 |
| June 16, 2015. AP Photo |
This upsetting photo of Ikhwan members sentenced
to death by hanging dredged up a memory of another courtroom cage many years
ago. In December 1999, on the Haikstep military base, 20 Ikhwan professionals
were being tried in a military tribunal on charges of “infiltrating professional associations.” It was the first courtroom I’d ever been in, and what
a strange one it was. A cage took up the entire left length of the room; all 20 men in it were dressed in spotless white gallabiyas. I remember Khaled Badawi, a
loquacious lawyer and bar association activist, now a member of Dr. Mohamed
Morsi’s legal team. Next to him was Mokhtar Nouh, a big personality who loved
the limelight, now a rabid anti-Ikhwan propagandist. Mohamed Ali Bishr was
there, the engineer who later became a governor then a minister during Morsi’s
presidency and is now in prison. And usually sitting quietly deep inside the cage
was Mohamed Badie, the veterinarian who became the Brothers’ General Guide in
2010 and who is now among those sentenced to death.
The latest
leaked recording of Egypt’s generals conferring in Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s
office is the most damaging one yet. Earlier leaks were interesting, but not
exactly shocking. The generals scrambled to
legalize Mohamed Morsi’s detention after July 3 2013; dictated
talking points to their media shills;
and gave the Prosecutor-General instructions about high-profile cases. This
surprised neither the coup’s friends nor foes, since everyone knows that the
generals control every government official and micro-manage propaganda.
The recent
leaks, however, take things to a new level. The generals don’t just rubbish
their Gulf backers; scorn Egyptians as a starving, miserable mass; and
generally ooze contempt for anyone outside their ranks. The recordings reveal
how, in private, Egypt’s peak military officers see themselves. In frank,
relaxed banter, they discuss how to milk
the Gulf monarchs for more billions; rue the Nasser military’s non-profiteering
mindset; and generally come off as money-grubbing hirelings ready to deploy military
force anywhere in exchange for cash.
Thus in a five-minute conversation, the generals
unmask their own elaborate self-mythologizing as nationalist, selfless public
servants who have rescued Egypt and the region from an Islamist cabal. They reinforce
critics’ longstanding claims that the Mubarakist Egyptian military defends not
the national interest but its own
sectional concerns.
