رؤية صحفي انجليزي مخضرم ومستعرب ومتعاطف مع المسلمين: "روبرت فيسك" The trouble is that Morsi was the elected president, and when – apparently to his own great surprise – he was overthrown by the army (or the ‘popular will of the people’, depending on your point of view), his supporters simply had no plans for the future save for their demand that Morsi be reinstalled. So they blocked the roads of Cairo. General al-Sisi, assuming that the Brotherhood would tire of this tactic after a few days in the summer sun and a few mini-massacres, is now suffering the conundrum of all generals who find that their enemy doesn’t want to play by their script. The Brotherhood knows al-Sisi does not want a mass slaughter. Al-Sisi knows the Americans do not want a mass slaughter. Perhaps some sort of ‘people power’ can be organised – now there’s a thought – to drive the Brotherhood away and leave the army unspattered with Brotherhood blood. After all, a lot of the snipers who have shot down Morsi’s supporters these last five weeks have been unidentified. But there are too many foreign diplomats, NGOs and journalists sniffing around for that to work on a large scale. So which is more important? The will of ‘the people’ – those who hate Morsi – or the steadfastness of the Brotherhood for whom martyrdom (often in Egyptian prisons) has long been a characteristic? What about the dignity of the Egyptian army? About to set sail aboard his royal ship of exile, the ‘al-Mahrussa’ in 1952, King Farouk turned to the officers who had dethroned him. “Look after the army,” he told General Mohamed Naguib, soon to be deposed by Colonel Gamal-Abdul Nasser. Everyone loves the army. And the Egyptian army rather loves itself. Its vast and obscenely bloated investments in real estate, banking and industry make this one of the richest Arab armies in one of the poorest Arab countries. It’s hardly in their interest to start a mini-war in the streets of Cairo. But the Brotherhood itself is bloated with arrogance, its record in power – with Morsi as their cypher – hardly worthy of the support of the ‘people’. It’s worth remembering at this critical moment that Morsi’s government rejected proposals for free elections for trade unions, one of the principle definitions of any industrial democracy. John McCain may have identified the coup that overthrew Morsi, but he could scarcely claim that the Brotherhood were for the working man. Well, all this may be water under the Nile Bridge by this morning. But many probably hope the debate will go on– and that we shall see further foreigners arriving to ‘save’ Egypt.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 07:28:18 +0000
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