When Morsi ran, his opponent was Shafik, a General. My friends, especially my Coptic brothers and sisters, urged me to join them in voting for Shafik. They reasoned that Egypt needed security and stability which can only be guaranteed by a strong military hand. I rebutted their counsel with a ready-made argument: "How can I vote for the continuation of yet another military regime after 60 years of the same?"
They were right; I was wrong. This had nothing to do with my being a Muslim by faith, with Morsi being my co-resident in the eastern province of Sharkia, or even with Morsi being on the faculty of my home University of Zagazig, the provincial capital. It had to do with giving the Muslim Brotherhood, suppressed for 80 years, a chance at governance.
Morsi won; so did chaos!! That one year of Islamic rule was a true calamity: the liberals were on the run; the new Constitution was rigged in favor of islamization; the Copts were persecuted; non-veiled women were harassed; Hamas in Gaza threatened to undo the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979.
Under Morsi, Egypt itself was marginalized. "To Hell With Egypt" was uttered by a Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood who believed in pan-Islamism; tourism dried up; the army's hand in dealing with terrorism in Sinai was stayed; the Shiis were called apostates; Al-Azhar's independence and its message of moderate Islam was curtailed; the police disappeared from the streets in an attempt to curtail the Brotherhood's influence; Qatar and Turkey seemed to regard Egypt as their protectorate with Al-Jazeera TV Channel as its official voice; the Egyptian judiciary was besieged.
The great armed forces of Egypt were looked upon as the protectors of the Brotherhood and the presidency, not of sovereign Egypt; the great monuments of Egypt, which belong to the whole world though located in Egypt, were regarded as idols insulting Islam; music, dance, songs, the arts, and the great museums became suspicious cultural aberrations.
The list of examples of the Brotherhoodization of Egypt can go on and on. In essence, my vote for Morsi has contributed to the enfeeblement of that historic country of my birth. The revolution of January 25, 2011, against which the Muslim Brotherhood issued fatwas, was being hijacked under the cover of the ballot box and the so-called democracy. Secular Egypt had to strike back.
And it struck back on June 30, 2013 with 35 million Egyptians in Tahrir and in every public square in Egypt of 90 million people, saying "KEFAYA" (ENOUGH)!! As they protested the Islamist regime, the army and other security forces protected the popular uprising. Refusing to be inclusive through reaching a compromise with the opposition, Morsi ridiculed an ultimatum issued by the SCAF (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces), headed by El-Sisi. The unavoidable result was Morsi's ouster on July 3, 2013, and his replacement by Judge Adly Mansour, of the Supreme Constitutional Court. The irony here was that the judiciary, which had been the nemesis of the Brotherhood, was now, through Mansour, its successor.
At that point, it was time for the Brotherhood to resort to what it has practiced for 80 years: sloganeering, intimidation; strong arm tactics, and a call to arms to its thugs inside Egypt, in Gaza, and elsewhere through its international network which propagates the re-establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate.
In response to these calls which use Islam as a ready-made cover, mini-emirates were formed in Cairo: one in Rabaa Square; the other at Al-Nahda. For six weeks these two locations fell outside the control of the interim regime brought about by, not by the military, but by populism. Barricades were constructed; arms were smuggled; bakeries, barber shops, mini-commerce flourished, weddings were celebrated; hostages were tortured. At the same time, opponents were abducted and tortured; through-traffic was halted, taunting the authorities was the daily practice.
The false calls from Rabaa and El-Nahda were for the return of the Islamic reign of terror. For six weeks, the Government of Prime Minister Dr. Hazem El-Beblawi appealed to the "sit-ins" to disperse. These appeals were laughed at by the Brotherhood which manned the ramparts. Finally on August 14, 2013, the police and the army struck, leaving exits for these who wished to extricate themselves. Hundreds, mainly dead-enders, fell, including a limited number of security and army personnel; more were injured. Human rights organizations cried foul, but the millions of June 30, 2013 celebrated the Brotherhood's containment.
El-Sisi announcement of March 26 that he intended to resign his army service in order to run for the post of president of Egypt was in essence denounced by the New York Times of March 27. Its principal reporter in Cairo, David Kirkpatrick, using his worn-out, script reported the news under the heading of "Commander of Egyptian Takeover Leaving Army to Run for President." The Kirkpatrick problem is anchored in a non-workable formula based upon measuring the events in Egypt by the yardstick of the last century. How?:
- It was the Muslim Brotherhood which upended the vote for Morsi through interpreting the vote for him as a vote for an exclusive Brotherhoodization of the country;
- The Brotherhood's coup of June 2012 was ended by the Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, 2013 which, in the absence of "a recall" provision in the Islamist Constitution of 2012, effected Morsi's removal;
- The bloody confrontations of August 14, 2013 between Morsi's supporters and the forces of law and order were precipitated by the rebellious refusal to abide by the newly-minted law regulating public demonstrations. That law is a replica of all such laws in democratic societies, including the U.S. where "Time, Place, and Manner" govern the expression of popular feelings through demonstrations.
- August 14, 2013 shall forever go into history books, especially in Egypt, as the day which unleashed Brotherhood's terror on the Coptic community everywhere in Egypt. Churches were burnt; bible schools torched; Coptic icons and religious symbols desecrated; private businesses looted; Coptic citizens massacred; peaceful citizens fled their historic family houses. The Brotherhood was doing what it knows best: Shift the blame for their removal from power on others. The Brotherhood is "infallible" (incapable of erring). Insane!!
- Terror affected the length and breadth of Egypt, from Sinai to the Libyan border, and from the Mediterranean to Lake Nasser at the Sudanese border. Hit and run attacks on the army, the police, tourists, cabinet members, museums and highways became common events. Al-Qaeda affiliates, such as Jihad of Gaza, and the "Friends of Jerusalem," in search of the unattainable return of Morsi to power, enjoyed the unmerited publicity of "popular opposition to the coup of July 3, 2013."
- With terror rampant, the economy in tatters, illegal funding of terrorism flowing from abroad, and faith being manipulated for the Brotherhood's sordid ends of power through the barrel of a gun, Egypt had to react in self-defense.
- The Brotherhood was declared a terror organization. Egypt, a traditionally security State, marshaled its resources of pre-Mubarak days, with the armed forces, and intelligence apparatus in the forefront. A strong hand was needed to navigate the ship of secular Egypt to a safe harbor.
- Ignoring the realities on the ground in Egypt by a powerful medium like the New York Times can not change those realities. The country is at war with terror. Its success in these efforts shall undoubtedly rebound to the benefit of global security. Regardless of what David Kirkpatrick might devine in the service of worn-out formulas about "a coup" and a "revolution," his advocacy does not see in the Brotherhood's two raised swords another depiction of the Nazi's swastika. The latter made of exclusive nationalism a new religion; the former made of exclusive religion (Islam) not only a new nationalism, but an imaginary pan-Islamism.
Reading El-Sisi's declaration of March 26 in Arabic (which I assume is not the native language of David Kirkpatrick), I shall construct what the former general is advocating in broad terms:
- Egypt is facing security challenges which must be confronted. Moreover the economy is in a free fall, and millions of Egyptian youth are unemployed. The country is threatened by terrorists who are bent on destroying Egypt's peace and security.
- Running for the presidency has been demanded by the rank and file of Egyptians; nobody who has not offended Egyptian laws can be excluded from the political process.
- Egypt, a country which has abundant natural resources, should not remain reliant on foreign assistance and donations.
- As potential president of Egypt, El-Sisi does not promise miracles; only hard work and selfless efforts intended to revive an Egypt. The country should assume its natural place within the community of nations, free form fear, from poverty, from need, and from national doubt.
- The new Egypt shall not brook any outside interference in its internal affairs.
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