Egypt's military gives Morsy ultimatum

[Flagg]

He did represent the majority of voters though, and much as I dislike Islamists of any stripe, that's what democracy is about.

That is unfair. Some people may boycott the elections since they either feel disempowered, they may be shunned or threatened to avoid the election and/or vote for the "wrong" candidate (see Afghanistan) and so on. If there is a high turnover, then the elections - much like a referenda - represent the will of the people, majority rule. However, if the turnover is minimal, and the atmosphere is non-conducive to mass participation, no one can claim that the elections represent the wishes of the majority.

Let's be fair - are you saying people in North African countries are really 'free' to vote for secular politicians? I am asking this because secular politicians are simply murdered in these nations, and it has not been like four or five months since the murder of Chokri Belaid in Tunisia, who was the leader of the secular left-wing opposition to the "moderate Islamists". In such an atmosphere "free and fair" seems to be a bit stretching it.

If you lose free and fair elections you don't get to rise up and violently seize power, or at least you don't get to do that and pretend you give a damn about democracy afterward. Not even when you are secular and happen to be more to our tastes.

I disagree. When Hitler was put to power by party politics which forged an alliance between NSDAP and several smaller right-wing parties, that was done through a democratic process. However, if the elected side does not give a damn about democracy itself, and there were signs that Morsi is trying to usurp power, then you can and should raise the issue outside the ballot box. Up to the point where resistance becomes the only morally viable choice.

Well clearly the western model of DEMOCRACY where rule of law matters is what Egypt should be striving for.

[Siege]

I see a working democracy.

And I see a deeply polarized nation where a lot of people cannot agree on who ought to be in office. The solution to such polarization in my opinion is not rolling in the army to depose the other guy as soon as he does something that does not suit you, it's to try and work out your differences in parliament or, in the worst case, bide your time until the next election.

That's democracy. Army chiefs ordering the democratically elected president be put under house arrest is fundamentally undemocratic. It doesn't matter if they relinquish power to somebody else afterward, they've made it plenty clear who's the real power in Egypt, and exactly what they'll do to the next guy to rule in a way that happens to not please them for some reason.

That is unfair. Some people may boycott the elections since they either feel disempowered, they may be shunned or threatened to avoid the election and/or vote for the "wrong" candidate (see Afghanistan) and so on.

And if that were the case I'd be right there with you agreeing that this might be a second chance for the revolution to pay off. But as I recall the Egyptian elections last year were deemed to be free and fair, or at least as free and fair as was reasonably possible. They were also won by people we might fervently disagree with, but that doesn't change the fact that they won. And if they won because the secular opposition was fractured and disorganized, the blame for their loss lies with them, not with the better organized party.

However, if the elected side does not give a damn about democracy itself, and there were signs that Morsi is trying to usurp power, then you can and should raise the issue outside the ballot box.

I'll readily admit I haven't been paying close attention so I don't know about those signs, and I generally agree that people have the right to demonstrate against whoever happens to be in office as a sign of their displeasure with whatever policies are being enacted, so I'll defer to you on this. I admit there are possible situations where democracy could be saved through an undemocratic act. But I'll point out that this doesn't magically make that undemocratic act democratic. It just doesn't. Regardless of their motives this is still a putz by unelected army officials, and as such fundamentally undemocratic, and such actions weaken the structure and believability of any democracy, especially if it's a vulnerable and new and polarized one like Egypt.

[mr friendly guy]

For someone who hasn't kept up with things, can people explain what Morsi has done while in power that made people angry with him, and which policies are specifically anti democratic?

[K. A. Pital]

He claimed that any law or decree signed by him is final and can't be appealed. He also passed a decree banning the courts from dissolving the upper house of Parliament. That's enough - more than enough.

And if that were the case I'd be right there with you agreeing that this might be a second chance for the revolution to pay off. But as I recall the Egyptian elections last year were deemed to be free and fair, or at least as free and fair as was reasonably possible. They were also won by people we might fervently disagree with, but that doesn't change the fact that they won. And if they won because the secular opposition was fractured and disorganized, the blame for their loss lies with them, not with the better organized party.

That is a very peculiar line of thought. After the Iranian revolution, which introduced democratic procedures in a previously dictatorial Shah's Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini proceeded then to systematically exterminate leftist and liberal political forces using an army-like, mobilized minority of hardcore islamist troops. He took advantage of their weakness and before long, a formally democratic procedure was used to usher essentially an islamist dictatorship with electoral fig leaves. Your advice in such a situation? "Wait until the next election". I can't speak for Egypt's National Salvation Front, but I feel many of them understand that if they wait for 4 or 5 years, many of them might simply not see the day when it comes to another election.

I admit there are possible situations where democracy could be saved through an undemocratic act. But I'll point out that this doesn't magically make that undemocratic act democratic. It just doesn't. Regardless of their motives this is still a putz by unelected army officials, and as such fundamentally undemocratic, and such actions weaken the structure and believability of any democracy, especially if it's a vulnerable and new and polarized one like Egypt.

You are right. This is another revolution after a revolution. Let's say this is October to Egypt's February - or July, for that matter. Thing is, when revolutionary processes start, it is not easy to say when and where - and how - they end. But before you say "The Army officials are not elected", think again. Portugal's Estado Novo did not fall because of the non-functional ballot box. It fell because of the Army. Nobody elected them, sure. It was a coup. And yet, who will say it was not necessary?

[Siege]

That is a very peculiar line of thought. After the Iranian revolution, which introduced democratic procedures in a previously dictatorial Shah's Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini proceeded then to systematically exterminate leftist and liberal political forces using an army-like, mobilized minority of hardcore islamist troops. He took advantage of their weakness and before long, a formally democratic procedure was used to usher essentially an islamist dictatorship with electoral fig leaves. Your advice in such a situation? "Wait until the next election". I can't speak for Egypt's National Salvation Front, but I feel many of them understand that if they wait for 4 or 5 years, many of them might simply not see the day when it comes to another election.

I remain firmly unconvinced that Egypt was in any way headed for Khomeini territory. That is a very strong claim that demands a lot of hard evidence to back it up, especially since it is the lynchpin around which your argument that this was a just coup revolves. Without that, there's nothing more than "a lot of Egyptians didn't like their government". Well, tough. A lot of people in a lot of democracies don't like their government; that does not in any way justify the army rolling their tanks into the capital to assume direct control.

There's a lot of vague allusions flying around here about how Morsi might possibly at some point eventually years down the line have turned out to be Khomeini incarnate, but as of yet I'm not seeing a whole lot to back up the assertion that deposing him in a flagrantly undemocratic fashion is more democratic than, you know, democracy.

But before you say "The Army officials are not elected", think again. Portugal's Estado Novo did not fall because of the non-functional ballot box. It fell because of the Army. Nobody elected them, sure. It was a coup. And yet, who will say it was not necessary?

I believe we are partly missing each other's point here though. My point is that what is happening in Egypt now is undemocratic (and did so mainly in response to the exchange between Guardsman Bass and Ace Pace). I remain undecided on if it is unnecessary. These are not necessarily the same things -- but I maintain that the claim that the coup was a necessity has not been backed up to any satisfactory extent.

[K. A. Pital]

A lot of people in a lot of democracies don't like their government; that does not in any way justify the army rolling their tanks into the capital to assume direct control.

Yet the leader of the Supreme Court has been made a technical president, there's no Caudillo rising from the Egyptian army (so far). I hope it stays that way.

My point is that what is happening in Egypt now is undemocratic.

You are correct in that it is a violation of representative democracy norms. However, the word "democratic" implies a lot more than merely following the law and technical procedure. It becomes synonymous with the will of the people and will of the majority, a vox populi-vox dei type of relation. This is what I am objecting to - picturing representative democracy as the one and only democracy, and the strict following of procedures as the only democratism there is. That is not the end of all democracy; popular uprisings and direct democracy, anarchism and syndicalism, et cetera are also options for people to express their will.

As you might have noticed, Morsi made it so that laws implemented by him could not be challenged in courts or overturned, and the Parliament dominated by his party could not have been disbanded using any technically legal procedure. When the ire of the secular part of Egypt became serious enough to viably challenge the rule of Moslem Brothers, there were no other means to replace Morsi at the helm.

I am not saying that there was no option to wait and see, or that the rules of representative democracy have been strictly followed. They have not, and the option to wait is always there even under dictatorship or threat of dictatorship; even if the Constitution is changed by the Parliament into something you utterly reject - which is, by the way, close to what happened in Egypt.

The problem was that using democratic leverage Morsi was trying to introduce the legal basis for his Islamist measures at a very deep, Constitutional level - a level where, once it would be set for several years, these measures would be extremely hard to repel.

I am simply trying to understand what it should have been like for the current Egyptian, and how come there were well over one million people in Tahrir last days, and well over 17 million (!) people demanding for Morsi to go. By the way, Morsi's "yes" voters on the Constitution were only some 11 million strong.

[LaCroix]

The people rising up against a tyrant is always a display of direct democracy.

And don't try to play it down as a simple power-grabbing coup - the military didn't just decide to remove a perfectly fine government to grab power for themselves. There were weeks with millions in the street, demanding that the power-grabbing president (soon to be for life, if we project his actions forward into the future) steps down. After watching for some time to see if this would resolve peacefully, they acted on the direct vote of the supreme power, the people.

They immediately handed control over to the highest, non-corrupted (or least-corrupted, who knows) civilian authority next in line, who immediately announced that the elections demanded by the people will take place, soon.

If there is a textbook operation to remove someone who is actively destroying democracy out of his position of power in a country, this was it.

[K. A. Pital]

17 million out of a 51 million electorate is an incredible protest, actually. That is almost half of the population directly protesting - and this is the combined vote for Morsi and the other, more hardcore, islamist (that was 17 million too).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The people rising up against a tyrant is always a display of direct democracy.

And don't try to play it down as a simple power-grabbing coup - the military didn't just decide to remove a perfectly fine government to grab power for themselves. There were weeks with millions in the street, demanding that the power-grabbing president (soon to be for life, if we project his actions forward into the future) steps down. After watching for some time to see if this would resolve peacefully, they acted on the direct vote of the supreme power, the people.

They immediately handed control over to the highest, non-corrupted (or least-corrupted, who knows) civilian authority next in line, who immediately announced that the elections demanded by the people will take place, soon.

If there is a textbook operation to remove someone who is actively destroying democracy out of his position of power in a country, this was it.

You are talking about a justice system staffed with Mubarak cronies. Corrupt is definitely the by-word.

[energiewende]

I agree with Stas Bush's analysis here.

The issue is that while in the West democracy is a quasi-religious imperative, Islam claims that its customary religious law system is universal and supreme. It is like trying to argue to an 11th century Catholic that authority ultimately derives from the opinions of the peasant serfs rather than from God (although the analogy works poorly if considered further: there are no feudal Lords and Christianity does not really have a clear concept of a single religious law). Morsi is willing to use democracy as a tool but it is not his end goal; his end goal is a state in which the Sharia is the fundamental law and source of authority in Egypt.

If a large fraction of the population of a democracy is willing to vote for its abolition then there is clearly some cultural issue with using this form of government at all. What the West would really need to do, if it were serious at spreading its values in this region, is to promote atheism rather than democracy. In the short term however that would provoke an extremely violent backlash, so instead Western governments pretend not to understand the fundamental incompatability of political Islam and representative democracy.

[AniThyng]

Please, explain why atheism would do anything for democratic values? And which western country has atheism as opposed to secularism as a cultural bedrock?

[energiewende]

It would eliminate political Islam, which is not ultimately compatible with any other government form. Islam was born in the purple; there is no conception of a separate state with separate demands that at least must be acquiesced to. There is no "render unto caesar". There is one law - the Sharia - and states are subject to it just as everyone else is. The only analogy with Christianity one could draw is to the most radical early protestant sects; the English Independents for instance who briefly took control of the country and imposed a theocracy. But even that is imperfect because there is no equivalent Christian concept of Sharia. In Islam you don't need to be radical to recognise and accept the Islamic religious law, it is just part of the regular body of belief.

Of course replacing Islam with some kind of plastic Christianity that hardly any of the population takes seriously, in direct analogy to the West, would also be fine. But saying "give up Islam and take up progressive Christianity" is both even more inflammatory and logically a far weaker argument, since Christianity is just as untrue a doctrine as Islam.

[AniThyng]

It would eliminate political Islam, which is not ultimately compatible with any other government form. Islam was born in the purple; there is no conception of a separate state with separate demands that at least must be acquiesced to. There is no "render unto caesar". There is one law - the Sharia - and states are subject to it just as everyone else is. The only analogy with Christianity one could draw is to the most radical early protestant sects; the English Independents for instance who briefly took control of the country and imposed a theocracy. But even that is imperfect because there is no equivalent Christian concept of Sharia. In Islam you don't need to be radical to recognise and accept the Islamic religious law, it is just part of the regular body of belief.

Of course replacing Islam with some kind of plastic Christianity that hardly any of the population takes seriously, in direct analogy to the West, would also be fine. But saying "give up Islam and take up progressive Christianity" is both even more inflammatory and logically a far weaker argument, since Christianity is just as untrue a doctrine as Islam.

Surely the Catholic Church is a far more appropriate analogy, if we are talking about the blending of spiritual and temporal power in Christianity?

I find the notion that moderate religious people can be more easily persuaded to become atheist than to become a moderate or indifferent practicioner of the same or another faith to be absurd. If you want to see Islam and Christianity unite, you need only set them against atheists.

And I'm still not seeing how European/Western countries are culturally atheist in character rather than merely secular.

[K. A. Pital]

It would eliminate political Islam, which is not ultimately compatible with any other government form. Islam was born in the purple; there is no conception of a separate state with separate demands that at least must be acquiesced to. There is no "render unto caesar". There is one law - the Sharia - and states are subject to it just as everyone else is. The only analogy with Christianity one could draw is to the most radical early protestant sects; the English Independents for instance who briefly took control of the country and imposed a theocracy. But even that is imperfect because there is no equivalent Christian concept of Sharia. In Islam you don't need to be radical to recognise and accept the Islamic religious law, it is just part of the regular body of belief.

Of course replacing Islam with some kind of plastic Christianity that hardly any of the population takes seriously, in direct analogy to the West, would also be fine. But saying "give up Islam and take up progressive Christianity" is both even more inflammatory and logically a far weaker argument, since Christianity is just as untrue a doctrine as Islam.

You are wrong; fascist Spain under Franco had Sharia-like restrictions on what women could do, and this was done through a fundamentally Christian power structure. Christianity can be extremely restrictive at the state level, you just don't want to admit that.

Other than that - yes, religion sucks donkey balls.

[energiewende]

Surely the Catholic Church is a far more appropriate analogy, if we are talking about the blending of spiritual and temporal power in Christianity?

I find the notion that moderate religious people can be more easily persuaded to become atheist than to become a moderate or indifferent practicioner of the same or another faith to be absurd. If you want to see Islam and Christianity unite, you need only set them against atheists.

And I'm still not seeing how European/Western countries are culturally atheist in character rather than merely secular.

In some ways yes, in others no. The Catholic church is much more centralised, it also never really controlled "Christendom" and had no clear strategy to do so. I don't think there are any really satisfactory comparisons to Christianity but there are some that half work.

You seem to be reading things I didn't say. The West is not formally atheist, there are various plastic religions no one really cares about, the point is to get the Islamic world also to that point. Plastic islam in which people put up decorations for Eid before getting drunk and eating pork is fine; so is plastic Christianity but are you in any way serious that trying to Christianise the Islamic world is not a totally insane and indefensible policy? The West's strategy on the Islamic world's problems, and its conflicts with the West, should be based on four simple words: Allah does not exist.

You are wrong; fascist Spain under Franco had Sharia-like restrictions on what women could do, and this was done through a fundamentally Christian power structure. Christianity can be extremely restrictive at the state level, you just don't want to admit that.

Kind of an odd example - what about the actual one I myself gave, of the English Commonwealth? Or the Spanish Inquisition for that matter? My point isn't that Christianity never promotes tyranny (it can and does) but that Christianity itself does not have a religious law system that claims supremacy over the state. Christianity needs to co-opt the state; in Islam, the state needs to co-opt the Islamic law.

[AniThyng]

Seriously? Things must be different over where you are, because generally the approach I feel works better in smoothing over religious differences is getting people to agree to disagree on some things, and agree to agree on common ground elsewhere.

The West can start trying to persuade Muslims that Allah does not exist when they've succeeded in convincing themselves that God does not exist. So sorry if I find the very notion that you can even try to base any engagement with the Islamic world on Atheism to be absurd on its face, even more so than trying to Christianize them. THough I guess it might win you points for making them dumbfounded, since they can at least understand Christianity.

[energiewende]

It's hard for people to agree to disagree when they believe that their view is the single divinely correct view, and your view contradicts theirs. IIRC from an earlier thread, you live in Malaysia? That is not a sort of state I would want to live in.

It's just the 21st century equivalent of Radio Free Europe. Instead of broadcasting liberal democracy into the USSR, we're broadcasting non-Islam into the Islamic World. Broadcasting Christianity would make them angrier but it wouldn't really threaten their beliefs. They know all about Christianity, it existed before their religion after all, so that is engaging them on their own ground and accepting all the religious assumptions, and just supporting some other guy for Divine King of the World. Broadcasting atheism on the other hand radically undermines their entire political philosophy. It threatens to fully deconstruct their society, in the perjorative sense of the word.

Now as for Western anti-atheism, I don't really see it, but maybe that's just the countries I have lived in. At any rate, there were communists in the West, and even more so moderates who were sympathetic to left wing views (social democrats are to Stalinists as Western "Christians" are to Egyptian Islamists, imo), and before that there were Fascists in Britain and America when they fought Nazi Germany. In my view that does not and should not tie our hands.

[K. A. Pital]

You seem to be reading things I didn't say. The West is not formally atheist, there are various plastic religions no one really cares about, the point is to get the Islamic world also to that point. Plastic islam in which people put up decorations for Eid before getting drunk and eating pork is fine; so is plastic Christianity but are you in any way serious that trying to Christianise the Islamic world is not a totally insane and indefensible policy? The West's strategy on the Islamic world's problems, and its conflicts with the West, should be based on four simple words: Allah does not exist.

Plastic and apathetic-mystical Islam does exist; you are talking about political Islam, which is a very special beast (and the West played a not-so-obvious role in its coming of age, too). Christianinzing is insane, of course.

Kind of an odd example - what about the actual one I myself gave, of the English Commonwealth? Or the Spanish Inquisition for that matter? My point isn't that Christianity never promotes tyranny (it can and does) but that Christianity itself does not have a religious law system that claims supremacy over the state. Christianity needs to co-opt the state; in Islam, the state needs to co-opt the Islamic law.

Actually, before the introduction of the Church-state separation, Christianity did claim supermacy or being par to the actual government powers. In the Russian Orthodoxy, for a very long time each decree by the Czar needed to be monitored, approved and signed also by the Church Patriarch. Christianity existed in a very similar situation to Islam before the separation - that occured in many nations at different points in time and due to various events, too. Christianity was also operating a set of laws that were controlling the daily and political life; the recreation of religious-based restrictions in fascist regimes is only a late blowback from a massive epoch where Christian tradition, much like Sharia, was exerting undue influence on lawmaking and life reglamentation.

It's just the 21st century equivalent of Radio Free Europe. Instead of broadcasting liberal democracy into the USSR, we're broadcasting non-Islam into the Islamic World.

Are you really? I mean, broadcasting representative democracy into the USSR was explaining to a Europeanized nation, forcibly modernized by the Bolsheviks, something that was already known there. Broadcasting "non-Islam" is something different; and the West is not doing that.

Apolitical and secularized Islam has, in fact, not been the preference of the West. Quite the opposite: the West nurtured political Islam from Indonesia to Pakistan. And it continues to do this.

[AniThyng]

It's hard for people to agree to disagree when they believe that their view is the single divinely correct view, and your view contradicts theirs. IIRC from an earlier thread, you live in Malaysia? That is not a sort of state I would want to live in.

Assuming we are still talking about ordinary people here, it's a damn slight more realistic than expecting better outcomes from people dropping religion in favor of atheism. Now perhaps if you had lowered your standards a bit and decided to talk about rationalism and moderation, you may fare better. Anyway yeah you are correct I am from Malaysia. This does mean that not only am I familiar with Islam, but also daily exposure Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism and the vague kind of spiritualism and superstition that many people have even when irreligious. I hope you are not so arrogant as to assume that with atheism comes critical thought!

It's just the 21st century equivalent of Radio Free Europe. Instead of broadcasting liberal democracy into the USSR, we're broadcasting non-Islam into the Islamic World. Broadcasting Christianity would make them angrier but it wouldn't really threaten their beliefs. They know all about Christianity, it existed before their religion after all, so that is engaging them on their own ground and accepting all the religious assumptions, and just supporting some other guy for Divine King of the World. Broadcasting atheism on the other hand radically undermines their entire political philosophy. It threatens to fully deconstruct their society, in the perjorative sense of the word.

I think the kind of muslims who would be receptive to the idea of atheism are also informed enough to throw back in your face the fact that the leader of the United States must be a Christian to be electable, that the UK and many other european countries have State Churches, however neutered, and that the only truly atheist European nation of significance was the USSR!

I mean, I think even FRANCE is not prepared to declare itself to be an atheist state. Secular, sure, but atheist? Yeah, right.

Now as for Western anti-atheism, I don't really see it, but maybe that's just the countries I have lived in. At any rate, there were communists in the West, and even more so moderates who were sympathetic to left wing views (social democrats are to Stalinists as Western "Christians" are to Egyptian Islamists, imo), and before that there were Fascists in Britain and America when they fought Nazi Germany. In my view that does not and should not tie our hands.

I guess not, but I'm sure the Muslims can see for themselves how sincere the west is about preaching atheism.

[energiewende]

It's hard for people to agree to disagree when they believe that their view is the single divinely correct view, and your view contradicts theirs. IIRC from an earlier thread, you live in Malaysia? That is not a sort of state I would want to live in.

Assuming we are still talking about ordinary people here, it's a damn slight more realistic than expecting better outcomes from people dropping religion in favor of atheism. Now perhaps if you had lowered your standards a bit and decided to talk about rationalism and moderation, you may fare better. Anyway yeah you are correct I am from Malaysia. This does mean that not only am I familiar with Islam, but also daily exposure Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism and the vague kind of spiritualism and superstition that many people have even when irreligious. I hope you are not so arrogant as to assume that with atheism comes critical thought!

Sure, and people can be free to have their scattergun array of mystical beliefs and sophisms. Those aren't necessarily a big impediment to progress. It's only when a coherent system sets itself up in opposition to liberal democracy that we have problems.

It's just the 21st century equivalent of Radio Free Europe. Instead of broadcasting liberal democracy into the USSR, we're broadcasting non-Islam into the Islamic World. Broadcasting Christianity would make them angrier but it wouldn't really threaten their beliefs. They know all about Christianity, it existed before their religion after all, so that is engaging them on their own ground and accepting all the religious assumptions, and just supporting some other guy for Divine King of the World. Broadcasting atheism on the other hand radically undermines their entire political philosophy. It threatens to fully deconstruct their society, in the perjorative sense of the word.

I think the kind of muslims who would be receptive to the idea of atheism are also informed enough to throw back in your face the fact that the leader of the United States must be a Christian to be electable, that the UK and many other european countries have State Churches, however neutered, and that the only truly atheist European nation of significance was the USSR!

I mean, I think even FRANCE is not prepared to declare itself to be an atheist state. Secular, sure, but atheist? Yeah, right.

Now as for Western anti-atheism, I don't really see it, but maybe that's just the countries I have lived in. At any rate, there were communists in the West, and even more so moderates who were sympathetic to left wing views (social democrats are to Stalinists as Western "Christians" are to Egyptian Islamists, imo), and before that there were Fascists in Britain and America when they fought Nazi Germany. In my view that does not and should not tie our hands.

I guess not, but I'm sure the Muslims can see for themselves how sincere the west is about preaching atheism.

So what? This isn't some childish argument about who has more mud on his face. Islamic society is based upon the existence of Allah and the literal truth of the revealed texts. Without those things, its intellectual underpinnings vanish and there is no longer any reason to obey the Sharia in preference to a democratic government. Our argument here would have the added benefit of being true, but that's actually not necessary. Western society risks nothing to "friendly fire" because it suffers from no such weakness.

[AniThyng]

You know, going back to malaysia for a bit, our problems with democracy have nothing to do with allah and sharia and more to do with greed and corruption. Just saying.

But anyway, I'm still not convinced trying to persuade people allah is a fiction is going to actually going to do anything for democracy. But expanding a bit, you are saying that absent allah, Islamic society will fall to liberal western secular humanistic values, rather than say, Arab nationalist authoritarian values?

[Simon_Jester]

Because clearly depurging the military in Turkey did such a world of good for the democratic process over there....

It's certainly hobbled the military's capability to topple democratically-elected governments whenever they feel like it. And as Siege said, Erdogan (and Morsi) were democratically elected, even if you don't care for their ideology. Do you want a legitimate civilian government, or not?

The great fear in a situation like this is that there's a huge number of cases where a developing country gets its freedom (from a local dictator or foreign tyranny), then holds an election. Some popular figure or revolutionary group runs in the election, wins, and it turns out that you've just become the next case of "one person, one vote, one time only."

This pattern is common enough that it is at least sane to want some kind of unelected check on the elected government's power, if that unelected check serves to make sure the next election actually gets held. Nor are unelected checks all that unusual in democracies; the US has an unelected judiciary which routinely rules on constitutional rights, and so do a lot of other democracies.

Using the military's power to stage a coup as a "check" is extremely dangerous and questionable- but if it gets results, I prefer it to "one person, one vote, one time only," or to a situation where the elected government is marginalized and real power is held by a religious or ideological establishment.

He did represent the majority of voters though, and much as I dislike Islamists of any stripe, that's what democracy is about. If you lose free and fair elections you don't get to rise up and violently seize power, or at least you don't get to do that and pretend you give a damn about democracy afterward. Not even when you are secular and happen to be more to our tastes.

The OTHER thing democracy is about is that if you win free and fair elections, you don't get to start purging the opposition, turning the government into a one-party state, enacting hardline policies of your own party at the expense of the large loyal opposition, and otherwise behaving as if only you have a right to an opinion.

Is Morsi innocent of having done such things?

[Vehrec]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5suNtLw ... FWTadK6loA[/youtube]

So the Military's real priority here is to keep their 40% of the country's economy in hand, and enough stability so they can keep using it and when 22 million people sign a petition to take to the street in protest and Morsi won't listen, he's obviously incompetent and trying to provoke a civil war.

[energiewende]

You know, going back to malaysia for a bit, our problems with democracy have nothing to do with allah and sharia and more to do with greed and corruption. Just saying.

Of course, but then, Malaysia is by far the least bad of the Islamic states. I would suggest this is because it is actually a multicultural state with muslims making up less than 2/3 of the population. They're most comparable to whites in the US if they had remained aggressively self-interested and renounced the civil rights movement: a dominant majority for sure, and one that institutes substantial de-jure discrimination in its favour, but not so powerful it can simply impose its will on the rest of the population with impunity.

But anyway, I'm still not convinced trying to persuade people allah is a fiction is going to actually going to do anything for democracy. But expanding a bit, you are saying that absent allah, Islamic society will fall to liberal western secular humanistic values, rather than say, Arab nationalist authoritarian values?

It might do the latter, it just makes the former at least possible. It's also not clear to me that Arab nationalism is any worse than Islamist, or even not preferable.

[madd0ct0r]

ironic isn't it that the military's deep embeddment into the economy gives them a direct incentive to promote stability and peace?