Published in ABC’s The Drum
It is an irony that former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi’s trial – which highlighted the deep divisions in Egyptian society – was held on the country’s Valentine’s Day.
The only thing Morsi and his 14 co-defendants from the Muslim Brotherhood had in common with the military-backed interim government was the desire by both sides to use the trial as a theatre to address the Egyptian public by pushing their own agendas and accusations.
Morsi and the Brotherhood wasted no time in seeking to embolden their domestic base and tell the rest of the nation that the Brotherhood was not going away.
To undercut Morsi’s predictable grandstanding, state TV muted the sound. “I am here by force and against my will. The coup is a crime and treason” shouted Morsi, who set the tone for the non-cooperative atmosphere.
For the prosecutors, the goal was to send a signal to the wider Egyptian public about who is in control and to parade Morsi and his colleagues before the court as a form of political emasculation.
The charges against Morsi are in fact legitimate – they were filed on 5 December 2012 by human rights activists after the Brotherhood stormed a sit-in outside the presidential palace.
The actions of the Brotherhood sparked clashes that resulted in the deaths of ten protestors.
Even the case on its own skews the course of justice when there is a lack of enquiry into the security debacle and the Brotherhood chain of command on that day.
But legitimate charges do not necessarily lead to a legitimate trial.
Nor has the state all of a sudden developed a desire to see justice take its place for Egypt’s innumerable victims.
As the veteran blogger The Big Pharaoh tweeted “Irony = Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood cadets tortured people at the presidential palace gates. Police regularly torture people yet they’re securing Morsi’s Trial today!”.
Across the country soldiers, police and security-vetted thugs have killed an untold number of Egyptians at sites like Maspero, Mohamed Mahmoud, Port Said and the latest and arguably largest in modern Egyptian history, Rabaa al-adawiya.
Despite that, many security figures are still manning their posts and walking the streets.
A reinvigorated alliance has formed between the military, interior ministry, and former regime loyalists. This alliance is made ever easier by a splintered revolutionary camp and a high popular support for the crackdown on the Brotherhood, with the lines between Sinai’s Jihadi extremists and the Brotherhood’s rank and file members become increasingly blurred.
Since Morsi’s overthrow on July 3 a consistent pattern has emerged in the power struggle between Brotherhood supporters and the security forces. Security forces have arrested Brotherhood leaders and their supporters, they shut down Islamist television channels and state media demonised the Islamist group.
There has been a rise in hyper-McCarthyism in which expressing even mere sympathy for the Brotherhood is equated with treason and disloyalty.
All the while a fair trial is supposed to be taking place in this toxic and polarised atmosphere in which, among all other factors, many of the judges are known adversaries of Morsi.
Yet this should not negate the role of Morsi and the Brotherhood in authoring Egypt’s current mess.
Like the Incredible Hulk swinging his arms aimlessly about, the Brotherhood set Egypt on a destructive course that was defined by virulent identity politics, alienating political and social forces, and accommodating the brutal security sector instead of attempting to reform it.
They chose, in effect, to keep intact the repressive apparatus that was a feature of Mubarak’s leadership. This suited the Brotherhood’s world view – tinged with authoritarianism.
It was not long before the former regime loyalists capitalised on the growing discontent and turned against Morsi’s government.
Now Morsi and his crew are back to their grim and familiar surroundings – in prison if not on the run.
The trial had to be adjourned and Morsi has now been moved to Borg Al-Arab Prison, on the outskirts of Egypt’s second largest city, Alexandria.
Such a move is intended to try to take the pressure off the capital city, Cairo, where Morsi’s physical presence threatens to inflame his supporters.
In Alexandria, the prison is relatively far from the city centre which deters large groups of protesters from gathering at the site where Morsi is being held.
But isolation and trials are of little use when vengeance and power struggles are the only modus operandi of the unimaginative elites and the deep state.
What Egypt desperately needs is transitional justice, national reconciliation, and security sector reforms.
Ignoring this will inadvertently fuel the Brotherhood’s narrative around Morsi, which has reconstructed him as a defender of democracy and Islam.
This plotline has raised Morsi’s popularity to levels that are even higher than he enjoyed during his presidency, when he was seen domestically as Egypt’s version of a bumbling George W Bush.
Not content with a prison sentence, many wish to drive Morsi towards martyrdom: a number of Egyptian journalists, in contravention of any semblance of professional integrity and respect for due process, shouted in the courtroom at the former president: “You will get execution, Morsi!”.
Valentine’s Day can bring out the wildest of passions.
