The Egyptian coup by the military should help us remember why we celebrated the 4th of July
this month. In 1776, America set a course to democracy that
ended in a constitution that is the framework for
the form of government that we have now.
The Egyptians’
climb to a stable democracy has been fits, starts, wrong turns, and near death.
Giving birth to democracy is hard and
painful labor, but in spite of so many
differences among the colonies, we pulled it off. We should not take that feat for granted and
we deserve to celebrate it. As we found our way, other countries, like Egypt,
are trying to find theirs and we should wish them the best.
How did it happen we succeeded? 1776 was our first step. The debate was about whether to revolt from
England . No one was excluded; all colonies sent representatives, and a sincere attempt was made to reach
consensus through compromise. That same spirit of consensus building, in
spite of passionate differences and stumbles with the Articles of Confederation,
continued into the Constitutional Convention beginning in 1787 and its subsequent
ratification. As historian Catherine
Drinker Bowen wrote in “Miracle at Philadelphia”, “The spirit of compromise
reigned in grace and glory”.
The interpretation of
our Constitution is always evolving,
and we have always had our divisions .In fact, we fought a bloody civil
war over the admission and
permission of slave or non slave states.
We despair today over a Congress that is paralyzed by a “ no compromise” mentality, but divisions
are nothing like the passions of 1861.
Our democracy has reached a stage of maturity that to
think our military would step in, conduct a coup, throw out the constitution,
arrest the deposed leaders ,and shut down media outlets, as just happened in Egypt, is not even on any
rational American’s radar.
The form of democracy we devised to keep some strong man
or one party from seizing complete power was to divide our government into branches that checked and
balanced each other and we put the military under civilian control . The Constitutional Amendments protect many other specific civil rights.
As seen through the eyes of seasoned Western journalists
on the ground , there is agreement that the Egyptian course toward democracy went wrong
after Tahrir Square in several ways.
First, the constitution was written by a commission chosen
by a Muslim Brotherhood Islamist
dominated parliament . The commission cut out
any special protection of the rights of
women, secularists, and minority religions and they based the constitution in
conformity with Shariah law. The genie of modernization had already been released from the bottle
and stuffing those rights back into the
bottle within a year was more than much of Egypt could accept.
Only 30% of
registered voters went to the polls,
though of those voting, 64% were in favor of the constitution. The vast majority’s preferences were not
reflected in the approval process.
President Mohamed
Morsi, elected by a bare majority, did not make good on his campaign promises
to be inclusive, and he attempted to consolidate his supporter base of
Islamists, instead. In November , he decreed to legislate without judicial
oversight or review of his acts. Public outrage forced him to annul the decree.
He also persecuted opposition
journalists and failed to revive the
economy.
Egyptians should not mistake mass demonstrations for
democracy any more than they should continue to accept military rule as their
salvation. . The military has promised to give them an opportunity to rewrite a
constitution. The opposition to Morsi may be disorganized. However, to avoid a
long and bloody struggle, Morsi’s opposition and Morsi’s supporters, must
participate and compromise with “grace and glory” on a constitutional
framework that will be more inclusive and will protect democratic institutions.
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