Egypt often gives the impression that it rejoices in sensation and that it must have its weekly dose of crises. But the crisis that resulted from the ‘Rebel’ (Tamarod) movement that led to the ousting of Mohamed Morsi and the re-emergence of military power became a crisis of semantics, and enough has been written on this squabble.
For many viewing the events from outside the borders of Egypt, the irony of welcoming the army tanks and soldiers back onto Egyptian streets did not go down well with many analysts, even after it was clear that USA had found itself on the same side as the forces it has claimed to be fighting against with every means possible for over a decade now: Al Qaeda.
When one fanaticism dies, another more fierce one is born. Perhaps that’s the fear that lurks in the minds of the American administration. The retaliation that we are witnessing today testifies to the power of an ideology; the power to turn one against their own people: their parents, lovers, siblings and offspring. However, we should not be surprised by the stance of the United States; capitalism realises that its military strategy has everything to lose by the outbreak of nationalist wars.
The collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood’s world on 3 July exposed their basic extinct: their fight for existence is based on violent methods only. To work means to work for the death of the opposition.
This assumed responsibility for violence allows both strayed and outlawed members of the group to come back again and to find their place once more, to become integrated after having been alienated and relegated to the extreme margins. Their integration mounts to a royal pardon and violence becomes a form of freedom. Thus the person whom awards them this pardon becomes their messiah, and fighting on his side becomes their life mission.
“I am here by the will of the people; I shall leave only by the force of bayonets,” Mirabeau famously said. The emerging accounts of Morsi’s last days reveal that his last words in office were: “over my dead body.” Death is the only alternative to what they seek to achieve.
Egyptians had no doubt they were being held hostage by a group that is willing to let it all burn and had no reluctance to copy the example next door that Syria was offering. Their fight for their existence replaces any desire for coexistence.
What happened on 3 July is a military coup in as much as the revolution was an Islamic revolution, as the Muslim Brotherhood and their pundits have repeatedly claimed.
One can come to the conclusion that what happened on 25 January 2011 was, in fact, two concurrent revolutions: an Islamic one, and a secular one.
They merged when it served their joint purpose: the removal of the ruling regime; then diverged again when their goals clashed. The Islamic revolution’s goals were simply to seize power, while the secular parties sought to distribute it.
The Islamists and their supporters knew they would not be able to seize power without the help of the army, hence they joined the sides of the army and police forces and clashed with the revolutionaries.
Morsi’s era did not see an end to unlawful political arrests nor did it see an improvement in the way civilians were handled and indeed prison torture continued. Morsi’s supporters had not learnt from their predecessors’ mistakes, but it seems the Egyptian military had. And today, they prove once more, they are not a force to be underestimated or to contend with.
The mobilisation of the masses on 25 January arose out of a war for liberation and introduced into each man’s consciousness the ideas of a common cause, of a national identity and of a collective history.
However, not all of us were looking to the same history. One can argue that Islamists and their supporters were looking to a history that was 1,400 years old and largely not theirs, while non Islamists were looking to redeem their ancestors’ glorious place in history by learning from compatriots worldwide without assimilation; without planting of foreign objects in an already saturated toxic mix.
During the first stage of the revolution, the people were called upon to fight against oppression in the name of bread, freedom and social justice. When Morsi was voted into power, people were still calling for those things and it fell upon the deaf ears whose priority was re-sketching the identity of an already frayed nation.
It became apparent very quickly that the Islamists’ version of revolutionary goals were very different from the original calls. Thus they reached an irrevocable point: their destruction became the preliminary to the unification of the people.
What’s more alarming, is that the people have started to view them as the ‘other’; the coloniser. After the sectarian aggression against the Shia community, they were no longer seen as part of the national identity; they were impostors, the alien that must be purged, cleansed.
Their form of Islamism has been rejected without too much damage to the Egyptian’s view of Islamic identity that leans towards Azhar teachings; however, it has challenged the average Egyptian’s view of the identity and the allegiance of the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, the death of one form of fanaticism is bound to give birth to another, more aggressive in form.
The supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood believe that Morsi’s fault lies in that he was not harsh or brutal enough. They wanted him to silence oppositional voices with Al Qaeda methods. They believe that they need a leader who is more formidable. Their response is, and seems will always be, more violence; a divine duty to purge the globe of infidels and their idols.
Islamists and their supporters made a fatal mistake when they placed the results of their actions, their future and the fate of the country at the hands of living gods.
Mohamed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, addressed the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque sit-in on Friday as if he was their messiah, their saviour from military aggression that threatened the legitimacy of their very lives.
They see Morsi’s arrested presidency as the suppression of their true caliphate yet again in their Islamic history, which they must go out and defend with their lives, just as Ali, Hassan and Hussein had done once upon a time.
The Brotherhood has always excelled in allowing their old men to talk and their young men to die. Egypt is no country for old demagogues. Perhaps one day, one hopes, they will see the smoke and mirrors that had fooled many. One year of Islamist rule has challenged the Egyptian’s view of their identity in ways they have not before encountered. A year under Brotherhood rule has eliminated all mystery: the demagogues, the opportunists and the magicians have failed, and their comeback in their current form in the long run, is practically impossible. Some will grieve while others will celebrate the death of the false gods.
The writer is a doctoral student at University of Essex, specialising in Education, Mythology and Creative Writing
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