Daniel Levy insists that Egyptian democracy must include Islamism:
A democracy for everyone except Islamists will be handicapped and ultimately fail in a country like Egypt with a large community of religious believers and in which the Brotherhood is a popular and socially-embedded movement. President Morsi and large segments of the Brotherhood, after long periods of harsh persecution and after difficult internal debates, ultimately endorsed the democratic electoral process. That decision just had sand kicked in its face, and by the bucketful, undermining the movement’s more democratic wing and empowering its more radical wing. Is this more naivety – is a democratic Islamist an oxymoron? Let’s not be determinist or allow Egyptian generals and secularists to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Larison adds:
[T]he coup isn’t likely to weaken political Islam in Egypt or elsewhere over the long term, but will push Islamists out of the political process and encourage fanaticism to flourish unchecked. The coup will give many Islamists in other countries a clear lesson that they may as well not participate in any political process.
Earlier Dish on this subject here.
The Dish 