Nursery rhymes are more instructive than many people are willing to acknowledge, although I don’t know if today’s generation is all that familiar with them. So, I will include this one: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” I like this rhyme, because it is instructive of what has often happened in the past and today applies to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. I’ll show you how it applies.
Evidently Humpty Dumpty was quite fragile to begin with and is often portrayed as an egg when illustrated. This was the exact position of the Muslin Brotherhood when Mohammed Morsi assumed Egypt’s Presidency. He managed to win the election, mainly because the opposition was disorganized and fragmented. The young population that rebelled against the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak had never experienced democracy–nor did most Egyptians really know how it worked.
Expectations were high. Not only were they high, they differed. Those belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood expected Morsi to change Egyptian society into a religiously-conservative society, requiring everyone to adhere to a strict dress code and prayer schedule.
The secularists in Egypt wanted freedom of expression and an end to corruption. They wanted to pursue their businesses without having to pay “tea money.” They expected an improved economy. They were hungry for more and better education and opportunities. What they did not want was religious restrictions. Their preference was for a “live and let live” society. Go to the mosque as often as you like, and pray as long as you want, but leave us alone.
Finally, there is the institution of the Army. Now we are talking about “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.” This is the institution–led by Colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser–that sent King Farouk packing. This is the institution that threw out President Hosni Mubarak, after the uprising in Tahir Square. So not only was Humpty Dumpty Morsi fragile, but he was also at a dizzying height as newly elected President. What he needed to do was a balancing act, between the clashing expectations and the Army. The power he thought he had, went to his head causing dizziness, and down he fell.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men” clearly stands for power; shear force. In Egypt’s case, the Army has it. But it is not going to put Humpty Dumpty, Egypt’s society, back together again. It simply can’t. Power–force–is not the answer, any more than war brings peace. War may end in a cessation of hostilities, the shooting stops, but that is a long way from peace. Our own Civil War ended in 1865 with the defeat of the Confederate Army and General Lee’s surrender. But peace has taken another hundred and fifty years to achieve. Perhaps not fully achieved yet.
Our Government has condemned the Egyptian military for killing its own people, breaking up the Brotherhood’s occupation on Tahir Square. I think, rightly so. What if the military simply told the Brotherhood that it had a right to demonstrate and a right occupy Tahir Square and, that in order to ensure their safety, the soldiers would supply them with drinking water and port-a-potties? They could simply say, “We care about you, even though we disagree with you. You cannot have the Presidency back because you misused it.” Wouldn’t acts of kindness and concern help put their society back together again?
Unfortunately, our own Government has at times done just exactly what it is now condemning the Egyptian military for doing. How were the peaceful marchers in Selma, AL, treated? How were the peaceful demonstrators at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, IL, treated? Who shot and killed college students in Ohio for demonstrating against the Vietnam War? How many remember reading in their U. S. history books about the Bonus Army’s march on Washington, D. C.?
What happened? Veterans of World War I had been promised a bonus payment at the end of the war by our Federal Government. They never got it. In 1929 the unregulated stock market crashed, and the Great Depression began. Republican Herbert Hoover from Iowa was President. These veterans of WW I, out of work, homeless, and hungry, organized a march on Washington to demand their bonus money. A bill to pay the bonus money had passed the House of Representatives but was defeated in the U. S. Senate. Some 20,000 angry veterans camped across the Potomac River in flimsy shelters, much like the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators of our times.
President Hoover ordered the Army to evict them. The Army Command used four companies of infantry, four companies of cavalry, a machinegun squadron, and six tanks. They were commanded by General Douglas McArthur, later of World War II fame, and assisted by Major Dwight Eisenhower.
“They used tear gas. Thousands of veterans, wives, children, began to run as the tear gas spread. The soldiers set fire to some of the huts, and soon the whole encampment was ablaze. When it was all over, two veterans had been shot to death. An 11-week-old baby had died. An eight-year-old boy was partially blinded by gas. Two policemen had fractured skulls. A 1000 veterans were injured by gas.” (From A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.)
So, is our Government speaking from experience when condemning Egypt’s military? Personally, I rather doubt it.
So how do we put Humpty Dumpty back together again? That’s a woman’s job. I say it is a woman’s job, because I see a woman doing it and doing it quite successfully. Where? Thailand. I was living in Thailand when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was removed from office by a military coupe. It is hard to say that he and his party were democratically elected, since he is a multi-billionaire. Vote buying in Thailand was rampant at that time. Under his rule, corruption and crony capitalism went hand-in-hand. His ideal was “Singaporean democracy,” which really isn’t democracy at all. He campaigned as a populist and professed concern for the poor. However, other than his 30 baht health care scheme, he actually did little to eradicate poverty and did do a whole lot to enrich himself, his family, and his friends.
Like Humpty Dumpty, he fell off the wall, and took Thai society with him. The Army staged coupe number 11. The Thai Army has had a lot of practice staging coupes; it is something they are good at. No one was hurt. Everyone had a good time, sat on the tanks to get their pictures taken, gave flowers to the soldiers, and had an unexpected holiday. Then the real civil war began, red shirts against yellow shirts. The Army’s temporary Government conducted new elections. Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, won and became Prime Minister.
Now, we have a real Buddhist enigma: everyone’s happy, and no one is happy. How can this be? Simple. Yingluck has not lost her balance. She defers to the King, who is a very popular figure, and she is respectful of the Army and its traditions. She is reverent toward the Sangha, the Buddhist monkhood. The King, the Army, and the Monkhood are the three traditional, conservative pillars of Thai society. She refuses to pardon her brother or let him back into the Country. Many had feared that she would just be a proxy for her brother, but she is not. Finally, she has put a real damper on corruption and raised the Thai minimum wage by 40%. This irked the wealthy but also energized the Thai economy. It created not only demand for goods and services, but also for workers to supply them.
It has been respect and concern for both red shirts and yellow shirts that has restored peace and prosperity in Thailand. No one gets all that they want, and everyone gets something. It takes a woman to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t do it.
Now, Egypt needs to find its woman.