It was the holiest of the Holy Days in the Egyptian Coptic calendar: April 20, when Easter of the West and Easter of the East happened to coincide. Pope Tawadrous II, the Pope of Alexandria, had on April 19 received Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who had come to the Cathedral, named after an Alexandrian, St. Mark (one of the Gospel writers), to pay his respects. As the Pope began on April 20 to celebrate the holy mass, he, out of courtesy, expressed thanks for the visit of El-Sisi, that iconic presidential candidate.
At the mere mention of the word "El-Sisi," it was as if His Holiness the Pope had pushed a "Go" button. The congregation of thousands of worshipers rose up as "one man" in a new chant: "El-Sisi Raiisi" (El-Sisi is my President). It was a new chant lasting for several minutes; a rhythmically vocal celebration of an El-Sisi presidency; a unanimous vote of confidence in the way Egypt was being transformed.
The Copts, being a minority of about 10% of a population of 93 millions, of which the Muslims are an overwhelming majority, were hailing the rebirth of a secular Egypt. The dark era of Brotherhood rule of one year (June 2012 to July 2013) was over. A secular rebirth has taken place, lending more joy to the coptic 50 days of post-Easter greeting in the Coptic language: "Ekhrestos Anesty" to which the response is "alisos Anesty!!" (Christ Has Risen - He Has Truly Risen).
The Easter episode is more about the revolutionary transformation of Egypt from 2011 to 2014, than about El-Sisi presidency. That in spite of the fact that that presidency is to be regarded a high point in that transformation. The battle for the soul of Egypt between the Islamists and the Secularists has been decided in favor of the secularists, with vast implications for the whole region. This is regardless of the results of the expected determined efforts of an El-Sisi team to tackle the huge heap of issues in all fields which have dragged Egypt down the steep hill of development in the digital age.
First and foremost, the war on terror inside Egyptian borders has now pitted a whole nation behind it, battling the enemies of its security and development. Declaring the Brotherhood a terror organization under Egyptian laws has finally put an end to the zig-zagging relationships between successive Egyptian Governments and the Brotherhood since 1928, the Brotherhood's birth date. The abuse of Islam by the Brotherhood for an ultimate political grab is now getting its oxygen tube cut off. Now all the Brotherhood International franchises from South East Asia to Africa and on to Europe and the Americas shall undoubtedly be impacted by the deterioration of its poisonous root in Egypt.
These historic developments cannot but have a salutatory effect on mainstream Islam which for a long dreadful period, especially after 9/11, has suffered the indignities of Islamophobia nearly world-wide. Muslims, whether traveling by air or running for public office in non-Muslim areas, have largely been presumed guilty till proven innocent. Even President Obama is periodically harassed by his political adversaries as "a closet Muslim." His middle name "Hussein" has become a political liability. Mosques in the U.S., the U.K., France and Germany are looked upon as if they were terrorist recruiting establishments.
The wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan furthered the gulf of hatred between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. Torture became the tool of enhanced interrogations. And the criminality of Boko Haran in Nigeria together with the rise of sectarianism throughout the vast Muslim region of 1.5 billion inhabitants are now the topics of daily news reports and the justification for wars and repression in Muslim areas in both Russia and China. And now there is in India a BJP Modi administration sending shivers of fear up the spines of a 100 million Muslims, both Sunnis and Shiis.
Faced with these inter-faith calamities, neither the Organization of Islamic Cooperation consisting of 57 U.N. Member States, nor the Iranian-induced inter-faith dialogue at the U.N., could stem the anti-Islamic tide. The crescent on Muslim flags began to cause non-Muslim societies unspoken unease.
Is the Brotherhood responsible for all these calamities which have befallen Islam whose primary emphasis is on "No Compulsion in Faith Adoption?" Not entirely.
But its advocacy of returning Islam to what it perceived as its puritanical origin caused its offshoots in various parts of the world to magnify that advocacy. Its resort to force, especially assassinations and oppression of non-Muslim minorities, catapulted its offspring organizations into the formation of the dreaded and dreadful Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's top lieutenant is Ayman Zawahri, an Egyptian physician whose brother, Muhammad Zawahri, remained in Egypt and helped bring the Morsi regime closer to Hamas in Gaza.
The Brotherhood hubbub nearly drowned the historic message of non-political Islam announced by Al-Azhar on August 17, 2011, 6 months after the fall of Mubarak. Entitled "Al-Azhar Document on Egypt's Future," it encapsulated eleven principles, the first of which included "Islam, in its legislation, civilization, and history does not recognize a religiously-based State." No wonder that the Coptic Church enthusiastically endorsed that document, while the Brotherhood denounced it because the Islamists saw in it the torpedoing of their advocacy for pan-Islamism within a mythical Caliphate.
And when the Islamic governance of one year was ended by the many millions gathered in Tahrir on June 30, 2013, millions whose chants of anguish had the backing of the military under the leadership of El-Sisi, the Brotherhood went on a rampage in Cairo, through the 6-week sit-ins, and in Sinai, through the activation of its terrorist comrades in Sinai where army and police personnel were the targets of a mini-war.
With all their bravado about mass support and the possibility of army and police defections from "the un-Islamic regime," their propaganda resulted in no more than a few demonstrations by a limited number of university students who clamored for the release of Morsi from jail and his "second coming" to the presidential palace. Pipe dreams!! The more the Brotherhood gunned down both security and civilian personnel, the brighter El-Sisi image shined, and the greater his march to the presidency, as the symbol of the re-normalization of Egypt, was welcomed. In spite of another presidential candidacy, that of Hamdain Sabbahi, El-Sis's march to the helm became hugely unstoppable.
Evidence indicates that the rise of El-Sisi to the position of largely uncontested presidential candidate, following the national elections later this May, is largely due to the masses' burning desire for security and development.
In Egypt, the Arab spring has caused major dislocations of these twin areas of national priorities. Examining those popular demands from the perspective of Egypt as a republic since July 1952, one finds them to have become a constant throughout the reigns of the previous 7 presidents: Naguib, Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, Tantantawi, Morsi, and Mansour. It was only during the Morsi regime that neither security nor development was the major concern. The emphasis of Morsi and his parent organization, The Brotherhood, has been on Islamization through Brotherhoodization.
Against this unsettling background, the El-Sisi campaign has remained focused on translating the huge popularity of El-Sisi into a clear national program: security and development. Throughout the many group meetings which El-Sisi held with a large variety of Egyptian organizations, the emphasis on those national needs has been unremitting.
As a presidential candidate, his symbol, a five-points star on ads in the Egyptian street and on the ballots, symbolized the hope of a new dawn. That dawn brought with it over the national horizon, the concept of Egyptianness. It resonated dramatically with a public that has grown not only weary, but in fact disgusted, with the failed policies of interventionism in the affairs of other Arab countries. The average Egyptian citizen, as produced by the Arab Spring in Tahrir, saw in that over the borders outreach the root cause for Egypt's retardation.
The groups which heard El-Sisi's message from El-Sisi himself did not only represent a source of added legitimization to El-Sisi's candidature. They also reflected broad concern for the previously marginalized groups as well as under-utilized professional constellations.
They included Arab tribes from Sinai and the western desert; the sports community; the peasants from the south; the small business and commerce communities, the media community, youth organizations; women syndicates; representatives of the science and technology communities; the leadership of the various branches of the armed forces and police recruits; the film and arts unions; and the diplomatic and foreign policy communities and the judiciary. An overwhelming amalgam of various sectors of Egyptian society, flocking to vote by their feet for El-Sisi before giving him a landslide victory which is expected to bury the question of "an El-Sisi coup" as propagated by the Brotherhood and its foreign allies.
They chanted with him "Tahia Misr" (Long Live Egypt). The vision presented through these meetings was to have Egypt, in the long run, rise up gradually to the levels of the newly-developed societies of India and Brazil. This was an El-Sisi version of "Yes We Can."
As to the form of democracy emerging under an El-Sis presidency, the candidate did not shrink from explaining that each society has the right to fashion its own brand of democracy in accordance with its societal norms. In his meeting with the Editors-in-Chief of the Egyptian press, held on May 7, El-Sisi said: "We face a problem of evoking the prototype of democracies as practiced in settled States. Applying at this stage the standards of western democracies does injustice to the Egyptian reality of today. Then in a lengthy interview with two Egyptian talk show hosts, he urged the U.S. to "Look at us with Egyptian eyes."
These stances lend more credibility to the Coptic chants during the celebration of the Orthodox Easter: "El-Sisi Raiisi." For they now feel safe in a secularly-reborn Egypt, which is inclusive and respectful of the rights of minorities.
The chant of "El-Sisi Raiisi" goes on, in spite of the ill-informed characterization of the U.S. media of an El-Sisi presidency as a return to military rule -an abortion of the march towards civilian rule and democracy. Our last blog posting dealt with the selective reporting of New York Times in that direction, contrary to the paper's motto "All the News That is Fit to Print."
It was therefore with satisfaction that I received from a friend a comment on my blog posting disparaging that motto. In his email, the commentator, a graduate of Columbia University, quoted from an article on The New York Times, published in the 1960s by a University newspaper by the name of "The Columbia Jester." The article reversed the motto of the New York Times to read: "All the News That Fits, We Print."
At a meeting with the representatives of southern Egypt, on May 14, a speaker, Judge Ihab Ramzi, a prominent copt, addressed El-Sisi in these words: "It was love for country and concern about its destiny which united the Egyptians in their second revolution of June 30, 2013. When these millions took to the streets, they were aware of the great role which you would play in rescuing Egypt from the dark tunnel in which it lived for one year of Brotherhood rule."
Ramzi's words found tangible expression by the throngs of Egyptian Americans voting for their hero at the Egyptian Consulate-General in New York on May 15. Braving the rain, they turned that event, under my own eyes, into an impromptu festival -a wedding.
Unfurling the Egyptian flag, holding up laminated photos of El-Sisi, they chanted while swaying with their pastors and their children: "El-Sisi Raiisi." You cannot make that historic scene up, even if you tried!! I was there witnessing it.
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