Toppling dictators is one thing. Creating democracies is another. This is the most valuable lesson from the Arab Spring, two years after its outbreak. And while Islamists are to be blamed for their lack of understanding about democracy, their rivals—the "liberals”—are guilty as well. Without democrats, Arab democracy becomes impossible. Since the outbreak of the second Egyptian uprising, this time against President Mohammad Morsi, Egypt's liberals, like their Islamist compatriots, seem to be dangerously improvising the steps needed for post-Mubarak state building. The end result has been show rallies, counter-rallies and random thuggish confrontations.

The liberals were right to take to the streets en masse to protest Morsi's executive decree that abrogated the prerogatives of the judiciary. But once the liberals had forced Morsi to backtrack, they should have focused on quantifying their popular weight by beating the referendum at the ballot boxes, or at least by demanding that—like all constitutions—the Egyptian draft be ratified by two-thirds of voters or four-fifths of an elected parliament or assembly, instead of a simple majority. [Link]