On the third anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution of January 25, 2011, 49 Egyptians died, 247 were injured, 1079 were detained, and a military helicopter was shot down over Sinai by a missile killing 5 armed forces personnel. The celebrations turned bloody as supporters of the Government and those of the defunct Morsi regime clashed. The series of terror killings began with 4 explosions aimed at the police in Cairo. The "Friends of Jerusalem" (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis) claimed responsibility. Morsi's trial has now resumed with 4 charges listed on his arraignment.
Let us frame the conflict between the Adly Mansour Government and the Islamists of the Brotherhood and its affiliates like Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis in an imaginary Question and Answer period. The session shall be with Morsi himself. Let us imagine that he had agreed to see me before he was flown to a sound proof defendant's cage to appear in his resumed trial in Cairo.
Einstein had said: "Imagination is Better Than Intelligence." I started my professional career in Cairo at the age of 19 as a novelist based on imagination. The title of my novel is "An Impostor in the Village." It was first published in 1948, and has now been republished by Aalam Al-Kotab (The World of Books) in Cairo. Its theme is the manipulation of faith for sordid power ends. Even after 66 years of its publication, it applies to the present deadly conflict between the Islamists and the Secularists.
Morsi is here imagined to have granted me this rare interview with the approval of the authorities for several reasons. He and I hail from the same Egyptian Province of Sharkia (the Oriental); both of us have lectured at the University of Zargazig, the capital of the province; both of us are interested in letting his views known to the world. With this in mind, I, in my dream, entered his cell before he was flown to Cairo for his resumed trial.
El-Ayouty (E): Al-Salam Alaikon Mr. Morsi. Thanks for granting me the privilege of this conversation.
Morsi (M): Alaikon Al-Salam!! But you must address me not as Mr. Morsi but as President Morsi.
E: Well, Sir, but you were removed from the presidency on July 3, 2013!!
M: By whom? It was a military coup staged by El-Sisi against me as the first democratically-elected president in the history of Egypt!!
E: But before those actions by the military, two events had taken place: 35 million Egyptians voluntarily assembled in Tahrir and other Egyptian public squares demanding your ouster. In addition, there were appeals addressed to you by the military to save Egypt from conflagration by agreeing to a compromise with the secular opposition. You refused.
M: El-Sisi was appointed by me as Minister of Defense. He took an oath of loyalty to the regime and was thus in no position to go over the head of that regime, namely me.
We had a Constitution in place since December 2012, and parliamentary elections were scheduled to take place in the course of 2013. Until then, I held both legislative and executive powers. The so-called millions who assembled against me on June 30 were paid thugs (baltagiah) and had no power to end my presidency.
E: You raise interesting points. El-Sisi was sworn before you as Defense Minister of Egypt, not Defense Minister of the Morsi regime. And the December 2012 Constitution was regarded as an Islamist document from the drafting of which the secular opposition withdrew. And I was in Cairo before the vote on it in 2012. People on the street told me that they were given no time to debate it. Even before it was put to a vote, your Constitutional Declaration of November 22, 2012 was alarming to the secular opposition and the judiciary. You put yourself above the law.
M: You seem to forget that I had cancelled that Declaration within a few days.
E: True, but public trust in the regime had already shattered and that lack of trust transitioned to the post-2012 Constitution period. You refer to the multitudes of Egyptians who rose up against you on June 30 screaming "IRHAL" (Leave) as paid thugs (baltagiah).
M: If you disagree with the term "paid thugs." how else could you describe them, and what power do they have to unseat me using the armed forces to engineer that coup?
E: It is impossible to regard more than one-third of the population of Egypt as "paid thugs." Their cause could be legitimated on the basis that in the 2012 Constitution there was no recall clause and no impeachment provision. The only mechanism was the street which spoke loudly and clearly against the regime.
M: Why would I be impeached, even if there was such a constitutional clause?
E: I shall not refer to that charges on which you had been arraigned, as I am not privy to the evidence. So as regards your actions in the public domain, you have resigned your membership of the Muslim Brotherhood following your election to the presidency. But you continued to regard the Guidance Bureau of that organization as your point of political reference. Thus began the process of brotherhoodization of the country.
You prevented the armed forces in Sinai from standing up effectively against Hamas and its affiliates as they proceeded to detach Sinai from Egyptian sovereignty. You have humiliated Al-Azhar, frightened the Coptic community, denigrated the judiciary, especially the Supreme Constitutional Court, and have allied yourself with Qatar whose funds are said to flow even until now to the Brotherhood. This is not to mention your encouragement of sectarian violence against the Shiis. And Sharia was being interpreted as if legislated law was at odds with it.
M: The Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood nominated me for the presidency which I won in June 2012. My relations with them paralleled the relationship of any political personality with his base. True, I chose 13 Governors out of a total of 27 from the Brotherhood. But these were capable persons who had my full trust.
Hamas is under siege by Israel, a siege that had to be broken through tunnels into our territory. The Palestinian question is Egypt's primary cause. The armed forces had to understand that they function under civilian control as represented by me. Let us remember that between Arab countries there should not be national boundaries.
As to Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church, these are institutions that, with the approval of the 2012 Constitution, there can be no State within the State -no autonomy for such establishments. The judiciary has exceeded its authority, as, for example, in disbanding the Egyptian lower chamber of Parliament. Who gave them that authority? We did not support sectarian violence. We simply responded to actions by minority sects by enforcing majority rule.
E: Sir, do you regard Egypt as the center of loyalty by you and the Brotherhood?
M: Well, Egypt is an integral part of the Arab and Muslim worlds and our focus is on an ever expanding Islamic State.
E: What you are in effect saying is that pan-Islamism should be the national identity of Egypt?
M: In a way, yes!! Islam is the solution.
E: But Al-Azhar in its document of August 2011, which was supported by the Coptic Church and women organizations, declared that the "Islam does not recognize a State which is solely based on religion." And Al-Azhar is the only point of reference for the issuance of Fatwas.
M: This is why Al-Azhar's Rector has to be removed because we see no separation between State and Religion.
E: I am concluding from your response that the confrontation between the Islamists and the Secularists shall last for a long time!
M: You may say so, until legitimacy as represented by me is restored, El-Sisi and his supporters are disciplined, and the course of the Egyptian Revolution is corrected. Even if this process takes decades.
E: Did you say "decades?"
M: It shall be a long conflict!!
E: If your aim is an Islamic State, your aim is doomed by the historical realities of Egypt. Just look at where the Muslim Brotherhood is now.
M: We are every where!! Thousands are marching all over Egypt in support of my return.
E: You may be every where yet no where. Your thousands have failed to translate into the millions. The movement is decapitated. The massacre of the police at Mansoura resulted in declaring the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Seizing your assets is easier than tracking Mubarak's assets. Attacking the armed forces is further alienating you from the masses. Since 1814, the armed forces have been a part of the DNA Egyptian nationalism. Except for media snipers from the outside, the charge of militarization of Egyptian rule sounds very hollow to Egyptian ears. "Teslam El-Ayadi" (God Bless the Army's Hands) is not only a song; it reflects a historical creed. The quest for stability has outsized the quest for a defective democracy.
Throughout world history, terrorism has never unseated an established order. Not only was the Muslim Brotherhood a "Johnny Come Lately" to the January 25 Revolution. The Brotherhood had, at the start, declared that opposing Mubarak was un-Islamic. Your outside allies, from Qatar to Turkey, are on the run. Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of Russia has recently rebuked the Qatar Foreign Minister, saying: "Sir!! I cannot find your country on the map!!" And Ordoghan of Turkey, in spite of his Rabaa salute, is fighting for his political life.
Internationally, the plight of the Brotherhood is impossible to translate into an unambiguous cause of human rights violations. For historic Egypt has always regarded seeking such foreign support as a form of high treason. The "Friends of Jerusalem" has no friends in Jerusalem, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. And the Brotherhood Inc. has refused to join the new wave of July 3.
M: I do not succumb to pessimism. I trust in God and in our cause.
E: I think that this conversation has become circular. We are ending where we have started. Islam, under its own jurisprudence (Sharia) creates a community, not a State. The quest for an Islamic State reminds me of Don Quixote's hopeless quest. He and Sancho Panza saw windmills as attacking knights. May I, with your permission, call Mohammed Badie, the jailed Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood your Sancho Panza? Or does this honor go to Khairat El-Shalter?!
To be secular does not contradict being also Islamic. For Islam is based on "Ma Yanfoo El-Nas" (Whatever is good for society). Not on what ever is good for the Brotherhood!!
As to Egypt, the late Pope Shenouda, that historic church leader and scholar, described to me in New York his belief in Egypt. He repeated what he had always advocated: "Egypt is not only a country in which we live. Egypt is also a country which lives in us!!"
Time to wake up, Mr. ex-President!! Field Marshal El-Sisi is at the door!!
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