On the rule of the military and the “neutralization” of politics in our country

If the military rule, politics is absent.

A fact confirmed by historical experience not only in our region but around the world.

Over the past decades, many countries have been subject to military rule through the domination of a small handful of officers who seized power and controlled the joints of the state and society without the slightest experience or knowledge of how to manage public affairs.

The situation was more clear in our country, which was hit by the catastrophe of military rule, as happened in Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen and others.

In all of those countries, politics disappeared, and with it the role of the civil political class declined to a point where the resistance of these societies to military rule became weak. As is the case in Syria, Libya and Yemen, or attrition of the state and society, as in Egypt, Algeria and Sudan.

And if politics had disappeared under the weight of the military rule in those countries, the conflict around it did not disappear, but rather took other forms and paths, the most important of which is that it turned from an elitist struggle to a societal and class struggle waiting for any opportunity to erupt.

In Syria, after Hafez al-Assad’s coup against his two comrades, Salah Jadid and Noureddine al-Atassi, he suppressed the political opposition, gained some kind of public support in the early seventies, and carried out his corrective revolution, as he called it at the time.

After that, he nationalized the public sphere and liquidated his opponents, especially within the ranks of the army and the Baath Party.

The situation in Algeria exploded at the beginning of the fall of 1988 in what was known at the time as the “October Uprising,” which prompted a degree of political openness in the late eighties that contributed to the Islamists’ arrival in Parliament, before they were overthrown and halted their progress in 1991.

Since then, Syria has turned into a graveyard for politicians, as it pushed many of them to either flee outside the country or remain silent about what is happening for fear of repression.

Despite that, the conflict in Syria continued and turned into other forms with the policy of “sectification” and quotas followed by Assad, especially in the army and senior positions in the state, and his reliance on trustworthy people, until he reached a stage where only a group of elites were completely loyal to the regime in the political arena.

When Bashar al-Assad jumped to power after his father's death in 2000, some rejoiced over him and thought that he would lead a process of real political change and reform through which he would open the public sphere and end decades of oppression and tyranny.

This was encouraged by what the regime showed at the time.

From a limited political opening that was later called the “Damascus Spring” experience in the early 2000s, however, this was nothing but a cosmetic and prosthetic process to dress up the authoritarian mentality that was laid down by Hafez al-Assad.

Therefore, when the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011, the revolution lacked a solid political elite, especially inside the country, that could lead the popular movement and negotiate with the regime.

Reliance on foreign opposition has remained a prominent feature of the Syrian revolution until today.

Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar succeeded in killing politics, and the result was what we see now of destruction, civil war and a human tragedy that humanity has not known since World War II.

In Algeria, after Houari Boumediene's coup against his comrade Ahmed Ben Bella in June 1965, he dissolved all the constitutional institutions in the country under the pretext of "revolutionary correction" (does the name remind you of anything?!).

He practiced all kinds of dictatorship and individual rule despite the economic, social and agricultural reforms he carried out throughout his rule, which extended until the end of 1978. Boumediene succeeded in killing politics and marginalizing other political forces and symbols, especially in the Liberation Front, but the struggle between the regime, and rather the state, and society did not stop.

The situation exploded at the beginning of the fall of 1988 in what was known at the time as the "October Uprising", which prompted a degree of political openness in the late eighties that contributed to the arrival of the Islamists to Parliament, before they were overthrown and stopped their progress in 1991, which led to Algeria's entry into A bitter civil conflict claimed the lives of tens of thousands of citizens in what became known as the black decade.

Algeria did not emerge from that dark era except with a kind of amnesty and national reconciliation initiated by the late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika at the beginning of his second term in Algeria in 2004.

In Egypt, the situation seems clearer.

The 1952 coup and the subsequent political struggle for power between the military was the beginning of ending politics and drying up its sources in Egypt.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, after several years of skirmishes with the elite of the royal era, managed to get rid of the political forces (the delegation, the communists, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.), as well as some political figures such as Al-Sanhoury, Fouad Seraj Al-Din and others.

The political sphere was completely nationalized under the pretext of focusing on the "development battle" and "cleansing the country of the remnants of the monarchy."

Nasser transformed politics into a mere formal structure and institutions that support his decisions and policies, whether through the Editorial Board, the Socialist Union or the National Guidance Authority.

So when Sadat came to power and decided to open the door to restricted political participation, there was no political class that could contest his power, so he initiated the idea of ​​political platforms (right, center and left) that were made by him.

Despite that, the internal conflict with the state and its political system continued, which cost Sadat his life in October 1981. The Mubarak era did not differ much from those who preceded it. After a short period of partial openness in the early eighties, Mubarak returned to exercising all kinds of authoritarianism by marginalizing the opposition. Political underestimation and underestimation of its elite and its covert and public application, which led to the big explosion on January 25, 2011.

So despots mistakenly believe that repression is the solution, and that it will bring them calm and peace of mind.

This may be true temporarily, but it is a recipe for destruction and devastation in the long run, especially when societies revolt to demand their rights, which we see before us in many cases.