“OUSTING MORSI IS A TRIUMPH FOR OUR DEMOCRACY” By Alaa Al-Aswany* The Egyptian people saw through the Muslim Brotherhood. They must also reject any revival of the old regime No matter how the Muslim Brothers try to deceive themselves, the truth is crystal clear: more than 30 million Egyptians took to the streets and overthrew them. The question is: was this ousting of Mohamed Morsi democratic? In a democratic system the parliament has the right to withdraw confidence from an elected president before the end of his or her term. The president then steps down and early presidential elections take place. If the parliament is absent, the people should take power into their hands. Mr Morsi became President when he got 13 million votes; the Tamarod Campaign managed to collect 22 million signatures against him. This was followed by more than 30 million Egyptians taking to the streets. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi could not but execute the verdict of the people in order to prevent the danger of a civil war — the early signs of which seemed clear in the air. The army didn’t stage a coup d’état; rather, it carried out the will of the people in exceptional circumstances to oust a president who had lost his legitimacy. Mr Morsi’s legitimacy was lost in three ways: when he issued a sweeping decree last November that insisted that the President’s laws and decisions could not be challenged by the judiciary; with the killing of a hundred martyrs during his rule; and when millions of Egyptians signed the petition of the Tamarod Campaign and took to the streets to withdraw confidence. The ousting of Mr Morsi in this way is totally democratic. Since the March 2011 referendum the revolution has been pushed down the wrong path, away from its main aims. Egyptians have now restored their revolution; the people have proven that they have supreme power. It’s now time to achieve the aims of the revolution. The leadership of the army has changed: it has proved that protecting the interests of the nation is more important than international pressures or compromises with the Brotherhood. The police also have learnt the lessons of the revolution: thousands of officers have refused to be used once more in the protection of a despotic regime. The state’s institutions were united with the people to carry out the task of liberating Egypt from the Brotherhood. Throughout the past thirty years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been used as a scarecrow to justify despotism. Mubarak’s argument was that the Egyptian people were not ready for democracy and any free elections would bring the Brothers to power. Yet when they did, the Egyptian people surprised everybody with an awe-inspiring miracle. Egyptians managed within only one year to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. They discovered that the Brothers exploit religion politically but do not adhere to its principles; that for them everything is justified as long as it leads them to power. On June 30 the scarecrow of the Brotherhood was crushed for ever. The spectacle of 30 million Egyptians opposing the Brotherhood while performing group prayers in the squares was a message for the whole world that religion ought not be used for political purposes. While SCAF, the former Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, remain responsible for the crimes and massacres that took place during its earlier rule, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t praise the army’s great role in defending the will of the people now. In a similar way, our joy at the restoration of good relations between the people and the police would not prevent us from calling for justice for the martyrs killed by the police. There is no justice without fair trials. The Muslim Brothers’ leaders didn’t imagine that the people would turn against them so fast. They know that Mr Morsi will not come back to power but they still send their followers to attack people to cause chaos. The recurrent criminal acts of the Brothers and their allies emphasise the terrorist nature they have managed to hide for years behind their lies about abandoning violence. We must remember too that in the second round of voting in the presidential elections in June last year Egyptians found themselves faced with a sinister choice between Ahmed Shafik, the representative of the old regime, and Mr Morsi. Some voted for Mr Morsi not because they were convinced that he was the right choice but because they didn’t want a return to the Mubarak regime. On the other hand, some Egyptians’ fear of the Brotherhood was much greater than their fear for the revolution and so they gave their votes to Shafik. Over a whole year, revolutionaries who elected Mr Morsi were accused by supporters of the old regime of jeopardising Egypt by surrendering it to the Brothers. A sarcastic name was devised for them: “lemon squeezers” (those who had to squeeze lemon into their mouths to overcome the nausea caused by swallowing the Brotherhood’s candidate). There have been three types of Egyptians who overthrew the Brotherhood: those who had put their trust in them at the beginning but then discovered that they acted like gang members with no sense of morality or principles; those who harbour long-standing anger and bitterness towards the Brothers as a result of their betrayal of the revolution for their own interest; and the remnants of the old regime who exploited the public fury against the Brotherhood to reappear on the public scene. Now, the major figures of the Mubarak regime are back. It’s not by chance that we see journalists and politicians who pandered to Mubarak and benefited from his regime at the forefront of the present struggle. The old regime is clearing its tarnished reputation and preparing for power. The favours the revolution has done us are numerous. It taught us not to be scared. It taught us that if the people of Egypt gather, they will be victorious. It saved us from the Mubarak regime, from military rule and from religious fascism. Yet there are two dangers — the return of the military and the restoration of the Mubarak regime. The first is rather unlikely; the army is reluctant to rule. It was motivated by pure patriotism in supporting the people last week. The second is very likely to happen, and is quite close. The revolution must prevent those who oppressed Egyptians and took part in cheating and humiliating them from returning to power. Democracy is the solution. *Alaa Al-Aswany is a dentist and novelist, whose books include The Yacoubian Building. He was in Tahrir Square for each of the 18 days before Mubarak fell from power © Alaa Al Aswany, 2013
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:42:54 +0000