Usually army takeovers are not something that begins with a countdown or a deadline. However, before deposing the Egyptian Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian army gave an ultimatum to Morsi that if he did not address the demand of the people gathered in the Cairo’s Tahrir Square asking his resignation, they would move in, which they eventually did. Morsi took over as the President of Egypt after the overthrow of the thirty-year ruling dictator Hosni Mubarak by a popular uprising first by the youth of Cairo later to be joined by the common Egyptians. Though reluctant to join the anti-Mubarak movement in the beginning, subsequently Muslim Brotherhood not only joined the movement but also swiftly hijacked the movement and took it under its control. Morsi belonged to the Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the party that gave birth to religious fundamentalism and Morsi was the first democratically elected President of Egypt but could never shed his original ideological thinking that Muslim should go back to the days of its origin.

Muslim Brotherhood — in Arabic al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun — was a religio-political organisation founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna and was based on fundamentalist ideologies. Its political bases spread fast through Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and North Africa. It capitalised on extreme poverty in these areas, thanks to the centuries of colonial European rulers, undertook extensive social work and could convince the bottom of the pyramid that their well-being and emancipation lied in the ideology of Ikhwan. To harass the state machinery it took up the weapon of violence across Egypt and in the month of December 1948 assassinated the Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi. Because of the Egyptian government’s crackdown on its leadership and workers it virtually went underground and subsequently was banned though its activities never stopped. On October 26, 1954, Ikhwan tried to assassinate Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser in Alexandria. However, when Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by October 6, 1981 by fundamentalist army officers during a military parade, it was widely believed Muslim Brotherhood had a hand in it.

As dictator Mubarak did not allow any other political parties to take roots in Egypt. But Brotherhood by this time managed to establish international connection and help in forming similar parties in other countries through exporting their ideologies. Once such party is the Jamaat-e-Islami which operates in Indian, Pakistan and Bangladesh and was formed in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Moududi, a disciple of Hasan al-Banna. The recent activities of Hefajat-e-Islam are similar to what Muslim Brotherhood preaches. When Mubarak was booted out of power, he left a big political gap that was filled by Muslim Brotherhood, the only outfit that was not only organised but also capable of running an election. As the post-Mubarak military government under Field Marshall Tantawai would not allow Brotherhood to function under its own name, to dupe the military government and the people, Brotherhood floated ‘Freedom and Justice Party,’ and ran for the parliamentary election held between November 2011 and January 2012. Morsi, Brotherhood’s Presidential candidate, ran for the office against Hosni Mubarak’s former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq and won narrowly. He took oath of office on June 30, 2012 and exactly one year after his assumption of the office as the Egypt’s first elected President, he was overthrown by the movement of the same people that ousted Mubarak with the active assistance of the army. Political analysts think that Egypt’s political clock has been turned back.

Mubarak ruled Egypt for thirty years with iron hand. During Mubarak’s rule Egyptian economy suffered, inflation ran high, on an average of 8.5% which went upto as high as 35% in 1986. Unemployment hovered around 9% and economic growth rate never crossed 2.5%. He was ruthless while dealing with the dissidents and imposed a one-party rule on the people during his entire tenure as the President. When Morsi took over as the President, he promised that he would move away from the original ideology of the Brotherhood, practise liberal form of democracy and make room for others. He promised the Egyptians better life and economy and better governance. Nothing of the sort happened and on the contrary he imposed more fundamentalist ideologies. Some of his policymakers even promoted the preposterous idea that if the thousand-year-old statue of Buddha can be dynamited by the Talibans in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, there is no reason not to do the same with the pyramids and the sphinx of Egypt. Some of his aides advocated that women should not be seen in public and banned many entertainment programmes in the local TV. Unemployment rose to near to 14% while inflation was close to 8.2% as was during Mubarak’s rule. Public utilities became costlier and people thought they had enough reason to boot Morsi out of power. The Egyptian army always maintained a secular façade keeping the ideologies of Nasser era intact, something similar to Turkey and Algerian army beliefs.

Incidentally General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who deposed Morsi was handpicked by Morsi himself to lead the Egyptian army after assuming power, but now the general has swept him aside. Earlier, the army had produced the autocrats that had ruled Egypt previous sixty years. It has run the country itself during the tumultuous 16 months after Mubarak was overthrown and it also seemed reluctant to hand power to Morsi until the new President briskly dispatched Tantawi and a number of other officers into retirement. Now it needs to be seen how Sisi behaves in days to come. He has already suspended the constitution and appointed Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Adly al-Mansour as the chief of the interim government. Initially the US was not happy about Morsi’s departure. Obama urged the Egyptian military to return Egypt to democracy and said Washington was ‘deeply concerned.’ But soon they retracted their original position and said they were not unhappy over Morsi’s ouster, confusing the rest of the Middle East. However, what is worrying is whether Egypt will become another Syria or Iraq. Already Al-Qaeda has vowed to rescue Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. According to Arab-language website ‘Veto Gate’, Al-Qaeda under the leadership of Muhammad Zawahari is currently planning reprisal operation by which to attack the army and Morsi opposition all around the Republic of Egypt. During last one week at least thirty people died in the movement to overthrow Morsi. If peace does not return to Egypt soon, there will perhaps be perpetual turmoil in the Arab world.

The writer is a former Vice-chancellor, University of Chittagong.