Their so-called "peaceful sit-ins" in Cairo proved to have been arenas for the Brotherhood scorched earth practices. Their enclaves, dismantled by the army and the police on August 14, were later discovered to have been mutinous islands of destruction, desertification and iconic monuments elimination.
This blog is not an anti-Brotherhood propaganda. It serves as a factual antidote to their deceptive propaganda. A case in point is the tragedy of "Al-Orman Gardens" where the Brotherhood sit-ins of Al-Nahdha in Giza turned that historic paradise into a waste land. Al-Orman is truly a "Paradise Lost."
Testimony by Amre Rabee Raafat, Chief of the Central Management of Forestation testified as follows on September 3: "Al-Orman Gardens have suffered considerable devastation at the hands of the sit-in Brothers. These included the cutting down of rare historical imported trees; the theft of 500 ampules containing rare plants, 236 rare paintings of various species of plants; the disappearance of all furniture and computers; the destruction of all telephone and irrigation systems; irreparable damage to two historic pieces of museum-grade furniture donated by King Farouk to Al-Orman Gardens."
The barbarians had swept in under the false protective shield of "freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly." These freedoms were subverted by the Brotherhood, following the un-seating of President Morsi, into the freedom to punish historical Egypt. Its icons are not the Brotherhood icons. Their icons are over some mythical horizon outside of the borders of sovereign Egypt. Secular Egypt is not their fatherland. Their frontiers coincide and merge with Pan-Islamica.
The same Brotherhood hurricane of destruction did not spare places of worship, whether Islamic or Coptic. Their sit-ins at the Rabaa Mosque in Cairo resulted in deep scars in that historic place of worship. Again to the testimony of the authorities which are now engaged in emergency repairs of Rabaa which ironically gave its tormentors their "four-fingers" salute. The word "Rabaa" is close to the word in Arabic for "four" (Arbaa).
Mr. Tarik Muhammad Sayed is General Supervisor, Corps of Engineers, the Egyptian armed forces. He is in charge of the laborious and expensive process of repairing the extensive damage wrought by the Brotherhood's "peaceful sit-ins" on the Rabaa mosque. By the Brotherhood's hands, the beautiful Islamic mosaics, the marble inscriptions of Quranic verses, and the wooden carvings which would have been the envy of any internationally celebrated museum, were wiped out. Even the green areas surrounding Rabaa and featuring the historic fountain are now being resurrected. Nor was the Rabaa hospital spared the Brotherhood's scorched earth practices.
As to their respect for human life, there appears to be none. The more than a thousand killed in consequence of the Brotherhood's suicidal confrontations with the army and the police, represented a futile search for publicity through presumed martyrdom. As the leadership hid, fled or was detained, it kept on defying for six long weeks the warnings by the new authorities. The misguided rank and file, though armed but lightly, were the sacrificial lambs. While the Quran delegitimates death through self-destruction, the Brotherhood which exalts the Quran as their constitution, heavily engaged in it.
Yet Amr Darrag, senior official of the Brotherhood, bold-facedly announces to Al-Jazeera TV Network as recently as yesterday: "We reaffirm our peaceful approach, which is clear in all our protests." Give me a break, Mr. Darrag. Your hands are soaked in the blood of the innocent.
And in a country whose economy is in a free fall at present, the scorched earth policy and practices of the Brotherhood represent a dead-end effort to bring Egypt economically and financially to its knees. Their demonstrations at Bank Misr in Asslout Province, in upper Egypt, had a battle cry: "Save your skin by withdrawing your deposits." When Egypt fought for its freedom from the British in 1882, 1919, 1936, 1946, and 1951, poor peasant women donated their golden ornaments to assist the freedom effort. But that was Egypt which, only after 1948, saw in the Brotherhood a clear and present danger.
Is it now surprising that a preliminary recommendation by an Expert Committee of Egypt's Council of State calls for banning the Brotherhood again? That recommendation might acquire traction especially after the attempt of September 5 on the life of Egypt's Interior Minister, General Mohamed Ibrahim, through an Al-Qaeda-style car bombing. If that proposed ban is judicially-sanctioned, it shall be the Brotherhood's ban number 3. The first ban of the Brotherhood occurred in 1948 following the assassination of Judge Ahmed Al-Khazendar. That ban resulted in the assassination of Prime Minister Al-Naqrashi. That ban was judicially lifted during the Wafd Party regime in 1951.
Their ban #2 took place in 1954 following the Brotherhood's implication in the attempt on Nasser's life in Alexandria. That second ban was lifted in 1974 by President Sadat during the tenure of Prime Minister Mamdouh Salem. With the lifting of that ban, all Brotherhood's detainees were released and their property was returned to them. The lifting of that ban was conditional: they were permitted to function as a civic group without a license.
Since its inception, many have been the fluctuations of the fortunes of the Brotherhood over the past 85 years: from the pulpit of advocacy of Islam, to the delving into politics, alternating between grass roots mobilization and resort to armed violence. Finally, the Brotherhood reached its pinnacle through the assumption of power via the ballot box. Their mismanagement of governance led to the unseating of Morsi and the breakup of the so-called sit-ins in mid August.
Now, self-flagellation has begun. One of their opinion-molders, Mr. Hamza Zobaa declares in the Brotherhood's daily "Freedom and Justice": "We have fallen in the trap of excluding others from governing." Too little too late. In the liberal weekly "Akhbar El-Yom" of last Saturday, Ahmed Hashem says: "The Brotherhood's mask has fallen. That band of terrorists have committed crimes against Islam and innocent citizens." Another liberal weekly, "Rose El-Youssef," states under the by-line of its Editor-in-Chief, Issam Abdel-Aziz: "The Brotherhood has manifested its insanity through a desperate search for re-instating their fallen regime. They have forgotten the magical love for Egypt by the average Egyptian citizen. That average citizen could be Mustapha Ali, a warehouse worker who made his view known following the assassination attempt on the life of the Interior Minister: Referring to the Brotherhood, undoubtedly with its scorched earth practices in full view on Madinet Nassr, Mustepha Ali said: "These people would destroy Egypt."
An exaggeration? No!! Look at what happened early this month to a 1600-year-old Coptic monastery at Dalga, province of Minya, 160 miles south of Cairo. Speaking of that crime perpetrated by the hard-line Islamists, which engulfed the Coptic community of Dalga, Father Yoanns lamented: "The fire in the monastery burned for three days. The looting continued for a week." A tragic example of the Islamist scorched earth practices, which are their tool of choice.
The ouster of Morsi was not a mission for which the armed forces came to the fore on July 3. The ouster was the mission of 30 millions like Mustapha Ali who came out on June 30 to plead with the armed forces to save their beloved Egypt from the Brotherhood Then on July 26, more millions came out in the streets in response to a call by El-Sisi for public support for the Government action "against terrorism."
No comments:
Post a Comment