This will have to be a brief post because I am short on time. First, some reading recommendations -- here are a couple excellent pieces on the Arab uprisings as a regional phenomenon:
Larry Diamond in Foreign Affairs: "A Fourth Wave or False Start? Democracy After the Arab Spring"
Michael Hudson for Jadaliyya: "Awakening, Cataclysm, or Just a Series of Events? Reflections on the Current Wave of Protest in the Arab World"
Also worth checking out are Joseph Stiglitz's piece on Tunisia in the Financial Times, this article in Bloomberg News from Vali Nasr on the Saudi campaign to quash political reform throughout the Arab world, and this anonymous article on the Syrian media from the Daily Beast.
One major news story to watch tomorrow and into the weekend is a new protest in Midan Tahrir in Egypt planned for this Friday. This protest, which is intended to voice dissatisfaction with the current transition process and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), is a sign of the military's loss of favor with the Egyptian public. During the January and February uprising, the military enjoyed a high level of public support. This illusion was bound to fade as the transition period got under way, because the military in fact has no interest in democratization and has its own agenda for reform which does not match well with the general needs of most Egyptians. The past few weeks have served to reveal the gap between what the military wants and what Egyptians want. It is no accident that this Friday is being referred to as the "Friday to Save the Revolution" -- the SCAF's incompetent management and unwillingness to enact a transparent, democratic reform process is the greatest threat to the ideals of the Egyptian revolution, and activists seem to be running out of patience.
I am encouraged by these protests insofar as I believe the only way the SCAF will liberalize Egypt is under enormous popular pressure. Protests such as these will be crucial to convince the military leadership that they need to make a more sincere commitment to meaningful political reform. At the same time, I worry that demonstrations may not be enough in the end. When Hosni Mubarak was still in power, activist groups were unified around one cause. Since Mubarak stepped down on February 11, some divisions have emerged, and the military has quietly undermined the protest movements by allowing sectarian violence and rounding up political dissidents. The repression is not really so quiet anymore -- on Thursday the army arrested four activists who had called for a Friday protest. I think time is ultimately on the side of the protestors, but in the short term one must wonder if they will be able to sustain the necessary level of pressure to get real results from the SCAF.
One of the more interesting subplots in these protests is the role the Muslim Brotherhood and lesser Islamist groups are playing. The Brotherhood's commitment to democracy has been a subject of debate for years; one camp of analysts has maintained that at bottom they are anti-democratic, while another camp argues that they are willing to share power and participate in democratic governments. I have always fallen in the latter camp, but this week the Brotherhood has weakened my position by announcing its opposition to the Friday protests, siding clearly with the military. Salafi groups, never considered pro-democratic by anyone, have also come down against the protests.
At the moment the MB does not seem concerned with the fate of Egyptian democracy, but with their own political fortunes. The current transition is an unprecedented opportunity for the Brotherhood to gain power in an Egyptian government, and they seem more concerned with power than with true political reform. They were slow to jump on the January 25 revolution bandwagon, and it seems they are still reluctant to do anything that might hurt the chances of increasing their relative control of Egyptian politics. While this seems like it could change, it is still a discouraging sign.
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