"Your Call ... Your Faith ... Is An Honour"
This is a joke, isn't it? Nope. No joke. The real thing. And perhaps that's what you get when you're young and idealistic and believe that fervour and rectitude, passion and energy, once jointly expressed will become so obviously indicative of what is required, that it will result in the adoption of what has been fervently proposed.The Egyptian youth that declared they wouldn't take repression and autocratic rule any longer, and who saw the wild success of their wholesale declarations of liberty and fraternity and justice turn into reality, are now further behind than they ever have been. Their dreams of another kind of Egypt, progressive, respecting human rights and entitlements, vanished.
This crowded presidential slate does not include candidates that have any chance of success that they would approve of. In any event, the country's parliament is now over-represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist and other Islamist parties. The presence of the liberal-left, secular groups is minuscule. The hopes of Egyptian Copts has plummeted.
True, the one man whom they most despised and claimed was entirely guilty of the misery of clamping down on their aspirations, who held responsibility for their unemployment, for the high cost of food, shelter, fuel, has now departed the scene. Although truth be told, they want not just his departure from government, but also his head. And those of his sons.
And the supreme irony, to contest the leading presidential candidates representing the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist party, back by popular demand stands former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman. Impressed to do his duty to his country by those uncountable millions ostensibly concerned that they not be left to the devices of the Muslim Brotherhood: "Run, run, don't leave us to the Muslim Brotherhood".
He has been called to duty, and he has responded in the affirmative, that modest man. "I have been shaken by your strong position. The call you have directed is an order and I am a soldier who has never disobeyed an order. Your call and your faith in my ability is an honour." Wednesday he disclaimed any intention to offer himself as presidential material; Friday he was assailed by guilt, and acceded.
How could he resist, when bidden by desperate Cairenes: "Suleiman, save Egypt"; "We don't want the Islamists". Salafist Islamist Hazem Salah Abu Ismail may be out of the running, his mother having taken American citizenship, impacting on her son's legal capacity to qualify as a candidate under Egyptian law. But never mind, the Islamists are re-writing the Constitution.
But then, who knows what can happen in Egypt? "Suleiman decided to run because anyone who loves this country has been begging him to do so. He has even had to switch off his phone because of the number of calls he was receiving to convince him to run", argued his campaign aide. The Egyptian Army will not give up its power base too readily.
But it's a crowded slate, even including former Arab League chief Amr Moussa. There are conspiracies and there are lies and damn lies, and fervent hopes for the future of Egypt. Amazing. To think back over the millennia and recall how powerful a country, how steeped in the healing arts, the visual arts, religious mystery and military mastery ancient Egypt once was...
Labels: Egypt, Islamism, Middle East, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, April 08, 2012
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