their religious ideology, and reveals the real role of the soldiers, who lay in wait for two years until the time was ripe. But the repression of the Islamists, and the dismantling of their organization, is going to bring new leaders, far more radical, to the fore. The climate of simmering civil war thus created is something new to Egypt.

This is surely the most dangerous after-effect for the democratic minority. Any further violence can only harden the line of the military: permanent martial law, and a dictatorship harsher than that of Mubarak. The dynamic generated by the coup cannot lead to a strengthening of democracy, but rather send the country in the opposite direction.

The soldiers now enjoy the support of the middle classes, but when they begin to restrict liberties, it will be another story. And we cannot imagine the Egyptian army, which has governed since 1953, accepting any real civilian government without having been defeated. Mohamed el Baradei, the Nobel-winning vice-president of the republic set up by the officers, understood this when he resigned in protest against the bloody repression of the Islamists.

In short, Mubarak and his family clan are out, but all the other top officers in the army (and their family clans) are still there. It is unclear who can solve the social and economic problems of Egypt, but one thing is certain: the army - that is, force alone - cannot.

Sami Naïr is a guest professor at the Pablo Olavide University in Seville.