generalspeaking

Coping, As Best They Can

Speaking of irresolution, of uncertainty of how further to proceed at times it appears that the Egyptian military and transitional government would prefer a way out of their current dilemma that would have the approval of the international community. On one hand they deride the interference of the foreign press and governments in affairs of Egypt that are more complex than outsiders can possibly understand, and take offence at diplomats insisting that Egypt must respond in a manner consonant with foreign expectations.

And on the other hand, they feel both baffled at the rejection of their own political reasoning and judgements, and harbour a deep-seated desire for exterior support based on an understanding of how afflicted the country is by the actions and activities of the many opponents they face not just in Cairo and other cities but through the malignancy of the Salafist Bedouin, Hamas fighters, al-Qaeda terrorists and Brotherhood cadres in the Sinai, where police stations are regularly attacked and security personnel targeted.

The Muslim Brotherhood will not go quietly into another long night of gentle sleep as it did for 80 years while it was outlawed in Egypt as a threat to government and the more secular-based values that it operated under with its connections to the West, and particularly the United States. It was given a flaccid offer to accommodate itself to its newly-arranged lesser presence, and absolutely refused any kind of compromise to the assault against its legitimacy as the new government in Egypt.

Accommodation to how it sees itself as the new, rightful inheritor of the country's future as an Islamist state under strict Sharia law simply was not possible. Nor is it possible for the Brotherhood to take on a lesser influence than it feels entitled to. It is not, in any event, the way of the Middle East, which generally seeks solutions of black and white; win or lose. The Brotherhood will not accept the new offer to be compliant within the losing end of the deal, even if they were given the compliment of suffrance; they have no intention of moving themselves willingly back to Square One.

So they continue to compulsively, even while their leaders are in prison, encourage their faithful to flock back to the streets in protest. And while the new gatherings are largely peaceful, there have been sporadic episodes of violence. Not only from armed and angry members of the Brotherhood, but from other Egyptians who are anti-Brotherhood and hugely resentful of their ongoing usurpation of the public arena in their continuing protests.

Drive-by attacks by unidentified gunmen killing civilians and security personnel alike erupt here and there. The nighttime curfews in Cairo and 13 other provinces appear stable enough; it is what occurs largely at other times when people are on the march even though the Brotherhood seems unable to draw the large numbers of supporters it once did, that remain the sticking point. Forcing it to resume underground operations, covert and safe from interference. Reverting to giving surreptitious orders.

But the protesters will not be persuaded for the most part, to return to their homes and cease their marches. As an example, Sherif Osama insists his cousin was killed during the Rabaa sit-in raid and it is his intention "to take revenge" for his cousin's death. This is, after all, the custom in this part of the world, a custom to which honour is inextricably attached. "He was killed by a bullet in his back that went out from the front. At the morgue, they wrote on the death certificate that he committed suicide."

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi march to the presidential palace in Cairo, August 30, 2013 AP Photo/Mostafa Darwish

And Mohammad Morsi, the dauntless Brotherhood president of Egypt committed political suicide when he ignored General al-Sissi's quite precise warning that he was heading into deeper waters that his head could not be held above. Now the final indignity is being prepared for him; the judicial extensions to his prison stays have finally resulted in the intention to charge him and place him ignominiously on trial for conspiring to murder his political opponents.

In a game of musical chairs, former President Hosni Mubarak has been released from jail, and is comfortably resting, not quite rehabilitated, and under house arrest, but no longer facing the charges of murder that he was first accused of. It remains yet for his son to be released from prison and all will have been reversed. Without his reinstallment as punishment for planning a dynasty, but more evidence if any were needed that the military looks after its own, even after disciplining its own.

And now, the final chapter is being written to a saga that begs to be concluded. Egypt's State Commissioners Authority, a legal issue non-binding advice body to the government recommends the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its national headquarters in Cairo's Moqattam to be officially closed. Who is there, after all, to use it at this juncture, since most of the Brotherhood leaders and officials have effectively been put out of commission?

The legal hook on which this move hinges is a 2002 law prohibiting non-government organizations and institutions from forming paramilitary groups. Lebanon would have done well, when it was still able to, to enact and pass just such a law. The Muslim Brotherhood was officially registered as a non-governmental organization by the Ministry of Social Security. There were suspicions that the Brotherhood's headquarters possessed weapons and whether militias or militant groups were linked to the Brotherhood.

Spuriously convenient since the answers are surely self-evident. Despite which, no one surely can be under any illusions that once again outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood would spell its death-knell. It has proven its resilience, its staying power, and its influence is too widespread to wane so readily. There are other chapters that will be waiting to be written in the future.

Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 03, 2013