MORSI: THE BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY BY AMERICA, DANGERS AHEAD

There are supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan who have been making comments on the social media since yesterday indicating that they supported the mob and military’s torpedo of a democratically elected government of Egypt led by President Mohammed Morsi. And I ask these people, if the Morsi treatment is meted out to the Aso Rock landlord will they support the Nigerian masses? Of course anyone who know my disdain for military rule and who happens to have read my treaties yesterday titled, ”Why United States Must Save Morsi”, will note how distasteful I considers military intervention in power. Therefore President Jonathan with all his faults must be supported and allowed to finish his tenure and if constitution and the Nigerian people permit, he can even go for a second term. But not everyone can be as tolerant as some of us to the multitude of missteps of his government. And there are many who will like the Morsi treatment to be meted out to Jonathan, especially given that Morsi was supposedly removed because he had failed in just one year to fulfil his promises to the Egyptian people, and Jonathan, if we are sincere to ourselves have also failed to meet the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians since he came to power in 2011. But this is not about Jonathan, rather it is about the hypocrisy of the United States which appointed itself world’s “guardian of democracy”, yet stood by and a democratically elected government was overthrown. Now, what moral right has the United States to pontificate against any military takeover anywhere in the world? By supporting democracy by the mob and military, America has lost the moral voice to be the champion of democracy , that is, if it has ever had one.

Although the mob and the military got their wish by pushing out Morsi, there is danger ahead. History will be our better guide in this. In 1991 the military in Algeria annulled an election in which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win. Both the military and their supporters thought that was the end of the matter. A few months later armed conflict began on the streets of Algeria that claimed 200,000 lives, including the death of 70 journalists. The civil war lasted from 1991 to 1998, but it was not until 2002 was the FIS defeated.  The Algerian civil war created some of the insurgents that constitute the so-called Al-Qaeda in Islamic Magreb, that are now believed to be training and aiding insurgents in Northern Nigeria. Some of the veterans of the Algerian war are in the most wanted list of terrorists by United States. Would they have turned to terrorism if they were allowed to enjoy the mandate given to them by the Algerian people? We may never know. Now, let us not forget that Mohammed Morsi won the last presidential election in Egypt under the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood who was the only opposition group that challenged the hegemony of Hosni Mubarak at the height of his stranglehold on the Egyptian people. Many of their leaders died in prison. Where are the Muslim Brotherhood members as their man was forced out of power? Have they suddenly disappeared into the thin air or are they going to revert to insurgency? Will the Muslim Brotherhood ever participate in future elections in Egypt? With their huge numbers, can any election in Egypt be legitimate without the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood? Can the Muslim Brotherhood ever trust democracy again, as the best system to govern Egypt? The dangers ahead are ominous. The world may soon hear from Egypt. The world may shudder over what will come out of Egypt.