Narrowing Visions

Speculative philosophy’s field of vision over Syria is narrowing.

From the one side, the actions of the great powers, not-so-great powers, and international and regional organizations of states, have limited Syria’s power of self-determination. Both sides in the struggle have asked for help, but with help necessarily comes interference. More precisely, bringing in outside entities subjects the struggling parties to the interests and determinations of those entities, and limits their freedom to act just to that extent.

From the other side, nothing seems to matter to the outcome of the revolution so much as how long Bashar can manage to continue to live. It could be months; it could be many months; it could be years; but it won’t be many years.

Here’s why….

·         Alawite disaffection. Such reports started coming some weeks past. Thus even his natural sources of strength are drying up.

·         Middle class/administrative class disaffection and agitation in Aleppo and Damascus. Formerly a source of strength, if only negative strength, now some of them are willing to express positive disagreements with the regime.

·         The continuous defection of men and officers of every rank, including the very highest, from the military. Somebody said on TV the other day he’d counted 13 general officers among the defectors.

·         The traditional, and now renewed, enmity of the Turks.

And that’s just lately. I didn’t think Bashar could make himself any stronger by pursuing his course of violence, but he certainly made himself more alone. Is it at all possible be could leave anything resembling a regime behind him? No: what’s left of his apparatus will evaporate in a cloud of disassociation.

Thus the determinations of individual subjectivity place another limit on speculative philosophy. How does Bashar manage to deal with it all? What sort of man is he really? …but who cares?

The revolution cannot rely on a purely military solution via either the occupation of territory or the annihilation of Bashar’s forces in the field. Similarly, one of the points of shooting down the Turkish jet was to warn the West about intervention with air power. But the revolution can force, maybe are near to forcing, a stalemate. And that gives time, though it may be a very bloody time, for the indicated result.

The Crisis

In a crisis, a revolutionary must know what to do. One of the things to know is whether it is really a crisis, and not to be panicked by an unexpected reverse or mere threat. This much speculative philosophy can also know. But to predict the result is beyond its power, precisely because it is the time for individuals to act, and philosophy cannot predict even the action, much less the result, of the determinations of individual subjectivity.

It’s good to know that, even in the time of crisis, the Egyptian revolution is still behaving like a revolution. And more particularly that it recognizes the counter-revolution for what it is, and is able to see the courts and the military as the face or maybe the agent of the counter-revolution.

It’s a crisis because the counter-revolution brought it on. Consider their actions, words, and decrees:

·    The courts dissolved the body that was charged with making a new constitution, on grounds of what is left of the old constitution. Logically, to say nothing of the political meaning of the decree, it’s begging the question, which is what the constitution and the state should and will be. (I understand the convention had already become frustrated with itself, and so nothing was done at the time.)

·    The military too are using what is left of the old constitution, that is, the instrument created by the state the revolution was against, to justify their efforts to crush the revolution.

·    The courts have dissolved parliament. What if parliament dissolves the courts? Seems to me the French solved a similar problem in a similar way.

·    Meanwhile, all the functions the courts have taken away from the revolution, including the legislative power, they have given to the military.

·    Thus the military will appoint the constitutional convention, they say. What if the president appoints his own? Suppose further two constitutions are drawn up. Then who decides?

·    And the military want to write themselves an existence separate from and alongside the civil state into the constitution, to include their own budget under their sole control. How will they fund it? Why don’t they give themselves the power of taxation to boot?

All that’s left undone is “firmness,” fraud, arrests, violent confrontation, and a coup – in that order. There’s no reason a really efficient despotism can’t be oligarchic. Burma, for instance.

All this – the counter-revolution putting forth its strength – suddenly makes the revolution seem rather weak. It once looked (to me at least) as if the Brotherhood might be able to leverage the parliament and the presidency together to complete the revolution. It’s now apparent that the revolution never gained control over the state apparatus, nor any part of it. Even if parliament refuses to dissolve itself, it has no physical assets with which to oppose the counter-revolution.

So now the only thing to do is return to the Square. Unfortunately the police are one of the state elements that did not come under the revolution’s control. Thus begins the cycle of fraud, arrests, violence.

Someone could ask, will the secular revolutionaries go to the Square? Maybe they have gone. Or does the counter-revolution seem to them the lesser of two evils? At least some of them must have voted for Shafiq. Poor fools! Soon they may find their reward.

Unfortunately, you can’t dissolve the military. But sweeping the courts out of existence, or at least denying that they exist, is the right thing to do. The revolution can judge through its own tribunals. It’s been done. Here’s a case in which, in order to take the state into its own hands, the revolution has to take the law into its own hands.

Moving to the Left

The liberal/secular vote, split in the first presidential round between two candidates with about 20% each, from here looks now to be the largest bloc of uncommitted voters in Egypt. One can’t say simply they are the largest bloc of voters, for that would mean they should have outpolled the Brotherhood for control of parliament. Neither can one say whether some of them will sit out the election either, even though that would resemble left adventurism.

Yet, had these parties settled on a single candidate, that candidate would be running against Morsi, rather than the counter-revolutionary Shafiq. It’s a typical failing of liberal revolutionists – allowing relatively minor differences of policy to create a split, rather than pursuing a sounder, unified political and electoral strategy. I am thinking of the German parliament after the 1848.

As it is, their opportunities are not entirely lost, as both remaining candidates are moving to the left in order to gain adherents in their bloc. For Morsi, this means less Sharia, more civil liberty. For Shafiq, it means dissembling, as he can have no real intention other than to govern in behalf of the big bourgeoisie.

Meanwhile the courts continue to display their alignment with counter-revolutionary elements. Acquitting the police, letting Mubarak and his family – just barely – live, failing to punish the despoliation of Egypt by Mubarak’s big bourgeois friends: this just energizes the revolution. A revolution with energy is not likely to be defeated if allowed to go to the polls.

Then what? Even the Western journalists are beginning to see how difficult it will be for Morsi to govern. And without a new constitution, the revolution itself will not have been won.

The vision of the Arab Spring perhaps out shines this reality – but that’s what visions do, don’t they? It’s harder to envision the courts taking Shafiq off the ballot than it is to envision people in the Square agitating against a ballot with his name on it. But if the courts did, and the name weren’t, the whole election would take a giant step leftward.