Category Archives: Middle East

Syria Impression – The Look of It Online

12 Friday Jul 2013

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The look of Syria online is a mess, of course, with the stickiest part becoming the internecine war between rebel forces, one part Islamic moderates, so intimated in coverage, intent on deposing President Bashir al-Assad with help from Saudi Arabia in complex alignment with the west, the other part Jihadists of, roughly, the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” determined to make Syria but a stepping stone in the establishment of a global caliphate.

Throughout the Islamic Small Wars, the collapse of physical fronts, literally physical boundaries, margins, and fixed front lines keep the encounters and road blocks moving around the landscape, which today, so damaged, in places so depopulated, in others so ad hoc and weirdly organized, I would call painted with the fragments of a new frontier.

Still, Assad’s state remains where it has so far managed to remain.

From Al-Akhbar English:

Visitors to Damascus will find that they are not the only ones rediscovering the city. The capital’s own residents are reacquainting themselves with its neighborhoods and geography, trying to keep up morale in the face of a deepening crisis.

Zaraket, Maha.  “Damascus: The Military Geography of Normalcy.”  Al-Akhbar English, July 12, 2013.

* * *

Who knows what to think as regards Syria’s fate somewhere between its brutal and disingenuous dictatorship, its seemingly well intended base of rebels willing to support a secular civil democracy, and its AQ-type rovers far gone on their own trip but also powerful in their agility, arms, and ruthlessness in the field?

As I type, I do wonder about “news aggregation” — so here is the snapshot of what I drifted through in information this morning — and I also wonder how long before those of us scanning war reportage from our computers start hooking into live feeds.

Twitter’s coming close, but what I read, of course, is what you read coming off AP, BBC, CNN, Reuters, and other feeds.

The Jihad videos from the field that show up with “0” views are a little different: those could be flying on to the web by phone or laptop at close to real time, but how to vet them without getting further into those labyrinths?

* * *

* * *

Live Leak.  “Deranged dictator assad orders more of Syria’s capital destroyed: (July 12th, ’13).  Videos.

* * *

The Free Syrian Army commander, stocky, bearded, dressed in camouflage, oozed menace and seethed with righteous anger.

We were speaking about the biggest jihadi group in Syria, the Nusra Front, who had kidnapped his brother.

BBC.  “Syrian rebel fighters’ civil war within a civil war.”  July 12, 2013.

* * *

“We will not let them get away with it because they want to target us,” a senior FSA commander said on condition of anonymity after members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant killed Kamal Hamami on Thursday.

“We are going to wipe the floor with them,” he said.

Reuters.  “New Front Opens in Syria as Rebels Say Al-Qaida Attack Means War.”  VOA, July 12, 2013.

* * *

“One has to concentrate on their strongholds and on their dwellings and their infrastructure. If (Alawites) continue living as they’re doing in peace and safety while wedded to the regime they will not be affected. They will not think of abandoning Assad,” said Islamist Sheikh Anas Ayrout.

Oweis, Khaled Yacoub.  “Syrian rebel sheikh calls for war on Assad’s Alawite heartland.”  Al Arabiya, July 10, 2013.

* * *

Published June 7, 2013:

* * *

Since then I’ve spent – I don’t know, many, many times, always undercover, clandestinely, always alone [in Syria]. I don’t keep count, but I was basically spending a week of every month in my home base, Beirut, and the rest of the time I was on the road, in Syria and Turkey.

I don’t use fixers, I don’t use translators. I don’t have anybody giving me tips. It’s just me.

Leigh, Karen.  “One on One: Rania Abouzeid, Journalist.”  Syria Deeply, July 12, 2013.

* * *

In north-eastern Syria, al-Nusra finds itself in command of massive silos of wheat, factories, oil and gas fields, fleets of looted government cars and a huge weapons arsenal.

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith.  “Syria’s al-Nusra Front – ruthless, organised, and taking control.”  The Guardian, July 10, 2013.

I referenced the above a day or two ago.  Basically, the greater the chaos introduced to the field, the greater the potential for the armed and ruthless to impose their will in patches, a condition not much different than that familiar to Somalis since Said Barre’s step-down and the ensuing anarchy and conflict latent in the motivations of powers left on the land.

Additional Reference

Free Syria Media Hub

Syria – Note – Manipulating Hearts and Minds

11 Thursday Jul 2013

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“Go and ask the people in the streets whether there a liberated town or city anywhere in Syria that is ruled as efficiently as this one,” he boasted. “There is electricity, water and bread and security. Inshallah, this will be the nucleus of a new Syrian Islamic caliphate!”

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith.  “Syria’s al-Nusra Front — ruthless, organised, and taking control.” The Guardian, July 10, 2013.

“Out, out, out, the (Islamic) State (of Iraq and Syria) must get out,” protesters shouted at a rally in the northern town of Manbij this week, referring to an Al-Qaeda front group.
The video of the demonstration is one of many showing how civilians and mainstream rebel fighters alike are turning against the more hardline Islamist factions.

Assif, Serene. “Syria jihadists lose support as abuses mount.” Fox News, July 22, 2013.

* * *

Every story that has appeal, whether fact or fiction, has a moral center, and the writer who can tease it out fast has got a hooked reader.

This is about where we started with the Syrian revolt — a little more than two years ago, a sorry fact reflected in the statement, “1300 people have been killed since the protests began”):

Then almost two years and 90,000 corpses later, we get to the guy intent on frightening his foes in the medieval way (well, take it back to ancient Greece or earlier) by carving out a man’s chest cavity, grabbing an organ, and taking a bite or appearing so (see Paul Wood’s “Face-to-face with Abu Sakkar, Syria’s ‘heart-eating cannibal’,” BBC, July 3, 2013).

At the moment, thereabouts, Arab and Russian media seem to be playing “hot potato” over who has got the chemical weapons, whose side is more brutal, and whose side is more deserving in regard to winning one for modernity.

* * *

To fill out that last statement a bit, I may note an RT blog said today, “M16 warning: ‘Catastrophe’ if chemical weapons fall into Al-Qaeda hands” (RT, July 11, 2013).

Back in April, however, the story seemed to have been running in the other direction.  Al Jazeera’s header (April 26, 2013): “Suspicion grows over Syria chemical weapons: UK prime minister backs US spy agencies’ assessment that Damascus likely to have used sarin gas against civilians.”

Again, come forward on the latest toss of the hot potato:

Moscow now appears to have conclusive evidence that it is the rebels who are guilty of the March chemical attack in Aleppo which killed dozens of Syrians. This comes as the United States continues to put the blame on the Assad government. However, Corbyn says that any such proof may not bring the Syrian conflict any closer to a resolution.

RT.  “Hard evidence of chemical weapons use ‘does not solve Syrian issue’.”  Op-ed and interview with Jeremy Corbyn, MP, British Labour Party, July 11, 2013.

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The “moral center” in Syria’s unfolding tragedy revolves around barbarism and cruelty, fascism and totalitarianism, and then among those holding up the cash and sending in the weapons, some effort to prove more likely to be kind when the tide turns their way.  While Qatari and NATO interests have pointed their fingers at the Assad regime and its chemical weapons stores, Russia, presumably sided with Assad — but it’s hard to tell with the quiet exit that has left Tartus abandoned —  and tolerant about Iran, points back at rebel chemists (see, for example, “Syria rebels made own sarin gas, says Russia,” Al Jazeera, July 10, 2013).

In earlier days, the same would have had a perfect villain in Maher al-Assad — I think there’s still on the web a video of him allegedly shooting across a street into a crowd of passersby (found it)  — but his presence has been dimmed in the theater, and in his place one may find grand Syrian defense recruiting videos composed in the old muscular Soviet way (the video that ends this post may say more about that than I will here).

In and around Syria, those who may pretend their hands are clean must know that brutality loses, the tyrannical will not be tolerated, and the cruel will not go unpunished.

Anti-Assad footage published today:

The next opens with a title slate claiming, “Syrian women had no choice but to carry weapons and train on using them to defend themselves and families from the Wahhabi Sex Jihadists, they joined the National Defense Forces.”

Enjoy the music!

Additional Reference

Wheeler, William.  “Why the World’s ‘Responsibility to Protect” Extends to Libya But Not Syria.”  Pulitzer Center, April 12, 2012.

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Syria – Of Refugees and Bloody Optimists

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Described by some foreign relief officials as a ‘”five-star camp”, the Emirati-funded operation is a study in contrasts with Zaatari, the chaotic, sprawling UN-run camp that is home to 120,000 and is described as Jordan’s fifth-largest city.

Reed, John.  “‘Five-star’ refugee camp illustrates Gulf’s growing role in Syria.”  Financial Times, July 1, 2013.

**

Jordanian soldiers in riot gear try to keep order in a crowd desperate to get back to Syria. More than 9,000 headed home in June, according to the official Jordanian count.

Amos, Deborah.  “Reversing Direction, Some Syrian Refugees Now Head Home.”  Parallels, NPR, July 8, 2013.

Deborah Amos reports Jordan as hosting today 500,000 Syrian refugees.

**

The UN says nearly 90,000 Syrians have registered with the High Commissioner for Refugees in Egypt.

But the actual number of Syrians who have sought refuge in Egypt is believed to be much higher, in part because the country did not require Syrians to have visas until this week.

AFP.    “Syrian refugees to Egypt facing restrictions following unrest.”  thejournal.ie., July 9, 2013.

**

For Lebanon, UNHCR reports 503,724 registered refugees and an additional 84,071 awaiting registration (“Syria Regional Refugee Response: Lebanon”, viewed today).

**

According to figures obtained by Kirisci from government sources, Turkey is currently hosting close to half a million Syrian refugees. As of mid-June, over 200,000 reside in one refugee camp, while nearly 290,000 live outside these camps. Around 100,000 internally placed Syrians are reported to be awaiting entry into Turkey.

Idiz, Semih.  “Turkey’s Syria Refugee Crisis.”  Turkey Pulse, Al Monitor, July 2, 2013.

**

Also Monday, the newly elected head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, told Reuters news agency he expects advanced weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia to reach rebel fighters soon, strengthening their military position.

VOA News.  “Syrian Fighting Intensifies, Rebels Expect Weapons.”  July 8, 2013.

The fall last week of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt prompted a defiant Assad to proclaim the defeat of political Islam. The Brotherhood’s Syrian branch, already under pressure from more radical opposition groups, was dealt a psychological blow that comes on top of delays to promised supplies of weapons from Washington.

Reuters.  “Analysis: Confident Assad sees Syria tide turning.”  The Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2013.

* * * * *

Now there’s a picture.

Qatar and Company, heavily backing the Syrian Revolt (so far — Assad’s still in Damascus and his army is still fighting), have also plunged some money into producing a somewhat comfy, modern, and well administered model refugee camp for families (single men have to drift with the riffraff elsewhere) while remaining confident that some adjustment in the arms mix will hasten the end of the Reign of Assad.

Assad himself seems to remain a believer.

I have much, much less confidence in those confident that they will win . . . something.

Within Islam as al-Nusra and others may have it, “winning” will not lead to freedom but rather the imposition of their own sanguine tyranny.

For most involved in developing and sustaining the abysmal crisis in Syria, their history will not be written by “the winners” but rather by dowdy old historians poring over casualty figures, displacements, communique, rhetoric, bank transfers, arms shipments, manufacturer’s labels, newspaper clippings — or online ones like this one — and weighing within their independent souls the various causes and effects.

Some may stumble upon the role language has played in the nightmare, for Syria, perhaps more than in any corresponding contemporary conflict, points out a failing in language and mind by way of the beliefs and rhetoric driving toward so much suffering: that “content of mind” has had little to do with anyone’s day to day experience in living and the many challenges encountered, from making some money to attending to the happiness and security of children.

Instead, black and white thinking, extraordinary greed, unbridled egotism, and magical thinking all look away from the horror created by their possession or diminish the same — more than 90,000 dead, upwards of four million internally displaced or refugee — by way of language attending deflection of responsibility and the denial of the depth of the misery and depravity involved.

Is the good cause Alewite, Shiite, or Sunni?

Is it about cash in the till for a family and everyone else depending on that family be damned?

Is it about nobility?

What matter the purity of the white robes where the soles of the sandals remain  always wet with blood?

The civil war, noble cause, revolt, and revolution — all deeply anachronistic, anarchic, confused, disorganized, and disorganizing — will go on.

“Geneva in these circumstances is not possible. If we are going to go to Geneva we have to be strong on the ground, unlike the situation now, which is weak,” al-Jarba said July 7 after returning from the northern Syrian province of Idlib, where he met commanders of rebel brigades.

Huriyet Daily News.  “Saudi arms will arrive soon: Syria rebel chief.”  July 9, 2013.

Additional Reference

Reuters.  “Syrian opposition head expects advanced weapons to reach rebels.”  Al Arabiya, July 8, 2013.

O’Connor, Sean.  “Strategic SAM Deployment in Syria.”  Air Power Australia, January 2010; updated April 2012.

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Egypt – Riot Control – They Just Don’t Get It – Neither Do We

08 Monday Jul 2013

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But most importantly, the deaths are going to galvanize the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters. Rather than help calm the situation, the incident will almost certainly result in many thousands of Egyptians challenging the military’s authority.

Moran, Rick.  “At least 43 dead as Egyptian army fires at protestors.”  American Thinker, July 8, 2013.

But the military said it was forced to fire when an “armed terrorist group” tried to raid the headquarters. An Interior Ministry statement said two security force members — a lieutenant and a recruit — were shot and killed.

Penhaul, Karl and Ed Payne.  “Dozens killed as Egyptian military clashes with pro-Morsy protesters.”  CNN, July 8, 2013.

While Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood seeks to restrict the conversation, perhaps to the point where the only voices it hears are the echoes of its own, and the military with its provisional governments seeks to expand the same, so that but a few and manageable voices may come from many, the fight on the street will start to draw in greater energies.

For one thing, we media focus on it.

I could be writing about Egyptian basic services, tourism, history, and food, but benign and charming as those may be, they’re not quite as stimulating: with conflict, we don’t want to see its development, but we do want to watch.

The other question is how to let something go.

A slight is a slight, and one can shrug that off; a light injury may increase the insight but also provide for bragging rights — ask the 1960s kids around here about that; but a death in combat, Republican Guard vs. Pro-Morsi Protesters, may not be seen that way.

*****

“Before they had used any kind of teargas they resorted to live fire.”

Palmer, Alun.  “BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen shot in Egypt as demonstrations end in bloodshed.”  Mirror News, July 5, 2013.

Three days ago, BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen seems to have caught a few pellets of “bird shot” as a crowd got rowdy toward the end of a day of demonstrating.

Where were those Republican Guard tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and water canons and such so familiar to other policing forces and spoilers and rioters worldwide?

The answer is that through all the Mubarak years involving the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, the state appears not to have prepared for violent dissent on its streets by the constituents it claimed to represent.

“If a given state lacks the means, the doctrines, and the training for homeland defence and internal security missions, that government is more likely to use lethal means that are disproportionate,” said Steven Adragna of US defence consultancy Arcanum.

AFP.  “Experts urge Arab nations to train forces in crowd control.”  February 22, 2013.

“A group of soldiers are preparing for their deployment to Egypt with riot training on post.”

KCEN.  “Riot Control Training.”  Video included.  June 20, 2013.

Glad we go that cleared up.

*****

Actually, we didn’t clear up anything: how was it possible that so common a policing concern as “riot control” should not have been of concern in this middle east state?

The attenuation of violence or control of a “violence spectrum” may become of interest when a state balances its want of defense against the well being of its internal challengets, i.e., when it doesn’t want to kill those expressing their opposition but rather prefers to stall them in their tracks and channel  the same for arrest on the spot or dispersal altogether.

Crowd and riot control would seem arts, specialties, perhaps, within the “art of war”, which in the Islamic Small Wars becomes also the art of managing, for the most part, popular protests and myriad bands of deadly fighters.

This next comes from the earlier anti-Morsi rally days (remember those?):

Near daily, the demonstrations have turned into clashes with police, resulting in the killing of around 70 protesters. Each death has increased public anger against the security forces.

Some protests have turned into stone-throwing attacks on security agency buildings, and many protesters accuse Morsi of giving a green light to police to use excessive force. Their outrage has been further stoked by reports of torture and abduction of some activists by security agents.

AP.  “Frustrated Egyptian police protest riot-control duties.”  Azstarnet, March 9, 2013.

Of course, those 70 deaths were attributed to Morsi-backed police!

The devil’s probably grinning.

For sure, I am.

If “deadly force” — a catch-all term for a suite of military technology and lethal methods — is what one has at hand, “dead” are what will be found “down range”.

With riot controlling technologies widely distributed elsewhere around the world, the absence of the same on the roiled Egyptian street may point to a distinct lack of concern for others.

Where was the love when precinct quartermasters were drawing up budgets and wish lists to protect their troops and their public and control the level of violence that might take place — and now has — on the streets around them?

When a phalanx of Ohio National Guardsmen marched shoulder to shoulder up Blanket Hill 40 years ago to break up an antiwar rally at Kent State University, they carried basic battlefield gear and a military mindset.

Their World War II-era M1 rifles were tipped with bayonets and loaded with .30-caliber bullets that could fly nearly two miles.

Mangels, John.  “Police crowd-control tactics have changed dramatically since Kent State protests.”  The Plain Dealer / Cleveland.com, May 2, 2010.

Compassion leads to “Kevlar vests and plastic shield . . . bean bags and canisters of stinging pepper gas.”

In those attempting an assault on an Egyptian Republican Guard property and those repelling the same with “live fire”, this concern for others — whatever mix of affection, compassion, empathy, and imagination might comprise and express that virtue — would seem to have been missing, and “barbarism”, which is always a conclusion, obscures the story of the evolution or stalling within the language culture and behavior leading up to it.

Additional Reference

Hauslohner, Abigail and Michael Birnbaum.  “Egyptian troops open fire on protesters, killing at least 40; negotiations stalled.”  The Washington Post, July 8, 2013.

Perry, Tom and Alexander Dzjadosz.  “At least 51 killed in Egypt, Islamists call for uprising.”  Reuters, July 8, 2013.

Egypt – Brief – Selections

07 Sunday Jul 2013

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ABC News.  “Middle East Crisis ‘Egypt’s Choice Today is Between Two Flavors of Tyranny.”  July 7, 2013.

*****

In consideration of the previous post, the binary choices for Egypt should seem clear.

If the economic benefits and humanism of modernity suit, the medieval complex in self-concept and tyrannical rule will cease; if not, Islam, as “Islamists” would have it, goes so against the grain of humanity that Egypt will suffer as every region has that has hosted, tolerated, or succumbed to this deeply programmed form in political narcissism: from Afghanistan to Somalia, Islamism as Al Shabaab or Boko Haram and others install it serves primarily themselves . . . until it just does not and they are booted by all of the forces they are most accustomed to blaming, this always excluding their own contribution to their own fate (” . . . and do not exceed the limits, surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits . . . .’).

*****

Al Arabiya.  “One soldier killed after gunmen attack Sinai checkpoints.”  July 7, 2013.

Lynch, Sarah.  “Egypt: El Baradei’s appointment put on hold.”  USA Today, July 6, 2013.

*****

However I may continue with this blogging, I’m inclined to become increasing informal with it in the interest of becoming more timely and, in some respects, more flexible with these hot summer days.

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Egypt – Recent MEMRI Videos Back to Back, July 3 and 7, 2013

07 Sunday Jul 2013

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I am not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or anything. I am just a religious Egyptian woman. I just want to say one thing to the Christians. You are our neighbors. We will set you on fire!

Posted to YouTube July 3, 2013

Posted to YouTube July 7, 2013

At 1:45 in the above:

“I am not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or anything.  I am just a religious Egyptian woman.  I just want to say one thing to the Christians.  You are our neighbors.  We will set you on fire.”

Also note in the second clip the separation in the allocations of responsibility and control and the implacable black-and-white patterns in through expressed.  When some analysts and military pitch a case for an economic explanation for hostility, they may be missing a far more prevalent and powerful variable in basic social grammar, i.e., base rules controlling and shaping the generation of expression within a language culture.

****

Obviously, MEMRI videos are selected, translated, and presented to leave an impression.  However, even so, the compilers seems to have no problem coming up with recordings of authentic recent and relevant hate speech.

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Egypt – Next! ‘About More Than Elections’ – A New Landscape

04 Thursday Jul 2013

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President Barack Obama has been reluctant to meddle, but the White House reported he told Morsi on Monday that “democracy is about more than elections.”

Time Staff: “RECAP: As Morsi Languishes in Detention, Egypt Wakes Up to New Interim leader.:”  Time World, July 3, 2014.

See also, for example,  “Obama to Morsi: Democracy is more than elections” — USA Today; “Egypt’s Morsi says he won’t step down, vows to protect his legitimacy” — NBC World News (yesterday).

So what else is it about?

One might suggest it’s also about living in a world with fewer communication and trade boundaries and, at the same time, with either more dangerous (nuclear) or more fragile (solar panel) essential civilian and military technologies that demand of the earth’s human cargo greater overall cooperation and security.

Basically, democracy, which is reliant on the development of conversations as broad, inclusive, and open as possible, is about (I’m unbelievably about to borrow from the Chinese on this one) “harmonious relations”.

🙂

That’s what democracy — but also, heavily, modernity — is about, and however I / you / we create the next advanced political ecology that attends to improvements in “Qualities of Living” (physically, psychologically, spiritually) in defined areas and regions of interest, we may not have as much choice as we think, and certainly today not the choice of contributing to empires built around the grandiose delusions and narcissistic excesses of a very few individuals absolutely full of themselves and convinced they can do no wrong.

Those have reached the end of a certain part of their script, but as perhaps signaled by the British Monarchy and others, people are not going to stand for being flattened out Soviet style either — that course in human affairs lost its luster some decades ago.

****

I myself live inside a mansion tucked inside a cabin outfitted within an apartment of approximately one-thousand square feet, including the balcony: well equipped also with “champagne tastes and beer money”, I’ve done what Walter Mitty could not and crammed into the space a theater, library, news desk, production facility, bar, grille, and motel.

(One may do a lot with a little given imagination).

It would seem comfort attends a prince — who isn’t a prince and knows it — however poor he may be (will work for compensation while attempting to maintain life and work style).

How about power?

I employ — rather deploy — only myself.

I don’t even own a whip.

*****

To a Sudanese Woman:

Some months ago, I watched a video of punishment meted out to you—a lawfully mandated public whipping that I understand is not uncommon in your country. I have seen many instances of human brutality, but this one was particularly harrowing.

In the midst of my revulsion, certain thoughts surfaced.

Morrison, Toni.  “Dignity and Depravity: You shouted.  You fell.  But you kept rising.”  The Daily Beast, September 18, 2011.

There seems to be on YouTube at least a few recordings of similarly dehumanizing, humiliating, and altogether sadistic behavior, even, so claimed, a Saudi boy whipping a garbage man until he cries and laughing about it.

This next, a BBC clip, also more up to date (July 3, 2013), is about the Al Qaeda types contributing to revolutionary forces in Syria:

Aside: I have no idea what Qatar or the United States government are doing even remotely associating themselves with the above in Syria.  If such represent proxy forces on the front of a potential Islamic democracy in Syria, the same need to be regarded as the first enemy of it and curtailed with finality.

*****

Egyptians, by seeing through the deposing of a dictator in early development, have walked past the gates of hell (as perhaps featured in the above clip) and if taking one step backwards to military rule may well go on to take two forward into the more dignified grace of a a more civil, honest, inclusive, and productive democracy.

Egypt – Brief – As Greeted in the Morning

04 Thursday Jul 2013

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Morsi has been forced out, and it’s because the armed forces, plus the police and the intelligence services, decided that it was in their interest to ditch him. And that’s a victory for army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his associates, not for the Tahrir Square passionaries who were shouting themselves hoarse.

Taheri, Amir.  “A coup by any name.”  New York Post, July 4, 2013.

No matter who is in charge in Egypt, the nation of 85 million people remains a strategic concern for the United States. And although the U.S. has poured more than $70 billion in military and economic aid into Egypt since 1948, the U.S. government’s ability to influence outcomes there remains very limited.

Curry, Tom.  “With Morsi toppled, Egypt remains US strategic worry and destination for aid.”  NBC News, July 3, 2013.

*****

In the wake of massive protests – both for and against Egypt’s current Government – Mr. Ban noted the delicate nature of the situation following the army’s announcement that it is suspending the Constitution and appointing the head of the constitutional court as interim head of state – “decisions that have not been accepted by President [Mohamed] Morsy”.

UN News Centre.  “Egypt: Secretary-General appeals for calm, non-violence to overcome ‘deep difficulties’.”  July 4, 2013.

What will happen to Morsy, who insists he remains the country’s legitimate leader, and his key supporters? Will the sporadic outbreaks of violence that reportedly killed at least 32 people on Wednesday spread into wider unrest? And what hopes remain for Egypt’s messy attempts to build a multiparty democracy?

Wedeman, Ben, Jethro Mullen, Chelsea J. Carter.  “A day after coup, a new and uncertain order in Egypt.”  CNN, July 4, 2013.

*****

Egypt’s military holds the cards x cohesion x education x experience x muscle and may make short work of teaching the Muslim Brotherhood that it is not God’s gift to Egypt but rather just another — and not particularly good looking — organization, however large, on a more varied and sophisticated Egyptian political landscape.

In fact, with the “Botherhood” shunted aside for a moment, other self-determining ideas about the relationship between citizens and the state in which they live and about national lifestyle — how Egyptian will life and what they will and will not do — will have time, finally, to percolate and coalesce into genuinely competitive and forward looking movements.

So much has revolved recently around the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood — which observation also relates well to the concept that is “political narcissism” (even negative attention can be breathtaking) — that little has been said about other movements and parties.

Wikipedia this morning lists more than 50 such.

The Carnegie Endowment maintains an undated page also listing parties and alliances: Guide to Egypt’s Transition.  “Parties and Alliances.”  Carnegie Endowment, n.d.

I’m not much interested in the fate of the “Egyptian Nazi Party” (where I live, that doesn’t even rate a link) but am curious about how Egyptians feel and think in political terms and how that may aggregate into powerful organizations contributing to the representative course of the state.

At the moment, there may be not much in good shape.

Of the brand named “Constitution Party” associated with the distinguished Mohamed El-Baradei, Ahram Online noted back in April, “On Monday, a group of the party’s young members stormed its headquarters in Cairo and occupied it. They demanded dismissing the party’s leadership and creating a new steering committee.”

Whether earlier or later than that youthful dumb move, but close to concomitant with it, thirteen party members resigned.

Game over.

However, there is a restart button — and Egypt’s military has pressed it.

Game on!

Additional Reference

Ahram Online.  “More political parties join anti-Morsi petition campaign.”  May 16, 2013.

Guide to Egypt’s Transition.  “Parties and Alliances.”  Carnegie Endowment, n.d.

Wikipedia.  “Constitution Party (Egypt)”.

Wikipedia.  “List of political parties in Egypt”.