The world is focusing much of its sympathy today on the
members of the Muslim Brotherhood that were gunned down in
the streets of Cairo by armed police and soldiers seeking to
end the Islamist attempt to put Mohamed Morsi back into
power. The violence is regrettable and the casualties are
widely interpreted as evidence of the brutality of the
military regime that toppled Morsi and his Brotherhood
regime last month. But the notion that the Brotherhood is
the innocent victim of a nasty junta seeking to bring back
Mubarak-era authoritarianism is only half right. Though the
military government is an unsavory partner for the United
States, no one should be under any illusions about the
Brotherhood or why the majority of Egyptians (who went to
the streets in their millions to support a coup) probably
approve of the military’s actions.
Proof of the true nature of the Brotherhood was available
for those who read accounts in the last weeks of life at
their Cairo encampments that were policed by Islamist thugs
with clubs and other weapons. Brotherhood gunmen fought the
police in pitched battles. Non-violent civil disobedience
isn’t in the Brotherhood playbook. Even more damning was the
Brotherhood response elsewhere in Egypt. As the International
Business Times reports:
Supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi
have attacked churches in Dilga, Menya and Sohag after
government security forces backed by armored cars and
bulldozers stormed protest camps
outside Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque.
The Churches of Abraham and the Virgin Mary in Menya were
burning after Morsi supporters set fire to the outside of
the building exteriors and smashed through doors. … Muslim
Brotherhood members also threw firebombs at Mar Gergiss
church in Sohag, a city with a large community of Coptic
Christians who represents up to 10 percent of Egypt’s 84
million people, causing it to burn down, the official MENA
news agency said. Protesters threw Molotov cocktails at
the Bon Pasteur Catholic Church and Monastery in Suez,
setting it ablaze and breaking windows.
Why is the Brotherhood attacking churches as part of its
argument with the military government?
The first reason is because the Christian minority, unlike
the military, is vulnerable. Throughout the long year when
Egypt suffered under Morsi’s Islamist rule, Christians and
their churches were increasingly subject to attacks as the
Muslim movement sought to make the position of the religious
minority untenable. As the Brotherhood seeks to demonstrate
that it is still a viable force in the country’s streets
even after its Cairo strongholds are uprooted, expect more
attacks on Christians to remind Egyptians that the Islamists
are still a force to be reckoned with.
Second, the attacks on churches are not just a regrettable
sideshow in what may be soon seen as a civil war as the
Islamists seek to regain power after losing in the wake of
the massive street protests that encouraged the army to
launch the coup that ended Morsi’s rule. Rather, such
attacks are an inextricable part of their worldview as they
seek to transform Egypt in their own Islamist image. In the
Muslim Brotherhood’s Egypt, there is no room for Christians
or even secular Muslims. That is why so many in Egypt
applauded the coup as perhaps the last chance to save the
country from permanent Islamist rule.
The church attacks should remind the West that the stakes
in the conflict in Egypt are high. If the U.S. seeks to
cripple the military, they won’t be helping the cause of
democracy. The Brotherhood may have used a seemingly
democratic process to take power in 2012, but they would
never have peacefully relinquished it or allowed their
opponents to stop them from imposing their will on every
aspect of Egyptian society. As difficult as it may be for
some high-minded Americans to understand, in this case it is
the military and not the protesters in Cairo who are seeking
to stop tyranny. Though the military is an unattractive
ally, anyone seeking to cut off vital U.S. aid to Egypt
should remember that the only alternative to it is the party
that is currently burning churches.
