Egypt: Rifts emerge between founders of April 6 Youth Movement
Cairo: The pro-military fervour and concern about demonisation of the Brotherhood is also driving a wedge between activists who played major roles in the uprising that drove Hosni Mubarak from power.
A very public argument is raging between Ahmad Maher and Esraa Abdul Fattah, the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, an important player in the street politics of 2011.
April 6 enthusiastically supported the June 30 protests and visited with interim president Adly Mansour after Mursi’s ouster, agreeing to travel to Western countries to sell the idea that what happened in Egypt was a second revolution, not a coup.
But shortly afterwards Maher tweeted to Abbas: “If we assume it’s not a coup, and I tell people it’s not a coup, when they screw us again like they did in 2011, what would I tell people?” He was referring to the 16 months of military rule after Mubarak’s fall, which were marked by the arrest, torture, and military trials of activists.
Maher’s tweet created a rift in the April 6 movement, with Esraa leading the charge against him. She has campaigned to have Maher drummed out of the group and written columns denouncing the Muslim Brothers as terrorists and praising the military for saving Egypt. Abbas says the criticism “comes mostly from people who were against us when we were fighting for the overthrow of Mubarak in 2011, and for whom June 30 was the first time they ever came out in the streets.”
But it’s also coming from former comrades. He says many activists who opposed Mubarak call June 30 a people’s revolution and see the Army, which ruled Egypt in 2011 and 2012, as a positive force in Egyptian politics. “In their hearts, I’m sure they know this is not true. No real democracy can come from this. It has brought the army back on the scene, and it has brought back the remnants of Mubarak’s regime. Maybe they are just hopeful that it will be different this time.”
Mursi’s ouster had also caused a rift over one of the icons of the 2011 revolution, the Facebook page 'We Are All Khaled Said’. The page, commemorating a young Egyptian beaten to death by police in 2010, focused popular rage around the abuses of the Mubarak years and served as an important precursor to the 2011 uprising.
The administrator of the Arabic version of the page, Wael Goneim, became a worldwide celebrity after the fall of Mubarak after being detained for weeks and making an impassioned appeal for Egyptian democracy on national TV after his release.
But after praising the military’s decision to oust Mursi on July 3, Goneim has gone dark, with no further Facebook statements or interviews. But his counterpart administrator on the English version of the page has turned against the coup, and has received furious comments and death threats in response.
He asked that his name be withheld because he’s worried he could be arrested for his political views. “We are now officially back to January 24, 2011, back into the Mubarak regime. Those activists who may still be unsure will very soon realise this sad reality.”
He agrees with Abbas that “this coup was not a response to protests, but it was simply pre-planned and organised by the military, some opposition leaders and supported by different government establishments, including the police. A bit more pressure and peaceful protests in the street could have delivered early elections or any other democratic solution.
One day is not enough. Military coup is not a solution. Democracy is.” Zahraa Said, Khaled Said’s sister, is furious with the English language page.
“We have written them many times to stop speaking my brother’s name but we have received no reply,” she says. “They no longer represent what is happening in the street.”
Despite Goneim’s Arabic page coming out in support of the coup, Goneim also bears Zahraa Said’s wrath for his silence since July 3. Goneim “has not been supportive enough of the June 30 revolution,” she says. “They should rename the pages, 'We Are All Muslim Brothers’.”
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/egy...founders-of-april-6-youth-movement-1.1211143?
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Egypt's Tamarod slams new constitutional declaration as 'dictatorial'
Tamarod says constitutional declaration grants President too many powers in 'setback for revolution.’
CAIRO - Egypt's Tamarod campaign which launched the protests that prompted the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on Tuesday slammed the country's interim charter as "dictatorial."
"It is impossible to accept the (constitutional declaration -- C.D.) because it founds a new dictatorship. We will hand over to the (military-installed caretaker) president an amendment to the C.D," the group said on its official Twitter account.
On Monday, Egypt's interim president Adly Mansour adopted a temporary constitution, almost a week after he was appointed by the military to head the Arab world's most populous country following Morsi's overthrow.
The declaration outlines the president's powers and lays out a timetable for the transition which is to last around six months until presidential elections are held.
Tamarod, a grassroots movements which persuaded millions of Egyptians to take to the streets to call for Morsi's ouster, was a key player in army-sponsored talks aimed at defining the country's roadmap.
The group said the constitutional declaration granted the president too many powers in a "setback for the revolution."
Egypt's military has promised a quick return to civilian rule.
The decree's wording, however, gives the interim rulers room to further draw out the parliamentary vote, said a constitutional expert.
"The way it was worded suggests that they plan to have the entire election within that timeframe," said constitutional lawyer Zaid Al-Ali.
But the 33-article constitutional decree was "vague" enough to allow Mansour to interpret the conduct of election as merely the start of registration for candidates, he said.
That could add another two months for candidates to register, and another month for a staggered election.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=59997
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Misgivings Over Coup Spread in Egypt
By
TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
CONNECT
Matt Bradley reports from Cairo on the misgivings some secular Egyptians have about the military coup that toppled former President Mohammed Morsi and the damage it has inflicted on the country’s fledgling democratic process.
CAIRO—Beyond the partisan rancor that has engulfed Egypt since the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, a class of Egyptians is emerging to support the deposed leader despite disaffection with his performance and their lack of affinity to Islamist thinking.
Many of these Egyptians reluctantly voted for Mr. Morsi last summer to keep out a rival affiliated with the former regime, yet still decry the military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood-backed leader because they say it usurped the democratic process.
It is unclear how widespread this group is, because it isn't vocal, but evidence from interviews, political observers and activity on Egypt's vibrant social-media scene suggests it is significant and that its members could sway the planned coming elections.
Some of those disaffected Egyptians pledged to never participate in an election again, but others said they would vote in opposition to any candidate that they believe is being sponsored by the military and interim government.
That poses a problem for the interim leaders, who are eager to project legitimacy over Egypt's transition.
"These people wanted democracy and felt that if they didn't like the president's performance, they would vote him out," said Ellis Goldberg, a professor of political science at the University of Washington in Seattle who has studied Egyptian electoral trends. "They are an important constituency but it's difficult to say which way they are going to go."
Such predominantly secular-leaning Egyptians say they are in an awkward position: The only place they can express their opposition to the military coup is among the Islamist supporters of a president, Mr. Morsi, they viewed as a failure. But some say the alternative is worse.
"I'd rather have gridlock than a return to the feloul," said Omar Mahmoud, a 32-year-old investment banker from Cairo, who used the Arabic word for remnants associated with the former regime of President Hosni Mubarak. "That's not how I want to do politics, but Egypt is not a place where regular politics are done."
Mr. Mahmoud joined raucous protests against the military ouster of Mr. Morsi despite having no Islamist leanings. He only halfheartedly chanted and stayed on the margins of the gatherings at Rabaa Mosque, choosing instead to hear the ousted leader's ardent supporters "to understand their viewpoint."
He said he was bewildered when the former president was removed from office, and had preferred early elections or a referendum on his rule. "This was the absolute worst-case scenario," Mr. Mahmoud said.
These ordinary Egyptians complained of a Morsi presidency marked by weakness in standing up to entrenched state security forces, insular governing that rewarded Brotherhood loyalists and a tin ear to the demands of the general public for transparency and better quality of life. Many criticized Mr. Morsi's economic stewardship.
"He made some catastrophic mistakes, that must be said," said Mohamed Adel Ismail, a 26-year-old social worker. "But my understanding of democracy is you allow him to rule and fail and then vote him out."
Political parties that are now participating in the tumultuous transition and are seeking support in elections scheduled for six months from now face a challenge in convincing such voters that they didn't endorse the coup.
With the Muslim Brotherhood the only visible entity opposed to the military's actions, this emerging bloc could strengthen the organization's already large base and help propel Islamists back into government, say political observers.
"Legitimate elections depend largely on the local organization of political parties," said Mustapha Kamel Al Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University. "Islamists have had the advantage there."
For Alaa Saleh, a 20-year-old medical student from the seaside city of Alexandria, the ouster of Mr. Morsi represented an abrupt halt to a nascent democratic process forging its way through a post-revolutionary landscape.
"This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen," said Ms. Saleh, who voted for a moderate Islamist in last year's presidential election. "This is a military coup. The army could have forced an early election or referendum and that would have at least been more democratic."
Though she didn't believe Mr. Morsi's presidency was sustainable through a full four-year term, she has become increasingly sympathetic to him as the violence and rhetoric rises since his removal.
She fears that "there is no democracy anymore" but said she would vote again when new elections are called "to make sure Mubarak's regime is not back in the game."
Mohamed Kenawy, a 25-year-old pharmacist from the suburb of Maadi outside of Cairo, said his mind was made up.
"To cancel everything and not care about our votes, this is a disaster," he said. "This is not a revolution. Welcome back to the past."
He described himself as a staunch opponent of Mr. Morsi who voted for him to just keep his rival out of office.
Mr. Kenawy once campaigned for Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading secular liberal figure who endorsed Mr. Morsi's ouster and has been tapped by the interim president as a vice president for foreign affairs. The military coup, Mr. Kenawy said, has tainted everyone.
"We have no public figures I can see queuing five hours to vote for," said Mr. Kenawy, whose cousin died in a demonstration in November 2011 while protesting against the military's hold on power following Mr. Mubarak's fall. "I'm sorry. I have no faith in democracy in Egypt anymore."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324694904578597840302132514.html
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How Egypt's 'revolution' betrayed itself
By Ramzy Baroud
"The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution," wrote Eric Walberg, a Middle East political expert and author, shortly after the Egyptian military overthrew the country's democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi on July 3. But more accurately, the revolution was killed in an agonizingly slow death, and the murders were too many to count.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a liberal elitist with a dismal track record in service of Western powers during his glamorous career as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is a stark example of the moral and political crisis that has befallen Egypt
since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak.
ElBaradei played a most detrimental role in this sad saga, from his uneventful return to Egypt during the January 2011 revolution - being cast as the sensible, Western-educated liberator - to the ouster of the only democratically-elected president this popular Arab country has ever seen. His double-speak was a testament not only to his opportunistic nature as a politician and the head of the Dostour Party, but to the entire political philosophy of the National Salvation Front, the opposition umbrella group for which he served as a coordinator.
The soft-spoken man, who rarely objected to the unfair pressure imposed on Iraq during his services as the head of the UN nuclear watch dog, was miraculously transformed into a fierce politician with persisting demands and expectations.
His party, like the rest of Egypt's opposition, had performed poorly in every democratic election and referendum held since the ouster of Mubarak. Democracy proved him irrelevant. But after every failure he and the opposition managed to emerge even louder thanks to a huge media apparatus that operated around the clock in a collective, undying commitment in rearranging the country's political scene in their favor, regardless of what the majority of Egyptians thought.
Soon after General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi announced a military coup on July 4, in what was clearly a well-organized conspiracy involving the army, much of the media, the opposition and disaffected Mubarak-era judges, has silenced the Muslim Brotherhood and their own media. The level of organization in which the coup conspirators operated left no doubt that the military was most insincere when two days earlier they had given the quarreling political parties 48 hours to resolve their disputes.
There was no room for compromise as far as ElBaradei's opposition was concerned, and the army knew that well. On June 30, one year since Morsi had taken office following transparent, albeit protracted elections, the opposition organized with the sinister goal of removing the president at any cost.
Some called on the army, which has proven to be extremely devious and untrustworthy, to lead the "democratic" transition. ElBaradei even invited supporters of the former regime to join his crusade to oust the Brotherhood. The idea was simple: to gather as many people in the streets as possible, claim a second revolution and call on the military to intervene to save Egypt from Morsi and his supposed disregard of the will of the people.
The military, with a repulsive show of orchestrated benevolence, came to the rescue, in the name of the people and democracy. They arrested the president, shut down Islamic TV stations, killed many and rounded up hundreds of people affiliated with the ruling party. Fireworks ensued, ElBaradei and his men gloated, for Egypt had supposedly been saved.
Except it was not.
"Mubarak-era media owners and key members of Egypt's liberal and secular opposition have teamed up to create arguably one of the most effective propaganda campaigns in recent political history, to demonize Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood," wrote Mohamad Elmasry of the American University in Cairo.
Much of the media in Egypt never truly shifted allegiances. It remained as dirty and corrupt as it was during the Mubarak regime. It was there to serve the interest of the powerful business and political elites. But, due to the changing political reality - three democratic elections and two referendums, all won by Islamic party supporters - it was impossible for them to operate using the same language. They too jumped on the revolution bandwagon using the same frame of references as if they were at the forefront of the fight for freedom, equality and democracy.
Egypt's reactionary forces, not only in the media, but also the pro-Mubarak judges, the self-serving military, etc, managed to survive the political upheaval not for being particularly clever. They simply had too much room to regroup and maneuver since the desperate opposition, ElBaradei and company, put all of their focus on discounting Morsi, undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and undercutting the democratic process that brought them to power.
In their desperation for power, they lost sight of the revolution and its original goals, disowned democracy, but more importantly endangered the future of Egypt itself.
What took place in Egypt, starting with the orchestrated "revolution" on June 30, from the army's ultimatum, to the military coup, to the shameless reinvention of the old order - accompanied with repopulating the prisons and sending tanks to face unarmed civilians - was not only disheartening to the majority of Egyptians, but was a huge shock to many people around the world as well. Egypt, which once inspired the world, is now back to square one.
Since the onset of the so called Arab Spring, an intense debate of numerous dimensions has ensued. One of its aspects was concerned with the role of religion in a healthy democracy. Egypt, of course, was in the heart of that debate, and every time Egyptians went to the ballot box they seemed to concur with the fact that they wished to see some sort of marriage between Islam and democracy.
It was hardly an easy question, and until now there have been no convincing answers. But, as in any healthy democracy, it was the people who were to have the final say. The fact that the choice of a poor peasant from a distant Egyptian village didn't match ElBaradei's elitist sensibility is of no consequence whatsoever.
It is unfortunate, but hardly surprising, that many of the idealists who took to Tahrir Square in January 2011 and spoke of equal rights for all, couldn't bear the outcome of that equality. Some complained that decades of marginalization under Mubarak didn't qualify Egypt's poor, uneducated and illiterate to make decisions pertaining to political representation and democratic constitution.
And in a sad turn of events, these very forces were openly involved in toppling the democratically-elected president and his party, as they happily celebrated the return to oppression as a glorious day of freedom. ElBaradei may now return to center stage, lecturing Egypt's poor on what true democracy is all about - and why, in some way, the majority doesn't matter at all.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-03-090713.html
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