The New Islamists

The Tahrir Square protests are swiftly approaching a year's anniversary. Now that is hard to believe. Hard also to believe that so many Egyptians were swept up in the passion of the protests that millions were said to have come out all over Egypt, to pack the streets in a madness of revolutionary zeal. Despite which it was difficult to conceive that President Hosni Mubarak, the official face of Egypt for three decades would resign.

But he did, and since then the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has comprised the government. For a year they have simply continued representing the interests of Egypt. Governing just as President Mubarak had, for the most part. The sole difference is that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists which had been officially disbarred from taking any public office are now officially recognized.

That is a huge difference. As is the fact that the country's first democratic elections without the usual fraudulent component have just been concluded. The result being that the two Islamist parties swept the polls. Together they will represent fully three-quarters of the elected representatives in the Egyptian Parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood received over 47% of the vote, the Al Nour party 25%. As expected, as predicted, in fact.

Of a total of 498 seats in Parliament, 235 will be filled by Muslim Brotherhood representatives, and 121 by the Salafist party. Whatever is left will represent over 50 new political coalitions, the youth, the unions, the liberals. The secularists, the liberals and trade unionists and students were the backbone of the revolution, representing those who began the protests and brought out the millions of Egyptians to insist on a better Egypt.

"For now, the people will give the Muslim Brotherhood the chance. But it will be very difficult for them to achieve anything that the people want. I am optimistic, in the long term. whether it is Islamist or not, the parliament will have to give the people what they have been fighting for, and if SCAF does not give up its power then there will have to be a revolution against the military ruling class."

He is an optimist. A young man of 31. Hoping for a better future. More affordable food and fuel, and employment opportunities in a country a long way from recovering its economic stability. Of the country of 80 million people, 60 million are said to be under the age of 30. And they are hugely unemployed. The Muslim Brotherhood will now be very difficult to dislodge should young people think they are capable of repeating their protest miracle.

The Brotherhood has spent over a half-century building itself into an organized political force. It spent many decades giving aid to the poor of the land- and any other Muslim country where it established itself and where the poor were oppressed and suffering. The Muslim Brotherhood has the trust of so much of the electorate because it was they who provided health clinics, schools, food, and shelter for the poor. While teaching their brand of Islam.

"The elections happened in the context of extreme violence and oppression. The record over the past year is just as bad as it was under Hosni Mubarak. The military ruling class still has the guns, and they don't shy away from beating women in the streets in front of cameras. But these elections weren't rigged. We can't do anything but respect the results."

It will be left for now for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Muslim Brotherhood to perform their slow and dignified dance of accommodation, one with the other. The Muslim Brotherhood has no wish to frighten away foreign investors. Just as they patiently groomed the Egyptian electorate to trust them, they will refrain from unsettling the international community.

It might be said that the Egyptian portion of the Arab Spring was a moderate success. Other oppressive regimes in the Middle East and the far East have viewed what occurred in Egypt, and the result was that they've become if anything, more repressive. There is Syria, Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, for example; no loosening of constraints there.

Russia and China too have taken heed. Battening down the hatches of any supposed freedoms. While the White House is "reaching out" to the reality of the new Islamists.