It was an “Arab Spring”, they intoned; the revolutionaries were looking to establish secular liberal democracies, not embrace "theocratic" rule. However, as time went by, it became clear that the Western political establishment, the Western media, and most Western “experts”—who had not anticipated the coming revolutions in the first place—were once again incapable of correctly understanding the situation in Egypt or correctly interpreting the broader region’s realities. Hence, their dismay with the results from the first round of the parliamentary elections in Egypt, in which the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice coalition and the Salafist Noor coalition together received over two thirds of the votes, despite the fact that voting mostly took place in areas not normally considered to be religious strongholds. (2) It is already apparent how the parliament that will emerge from these elections is likely to steer the process of drafting a new constitution for Egypt—if it is allowed to do so by the country’s U.S.-backed military.The Western (or Western-affiliated) Middle East “experts”, who were previously so adamant that these revolutions were secular in nature, now wonder how to read unfolding events. Some are putting on a brave face, expressing hope that, after a few years, Islamic parties will fail and people will vote for Western-oriented liberal parties—as if people in the region do not remember who backed and continues to back Arab dictatorships. They do not seem to recognize that the social and economic crisis currently taking place throughout Europe and the United States has already raised serious questions about the nature and future of liberal capitalism, especially in the Middle East and other non-Western parts of the world.Western elites’ difficulties in understanding the Middle East are exacerbated because their sources of information in the region are basically local secular elites—wealthy, Western-educated, and even Western-oriented Muslim intellectuals. Westerners collectively fail to recognize that such people are simply not representative of their societies. As in Iran, the large majority of Egyptians are religious. If past experience in Iran is something to go by, the Muslim Brotherhood will probably at some point split into two or more separate parties, which will then provide competing interpretations of how society should be run. Hence, religious parties will probably be the dominant forces in Egyptian politics for many years to come—not just for one or two electoral cycles.
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