Egypt: Revolution Reloaded by HABASHI Mamdouh, 16 July 2013

July 18, 2013 at 1:27pm The Egyptian people has launched last week one of the largest and widest movements ever in the history of this nation and in the history of the world. In an unprecedented manner, the degree of political struggle increases to defend the integrity of the society and civil state against that dictatorship of obscurantism supported by world imperialism. The change in the US strategy was clear since the beginning of the uprisings in the Arab region three years ago; the US put now their strategy on the Islamist allied forces for the continuation of the policy of total dependence, in order to guarantee that the countries of the whole region will remain bound in this strategy. On the other hand, these Islamists have sufficiently demonstrated to the USA that they are willing to give everything to stay in power ... no matter what the cost.

The Egyptian people succeeded with this powerful movement to draw to his side important hesitant sectors in the armed forces who have felt the dangers of domination and plans of the Muslim Brothers and their allies. On the other hand, these sectors felt the dangers that such a mass movement might cause in terms of possible radical changes that threaten the essence of the existing social order.

This popular movement led, with the support of the military, to remove the Muslim Brothers and their allies from power. Thus began a new political phase, its nature, type and shape depend on the contradictions and power relations within the movement.

It is logical that the cruelty and brutality of the religious right wing groups grow in such a desperate situation. Nothing is more difficult for any political force than to find itself exposed to the hatred of such broad masses, populists and demagogues in the first place. The reasoning of the Islamist counter-revolution is built on two big lies, the first; they had achieved power through legal and legitimate means, and the second; they have been removed from this legitimate power by means of a military coup. The range of forces that make up the camp of the anti-Islamist movement is versatile. It ranges from supporters of the Mubarak regime (here you have to admit for the sake of objectivity that their performance in this movement was extremely strong) via liberal conservatives, leftists and nationalists up to key military and even security institutions. This is an extremely complex and unique composition.

The flood of the spontaneous mass movement was much larger than the most optimistic expectations. Two main factors have contributed to that; the extremely poor level and

performance of power of the religious right, as well as the active role of the independent Egyptian satellite TV channels.

The amount and nature of the army intervention was a strategic surprise for the authoritys circles responsible for Egypt in the US Administration. Therefore these circles, both in the US and in the EU, could not initially take a clear stance on the recent developments in Egypt.

The foreign policy makers in these western counties fear unpredictable radical transformations in Egypt, their repercussions and influences in the region would be inevitable. This would thwart the famous American long-term strategy to make the entire region sinking into religious and ethnic sectarian conflicts. One can see the beginnings of these conflicts in the proclaimed plans by the Muslim Brothers to set up a part of Sinai Peninsula as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians from Gaza and to privatize the Suez Canal, and thus depriving the Egyptians of one of the most important symbols of their national pride.

It has become obvious that the US and some other Western powers in the EU have fought on the side of the counter-revolution. No profound political changes in Egypt could be initiated without that the United States would move heaven and earth to prevent just that. Guido Westerwelle said even, that what has happened in Egypt is a failure of democracy. Similar was the explanation of the British Foreign Minister. Such declarations seem like brazen hypocrisy if you consider the fact that the West knows pretty much what kind of democracy the Muslim Brothers and their allied Salafists think with their Islamic state. Why is the Islamic state in Egypt democratic and Iran not?! The same West was not concerned about democracy and human rights at that time as the same army shoot the peaceful Egyptian demonstrators and its military vehicles run over their bodies.

But when this army on June 30th 2013 executes the extreme powerful and unmistakable expressed will of the people the West suddenly sees a threat to democracy. It is expected that the activities of the counter-revolution to terrorize the Egyptian people will be beyond imagination... We know from the last after-revolution-period that the violence on the streets and squares, the constant provocation of the army to get involved more and more in the spiral of violence, the terrorist attacks on the Sinai Peninsula, the religious-sectarian bloody conflicts in Upper Egypt, which are artificially lit, bomb attacks on vital locations or the assassination of political or military leaders ... etc. all of this is a double-edged sword which costs the Egyptian people already morally and materially huge losses and now unfortunately comes up again.

Today it is quite unlikely that Egypt would fall into a civil war or chaos because the popularity of the Muslim Brothers and Salafists fades to a surprising degree. However, this level of violence increasingly provoked by the Islamists prevents the democratization process and paves the way for more and more dictatorial components in this process.

In the face of these serious risks we hear today, mainly by the United States, appeals for a social reconciliation. Most of the liberal-conservative forces and even some left have been taken for a ride by this appeal. They completely ignore the opportunistic nature of the religious right which has never respected one political agreement in the past. The submitted example of the Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is very deceiving here. The reconciliation there was based on the clear waiver of the whites on racial discrimination, even the criminalization of it. Such a turn or agreement between the civilian secular forces and sectarian religious fanatics is currently unimaginable in Egypt. All this represents an existential challenge to the leftist revolutionary and democratic forces; they must maintain this high level of mobilization of the masses upright and organize them into all kinds of organizations. The democratic forces today and during this critical transitional period have to accept the diversity of the front against the Islamists, consider their heterogeneity or even inhomogeneity support it but carefully distinguish between secondary and major conflicts.

The immediate unity of all left parties is now more urgent than ever ... to be or not to be ... This would also lead among many other benefits - to organize hundreds of thousands of young revolutionaries who have refused until now the organization and thus do not have a comprehensive strategic vision, often splintering, swallowed by other reactionary organization and even disintegrated, despite their undisputed heroic role in the revolution.

The ousted President Mursi came to power in the wake of a revolution with which nothing is linked to him, thus he doesnt deserve any special place in it and is not entitled to make himself one of its representatives. This president is a member of a group that understands the foundation of the modern Egyptian state as a turning away from Islam and therefore tried to demolish it. This group replaces the national foundations with religious shrines, Egypt is not the goal but the Islamic nation which covers all Muslims around the world and is in conflict with all other nations in the world; Christianity - or the crusaders - Judaism and perhaps Buddhism and Hinduism also. This group does not require constitution in which power emanates solely from the people, not a constitution in which the ratio is the source of legislation, BUT, this group calls for a constitution that God is still the source of legitimacy, and the Islamic Sharia whatever that may mean should be the only source of legislation ... Human beings are not authorized and not capable to make their laws and only their scholars are authorized to interpret these Sharia.

Accordingly, the democracy as it has taken its present bourgeois form through the past three centuries in modern societies is just a fad in the West which they planted in our societies to fight against Islam. That the Islamists today accept the rules of exactly this democracy, they see that as a necessarily temporary transition until they attained alone the absolute rule in all areas and corners of the state and society, found the Islamic state in Egypt, then in the region to realize the resurrection of the caliphate.

This is the ideology of the group as it was formulated and circulated by their leaders since its establishment in 1928 in the lap of the British colonial power - and in its service until today. What do those ideas have to do with the ideas and principles of the Revolution of January 25th 2011?! The ladies and gentlemen Advisor of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the USA, UK and the Federal Republic of Germany should know the answer, and if they do not know, then the problem is even greater.

In Egypt, no one, no enemy and no friend of the Islamists, can deny that they have cooperated with the Mubarak regime and made deals, even after the peoples uprising on January 25th 2011 started. In the beginning the Muslim Brothers declared that they are against this rebellion. The Muslim Brothers have suddenly changed their anti-revolution stance on the fourth day of the uprising, two days after the Americans had proclaimed the twist of their position by 180 , i. e. after it became clear that the peoples rebellion is the winning horse in this race.

The problem then was that the forces of the revolution had no organization that could give them access to power at the moment when the power was only a few steps away. At this critical moment Egypt had only two political forces that have an appropriate organization, the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. The two have made together a deal after the other in a period which was characterized by extreme political instability and severe stresses. As the situation on June 30th 2012 has been finally stabilized or leveled with the election of Mursi, the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, as the first elected President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, began for the Egyptians a new but very strange period.

The seizure of power by the Muslim Brothers was not only a continuation of the Mubarak regime at all levels but they surpassed it in its capacity to ignore the demands of the masses. The West has since the start of the so-called Arab Spring adopted the so-called Islamic project for the entire Middle East as its long-term strategy. In this strategy the Muslim Brothers in Egypt play a central role, therefore the direct and revealed support from the United States, EU and Israel. This made the Muslim Brothers lose their balance.

Absolute power, the complete absence of any institutional supervision in the society, the fact that their only concern was the distribution of the spoils of war and the Muslim

Brotherizing of all key positions in the state, all that have exposed them and their goals in wide circles of the population. For the first time in their modern history the Egyptians feel concerned about their national identity. This anxiety has partially robbed the burning social issues their utmost priority.

Is that what the Muslim Brothers have done with the help of their allies in the West democracy? Or is it a coup against the revolution of January 2011?

No, this is a new attempt to rape this revolution with all its attendant dreams of the Egyptians to live in freedom and social justice and human dignity. Mamdouh Habashi, July 16th 2013