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| Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (top) and the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie |
“The Muslims defeated the Islamists” in Egypt.
To my mind, these five words by Walid Abi-Mershed in his
column today for Saudi Asharq Alawsat
explain the army’s removal of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first Islamist president,
after millions of people protested over his leadership.
A scintillating account of the rise and fall of Morsi
one year after assuming office comes in this think piece titled “Shadows of the Supreme Guide
and Army General” and penned in Arabic by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief
of pan-Arab al-Hayat:
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei
went to al-Ittihadiya Palace to meet with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on
the latter’s invitation.
The
meeting was one-on-one, except that the visitor sensed the presence of others.
He saw
behind the president the silhouettes of Mohamed Badie, Supreme
Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his second-in-command Khairat el-Shater.
Such
shadows raise suspicions. The visitor worried about the president resorting to the
supreme guide, not the constitution.
That’s why
ElBaradei told this (al-Hayat)
newspaper, “I met with the president, we had a conversation and I gave up on
him.”
Hamdeen Sabahi went to
al-Ittihadiya Palace. The shadows’
insistence on attending the meeting reminded him of his conversation with presidential
candidate Morsi during the countdown to the runoffs.
Hamdeen
had won some five million votes in the first round and opted out of the
presidential race.
Morsi was
hoping to woo those voters to secure victory over Ahmed Shafiq in the
runoff.
Hamdeen
asked Morsi a difficult question: “If you won the presidency, would you be a
president independent of the Muslim Brotherhood’s diktats?”
Morsi
could not answer and chose instead to offer Hamdeen the post of vice president.
Hamdeen
begged off.
Amr Moussa went to
al-Ittihadiya Palace and met with Morsi and the two shadows.
Since he
emerged from the meeting and monitored the president’s performance, he did not
hide his disquiet about the future of Egypt, the native land of Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz that has
always been a beacon of hope for its people. Moussa got into such a sweat about
Egypt’s spirit.
That was
in the lead-up to June 30, which all three men consider to be a landmark day.
They
believed early presidential elections were de rigueur to save the country from
Morsi’s regime. Clearly, they meant to save it from the big shadow cast on the
regime – the shadow of the supreme guide.
Standards
and the code of ethics require professional journalists not to fall for the
opposition. So we had to make our way to the headquarters of the Freedom
and Justice Party, political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.
I asked the
party vice chairman Dr. Essam
el-Erian if he ever-expected President Hosni Mubarak to fall and Egypt to choose
a president from the Muslim Brotherhood.
I liked
his answer: “I am confident this pipedream never crossed any Egyptian’s mind. Any
Egyptian would be lying if he told you he expected the revolution to succeed or
Hosni Mubarak to fall or Mohamed Morsi to become president. Had the era of
miracles not been a thing of the past, I would have told you we are living in
that era.”
Erian did
not seem worried about June 30.
His self-assurance
made him say he not only expected Morsi to complete his mandate but could also win
a second term.
Erian
sounded confident and relaxed and on completion of our conversation he invited
my colleague Mohamed Salah and I to the office of party chairman Saad el-Katatni. The
later was equally laid-back.
The “January
2011 revolution” took by surprise both the Brotherhood’s supreme guide and the
armed forces’ top dog at the time, Field Marshal Hussein
Tantawi. The two men reacted with aplomb.
Voters
then eagerly opted to cast off the shadows of Mubarak and his generals. They
ended up with Morsi’s regime and the supreme guide’s shadow.
Morsi
failed to dispel the impression that “the supreme guide’s bureau is the
president’s president.” His mistakes piled up and the media showed him no
mercy.
Fear of
“Brotherhood-ization” by millions of Egyptians turned “June 30” into a broad
uprising against the president and the shadow lurking in the palace.
In January
2011, Tantawi felt the army had to connect with the public squares.
In June
2013, Gen.
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi felt the army had to reconcile with them and sponsor
them.
The result
was a full-blown intifada and a quasi-coup.
The “Brothers”
refused to come to terms with the outcome.
They
refused to reflect on the reasons that drove millions to public squares to jeer
them.
They
refused to recognize the implications of the millions of signatures on the Tamarrud petition.
The
“Brothers” preferred to aim at Gen. Sisi’s shadow to portray the Brotherhood as
the victim and the scapegoat.
When the
head of the High Constitutional Court Adly Mansour was sworn in
as interim president, they elected to see Gen. Sisi’s silhouette behind him.
Yesterday’s
sight of two Egypts facing off in the shadows of the supreme guide and army general
was traumatic.
The
“Brothers” ventured to take the supreme guide’s shadow into the palace.
Removal of
an elected president in a quasi-revolution and quasi-coup is a gamble as well.
There is
no solution other than to quickly exit this tunnel and sail into an Egypt in
the shadows of a constitution compatible with its spirit and an elected
president unbound in his palace by the silhouettes of a supreme guide and an
army general.
