"Letter From Cairo" (Great analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood)

[applegrove]

Letter From Cairo

by Victor J. Willi at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-j-willi/egypt-revolution-morsi-deposed_b_3547215.html

"SNIP.........................................

At Midan Tahrir yesterday, millions of opponents of Mohammed Morsi jubilated, cheered and partied throughout the night. Their key demand was simple and straight forward: "Irhal" -- "Get Out!" Morsi had to leave, since he has failed on every front during his short-lived presidency. It was not primarily about his economic failures, the food, water, electricity and gas shortages across the country, and the complete economic mismanagement of the country he was supposed to lead. It wasn't either about the fact that he borrowed money from Qatar to keep the deficit above water level. Neither was it about the letter he wrote to Shimon Peres at the beginning of his presidency. The primary reason was that the president of Egypt was loyal to his clan, the Muslim Brotherhood, before he was loyal to his country. This became ever more evident throughout the year.

The race to the bottom started in November 22, 2012, when he issued a presidential Constitutional Declaration, putting himself over and above the law. Since then, his regime systematically imprisoned and tortured opposition figures; his flacks repeatedly tried to put a ban on any sort of freedom of speech, such as in the Bassam Yousef case; he and his clan of Brothers pushed a constitution through the Shura Council, a constitution that made the president immune from any sort of criticism; he exerted repeated efforts to undermine the judiciary system; he even included Hamas, a Palestinian national organization, into the Egyptian governmental system; and he tried to undermine the state by replacing national and provincial leaders with Muslim Brotherhood apparatchiks. In all of this, he didn't act independently, but as an executor and implementer of the orders coming out of the Guidance Office, the Maktab Al-Irshad, where the real power brokers run the affairs of the state, the people around Khairat al-Shater and Mahmout Aizzat. If you look at this video, it gives you an indication of the status and role of Morsi within the Muslim Brotherhood.

The clearest indication for the president's failure and total lack of understanding what is happening in his own country was his speech two days ago. Once again it showed the Brotherhood's limited understanding of democracy, which is restricted to the mechanics of voting, elections and ballot boxes, while showing precious little appreciation for the values that make up the essence of a democracy, such as the rule of law, citizenship, equality and human rights. The same faint comprehension also prevails at the base of the Brotherhood supporters. I talked to these kinds of people this morning at Cairo University, asking them what democracy means to them. The only thing they could say was: shara'iyya (legality). Morsi and the Brothers believe that winning an election gives them a carte blanche to run the state as if it was their feudality.

Morsi's speech revealed another point that is crucial to understand the psychology of the Brotherhood's leadership and their miscalculation about the June 30th demonstrations: the complete disconnect with the people, especially the poor. While Morsi had uttered the word "legality" about 30 times during his speech, the poor were not mentioned one single time. What else can you expect of a pyramidal, top-down organization whose leaders have been imprisoned and exiled for the larger part of their lives, and whose core values are strict obedience to an extremely conservative leadership, most of whom are aged over 80 or 90 years old?

.......................................SNIP"

[msongs]

1. uttering "legality" - where else have we heard things are ok cuz they are "legal" lol nt