The Egyptian masses saw what was happening and revolted. If the military had not intervened on the side of the protesters, it is almost certain that we would be looking at an Assad-style massacre in Tahrir Square right now.
For Morsi and the Brotherhood, the mistake was two-fold. First, they tried creating their caliphate too quickly. Second, they ignored the economic status of the country in favor of advancing their socio-political agenda. I shudder to think how much farther these barbarians might have gotten if Egypt was in an economic boom.
We’ve seen what can happen when the economy is doing well while tyrants are in office. History is littered with such scenarios, and the most obvious may also be the most infamous. Adolf Hitler’s rise to power began within the legitimacy of a democratic system. The economic boom under his leadership cloaked the nascent dictatorship’s steady rise to power. Soon there were no more elections, or at least no more elections where anyone besides the party faithful stood a chance. New moral standards were enforced as a matter of law, without question or mercy. Rules were not based on fairness or freedom, but arbitrary concepts like percentages of “Aryan” blood and right adherence to the new Teutonic Koran. Defiance of the state was defiance of The Fuhrer, whose capricious whims were gifted a god-like unquestionability and backed by a chorus of experts and apparatchiks preached the Gospel according to Nazism.
What might have happened if the Reichswehr, seeing the obvious power grab, decided not take the Hitler oath and instead ousted the fledgling dictator from power in 1935? It would be a few years before Hitler’s minions began to truly terrorize the population of Europe, but it was plain that he was setting the stage to crush all democratic opposition to his will. How many millions would have been spared grisly deaths if the German military stood up for its people?
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Good article.