The problem with this article is that it describes the situation as the
Islamists against liberals. It ignores that fact that most of the more radical
Salafist Islamists are supporting the military-backed transition government.
The Nour Party that came second in the elections seems content to see the
Muslim Brotherhood trampled on by the military. The liberals not only will
confront the army but a growing and more radical Islamist force within the
transition government.
Khaled Montaser, a liberal columnist, declared that the Islamists were worse
than “criminals and psychopaths” because they could never reform. “Their
treason, terrorism and conspiracies are an indelible tattoo,” Mr. Montaser
wrote. “They do not know the meaning of ‘homeland.’ They only know the meaning
of ‘the caliphate’ and their organization first.”
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html
Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
________________________________
From: Robert Naiman <[email protected]>
To: Progressive Economics <[email protected]>; lbo talk
<[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 7:07:21 PM
Subject: [Pen-l] NYT: Egyptian Liberals Embrace the Military, Brooking No
Dissent
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/world/middleeast/egypt-morsi.html
The New York Times
July 15, 2013
Egyptian Liberals Embrace the Military, Brooking No Dissent
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — In the square where liberals and Islamists once chanted together for
democracy, demonstrators now carry posters hailing as a national hero the
general who ousted the country’s first elected president, Mohamed Morsi, of the
Muslim Brotherhood. Liberal talk-show hosts denounce the Brotherhood as a
foreign menace and as “sadistic, extremely violent creatures” unfit for
political life. A leading human rights advocate blames the Brotherhood’s
“filthy” leaders for the deaths of more than 50 of their own supporters in a
mass shooting by soldiers and the police.
A hypernationalist euphoria unleashed in Egypt by the toppling of Mr. Morsi has
swept up even liberals and leftists who spent years struggling against the
country’s previous military-backed governments.
An unpopular few among them have begun to raise alarms about what they are
calling signs of “fascism”: the fervor in the streets, the glorification of the
military as it tightens its grip and the enthusiastic cheers for the
suppression of the Islamists. But the vast majority of liberals, leftists and
intellectuals in Egypt have joined in the jubilation at the defeat of the
Muslim Brotherhood, slamming any dissenters.
“We are moving from the bearded, chauvinistic right to the clean-shaven,
chauvinistic right,” said Rabab el-Mahdi, a left-leaning scholar at the
American University in Cairo.
Many Egyptians are overwhelmed with dual emotions: relief at the end of an
Islamist government that many called arrogant and ineffective, and thrill at
their power to topple presidents. The voices on the left who might be expected
to raise alarms about the military’s ouster of a freely elected government are
instead reveling in what they see as the country’s escape from the threat that
an Islamist majority would steadily push Egypt to the right.
Many on the left are still locked in an battle of semantics, trying to persuade
the world — and perhaps one another — that the overthrow of Mr. Morsi was not a
“coup” but a “revolution.” The army merely carried out the popular will, they
insist. On Sunday, one private satellite network in Egypt was running
commercials of citizen testimonials proclaiming as much.
Some have begun to voice doubts. Amr Hamzawy, a political scientist who held a
seat in the dissolved Parliament, was among the first to condemn the military’s
shutdown of the Islamists’ satellite networks, the arrest of their staff
members, and the detention of Mr. Morsi and hundreds of other Islamist leaders.
Mr. Hamzawy objected in a recent newspaper column to “the rhetoric of gloating,
hatred, retribution and revenge against the Muslim Brotherhood.” After the mass
shooting, he called the celebration of the military takeover “fascism under the
false pretense of democracy and liberalism.” Fellow intellectuals who said
nothing, he wrote, were “the birds of darkness of this phase.”
But he was almost alone. A chorus of liberals and leftists rushed to denounce
Mr. Hamzawy for defending the Islamists.
Khaled Montaser, a liberal columnist, declared that the Islamists were worse
than “criminals and psychopaths” because they could never reform. “Their
treason, terrorism and conspiracies are an indelible tattoo,” Mr. Montaser
wrote. “They do not know the meaning of ‘homeland.’ They only know the meaning
of ‘the caliphate’ and their organization first.”
Ahmed Maher, a founder of the left-leaning April 6 group, initially joined a
small volunteer team who tried to enlist Western support for the ouster. But
after the arrests and shootings of Brotherhood supporters, he began to recall
the generals’ long hold on power after mass protests drove President Hosni
Mubarak from office two years ago.
Mr. Maher put his worries about the generals in an online message to another
activist: “If we assume it’s not a coup, and I tell people it’s not a coup,
when they screw us again like they did in 2011, what would I tell people?”
His allies responded by trying to drum him out, not only from the volunteer
team but also from the April 6 group. Esraa Abdel Fattah, a prominent activist,
campaigned against him in the media and circulated a list of his statements
questioning the “coup.” And Ms. Fattah insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood,
whose political party won the post-Mubarak elections, amounted to a
foreign-backed terrorist group. “When terrorism is trying to take hold of Egypt
and foreign interference is trying to dig into our domestic affairs, then it’s
inevitable for the great Egyptian people to support its armed forces against
the foreign danger,” Ms. Abdel Fattah wrote in a newspaper column.
In the turbulent period of military rule after Mr. Mubarak was ousted, many
liberals and leftists stood shoulder to shoulder with Islamists to demand that
the generals relinquish power to elected civilians. Now the liberals appear to
have joined in a public amnesia about the abuses and scandals of that period —
the forced virginity tests of female protesters; Coptic Christian demonstrators
shot by soldiers or run over with armored vehicles; the videotaped stripping
and kicking of a female demonstrator who became known as the Blue Bra Woman.
The activist Hassan Shaheen was captured in the same video, bleeding from the
head as a soldier stomped on his chest. But this spring he helped lead the
petition drive asking the military to remove Mr. Morsi. And he joined in the
rejection of Mr. Maher, saying that by calling the ouster of Mr. Morsi a “coup”
he was “following the rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“We will stand together, the people and the military, in the face of
terrorism,” Mr. Shaheen wrote in an online message, arguing that the
Brotherhood’s political party “must be dissolved and all its leaders must be
arrested.”
“No negotiation, no reconciliation, no going back,” he added.
Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Right, said that
the liberals’ goal — an Egypt governed by an inclusive civilian democracy —
appeared to be further away than when Mr. Mubarak fell. Now, he said, the old
institutions and elites from the Mubarak era are emboldened to push for a full
return of the old order. “There is a powerful and well-resourced player now
trying to push Egypt back to 2010,” he said.
Even those on the left who are critical of the military overthrow fault Mr.
Morsi and the Brotherhood for their actions in power, for excluding other
groups from decision-making, accusing critics of treason and exploiting
religion as a political tool. They say that in recent days some Islamist
leaders have told their supporters to prepare to use violence to defend Mr.
Morsi, as they did during a crisis in December.
Brotherhood leaders say their organization has not condoned violence in Egypt
since the days of British rule. They say that private media outlets have worked
for months to stir up nationalist sentiment against them, for example by
circulating false rumors that they were considering giving away the Sinai or
selling the Suez Canal. Over the last week, many news outlets have claimed that
Brotherhood leaders invited foreign interference by appealing for help from
Washington to hold off the military takeover. Television hosts even assert that
the crowds at pro-Morsi rallies are actually full of Syrians and Palestinians.
The military has set the mood as well. Before the takeover, it broadcast aerial
images of the protests against Mr. Morsi, set to soaring martial music. On
Sunday, it released another 30-minute broadcast depicting soldiers protecting
the public, set to a similar score.
State and private television channels also broadcast images of Gen.
Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi in his trademark black beret, explaining to admiring
soldiers the military’s obligation to intervene in the national interest.
“Egypt is the mother of the world, and Egypt will be as great as the world,” he
declared.
Much of the public, fatigued by revolutionary turmoil, has embraced him. “The
people had been saying ‘down, down with military rule,’ but Sisi completely
changed them,” said Mohamed Mofeed, 38, a barber in downtown Cairo. “They love
him.”
Mr. Morsi “should have been tougher with the media,” he added. “They were
disrespecting him all over the place.”
Osama Mohamed, 20, a student sitting with a group of friends, said they wanted
General Sisi to “leave his office and elect himself president.”
Mohamed Abdel Fattah, 24, an advertising manager, agreed. “For Egypt,” he said,
“democracy is chaos.”
Mayy El Sheikh and Asmaa Al Zohairy contributed reporting.
--
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
[email protected]
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