Bulletin: What’s Happening in Egypt Following Parliament Being Dissolved
June 15th, 2012 - 8:38 am
Also read my article: Why Do So Many American Jews Support Obama?"
Note: This article on Egypt should be read in conjunction with my analysis of the situation.
Demonstrators are gathering in Tahrir Square to protest the high court's decision to dissolve parliament.
Question: Will they be only "liberals" or will Salafists and Brotherhood people participate, and in what numbers? So far demonstrations are very small with a march scheduled for 5pm Friday.
Will army allow demonstrations?
Question: What will Friday sermons in the mosques say about this, inciting to action?
In effect, the military is not only in control but has more power than it exercised in the February 2011-June 2012 period.
The court's rationale was that party lists ran for and took the one-third of the seats set aside for independents.
Question: What's the timeline? Just to speculate, new elections at end 2012 or beginning of 2013?
And then another six months--i.e., late 2013 for writing a constitution?
which would mean the army will rule for the next year plus.
Establishment candidate Ahmad Shafiq praises army.
Senior Muslim Brotherhood leader and lawmaker Mohammed el-Beltagy said the rulings amounted to a "full-fledged coup."
And what will happen in presidential election due early next week?
MORE COVERAGE AS EVENTS DEVELOP.
From the other article:
“Obama’s image as an apparently highly educated, supposedly intellectual, superficially sophisticated, cosmopolitan personality fits with majority Jewish preferences.”
You could use the same words to describe the typical “successful” liberal Jew. Peter Beinart and the like.
The army knowingly let itself be bullied by the MB into allowing illegal parliamentary elections to take place; this allowed the army to diffuse tensions, see what might happen among voters, or even to let parliament stand if it suited them. It also served the purpose of letting the country see how the Islamists would do whatever they could get away with and for the army see how those Islamists would operate once they felt they had power.
Pretty smart move in my opinion. Now Egypt will have a constitution drawn up with fewer Islamists and whenever new parliamentary elections are held there will definitely be fewer Islamists in that parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood has been outmaneuvered in a way they can’t even really complain about let alone do anything about. Don’t look for Tahrir Square to fill up. People have seen how the Islamists intend to do business and are not crazy about it.
For all the anti-Mubarak talk, trust me, a lot of people wish he was still in power – not enough, but a lot. The army has learned a lot since Feb. 2011 – they’ve not repeated the mistakes Mubarak made and have learned from Assad what not to do.
The Egyptian army leaders have seen what has happened in Turkey and in Libya and they have no desire to find themselves in prison or swinging at the end of the gallows.
They could probably live with a Muslim Brotherhood regime with some checks and balances but they don’t want to turn over complete power to the MB.
That’s just not the way things are done in the Arab World. There is nothing in Islamic culture like respect for the rule of law, minority rights, respect for differing opinions, private property rights and the entire concept of limited government that evolved in the West since the end of the Middle Ages.
Varying forms of despotism exist in the Arab Muslim World but the seeds of democracy have never sprouted there. No independent civil society exists in the Western sense of the word. Every generation seems to occur more oppression and less freedom than the one before it experienced.
Egyptian voters have a choice between the old regime and an Islamist one. Whatever they choose, they won’t get democracy.
EXACTLY It’s a feeling of the present expressed at that moment!! Let there be songs to fill the air!!
Hmm i hope you dont get offended with this question, but how much does a site like yours earn?
“did not sit very well with me after some time”