"The general public was sold. It ran stumbling and screaming into Sisi’s protective arms and nestled in his bosom. Almost overnight, people mutated into barrel-thumping nationalists celebrating a victory against a foreign enemy, when no battle has yet been won and their enemy is one of them. Hot air — lots of hot air — has been blown into former President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s corpse. Perhaps they are trying to blow his spirit into Sisi. Three years after the heady independent days of January 25, and Egyptians are once again seeking out the army strongman to hold their hand, and an enemy — invented or real, it doesn’t matter — to define and shape their cause. Like all nationalist movements, this is sentiment partly informed by fear and hate. There is nothing of real ideological substance here, no long-term goal other than either containing the Brotherhood or crushing the Islamist movement. The delight with which the general public received Sisi’s speech confirmed this. His speech was essentially nonsense, but delivered with a folksy populism and panache that to me suggests a man in the early days of a presidential campaign. Does it have to be stated out loud that armies don’t take mandates from the general public? Do we have to remind ourselves that a smiling army officer in shades and a uniform telling people to take to the streets against an enemy is nine times out of 10 an individual to be wary of? Should we not be asking ourselves why the interim president didn’t deliver this happy message?" -- Sarah Carr, with whom I largely agree.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 00:23:54 +0000
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