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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSisi's Islamist Agenda for Egypt
Addressing graduates of military academies is a standard responsibility for high-ranking military officers all over the world. But last week, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the commander of Egypts armed forces, which recently deposed the countrys first freely elected president, went far beyond the conventions of the genre in a speech to graduates of Egypts Navy and Air Defense academies. Sisis true audience was the wider Egyptian public, and he presented himself less as a general in the armed forces than as a populist strongman. He urged Egyptians to take to the streets to show their support for the provisional government that he had installed after launching a coup to remove from power President Mohamed Morsi, a longtime leader of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Ive never asked you for anything, Sisi declared, before requesting a mandate to confront the Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters have launched protests and sit-ins to denounce the new military-backed regime.
Sisis speech was only the latest suggestion that he will not be content to simply serve as the leader of Egypts military. Although he has vowed to lead Egypt through a democratic transition, there are plenty of indications that he is less than enthusiastic about democracy and that he intends to hold on to political power himself. But thats not to say that he envisions a return to the secular authoritarianism of Egypts recent past. Given the details of Sisis biography and the content of his only published work, a thesis he wrote in 2006 while studying at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, it seems possible that he might have something altogether different in mind: a hybrid regime that would combine Islamism with militarism. To judge from the ideas about governance that he put forward in his thesis, Sisi might see himself less as a custodian of Egypts democratic future than as an Egyptian version of Muhammed Zia ul-Haq, the Pakistani general who seized power in 1977 and set about to Islamicize state and society in Pakistan.
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But even though he overthrew a government dominated by Islamists, there is reason to suspect that Sisis true goal might not be the establishment of a more inclusive, secular democracy but, rather, a military-led resurrection and reformation of the Islamist project that the Brotherhood so abysmally mishandled. Indeed, after Morsi became president, he tapped Sisi to become defense minster precisely because there was plenty of evidence that the general was sympathetic to Islamism. He is reputed to be a particularly devout Muslim who frequently inserts Koranic verses into informal conversations, and his wife wears the conservative dress favored by more orthodox Muslims. Those concerned about Sisis views on womens rights were alarmed by his defense of the militarys use of virginity tests for female demonstrators detained during the uprising against Mubarak. Human-rights activists argued that the tests were amounted to sexual assaults; Sisi countered that they were intended to protect the girls from rape.
Morsi likely also found much to admire in the thesis that Sisi produced at the U.S. Army War College, which, despite its innocuous title (Democracy in the Middle East), reads like a tract produced by the Muslim Brotherhood. In his opening paragraph, Sisi emphasizes the centrality of religion to the politics of the region, arguing that for democracy to be successful in the Middle East, it must show respect to the religious nature of the culture and seek public support from religious leaders [who] can help build strong support for the establishment of democratic systems. Egyptians and other Arabs will view democracy positively, he wrote, only if it sustains the religious base versus devaluing religion and creating instability. Secularism, according to Sisi, is unlikely to be favorably received by the vast majority of Middle Easterners, who are devout followers of the Islamic faith. He condemns governments that tend toward secular rule, because they disenfranchise large segments of the population who believe religion should not be excluded from government, and because they often send religious leaders to prison.
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http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139605/robert-springborg/sisis-islamist-agenda-for-egypt?page=2