I was in Tahrir when they announced Mubarak was ousted. I was in Tahrir when they announced Morsi had won. And I was also in Tahrir as they announced Morsi was ousted.
Each time was a remarkably different experience for me, only united by roaring crowds, waving flags, fireworks, hugs from strangers and a big sense of relief. This time, the cheers were even more deafening. They were not just in Tahrir, but in other squares around Cairo and the country, all packed without any real organizational power behind them. The floods of people in the streets around Cairo appeared to me bigger than before, people seemed to genuinely believe they “took back their country,” and that the military was a hero doing all the right things. But perhaps what characterized this time in Tahrir for me was my sense of worry, deeper than ever before.
via How Morsi, Brotherhood Lost Egypt
Amen to everything said in this article by Bassem Sabry.
Maybe I will add an excerpt of a previous post reblogged from accidentaltheologist.com that works as the best reason to explain why this 2nd stage of the Arab Spring:
“The army forcibly removed a democratically elected government, but not a democratic one. An analysis of the Brotherhood’s dismal failure in The Huffington Post points to its “limited understanding of democracy, which is restricted to the mechanics of voting, elections and ballot boxes, while showing precious little appreciation for the values that make up the essence of a democracy, such as the rule of law, citizenship, equality and human rights… Morsi and the Brothers believe that winning an election gives them carte blanche to run the state as if it was their feudality.”
A constitution illegally rammed through is not democratic. Nor is a refusal to be held accountable. Or an iron grip on all offices. Or repeated attempts to ban freedom of speech and to undermine the judiciary. Or the demonization of all opposition as treason, and the summary arrest and torture of opponents. The Brotherhood won election by the slimmest of margins (with a percentage of the vote that would by all accounts be halved if elections were to be held again today), but instead of acknowledging this and reaching out to the public as a whole, it opted for authoritarianism.
Egyptians did not follow Western rules in response. They did it their way, taking to the streets, which is something Americans might have done in far greater numbers when George W. Bush won two elections under highly questionable circumstances in the United States. Much of what he accomplished was way beyond the bounds of legitimacy. And need I really say that the same goes for a certain government elected in Germany in 1933?”.
What else to add? …Again I post this with the feeling that people expects from me something else than reposting but when something is perfectly said, the only job we must do is to spread it in silence acknowledging its value.
And I do so.
Enjoy.
Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab) 