When I was writing my article I did not wait to see who attracted the largest crowd. Is it the Muslim Brotherhood or its opponents? In my view, we cannot measure rights of citizens or a state’s duties simply by calculating the number of people on the street because demonstrations are a means of expression and not mandates to rule.
The swarm of people will not last long because the crisis is more dangerous than what is regarded as competing demonstrations. Protests are seen as a prelude to what is in the store for future. This is especially since the actions and statements of the Muslim Brotherhood show the leadership is becoming more militant.
The moderates in the movement have either broken ranks or are maintaining a stoic silence. And after the polarized leadership within the Brotherhood, the group wasted a golden opportunity and is now in an escalation and threat mode, forgetting that it ruled Egypt for one year. Indeed, its actions have alienated other political forces in the country by demonstrating that it doesn’t believe in democracy which brought it to power and doesn’t believe in political pluralism.
The disagreement in Egypt is political and can be expressed in a peaceful way. After the violence on the street, it became apparent that the head of the military, Field Marshall Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, had no option but to act. This is because the first obligation of the state is to guarantee security for citizens before providing them bread.
The main objective of the interim government is to end violence. Acts like car bombing in Mansora, killing of soldiers in Sinai and the shooting by demonstrators in Cairo are criminal and have ulterior political motives and it is not the way forward.
What is for certain if this continues and killings and bombings spike, we will see more popular anger, giving the army additional power, and possibly delay in the promised political process for 10 more months.
While the Muslim Brothers continue to demonstrate in the next days, they should expand their vision and protect what they have already achieved by refusing to allow their name be linked and associated with violence and incitement because they will be the losers, no matter what their political standings are.
We are concerned about Egypt, and it is not because of the Brotherhood or the political struggle but because of the militant forces. Since the start of the Egyptian Revolution, these forces were set free in the country — those who escaped prisons and the armed groups who are fundamentalist by nature. It is those militant forces that were responsible for the killings in Sinai and widespread violence in the country before and after the presidency of Muhammad Mursi.
They pose a bigger threat than the territories of Egypt. These militant forces with their ties with other fundamentalist groups from Libya and Algeria to organizations in Iraq and the Fertile Crescent like in Syria threaten the whole of the Middle East.
Even if the army and the new Egyptian government can’t convince the Egyptian people, and if the Muslim Brotherhood continues to be defiant, future happenings will make Egyptian people more worried about security and less careful about political conflict.
Because the Muslim Brothers are currently living a moment of anger and intend to sabotage any political project that doesn’t return them to power, they don’t recognize their mistakes. It is true they lost three years of their remaining rule, but they acquired assurances from other political parties, political forces and the army that they will given level-paying field in the future political processes.
A new election will guarantee their survival in the political process. Because there isn’t a single political party that has sufficient popularity to guarantee it complete victory, this means the Muslim Brothers have a great chance to come back through forging alliances with victorious parties.
Even if they don’t achieve a major percentage, they still have some weight in the People’s Council. In the worst-case scenario, they will be part of the political drama that changes with alliances.
We mustn’t forget that Brotherhood was the favorite team of the army two years ago. The solution lies in the next elections, which might give them a glimmer of hope to stay in the political arena and hope to prevent the country from descending into anarchy and cycle of violence.
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