Since 1928, their motto included these incantations: "The Quran Is Our Constitution - And Dying for the Cause of God is Our Most Cherished Aspiration." A motto expresses a belief. In civilized societies, religious beliefs are personal, not communal, unless you are a member of that community. Islamic law upholds respect for diversity of beliefs. In fact it upholds the personal right to non-belief. For it assigns the power of judging beliefs, not to another human being, but to the Creator.
This is the rock upon which the separation between state and religion rests. It is a powerful instrument for social peace under legislated, not revealed, law. In this principle, one can see the intersection of the U.S. Constitution and Sharia legal principles, progressively interpreted on the basis of their original sources.
It is in this critical area of matters of State, that the Brotherhood failed. Herein lies the fault line in the way the Morsi regime governed Egypt for a year. That year led to the upheaval of June 30, 2013 which took the form of a Second Egyptian Revolution. The First Revolution was that of January 25, 2011 which toppled Mubarak, who is now released on bail from imprisonment.
The task of this blog is not propaganda. It is, to the maximum extent possible, a weekly examination of ascertainable facts. The evidence is based on specific declarations and documents, most of which is in Arabic. The goal is to inform, not to proselytize. I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that. Nor am I the spokesman of either the Egyptian Government, nor a vindictive hater of the Brotherhood. I am my own paymaster, a teacher of law in both the U.S. and Egypt, and am privileged to be a dual citizen of both the U.S., my country of adoption, and Egypt, my country of birth. My only aspiration is to continue being a bridge between the two cultures. If I fail, it shall not be for lack of trying. And if I succeed, the reward shall be limited to the deep satisfaction of having, in a small measure, revealed to the world of America and the world of Egypt (25% of all Arabs) to one another.
There is no escaping the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, having ascended to power in Egypt in post-Mubarak Egypt, proceeded through Morsi, for whom I voted, to brutalize Egypt through a forced Brotherhoodization. They have declared that "our rule shall last for 500 years," in the way Hitler has aspired to "a Reich of a thousand years." To me, who withheld his vote from Shafiq, the military opponent of Morsi, I could see no deliverance from the Brotherhoodization except through the armed forces. More than 30 millions, who engineered the Second Egyptian Revolution on June 30, called on General El-Sisi to act on behalf of secular Egypt. There was no mechanism for recall. In response, he did.
In its hour of national peril in 1958, France, an icon of democracy, called on General De Gaulle to topple the old and bring in a new republic. Their call, not unlike that of the Egyptians in Tahrir, on June 30, was "L'armee au pouvoir." Was that a French coup or was it a revolution? I do not care about the semantics. My commitment is to the substance. De Gaulle saved France by ending French colonialism in Algeria. As a result of being sent to Algeria during the war as a UN spokesman, I got hooked on the subject of colonialism which became my Ph.D. thesis at New York University. Furthermore, I acquired substantial field expertise in insurgency and counter-insurgency on which I lectured at NYU in the early 1970s to large classes of U.S. armed forces officers.
With my education being primarily based, not on books, but on field experiences in Algeria, Gaza, Yemen, Darfour and Iraq, I now turn to the Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo. Were those sit-ins at Rabaa or Al-Nahda squares "peaceful?" They were not.
Here is a hypothetical drawn from an imaginary Brotherhood-like sit-in at Times Square, New York City -my city for 61 years.
Imagine a large crowd of American protesters invading Times Square, New York City. Their sit-in is accompanied by the erection of a brick wall across that Square, cutting traffic off, and causing shops, restaurants, theatres and hotels to shut down for days. They set up tents and eateries and field hospitals. The City's authorities then discover that arms are being smuggled in; pavements are broken to provide stones to be slung at the police; nobody is allowed to leave the encampments; and children are dressed in shrouds proclaiming: "For our President, we are ready to die!!"
As Americans, they are covered by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "...the right of the people peaceably to assemble..." "Peaceably" is a condition. When negated, that right is denied to the protesters and their "freedom of speech" is "abridged."
What took place in the Cairo public squares, at the mosque of Rabyaa and Al-Nahdha, prior to their break-up on August 14 after one full month, is by all accounts a mirror image of that hypothetical about Times Square.
Yes --Morsi had breached his contract with Egypt during his 1-year tenure as elected president. Ruling in the mode of representative of the Brotherhood, not as president for all Egyptians, was a negation of his oath of office. Under his erratic rule, the Brotherhoodization of Egypt, a historically cosmopolitan country, became the national hallmark. Out of 27 provinces (he and I hail from the same province of Sharkia), no less than 13 such provinces had Muslim Brothers as their governers. Even Luxor, the capital of Egyptian tourism, suffered the indignity of a governor by the name of Mr. Al-Khayyat as its top executive. A popular firestorm then erupted forcing Morsi to seek his resignation. Al-Khayyat was not only a Salafi, an extremist movement to the right of the Brotherhood, but also had the blood of 59 tourists on his hands. They were mostly Swiss, Germans, Japanese, Americans, and Australians who perished at the great Valley of the Kings prior to the Morsi regime.
Since the overthrow of Mubarak, by the popular uprising of January 25, 2011, the Egyptian street found its voice. Since then "Streetocracy" became the vehicle of popular will. As in the case of the Berlin Wall which came down in 1990, the wall of fear from dictatorship in Egypt came down. Thus when Morsi, who was not even the first Brotherhood choice for presidential candidate, tried to convert Egypt into an Islamic state, millions of Egyptians screamed foul. The decapitation of the Brotherhood, especially with the arrest of its Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie on August 20, began with those sit-ins -a Brotherhood self-inflicted wound.
Badie's predecessor, Mahdi Akef, upon meeting him at the Brotherhood's HQ five years ago, began the conversation with me with his top advisors by: "Brother Yassin - Do you speak to the Jews?!" My answer was crisp: "The Jews are my brothers and sisters. And my wife is a devout American Catholic. You see, my late father, a graduate of Al-Azhar University and a former professor of Islamic philosophy, provided me with a life road map as he bade me good-bye upon leaving Egypt as a Fulbright on my way by boat to America. It was August 27, 1952, at a pier in Alexandria, when, wearing his Azhari turban, he pulled me aside and said: 'Son! Live as the Americans live. It is the essence of Islam.'"
Compare this to what Mahdi Akef admonished in a little book entitled "Muslim Brotherhood Initiative: On the General Principles of Reform in Egypt." On page 4, he defines reform in Egypt as the application of "Allah's Sharia (Islamic Legal Code) which is best for this world and the Hereafter." Compare this Brotherhood call for Pax Islamica with Al-Azhar call in August, 2011 in a document of principles approved by the Coptic Church that "Islam does not recognize a State based solely on religion." So as I teach "Islamic Law and Global Security" at Fordham University School of Law, I adhere not the Akef interpretation of Islam, which is akin to Al-Qaeda's dogma, but to Al-Azhar's interpretation. In fact "Allahu Akbar" means that we are equal before God regardless of our faith or of no faith.
Thus it is mystifying to find in the U.S. unrealistic calls for a compromise with the Brotherhood who have repeatedly rebuffed the calls of the present Egyptian Government for inclusion in the cabinet. The Brotherhood's ideology is not anchored in identifying with Egypt. Badie had declared, "To hell with Egypt!!" They identify with what appears to me, as a professor of law and politics, a mythical union with pan-Islamism -a recipe for disaster for Egypt where 25% of all Arabs reside. Going underground has, for the past 80 years, been the Brotherhood modus-operand, which may lead to a full blown civil war.
There has been a lot of blood running alongside the River Nile. A tragic spectacle for which all humanity should grieve. There has been a lot of destruction of institutional Egypt especially Coptic Egypt. I have documents from reliable Coptic church sources indicating that: "No less than 73 churches and convents have been destroyed. Private Coptic property has been either torched or vandalized including private homes, funeral homes, orphanages, bible schools, 75 shops, 15 pharmacies, 3 hotels and 58 church buses." Unbelievable!! If that is the Brotherhood's response to unseating Morsi, how could Egypt as a State not welcome the intervention of the army and the police?
In the light of these facts, it is obscene for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to recently lecture the Prime Minister of Egypt in Cairo by saying: "Mr. Prime Minister, it's pretty hard for you to lecture anyone on the Rule of Law." Senator, I humbly suggest that your assumed expertise in ending gridlocks cannot work its magic in Cairo. It may be more effective in solving the gridlock in the U.S. Congress. Financial aid, Senator Graham, does not nullify sovereignties. From my study of imperialism, I learnt that amity between nations is primarily built on mutual respect.
Your proposed sanctions, Senator Graham, may inflict wounds primarily on the dignity of Egypt, wounds which may not quickly heal. Egypt's present fight against terrorism in Sinai and the interior are also America's cause. And please, Senator Graham, you don't have to listen to me. Listen to Israel whose leaders are now assessing the Egyptian crisis in these practical terms: "Either the army or anarchy!!" The Israelis are geographically much closer to the scene in Egypt than you, Sir, in "the sovereign State of South Carolina!!"
And you may have noticed, Senator Graham, that for Egypt, there is now an Arab Marshall Plan in the making, led by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates. Senator, through your and other high-level American utterances and threats, a perception, perhaps faulty, has taken hold in Egypt. The general belief is that the U.S. is, for some incomprehensible reasons, enamored with the Brotherhood. The anti-Brotherhood forces, opposed to political Islam, both inside Egypt and outside, are striking to roll it back. From my lookout, I believe that the future belong to them, not to the Brotherhood.
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