How some ordinary Egyptians became ‘malicious terrorists’

Disgust, shame, outrage.

All these words apply to the disgrace of Egypt these past six weeks. A military coup, millions of enraged supporters of the democratically elected but deposed dictator – reports that indicate well over 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers slaughtered by the security police – and what were we told by the authorities yesterday? That Egypt was subject to “a malicious terrorist plot”.

The language speaks for itself. Not just a common or garden “terrorist” plot – but a “terrorist” plot so terrible that it is “malicious”. Naturally, the government acquired this use of the “terrorist” word from Bush and Blair, another Western contribution to Arab culture. But it goes further. The country, we are now informed, is at the mercy of “extremist forces who want to create war”. You would think, on hearing this, that most of the dead these past six weeks were soldiers and policemen, whereas in fact most were unarmed demonstrators.

And who is to blame? Obama, of course, for “encouraging terrorism” by his wimpish complaints last week – so claim the Egyptian authorities. And our old friend, the “foreign media”. It is the infidel channels – including al-Jazeera – which has been feeding hatred into the land of the Pharaohs, according to the Egyptian press (which is now almost as wimpish as Obama in its fealty to its new rulers).

Outside the al-Fath mosque in Cairo on Saturday, supporters of the military were roughing up reporters and cameramen, Italians and Germans among them, and even al-Jazeera briefly high-tailed it from the scene. The Independent took its chances, with Alastair Beach inside the besieged mosque with the Brotherhood. Outside, I was wearing a scruffy tourist hat among the security thugs and Army supporters, where an Egyptian friend helped me – rather unkindly, I thought – by explaining to men with clubs that I was an elderly English tourist who had just popped out from his Cairo hotel to see what was going on. I kept my notebook and my mobile phone in my pocket. “Welcome to Cairo,” I was repeatedly told.

To be fair, let me just recount one little, heartening moment amid Saturday’s mosque drama. TwoEgyptian men walked up to me and said, quite simply, that “it is very unfair to keep these people in the mosque without water and food. They are human beings just like us.” The men were not Morsi supporters, but didn’t seem too keen on the police. They were just good, decent, humane Egyptians, the kind we all hope are in the real majority.

But this leads me to remember a typically Obama-like piece of lying last week. It came when the US president decided to take a break from his golfing holiday to comment on the violence in Egypt. He described Morsi’s opponents – now represented by a general, Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, who is also the defence minister and the deputy prime minister – as “many Egyptians, millions of Egyptians, perhaps even a majority of Egyptians”. And there you had it – Obama had credited the coup with a majority following.

How General al-Sisi – who speaks excellent American English – must have been delighted with this little set of code words.

And it’s odd, isn’t it, how the supposedly malicious journalists have been playing down the murderous actions of the Egyptian security cops. They were repeatedly referred to on Al-Jazeera last week as “armed men” – as if they were not in uniform and shooting from the roof of a police station. Western editorials have described Egyptian police killings as “heavy-handed’, as if Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Hathaway had biffed a few bad guys over the head.

A trustworthy friend of mine put it to me the other day that our Western leaders are so sick of the demonstrators that plague G8 summits – where the usual “terror” warnings always apply – that they have an innate sympathy with policemen and a built-in hatred of protesters.

But it’s our dear friends the Saudis whom the Egyptian army and police can count on for help. King Abdullah himself has promised billions of dollars for poor old Egypt, now that Qatari generosity has dried up. But Egyptians should beware Saudis bearing gifts. The House of Saud is not really interested in helping foreign armies – unless they are coming to save Saudi Arabia – but it is very much involved in supporting the Salafists of the Egyptian Noor party. It is the Noor religious fundamentalists who won an extraordinary 24 per cent in the last parliamentary election – and who ruthlessly decided to ally themselves with General al-Sisi when Morsi was dethroned. The conservative Salafists are much more to Saudi taste than potentially liberal members of the Brotherhood. It is for them that the King is opening his purse. And if by some mischance, the Salafists can drum up a majority from disenchanted members of the Brotherhood in the next election, then the Caliphate of Egypt is a step nearer.

And the Other Side of the Story. It is true that gunmen have fired from Brotherhood crowds. A handful at most – and it does not justify the Egyptian press calling tens of thousands of people “terrorists” – but both my colleague and I have seen armed men among protesters. The attacks on the churches are real. Churches have been burned, Christian homes vandalised.

The anti-Christian fury is now political-ideological. It is persecution. Pope Tawadros might perhaps now regret having his photo taken alongside the coup supporters. But the sheikh of Al Azhar was in the same picture – and so were the Salafists.

Oh yes, and the government is now rumbling on about the need to “dissolve” the Brotherhood. Since members are already being rounded up by the cops, I’m not quite sure what “dissolution” is supposed to achieve. Didn’t the Brits once declare the IRA “illegal”? Did that make them go away? More

 

Murdering The Wretched Of The Earth - By Chris Hedges

Radical Islam is the last refuge of the Muslim poor. The mandated five prayers a day give the only real structure to the lives of impoverished believers. The careful rituals of washing before prayers in the mosque, the strict moral code, along with the understanding that life has an ultimate purpose and meaning, keep hundreds of millions of destitute Muslims from despair.

The fundamentalist ideology that rises from oppression is rigid and unforgiving. It radically splits the world into black and white, good and evil, apostates and believers. It is bigoted and cruel to women, Jews, Christians and secularists, along with gays and lesbians. But at the same time it offers to those on the very bottom of society a final refuge and hope. The massacres of hundreds of believers in the streets of Cairo signal not only an assault against a religious ideology, not only a return to the brutal police state of Hosni Mubarak, but the start of a holy war that will turn Egypt and other poor regions of the globe into a caldron of blood and suffering.

The only way to break the hold of radical Islam is to give its followers a stake in the wider economy, the possibility of a life where the future is not dominated by grinding poverty, repression and hopelessness. If you live in the sprawling slums of Cairo or the refugee camps in Gaza or the concrete hovels in New Delhi, every avenue of escape is closed. You cannot get an education. You cannot get a job. You do not have the resources to marry. You cannot challenge the domination of the economy by the oligarchs and the generals. The only way left for you to affirm yourself is to become a martyr, or shahid. Then you will get what you cannot get in life—a brief moment of fame and glory. And while what will take place in Egypt will be defined as a religious war, and the acts of violence by the insurgents who will rise from the bloodied squares of Cairo will be defined as terrorism, the engine for this chaos is not religion but the collapsing economy of a world where the wretched of the earth are to be subjugated and starved or shot. The lines of battle are being drawn in Egypt and across the globe. Adli Mansour, the titular president appointed by the military dictator of Egypt, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, has imposed a military-led government, a curfew and a state of emergency. They will not be lifted soon.

The lifeblood of radical movements is martyrdom. The Egyptian military has provided an ample supply. The faces and the names of the sanctified dead will be used by enraged clerics to call for holy vengeance. And as violence grows and the lists of martyrs expand, a war will be ignited that will tear Egypt apart. Police, Coptic Christians, secularists, Westerners, businesses, banks, the tourism industry and the military will become targets. Those radical Islamists who were persuaded by the Muslim Brotherhood that electoral politics could work and brought into the system will go back underground, and many of the rank and file of the Muslim Brotherhood will join them. Crude bombs will be set off. Random attacks and assassinations by gunmen will puncture daily life in Egypt as they did in the 1990s when I was in Cairo for The New York Times, although this time the attacks will be wider and more fierce, far harder to control or ultimately crush.

What is happening in Egypt is a precursor to a wider global war between the world’s elites and the world’s poor, a war caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment and underemployment, overpopulation, declining crop yields caused by climate change, and rising food prices. Thirty-three percent of Egypt’s 80 million people are 14 or younger, and millions live under or just above the poverty line, which the World Bank sets at a daily income of $2 in that nation. The poor in Egypt spend more than half their income on food—often food that has little nutritional value. An estimated 13.7 million Egyptians, or 17 percent of the population, suffered from food insecurity in 2011, compared with 14 percent in 2009, according to a report by the U.N. World Food Program and the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). Malnutrition is endemic among poor children, with 31 percent under 5 years old stunted in growth. Illiteracy runs at more than 70 percent. More

 

Robert Fisk discusses violence in Egypt

Robert Fisk, Correspondent with The Independant discusses violence in Egypt.

 

Brotherhood leaders and family members wounded and killed by security forces

A number of senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood and their family members have been wounded and killed by Egyptian security forces today in Cairo.

Eyewitnesses said that Habeebah Ahmed, the daughter of President Mohamed Morsi's information advisor, was shot and killed. Her father, Ahmed Abdul-Azeez, spoke of her death on Facebook: "I announce the death of my daughter and friend Habeebah."

Deputy Muslim Brotherhood Guide Khayrat Al-Shater's daughter Hafsa and her husband Dr Mostafa Hassan were both killed in Rabaa Al-Adawiyya Square, while Ammar Al-Beltaji, the son of prominent Freedom and Justice Party leader Mohamed Al-Beltaji, said that his sister was also killed as security forces attacked anti-coup protesters with great force and brutality.

Brotherhood spokesman Hussam Abul-Bukhari was reported to be severely wounded, "with blood pouring from his mouth". Abdullah Abdul-Jawwad said that he was grabbed by the police along with Abul-Bukhari who was then shot by the officers. He claimed that they refused to allow him to receive any medical attention. Dr Wesam Abdul-Wareth confirmed that he saw the police shooting at Abul-Bukhari.

An unconfirmed number of protesters were burnt alive when their tents were set on fire by the army and police. At least three charred bodies can be seen in gruesome pictures from the scene of the killings. More

 

Bypassing the Rule of Law: This Egyptian struggle transcends borders

What is going on in Egypt is not merely a political crisis but also an Egyptian struggle which transcends borders and will, no doubt, affect the Islamic world, putting the latter at a crossroads. Will the people rise up for freedom from external influences or will they revert to an era of slavery the extent of which only God knows?

This struggle is not about President Mohamed Morsi; it is about the hijacking of the democratic will of the people and their revolution. The disastrous effects of the coup will not be contained within Egypt's borders; all Arabs will despair at ever being able to rise against their authoritarian regimes. The resultant frustration and loss of confidence will delegitimise the Arab will in the eyes of the international community.

Even if we assume, for argument sake, that President Morsi was the worst president in the history of mankind, a failure in politics and government. This does not justify exceeding the bounds of the constitution to be rid of him. The overthrow of a democratically-elected president provides the basis for an endless cycle of chaos and confusion. No future president of Egypt can ever feel secure in the mandate given by the electorate or expect to serve a full term in office. Every president has millions of people who did not vote for him, but that doesn't give them the right to overturn the votes of those who did support him and throw him out of office. From now on, the only president who can be sure of his position is the one who gets 99.9 per cent of the vote, and we all know what that means.

By allowing the democratic experience to be pushed aside in this way the people of Egypt have lost the respect of the world. The US has added to this by expressing support for the military-appointed "interim" government.

If President Morsi is to be blamed for anything at all it is lack of experience, which is hardly surprising given our presidential history. If we opt for a president with experience of governance in the discredited Mubarak regime, then why did we have the revolution in the first place?

Whatever the issue is with Morsi, it is a disagreement that is based on details. As long as we have a proper democratic system, we will be able to fix our problems by heading to the ballot box. The coup embodies a deep-rooted problem between the will of the people and the full return of Mubarak's regime and all of its negative characteristics. Should we let our disagreements on the details distract us from our real revolution? More