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If the mind finds itself trapped between military and theocratic fascism, the body will too.
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First of all, if it’s new behavior, it’s not normal, at least not right away.
🙂
Then too, be careful what you wish for, and one may do that by first asking Mr. Kerry, “What would be the old normal?”
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Published online earlier this month:
The overthrow of elected president Mohamed Morsi has placed the Obama administration in a no-win situation. It does not want to call the military intervention a coup, because current U.S. law would require the suspension of aid to Egypt, including the $1.3 billion going to military. But it cannot avoid calling it a coup without undermining the credibility of its commitment to democracy.
Ottaway, Marina. “Egypt’s Battle of Legitimacy.” The National Interest, July 18, 2013.
If it could have been done with compromise and reason, it would have been done: Morsi and company would have both set a conservative Islamic tone for Egypt — my noting that is not to endorse it — and otherwise gone about working the levers of a modern society on behalf of a broad Egyptian constituency.
Instead, the same chose to pursue narrow interests and in the usual way: clumsily, with heavy hands, and contemptuously and with an anti-Semitic and ever and ultimately self-defeating spirit.
Instead of winning the high regard of Egypt’s sprawling constituency, it brought the country out in force against its president and, so I call it, the “Muslim Botherhood”.
On the other hand, what’s a vote to mean if a military with its own interest can intervene to depose a standing president, however undemocratic and self-defeating his policies and ambitions?
I could say, “You was robbed!”
I just don’t know to whom I would say it: the modern Egyptians elbowed aside in the considerations of the Muslim Botherhood or old souls depending on faith and an innocent alliance with evil — there really are those who may not know what they do — to secure a better life for themselves.
Marina Ottaway, a former senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, goes on to note in her article, “The military and the Islamists won the first round of the struggle. In the current round, the military and the old elite are prevailing. The so-called revolutionaries, together with a small number of people who appear to truly uphold liberal principles, have been instrumental in the turnovers of power in February 2011 and July 2013. However, they appear unable to influence subsequent developments.”
That may be because the main forces in Egyptian politics operate today by, well, main force.
Compromise: unknown.
Elections: unfamiliar.
Competitive Political Parties: who is on the field? Who can fund and run a decent campaign? How are things going with “free speech” and “right to assembly” or plain old and yet stimulating common political speech? Does the answer depend on to whom one speaks?
Maybe.
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Posted today (8/2/2013), not vetted (not that I can do that. Yet).
“Tahrir Square Fighting from Austin Mackell in Cairo Part 2”, posted by “Yul West”.
It looks authentic.
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Note:
The US embassy in Cairo has announced that it will be closed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in a statement published on its official website.
Supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi plan to hold 33 marches around Cairo and Giza on Friday under the slogan ‘Egypt against the coup.’
Ahram Online. “US embassy in Cairo to shut for three days.” August 2, 2013.
Reference
BBC. “Egypt protesters defy cabinet threat to end sit-ins.” August 1, 2013.
Burke, Jacob. “Egypt at Risk of Civil War.” The National Interest, August 2, 2013.
Sky News. “Egypt: Fresh Clashes as US Clarifies Comments.” August 2, 2013.
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