Arab spring turns into a dark winter

One of the first Idioms that I had learned during my school days was “ one swallow doesn't make a summer,” which is a nice way of saying that early signs are sometimes misleading. I am very much reminded of this saying, after reading the latest news about Egypt, where new democratically elected Islamist president Morsi, has unilaterally decreed greater authorities for himself. With this decree, he has effectively neutralized a judiciary system that was emerging as a real challenge for him. The supposed objective of this decree, surprisingly is cleansing state institutions and destroying the infrastructure of the old regime of Hosni Mubarak(?).

Nobel laureate and former UN atomic energy agency chief El Baradei has reacted sharply to this new development. He says, "Morsi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh. A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences." There have been many other sharp reactions. The head of the influential Judge's Club, Ahmed al-Zind, announced that the judges would hold an emergency meeting on Saturday to decide on their next step, promising actions. one judge at Egypt's State Council says, "As a judge, I feel paralysed. " Sameh Ashour, head of the Lawyers syndicate says, "This is a coup against legitimacy... We are calling on all Egyptians to protest in all of Egypt's squares on Friday.” Opposition forces denounced the presidential declaration as a "coup" and called for nationwide protests on Friday. However a presidential spokesman Yasser Ali clarifies that "The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution, "The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal."

The two year old uprising in Egypt, known as Arab spring, was essentially against the tyrannical rule of military dictator Hosni Mubarak and gave rise to a pro-democracy movement that toppled the long-time dictator. An interim Government formed by the military, unwilling to give up power, finally bowed to people's wishes and conducted general elections, in which Morsi's conservative Islamist party “ Muslim Brotherhood” won and elected him as new president of Egypt.

Just last week, president Morsi had brokered a peace deal between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers and had received lavish praise from American president and Secretary of State. But within days he has come out with a nasty decree that says that all decisions he has made since taking office in June and until a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament is elected cannot be appealed in court or by any other authority. The courts are also barred from dissolving the assembly writing the new constitution.

With this development, it sadly becomes clear, that all talk of Arab spring, were just hyped wishes of western media and in reality we are back to winter of Muslim theocratic oppression with just a change of the ruler.

This chain of events from Egypt, highlights the dangers and perils that a society would face, when embarking on a path of democratic rule. Due to great foresight of the founding fathers of the Indian constitution, Indian democracy was put on solid foundation. Yet there was an attempt to impose autocratic dynastic rule with imposition of emergency in 1975. Fortunately, the very same constitution, saved India from the dynastic rule then.

President Morsi obviously does not believe in democracy. The Director in charge of Egypt at Human Rights Watch, Mr Heba Morayef, has commented that "What's fundamentally problematic and threatens both the rule of law and overall democratic checks and balances is his decision to give his decrees immunity from the judiciary until the constitution is passed."

After the presidential decree, hundreds of demonstrators held a day of protests near “Arab spring famed” Tahrir Square, against Morsi and the Brotherhood. To counter this, Brotherhood supporters are massing outside the Supreme Court building and offices of the prosecutor general to support President Morsi.

An icon of the anti-Mubarak uprising, Wael Ghonim, rejects president's decree and says that president could have protected the revolution without concentrating so much power in his hands. He rightly adds "The revolution was not staged in search for a benign dictator, there is a difference between revolutionary decisions and dictatorial decisions. God is the only one whose decisions are not questioned."

The world has to watch in coming days, the way Egypt goes, in future. Would it follow the often trodden path of many dictators of the world, ultimately leading to their obliteration or Arab spring green shoots emerge again. But as on today, it appears that the one swallow that showed up, did not make the summer.

24 November 2012

An Irreparable Loss

 

In the year 1798, the great French General, ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ had invaded Egypt. During this invasion, Egypt’s ancient culture and the progress, which that country had made during those times, was exposed for the first time to the western world. Napoleon was so much impressed with Egypt that he decided to set up an institute to carry out advanced research in a wide variety of fields such as biology, mathematics, fine arts and archeology. In August 1798, he established a research body called L’Institute d’Egypte. During last  two centuries, this institute had developed a well stocked library with more than 200,000 rare books, manuscripts and maps. In the Library collection, there was a 24 volume, original, hand written copy of a book “Description de l’Égypte” (Description of Egypt), written by French explorers between 1798 to  1801. This book contained detailed description of  archeological finds, temples and monuments found in Egypt. This Library was housed in a  18th century neoclassical building in central Cairo near the famous ‘Tahir Square’. This building is located on the Qasr al-Aine street next to Shura or Cabinet building.  At the moment Egypt is ruled by an military administration and civil liberty demonstrators are demonstrating in the Tahir square for transfer of power to civilian Government. A skirmish broke out on 17th December 2011  between these demonstrators and the guards guarding the Shura or Cabinet building. When demonstrators found that the soldiers are resorting to stone pelting at them, they started throwing petrol bombs or Molotov Cocktails at the Shura building. One of the petrol bomb missed the target and fell in the compound of  the Library building. The fire spread quickly on the ground floor of the library and then to upper stories, which housed books.

 

 

The fire brigade, which arrived at the building, took more than 12 hours to extinguish the fire because of the burning old books. By then the old wooden roof had burnt out and collapsed. This has rendered the whole building unsafe and dangerous. The civil liberty demonstrators from Tahir square, rushed to the library, when they became aware about the fire,  and salvaged whatever books they could,  by bringing the books out and storing these on the footpath outside. Even these people were fired upon by the soldiers. Some people were wounded and some lost their lives here.

 

 

Around 50000 books, which were salvaged by these demonstrators and stored on the foot path,  have been moved now to nearby American Institute. Many of the books from this lot are in burnt out condition. The chief librarian Mr. Zein Abdek- Hady thinks that people might have also taken few books to their homes. He feels that these may be eventually returned or may appear in old books selling shops. At least 14 persons have lost their lives in this institute. Teams of researchers wearing white coats, surgical gloves and masks are rummaging  though the heaps of burnt out books to salvage whatever is possible. 

 

 

Egypt has lost very heavily because of this fire no doubt. Yet, in loss of these important books and documents, the whole world has lost part of its heritage. This incident reminds me of the destruction caused by some vandals in Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Pune, India. Such incidents  highlight  the importance of digitizing  Old books, documents, scriptures and maps available in the world libraries as soon as possible to save them from such unfortunate acts of vandalism. It is high time that libraries around the world take necessary steps at earliest.