Very ironic. The America of Trump is in full retreat globally, while its journalism becomes the tool for nefarious imperialism. The case in point: A full throated article in The New York Times of July 29, 2018 entitled "The White House and the Strongman," by David Kirkpatrick. It is on Egypt where the writer was a correspondent for that paper whose motto is "All The News That Is Fit To Print."
So the news that is fit to print is now based on the egregious claim that the Muslim Brotherhood, under Morsi, was illegally sacked by El-Sisi in July 2013. On the fifth anniversary of Egypt's liberation from the fascist Islamic rule, resulting from an uprising by 35 million Egyptians on June 30, 2013, is denigrated as a coup. The Brotherhood, now officially declared in Egypt as a terrorist organization, is lionized by The New York Times as the victim of a brutal coup.
The writer claims that the presidency of Morsi (2012-2013) was a democratically-established order. Then he contrasts it to the presidency of El-Sisi as a usurper putschist regime. Such a contrast is the equivalent of saying that the Nazi regime symbolized democracy, which was overturned by the dictatorial regimes of England and France.
Fitzpatrick cites many sources whose voices support the punishment of Egypt as a collapser of democratic rule in the Middle East. Thus the Muslim Brotherhood has been lent a voice which defies not only the facts, but the very notion of sovereignty in Egypt, as in elsewhere. That sovereignty flows from the people, and is immune from the imperialist impulses fully reflected in The New York Times.
What are the facts? The Brotherhood was given the incredible chance of eligibility to compete for the presidency, after the fall of Mubarak. That opportunity was offered by the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces), the interim government (2011-2012) after the January 25 Revolution.
The armed forces, which held Egypt together from January 25, 2011 until the electoral victory of the Brotherhood, were the very guarantors of that democratic transfer of power.
Morsi, who was not the first choice by the Brotherhood for president, won; his opponent, General Shafik, lost. The margin of victory was 1.5% of the popular vote.
Now a president of 103 million Egyptians (one-third of the Arab world) was sworn in, no less than 4 times, was chosen before the 2013 Constitution was even drafted. Speaking of putting the cart before the horse.
Thus began, not a regime for all Egyptians, but one bent on using Egypt as a launching pad for a mythical Islamic Caliphate. The Brotherhood's Supreme Guide said "Hell with Egypt" (Toz Fi Misr); the secular and Coptic voices were banished from the Constituent Assembly which drafted an Islamic constitution; the burning of Coptic churches became common; the Shii community was terrorized; and the Pyramids, and the Sphinx were called "un-Islamic monuments of idolatry." Tourism, (20% of Egypt's national revenue) evaporated
Between the completion of the drafting of the Islamic Constitution and the vote on it in a plebiscite, were only 24 precious hours. No real attempt was made to supervise that plebiscite, as the judiciary was intimidated. The Supreme Constitutional Court was besieged by Brotherhood thugs; and Morsi, whose mentors and manipulators were the members of the Guidance Bureau, declared himself in November 2012, to be above the law.
Hamas in Gaza was given a free reign in Sinai; Qatar and Turkey and Pakistan became models to be copied; Brotherhood's military were being organized as a parallel army; Ethiopian, a Christian country, was threatened by war over its construction of a dam over a tributary of the Nile within its territories; Al-Azhar was attacked by male and female thugs; text books were revised to suit the Brotherhood's interpretation of "Islam Uber Alles" (Islam is the only true faith; all other creeds unworthy).
The Brotherhoodization of Egypt for one full year (2012-2013) generated the corrective Revolution of June 30, 2013. Once more the armed forces, through General El-Sisi, then Defense Minister, tried together with Egyptian liberal leaders to negotiate a new beginning with Morsi -a new Plebiscite. Even President Obama counseled Morsi "History is waiting for you." But to no avail.
From June 30 to July 3, 2013, the fate of a secular and inclusive Egypt hung in the balance. The military leadership was keen on an inclusive Egypt, with the Brotherhood as a component. But the Brotherhood clung to its fiction of "Shariyah" (legitimacy) -a mantra whose falsity was proven by the abuse of democracy for the sake of "an Islamic Emirate" in Egypt.
Fitzpatrick, who was an eye witness in Cairo to these events, now, in his present article in The New York Times, makes a false claim when he asserts that "on July 3, 2013, General Sisi announced Mr. Morsi's removal." The collective wisdom of the Egyptian leadership, responding to the massive popular demand for a secular Egypt, is now abbreviated by that author to a coup against a democratically-elected Brotherhood.
It is noteworthy that the Islamic constitution had no provision for a scripted method for the removal of an errant president. In that void, the popular will stepped in to fill that space.
Another strange switch in that imperialist-like intervention in Egyptian internal affairs by an American journalist: It behooves Fitzpatrick to compare between how El-Sisi came to power twice (in 2014 and in 2018) to how Trump came to power in the US in 2017. The Egyptian president came through an internationally-supervised elections on the basis of the secular Constitution of 2014. Trump came to power through, the intervention of a foreign adversary, Russia, and is now calling the US Constitution "archaic."
The definition of "archaic" is primitive, no longer in common use. As to the definition of "democracy," it has so far never found a common definition. Even Kirkpatrick in his pro-Muslim Brotherhood prediction, has failed to provide us with the rationale of what he means by "The White House and the Strongman."
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