Egypt's Tragedy: Military Dictatorship Takes Shape on Nile

Last Wednesday's massacre marked the beginning of a new phase of repression in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is on the defensive, and the country is threatened by the return of a military dictatorship. It could be the end of the Arab Spring. By SPIEGEL Staff

Der Spiegel

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But a return to military dictatorship may not just mean a return to pre-2011 conditions, but in fact a return to even darker times. "Under the regime of Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood was repressed, but the repression was never total. The Brotherhood, as the country's largest opposition force, was allowed room to operate, to contest elections, and to have seats in parliament," writes political scientist Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution, the Washington-based think tank. "The current military government is much more ambitious, with its aim to dismantle the Brotherhood and destroy it as a political force." To achieve this, Hamid continues, the generals have "tapped into real, popular anger against the Brotherhood. ... Continuous civil conflict, in turn, will be used to justify permanent war against an array of internal and foreign enemies, both real and imagined."

There are plenty of indications that this is indeed the case. Even before Egypt's bloody Wednesday, dozens of Muslim Brotherhood members were locked up, and former President Morsi has also been held, in an undisclosed location, for the last seven weeks. On the day before the massacre, the government released the names of the new provincial governors. Two-thirds of them are generals. The old state security service is also back in business. And shortly after the massacre, the military announced a state of emergency, claiming that it would only last for one month. But the last time a state of emergency was declared, it lasted 30 years. And under a state of emergency, arbitrary arrests and expedited trials are once again possible.

All Terrorists

The media, at any rate, has fallen back into its old propaganda role. On Thursday morning, the state broadcaster announced that the protesters in the tent camps were all terrorists and had shot themselves to death.

But the Muslim Brotherhood is also spreading conspiracy theories, including the claim that 75 percent of pro-army demonstrators in recent weeks were Christians who had only taken to the streets at the behest of the Coptic patriarch. This apparently resonated with Islamists in southern Egypt, as evidenced by the rise in attacks on Christians. .....