The four traits Sisi, Hitler and Mussolini have

in common

Pre
sident Sisi is building a fascist regime that is pushing Egypt into a spiral of violence and radicalisation

Emad Shahin-Tuesday 9 June 2015

Only two years after ousting Egypts first democratically elected president
Mohamed Morsi and taking over power in a military coup, General Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi is putting in place a fascist regime. He must be stopped and not rewarded
in order to avert Egypt from plunging into an endless cycle of violence and
radicalisation of an increasingly frustrated youth.
We often use the term fascism casually and loosely. Thus, it has become
ambiguous. But the classic studies of fascism show the extent by which Sisis
regime has exhibited clear characteristics of fascism: an inflated cult of
personality; glorification of the state and militarism; ultra-nationalism and

xenophobia; and eliminationist policy toward all domestic opposition.

Personality cult: New Hitler on the Nile
In preparing the stage for a military coup, the Egyptian media stressed the need
for a Bonapart, a strong military man to lift Egypt from the ashes and take it to a
new beginning.
Sisis portraits, which the military circulated widely, showed his face with his
trademark dark glasses and a formidable lion in the background ready to devour
its enemies. Indeed, he has been holding up to this image. In two years of his rule,
General-cum-President Sisi has killed over 3,000 peaceful opponents, injured
16,000 and detained over 40,000, a record that took Chile's Pinochet 13 years to
accomplish.
Sisi was given a god-like, transcendent and penetrating power. The media
introduced him to the Egyptians as the "Redeeming Messiah", "Messenger from
God", "Saviour", "Better than Prophet Mohammad". An Egyptian poet proclaimed
that Egyptian women were pregnant with his star while Egyptian female
columnists praised his sexual appeal and potency and begged him to take them
as his concubines.
Sisi, like other narcissist and fascist leaders, seems to be rapidly getting hooked on
this image and is enjoying this cult of personality. He recently described himself as
a doctor whose diagnoses are sought after by top philosophers and prominent
world leaders.
He even embodies the classical fascist trait of confiscating peoples will and
believing that his will and the will of the people is one and the same. In a recent
interview with the Washington Post, Sisi followed in Hitler and Mussolinis
footsteps by saying: Sisi represents the will of the people.
Glorification of the state and militarisation
Sisi is reconstituting a new state that rests on the military and security apparatus
as its driving force. He keeps reminding Egyptians how through a divine will he
rescued the Egyptian state from collapse, how the state was targeted at one point,
and how keen he is to rebuild it.
He has urged Egyptians to be in the service of the state and nudged them to act as
informants against its enemies (i.e. his opponents). He even complained that
Egyptians were not reporting on each other hard enough and it was their duty
toward the state to be more diligent.

Under Sisi, the militarisation of state and society has been proceeding rapidly. He
has appointed cabinets of "bureaucrats" who follow his orders and not
"technocrats" who can reflect their own expertise.
He has also been promoting the military as the main engine behind the economy,
the countrys main broker and sub-contractor, with no civilian oversight or
safeguards against military corruption.
Ultra-nationalism and xenophobia
Fascist regimes tend to create strong sentiments of ultra-nationalism and hatred
toward certain enemies. For the past two years, Sisi and his media machine have
been promoting a negative and destructive sense of nationalism that superficially
builds on fabricated concerns about foreign conspirators and domestic enemies.
Like classic fascists, they re-write and re-invent history: The January 2011
Revolution was a foreign-inspired conspiracy, its leaders and icons were trained
and implanted by the West; international NGOs were violating Egypt and
conspiring against it; the US pressured the glorious Egyptian military to allow the
Muslim Brothers to come to power; Obama was a member of a Muslim
Brotherhood sleeping cell and his brother was their financial mastermind; and
finally the German leaders, who were critical of Sisis brutal policies during his
recent visit, were also Muslim Brothers.
Sisi rests his raison detre on fomenting polarisation, escalating state violence and
dividing Egyptians into two peoples: one pure, patriotic, pro-state and -military,
the other enemies of the people and the state. It is becoming a practice now to
strip opponents with dual citizenship of their Egyptian nationality. This is a clear
trait of fascism that sees Sisis opponents as not worthy of Egyptian citizenship.
Eliminationist policy
Sisi and his media machine have succeeded in putting society on a course that
ends with accepting eradication and final solutions. They stress escalation,
maximalist positions, exchange of threats and use of violence and entrapment, all
the time rationalising the process of eradication, working to change perceptions
and routinising violence and bloodshed.
Under this narrative, those who opposed Sisi, the military and the coup were
enemies of the state, traitors, and had to be eliminated. Since Sisis takeover, procoup liberals and intellectuals have been spitting repugnant statements and
maximalist positions. Fascist calls for exclusion, purification and eradication of

opponents have been circulating widely. Tariq Heggy - a prominent secular

intellectual who is well-recognised in the West as an Egyptian "liberal" helps to
sanctify Sisis actions by shedding a divine aura to the brutal and bloody measures
that Sisi has taken against his opponents.
He described Sisi as the most capable to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood
germ". Religious fatwas (legal opinions) were issued by pro-coup religious figures
declaring that buying from Muslim Brothers stores and marrying them was haram
(forbidden).
Under Sisis regime, the classic fascist tactics of the use of brutal force and
extralegal measures against opponents has increased to an alarming degree. The
cycle of state violence has widened to include - in addition to the Muslim
Brotherhood - secular activists and revolutionary youth. The regime has
unleashed death squads to eliminate dissent and has applied systematic forced
disappearance that has targeted hundreds of Egyptians.
Sisi is the problem, not the solution
Fascism, individualistic rule and military-backed regimes are bound to collapse. It
may take time, but they will eventually end. Yet the damage they incur in the
meantime is severe and can have long-lasting effects.
Sisi is pushing hard to incite radicalisation and create a pretext for his brutality
and prove his worth to the West. Sisis crushing of democracy and ruthless
elimination of dissidents vindicates the extremist narrative which sees democracy
as futile and advocates violence as the only viable way to counter state terror
and fascism. He is radicalising large segments of disgruntled and alienated youth
and eventually undermining the Wests efforts to fight Islamic State (IS) group and
radicalism. While the West concentrates on the radicalisation fuelling groups like
IS, they are turning a blind eye to the other kind of radicalisation being prompted
by Sisi and his fascist doctrine that is in turn fuelling the rise of IS and further
promoting polarisation in the already unstable region.
The US and the EU need to realise they have been a part of the ongoing tragedy in
Egypt and that this tragedy is destined to have effects across the Mediterranean.
It is high time to consider a new approach to deal with this newborn fascism in
Egypt, instead of their current policy of appeasement. They cannot have it both
ways by rewarding and funding repressive regimes like Sisis and claiming to be
concerned about human rights. They need to make up their mind: either
publically declare their support for the likes of Sisi and or prove a genuine

commitment to human rights and democratic values in Egypt.

Egyptians, on the other hand, will have to realise that soon enough Sisi will
become the past and that they will have to co-exist and reconcile in order to
preserve the social fabric and their future. Egyptian political leaders should agree
that the essence of the struggle is between military rule and civilian rule. We need
to restore civilian rule and not to succumb to military hegemony that has set
Egypt backward and caused it to lag behind.
Returning Egypt to the path of democracy and national reconciliation is the only
way forward. Luckily, while the present looks gloomy and dim, the force of
demography dictates that the future is the youth's, whether autocrats and their
outside supporters like it or not.
- Emad Shahin, is a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign
Service. He is also a professor of Public Policy at the School of Global Affairs and
Public Policy (GAPP), the American University in Cairo (AUC) and editor-in-chief,
The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Islam and Politics. In May 2014, he was sentenced to
death in absentia by an Egyptian court in a highly-controversial mass trial.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily
reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Photo: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (C) walks after the Victory Parade
marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis in World War II (AFP)
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