A State of Darkness Exists Between the U.S. and Egypt

In Latin, which we study in Egypt, that state is called "in tenebris."  That state is made up of two opposites: theory in America, reality in Egypt.  It also has an outer layer -a rim.  The American rim consists of a supposition that an American road map to a Jeffersonian democracy should be a yardstick measuring the developments in present-day Egypt.

Here is my response: throw away that yardstick; stick only to reality as it manifests itself in the facts on the ground in Egypt; then get rid of the so-called experts who are wasting everyone's time by calling Egypt, "a failed State."  In fact an interviewer of President Obama on TV channel 13 on August 28 described Egypt to the President as "a collapsed government."  To his credit, Obama stayed away from such characterization.

Here are some examples of theoretical constructs by American public opinion-molders that have no anchor in the cold facts:

• Bill Keller rightly says, "Egypt's fate is, and must be, in Egyptian hands."  But then he leaps, without more, to asserting that "there is a gloomy sense that Egypt may already be in a kind of death spiral."
• Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose Republican Party is threatening to shut down the U.S. Federal Government this October through defunding major programs, has this to say "Somebody needs to look El-Sisi in the eye and say: You're going to destroy Egypt; you're going to doom your country to a beggar State; you're going to create an insurgency for generations to come; turn around, General, before it's too late."  All that oppressive paternalism was screamed out by the Senator on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
• A recent editorial in the New York Times (August 20, 2013) advocated "not to help the military, which is making things worse, and could fuel a generation of Islamists to choose militancy over the ballot box."
• Ross Douthat, an Op-Ed page contributor to the New York Times, looking down on the new Egypt from a perch higher than the Pyramids of Gaza, admonishes, "Let Our Client Go."  By client he means sovereign Egypt.  His unwise counsel is amplified as he states: "Client governments are never as tractable as their patrons in far-off capitals expect (meaning the U.S.A.), and great power that thinks it's buying influence is often buying its way into trouble instead."

The marshaling of theories shall have no effect on the realities of the Second Egyptian Revolution, which have ousted Morsi for good.  From the multitude of sources flowing to me from the Egyptian street, I see no "collapsed Government," no "death spiral," no "beggar State," and no "client" to patron relationships between Washington and Cairo.  These relationships are driven, not by hegemony, but by mutual national interest.

I can see only a mutiny by the Brotherhood against the will of millions of citizens who, with no recall mechanism in place, called for a halt to the radicalization of their country.  Yes, there has been a coup in Egypt.  But it was a "coup creep" by the Morsi regime against the populist achievements of the January 25, 2011 Revolution.

That Revolution was engineered, not by the Brotherhood, but by a broad coalition of people of all ages, Muslims and Christians, well-to-do and the homeless poor, literate and illiterate.  They came together declaring the unity between the Quran and the Bible, and hoisting the flags of Egypt on which was inscribed "We Love Egypt."  In Tahrir, they gave me that flag.  No Islamist flags were seen in Tahrir or elsewhere at that time, except after Morsi assumed power and abused his mandate.

On the slim shoulders of 50.50% of the electorate of 53 millions of whom 70% voted, the Morsi regime came.  A cartoon in the Egyptian press aptly assessed the meaning of that electoral result.  It showed two Egyptians sitting at a cafe with one of them telling the other: "The fact that General Shafiq (Morsi's opponent) lost does not mean that we love Morsi."

That cartoon expresses my feelings as I voted for Morsi in order to help Egypt escape another President from the military.  The Brotherhood saw it differently.  To them, the ballot box became the tip of the spear puncturing the balloon of hopes for an inclusive, secular and service-oriented regime.  Morsi failed them and they, on June 30, 2013, struck back with the help of the only other organized force -the military.  About that, there is no theory, but a fact-based reality.

I have expounded above on the theories in America.  I now turn to the reality of the danger, under Morsi, of the rise of an Islamic Emirate of Egypt.  I am invariably reading the lips of the Brotherhood through their writings.  It should be here noted that by the late 1980's, and within less than a decade of the assassination of President Sadat by the Islamists, Mubarak's Egypt began to see that "the Brotherhood and jihadist groups were in fact two sides of the same coin."  (Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood (2013) (page 76).

In his book entitled, "Jihad is the Nation's Vocation," published in Arabic in 2003, a Brotherhood author by the name of Magdy Ahmed Hussein asserts the following: "This work is a contribution towards arming the Islamic movement inside as well as outside of Egypt with this ideology (jihad) which I regard as an ignored religious duty."  The author is a disciple of the departed Sayed Qutb who was correctly described in an issue of the Sunday New York Times Magazine as "the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda."

The former Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, Mehdi Akef, in a booklet entitled "Muslim Brotherhood Initiative: On the General Principles of Reform in Egypt" expresses his unbending belief in the Islamization of Egypt.  To him, that Islamization is the cornerstone of development as he points out: "We stand no chance of achieving development in any field of our life unless we return to our religion, apply our Shariah" (Islamic Law). p.8.

Well, for the past six decades, Egyptian Constitutions including the Constitution of December 2012 have provided for the inclusion of Sharia as "principal source of legislation."  That means that whatever is not textually prohibited by the Quran and the Sunna constitutes the vast domain of legislated law.  Akef abridged that domain in order to consist only of revealed law.  That is not what Islamic jurisprudence calls for.

The Brotherhood nemesis, Dr. Abdel-Moniem Abu El-Fotooh, also disagrees with his former Supreme Guide.  In his book in Arabic "Innovators not Spoilers" published in 2005, he attacks that destructive rigidity by saying: "Faith is lost between immobility and disbelief." (p.40).  He drives his point further home by quoting from the primary source of Islamic Law, the Quran, which in Chapter 43, verse 23, denigrates those who want to have the Muslims of today emulate their forefathers of 14 centuries ago.  The verse reads: "We found our fathers follow a certain religion, and we will certainly follow in their footsteps." (Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali).  For his call to innovation and inclusiveness, Abu El-Fotooh, was jettisoned by the Brotherhood.  He ran for President, but did not make it to the run-off which produced Morsi.

It now looks that the suppression of that Brotherhood's mutiny, which extends to suspected dealings with jihadi movements, might have influenced Tunisia to declare on August 27 "The Sharia's Ansar -supporters," a terrorist organization.  Cairo's resort to curfews and to emergency measures promulgated under Law 162 (1958) may one day replicate the actions adopted by Tunisia.  There is no other effective way to suppress a mutiny and keep the country safe and functioning.  Any calls by the present government for a compromise, through inclusiveness, had one uniform response from the Brotherhood: No!!

The problem facing America's theoreticians is of two-folds.  On the one hand, they are challenged conceptually.  And on the other hand, they are challenged linguistically.  They do not read Arabic.  Thus they are unable to connect with the facts on the ground in Egypt.

What would have they learnt if only they could read the lingua franca of the one-third billion Arabs, including the Egyptians?  They would have learnt the following and more:

• that Khairat El-Shatter, the man behind the Brotherhood's throne, is a co-conspirator in attempting to split northern Egypt from southern Egypt.  The ancient Egyptians united Egypt.  Now, the present-day "ancient Muslims" are trying to divide it;
• that the criminal courts in Egypt have before them, among 62 detained Brotherhood members, a Salafi accused of throwing off a child to his death from the roof of a building in Alexandria while hoisting a Qaeda black flag.  The name of the alleged suspect is Mahmoud Hassan Ramadan;
• that the first Deputy of Muhammad Badie, the former Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, has just issued an attack on the Brotherhood's conduct in Egypt.  His critique included: the Brotherhood's supreme arrogance; the unquestioned submission of its members to the dictates of the Guidance Bureau, and the stipulation that the entire social network of any member should be confined to the Brotherhood social circles; 
• that the New York Times Cairo reporter, David D. Kirkpatrick, has published in the paper's issue of August 30, 2013 falsehoods on the arrest on August 29 of Mohamed El-Beltagy, a Brotherhood leader.  The falsehoods in Kirkpatrick's reporting are at three levels:  He called that action "a continuing roundup of Brotherhood leaders;" he characterized El-Beltagy as "a former Brotherhood lawmaker considered a moderate within the group;" and he did not refer to the probable cause for which that fugitive was apprehended.  For now, El-Beltagy is facing the following charges in three cases: incitement to murder; participation in the abduction and torture of police officers; and aiding and abetting of acts of violence including engagements with the security forces using firearms.  I submit that such journalism contributes to the state of darkness which exists between the U.S. and Egypt.
• that the Brotherhood's newspaper "Freedom and Justice" has within its editorial policy a non-changeable theme: Hatred of the Arabism, exaltation of Islamism.  How can this be tolerable in a country which calls itself "The Arab Republic of Egypt?!"

These are the realities of post-Morsi Egypt.  

Again to a Latin adage: "Inter arma leges silent."(In time of war, the laws are silent).  It conforms to the Islamic jurisprudence of "dire necessity."  And to the British adage: "Circumstances Alter Cases."