The news is not about the fire that flared up in a Cairo court on Thursday morning, April 4, rather it is the real fires, which burned the files of South Cairo Court, Central Cairo Prosecution, Public Funds Prosecution and Bulaq and Sharabia prosecutions, that passed unnoticed without political repercussions or considerable media attention about the news that was supposed to rock the country, or at least its capital. Such indifference is just additional proof that the state of Egypt is rapidly descending into an abyss.

The news is not about the fire that flared up in a Cairo court on Thursday morning, April 4, rather it is the real fires, which burned the files of South Cairo Court, Central Cairo Prosecution, Public Funds Prosecution and Bulaq and Sharabia prosecutions, that passed unnoticed without political repercussions or considerable media attention about the news that was supposed to rock the country, or at least its capital. Such indifference is just additional proof that the state of Egypt is rapidly descending into an abyss.

Since 2005, the ‘Failed States Index’ report has been issued by the Fund for Peace research organization in collaboration with the American Foreign Policy magazine on an annual basis. In the 2012 report, Egypt ranked 31^st, falling 14 spots compared to 2011, the year when the revolution broke out.

While President Mohamed Morsi is only responsible for the second half of 2012, when he was elected, the developments, a sign of which is the Cairo Court fire, do not bode that Egypt will make any improvement in this year’s report, which will certainly include the repercussions of the president’s decisions – mostly came at the end of 2012, such as the constitutional announcement – which have been in the form of violence that has swept the country, claiming more than a hundred casualties in Cairo and then Suez and Port Said. This was followed by a curfew, the judges’ strike, the closure of the Court of Cassation for the first time in its history, postponing the parliamentary elections which the main opposition party “Rescue Front” announced boycotting it, the postponement of the signing of the IMF loan, and continued sharp devaluation of the Egyptian pound to more than eight pounds for each dollar on the black market, compared with six pounds when the president was elected, which is one and half a pounds higher than the official price and is deteriorating at the same pace.

However, signs of official failure are manifested not only in economic terms, but also in its persistent loss of control over parts of its territory. The state’s  weakness does not appear only in the current situation of the Sinai Peninsula, which has become a hotbed for militant groups that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers at the beginning of the president’s term and until today the authorities have not succeeded in uncovering the culprits, nor in Gaza tunnels crisis which have become a subject of bargaining between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas on the one hand, the Brotherhood and its opponents on the other, and Morsi’s government and the Americans on the third; rather, it is reflected in escalating kidnappings, assaults and car thefts, especially on highways among governorates, with frequent police strikes and changing two interior ministers during the short term of Morsi, accompanied by accusations leveled against the Brotherhood – from inside and outside the police force – of trying to Ikhwanize (Ikhwan means the Muslim Brotherhood) the police, as part of its plan, according to the opposition, to Ikhwanize the state.

In his 2005 book ‘Strong Regime and Weak State,’ late economist Samer Suleiman described state weakness as worsening financial crisis of the political system, leading to a loose mechanism of control based on the strength of money and the rising role of capitalist powers – and some segments of the middle class – at the expense of the state. Suleiman predicted that Mubarak’s regime would solve this dilemma through using businessmen and integrating them within the regime itself, which was achieved in the following years.

However, the “strong regime” Suleiman talked about, was inherited by a sectarian regime, the Brotherhood. Sectarianism here has two reflections: the first is self-evident due to the Brotherhood’s ideology as the largest political Islam organization, while the second is its self-management as a sect with a solid organization that transcends its members’ political relations to economic and even family relations, making even its allies of Salafist parties, along with the secular opposition, accuse it of trying to “Ikhwanize the state”, that is replacing staff of different ministries, governorates bodies, Al-Azhar institutions, the police and the army with the Muslim brothers, contrary to democratic customary.

These accusations gain credibility not only from the continuous appointment of Muslim brothers as assistants and chefs de bureau of administrators, if not as administrators, which has been observed by the press and public, but also because it is impossible for the secret closed Brotherhood to govern without “Ikhwanization.” In other words, the Brotherhood as a political and ideological community is not able to repeat the solution Mubarak’s regime resorted to (incorporating symbols of capitalism and businessmen at the heart of the governance) without disintegrating itself or, at the very least, confusing its strict organizational structure because the money and business forces cannot be managed by obedience system under an open market system, which was evident through the experience of Mubarak’s regime itself which gradually turned into “governments of businessmen.”

Between the two difficult options of Ikhwanization as well as openness to economic forces and including them in the regime, the Egyptian state continues to degrade from “weak” to “failed.” This means that even if the Ikhwanization succeeds, it will be like sailors succeeding in hijacking a sunken ship.