Isu Mesir - Khairy lebih cerdik daripada Najib...

Dr Morsi dipilih sebagai Presiden Mesir melalui pilihanraya yang sah dan demokratik setelah kerajaan pimpinan Hosni Mubarak yang penuh dengan penyelewengan, pembaziran, kemewahan dan pelbagai salah guna kuasa selama 30 tahun ditolak oleh rakyat negara itu. 

Apabila Dr Morsi yang bersih peribadi dan akhlak keluarganya juga terpuji memimpin Mesir, kuasa-kuasa Barat terutama Amerika nyata tidak senang dengan beliau. Pelbagai alasan dan kelemahan dicari untuk menyingkirkannya. Dr Morsi dianggap mengancam Israel.

Sementara pelbagai pihak di Malaysia menyuarakan bantahan serta kecaman atas kejadian itu sejak semalam lagi, pendirian kerajaan dan Najib tetap ditunggu-tunggu mengenainya.

Sementara Anwar, PKR dan PAS secara terbuka dan tegas mengecam rampasan kuasa melalui tentera untuk mengguling Dr Morsi itu sambil mengajak seluruh dunia yang mengamalkan demokrasi turut mengutuk tindakan sebegitu rupa, kenyataan Najib mengenai insiden Mesir agak mengecewakan.

Ramai yang ingin tahu apakah pendirian Najib dalam kejadian itu. Oleh kerana Najib kebetulan sedang mengadakan lawatan rasmi ke United Kingdom, Najib hanya bercakap kepada wartawan mengenai insiden di Mesir pada hari ini.

Beliau seolah-olah mengutuk tindakan melakukan perubahan dan menjatuhkan Hosni Mubarak sebelum ini dengan mengatakan perubahan tidak semestinya menjamin kemakmuran sedangkan seluruh dunia mengetahui era 30 tahun Hosni Mubarak penuh dengan segala macam penyelewengan, penindasan serta rompakan wang rakyat. Dalam masa yang sama, Najib seperti gembira dengan penggulingan Dr Morsi dengan berharap kerajaan baru segera dibentuk.

Sebaliknya, pendirian Khairy Jamaluddin dan Pemuda UMNO dilihat lebih matang dan menggambarkan beliau memahami keadaan sebenar yang berlaku di Mesir, sambil turut mengecam rampasan kuasa yang berlaku itu.

Bandingkan kenyataan Najib dan Khairy mengenai insiden yang berlaku di Mesir itu....

Najib...

Khairy...

Arab Spring over as Morsi overthrown but what happens now...

Democratically elected governments being overthrown by military coups are a familiar spectacle in what is tactfully termed the less-developed world.

They are particularly so in the Islamic world, where class and religion make a potentially explosive mix.

Egypt provides a classic instance. Eighty per cent of the population are Muslims, nearly all Sunnis, with a Christian minority of 15 to 20 per cent, so the religious divide is not the Sunni-Shia split that one sees in Syria, for example.

But the Egyptian Sunnis themselves are divided by class and religion: the educated urban bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia view with alarm the prospect of a creeping imposition of Islamic extremism and Shari'a law, which the less educated urban and rural sectors would appear to welcome.

And it would be viewed with even greater alarm by the religious minorities, who have already been subject to sectarian violence.

This was just what ex-president Mohamed Morsi and his supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were supposed to be planning. The consequence was mounting social instability.

Military intervention was an inevitable outcome: the military were committed to defending stability and in any case favoured minorities because the minorities would depend on them for protection. So ends the Arab Spring. The question is, what now?

There is no doubt about the prospects for Egypt. The military will remain in effective control, directly or indirectly, while the challenge of Islamic extremism persists.

This should be beneficial to the Egyptian economy by providing the degree of social stability essential for economic development. It will certainly encourage a revival of the vital tourist industry.

It should also be beneficial to Egypt's relations with most other countries. Governments prefer to deal with stable and predictable regimes.

Most importantly, of course, is the US, which has always been happy to deal with authoritarian regimes that might seem to provide stability and predictability, and has indeed been instrumental in assisting such regimes to come to power.

Next in importance from an Egyptian viewpoint is probably Israel, which had every reason to fear that Egypt under an Islamist government, such as was expected with Morsi, would adopt an inconveniently sympathetic attitude towards the Palestinians.

And even the Saudis and ultra-conservative Sunni sheikhdoms of the Gulf would be happy that their hated enemies, the radical Sunnis of the Muslim Brotherhood, had been put under restraint once more.

So, paradoxically, might the beleaguered Alawite-Shia-Christian regime in Syria hope that a military regime in Egypt would be less inclined to become involved in foreign imbroglios.

Elsewhere in the Islamic world the change to military rule in Egypt would presumably be welcomed by the military rulers of Algeria, who effected a similar overthrow of an elected regime, though with vastly more bloodshed.

And the Pakistani military could only welcome another precedent for another intervention to overthrow their own dramatically ineffective elected government once again.

There are, of course, downsides.

The Western politicians and commentariat who so enthusiastically welcomed the imagined "Arab Spring" will have to readjust their interpretations. They may reflect that the "Prague Spring" of 1968 also lasted just as long as it took the Soviet tanks to roll in.

Washington too might have further cause to reflect that what is good for Israel is not necessarily good for the US, if the new order in Egypt should be less disposed than the Islamists to put any pressure on Israel to further an effective peace process.

As for Australia, the answer is simple: we follow in the directions of Washington and, with some reservations, Jerusalem.

We can confidently expect Senator Bob Carr or Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, or whoever calls the shots in Canberra, to deplore another failure of democracy, while discreetly approving its consequences. And Australian tourists can return to some of their favourite destinations.- couriermail.com.au

 

cheers.