Tahrir in Egypt, again and always

While we were occupied with our plane that Syria shot down, yesterday the results of the presidential election in Egypt were finally announced. That the results were not announced for days despite the passage of days since the two-day second-round election fed concern that the Egyptian Supreme Electoral Commission was preparing a surprise for the Egyptian people. In Egypt, where, just two days before the election, the parliamentary elections held a few months earlier were declared invalid, during the elections the Military Council also announced that the president to be elected would have no authority whatsoever, including the declaration of war.

With the annulment of the parliamentary elections only two days before the presidential elections, the message was given to voters that no election they would hold would matter. Whatever the voter chose, it would be the Military Council that would determine the result. It could be expected that this message would at least cool the supporters of Muhammad Morsi toward the ballot box, and I think it is not possible to say it had no effect. But in which direction this effect worked will probably never be fully known.

Indeed, in Egypt, where participation in elections is already very low, there is also a high probability that this move produced exactly the opposite result. Just as the September 12 regime's statement in favor of Turgut Sunalp in the 1983 elections had exactly the opposite effect in our case. The role the military council plays in Egypt today is more or less no different from that of the September 12 regime.

Egypt is one of two countries, along with Tunisia, where the Arab Spring process has been experienced relatively more smoothly and spring-like. But here too, the military council, which took over affairs temporarily after Mubarak and in fact with a tacit agreement with the revolutionary people, in its effort to slyly turn this mandate into an acquisition, was increasingly creating the conditions of a full counter-revolution.

These conditions have still not been eliminated even though Morsi has been declared to have won the presidency.

The military council tends to take steps that will increase its influence further as Tahrir empties. As Tahrir fills, it can tend to give up some of these steps. The military council, which showed the audacity to dissolve parliament in the midst of the election, has begun to reveal ever more openly its real intention and will against the revolutionary process. As an actor in Egyptian politics, the military council is looking for ways to leave Mubarak's departure as merely a symbolic stage. During the election process, it did not hold back from openly supporting the man of the status quo, Ahmed Shafik. Shafik, too, ran his entire election campaign over secularist discourses and "fears" that we are accustomed to from Turkey.

When it became clear that Muhammad Morsi would win the elections, both parliament was dissolved and all of the president's powers were pruned. Now what the elected president can do is a complete mystery, but the power of legitimacy that winning an election gives is not to be underestimated. We will all see together how long the military council, which draws strength neither from the constitution nor from the founding will of the revolution, but only from its weapons, can withstand this power.

Moreover, Tahrir Square itself has turned into a source of legitimacy and sanction almost as distinct as the constitution. The likelihood that both the "election result" and the "Tahrir square" will determine the general course in Egypt, where pessimistic winds have been blowing for a few weeks, is quite high.

Meanwhile, of course, it is worth remembering that the counter-forces of the revolution still have no real intention of giving up. But as dear Nuh Yılmaz noted very aptly yesterday on Star-Açık Görüş, were the military council to resist the results with a stubborn resistance, "even if the Brotherhood were to lose from now on, it would surely come back in another form and strongly, like the AK Parti coming back gray only 5 years after February 28." It appears that the military council has for now given up making this move against the Brotherhood, which has this election result and Tahrir Square behind it.

Who knows, perhaps it has decided to benefit from the Turkish experience precisely at this stage and has gone looking for another measure. After all, the "Turkish model" does not only inspire revolutionaries; Egypt's Kemalists, even if they did not name it, had been following and imitating the Turkish model closely for much longer.

Meanwhile, since we are speaking of Tahrir, it is better understood today that Tahrir Square, thought at first not to have been much favored by the Muslim Brothers, was in fact able to have its ultimate effect only with their participation. The Brotherhood receives considerable criticism on this from some of the revolutionary youth. The criticisms that the Brotherhood joined Tahrir only at times of its own choosing and, when it joined, took away all of Tahrir's gains are not to be dismissed. But there is something that is not taken into account, and that is that Tahrir was able to show its real effect only with the Brotherhood's participation. In the end the Brotherhood perhaps did not start the Tahrir rallies, but had it not taken part, the revolution probably could not have succeeded.

It is understood that the military council in Egypt took courage from Assad's resistance in Syria and is trying to hijack the Revolution. The worst of it is that the attempts to hijack the revolution in Egypt turn back and give Assad a bit more courage. The change in Egypt advancing one more step toward the Revolution has been very important for dispersing the pessimistic winds blowing in the region these days.

Now what shall we say, may God bring it to its completion.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A SCHOLAR

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. His daughter-in-law, "Hilalciği" (Kaplan), wrote "The Scholar's Death" very beautifully and touchingly. But before his death she wrote his life, lived like a poem, like a perfect work. Prof. Salim Öğüt, the valuable scholar, hodjaefendi, friend, elder brother whom I found late and lost quickly, has passed to the mercy of the Truth after a painful illness. I pray for God's mercy upon Salim hodja, to whose bravery, piety, and sincerity I bore witness with certainty during the time we met and conversed, and for beautiful patience for his family.