Friday, July 5, 2013

Coup? Revolution? Never Mind! Mexican Stand Off..


Another day and more bloodshed, less proximity to stability but more persistence by what most Egyptians like to call- a continuation of 25 Jan revolution, what army and supporters call June 30 revolution, what Islamists and Morsi supporters like to call and international media call it Military Coup.
The public scene is now showing a classic standoff between country’s two main players, Military and Muslim Brotherhood while, the world’s international players watch closely and interfere implicitly.

While Muslim Brotherhood do have a solid case on the table, Dr. Morsi was legitimately elected exactly one year ago, with a 52% majority, the international community seem puzzled, confused, annoyed and in the least not interested and of course called coup- a term seemingly annoying most Egyptians.
However, facts are, a street initiative has been running on the ground for months collecting signatures door to door to rebel against Mohamed Morsi; in a popular campaign called “Rebel”. A procedure ended in announcement of 22 million signatures a count far exceeding the number of eligible votes Morsi was able to score on either election rounds.
Such initiative was announced in a presses and called for a march and surprisingly was accepted by humongous marches on June 30th that no country regime can even ignore.

Why Europe and US do not think it’s such a good idea?
Well because basically you have just extracted your newly seeded democracy and the rule of law. You have all of a sudden returned to the sixties when coups are in fashion; and you are not supposed to oust a president every time he doesn’t do a good job. That’s not the rule of the game. And thus called it a coup d’etat.

Why Egyptians won’t like that?
Well, 22 million signatures collected from people all through the country, dozen million man march (not an exaggerative expression) cannot  possibly be ignored. A year where the country has been pushed backwards in terms of freedoms, law and order, security void, authoritarian governance, poor international relations causing deterioration in relationships with most African, Arab and European relationships but for USA and Qatar- and surprisingly Israel. Comes along the main trigger, dramatic executive mismanagement, prices jumps, scarcity of resources, electricity daily cut offs, and gas disappearance. As a result, the economic standpoint not only was looking bad but the problem did hit every household- daily. In addition to more frequent major incidents implying loss of any control on country.
This was accompanied by violence handling in demonstrations- not only from police- but from Morsi supporters, and a dictatorial decree announced on November giving ultimate- almost Divine- powers to the president.
Many minor issues have emerged along the road that added to the frustration of the people especially at the original revolutionary youth who instead of being part of the democratic changeover, were threatened, arrested and attacked. Mubarak’s regime men however seem to be set free.

Where are we now?
Right now we are in a Mexican standoff..
The Military has “Morsi” under house arrest. It has the public on their side and till this moment is claiming a fair chance for all to be part of our new “civil” state..
The brotherhood, have their supporters and have access to some extremist groups (either by coordination or only mere support) that they believe Morsi is the Islamic religious leader. Thus, you can claim similarities between current situation and the Algerian Model (where in 9 years 40K reported dead) and some separate incidents still happen every once in a while (BP rig incident earlier this year)
The bigger problem with the brotherhood is that it took them around 80 years to come to power and it was taken away in 1. Many of the brotherhood did not believe in democracy till they won and thus the fear is adoption of more violent (AKA Jihadist theories because obviously, democracy wont work)
There is a group of other revolutionaries who had to go and kick the brotherhood out because the country was literally getting out of control, and right now they are forced to be hand in hand with military and pro Mubaraks because they cant have Morsi back.
Islamists in the meantime are throwing a bad tantrum throughout the country bringing absolute chaos of attacking civilians and getting themselves killed as well in the process while their leaders seem to ignite that to get a better negotiation chance..
On a different side, the media is mostly run by the pro Mubaraks and thus the calls on those mouthpieces for a full fledged military involvement cant be clearer..
And within this complicated scene, the international media seem to only grasp what’s been tweeted by the English speaking brotherhood officials with their fancy vocabulary, causing themselves a major downfall in popularity among many accusing CNN of bias to the MB side and blaming Obama along.

How things will end?
The good news is that in this standoff or if you might call it a long awaited face off between Military and the Brotherhood after a fishy 2 years love affair might end up in a resolution where neither can be as powerful as both were.  This might get the youth in Egypt have a fair chance to get a young civil, secular, liberal, non military non theocratic nation on the right track using that balance of non power.
And it can end up dramatically as well.
With that amount of hate speech and emotion between both parties, the intellects are to be blamed for it, no option is off the table; especially that we are a nation that has been always living under the impression that there is a conspiracy against our (country- security- religion…etc).




What the world needs to know?
That we are not only a big bunch of lunatics who can throw a president every time they feel like it (although we partially are), but a lot do still believe in a country of freedoms, equality, social justice and better services for all.
And, that there is always so much in the story behind those camera lenses and the eloquent spokespeople.
In hope for modern country that rises up from the polarity of Military Vs theocracy for a first time after 7000 years of wait.


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