Rallies go both ways as Egypt goes nowhere
Pro-, anti-Morsi groups don’t talk
Huge competing rallies — the toxic ingredients that can make life in the Egyptian capital so dangerous and uncertain — were front and centre again on the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
Tens of thousands of Islamists gathered outside a mosque at Raba Square in the blistering midday sun Friday to demand that elected President Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political leader, be reinstated.
Across town at Tahrir Square, a secularist crowd that numbered in the many thousands, but was not quite as large after nightfall, continued to celebrate Morsi’s downfall and praise the military for ending one year of Brotherhood rule on July 3.
In the first good news the Brotherhood has received for days, Washington called for Morsi’s release. It followed a similar appeal earlier in the day from the German Foreign Ministry.
The detention of Morsi and others was “politically motivated,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.
However, the White House continued to deliberate on whether to call last week’s events a “coup.” If Washington described last week’s actions as a coup, the Egyptian military could lose $1.3 billion in aid.
“We are going to stay one month, two months, whatever it takes,” vowed Said Ali, who had spent several weeks living in a tent at Raba Square with fellow school teachers from Al-Sharqiya Governorate. “We won’t go home until Mohammed Morsi is back on his throne.”
Joining the conversation, a grizzled elderly mosque worker, Haji Attia Hamed, shouted that “a gang rules Egypt today. Our people must unite to restore him.” Another teacher, Negeh Barder, said, “We want democracy just like you have it in your country. Someone is elected and he is in power until the next election.”
Such impassioned opinions meant nothing to Mina Samuel, an aeronautical engineer who came to Tahrir Square after attending a Coptic Christian mass at a nearby church.
“Morsi is no more our president,” Samuel said. “He had his chance. The Muslim Brotherhood had its chance. They only made things worse. Their behaviour and our protests forced the army to act.”
Ahmed Ali, a teenager studying marketing who has been a regular fixture at the Tahrir rallies, said the armed forces were right to have interceded. “What we need is politics that are free of religion, and the army is guaranteeing that for us,” said Ali, who is not related to the teacher of the same name.
Although they collaborated two years ago to end six decades of military dictatorships, there has not been a hint of compromise from either side for many months. Nor are talks of any kind taking place or planned between the two sides or between the Brotherhood and the military or the interim government led by appointee Adly Mansour, a judge.
Given this reality, when and how this standoff might end is uncertain. Islamists and secularists both claimed Friday that they only supported peaceful demonstrations. But such words may have been spoken because of the military’s promise to arrest anyone who appeared to encourage violence.
Previous statements about avoiding bloodshed did nothing to stop fighting between the Islamists and the military last Monday. When the tear gas cleared, 51 civilians and three soldiers and police had died in a battle that had begun during morning prayers near Raba Square. Another check on violence may be that that gunfight was badly lopsided in the military’s favour.
Despite the brave words about staying in the streets until the military reverses itself and lets Morsi go, such an outcome is highly unlikely. The generals hold all the levers of power and have not hesitated to use them to silence the Brotherhood.
After detaining Morsi and voiding the new, Islamist-inspired constitution, the security forces closed pro-Brotherhood television stations and arrested hundreds of the movement’s senior leaders. More recently there have been ominous hints Morsi may be charged with inciting violence or with having escaped from jail two years ago as a popular revolt ended air force general Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years in power.
Despite all this, Mansour has indicated that he will invite some members of the Brotherhood to join the caretaker cabinet he is expected to name on Sunday or Monday. But the Brotherhood has emphatically rejected the overture as long as Morsi and his closest allies remain under arrest.
Rather than march on the Republican Guard headquarters where they believe Morsi is being held, and where there was fighting last Monday, the Brotherhood announced that to try to calm the situation, it would instead march on the defence ministry and then return to their sit-in in Raba Square.
“We now have no public voice because the media only gives the Tahrir people’s point of view, and most of our leaders are gone, but we will not be blind and deaf forever,” Ali, the schoolteacher, said. “Do not forget that before we began the Jan. 25 (2011), revolution most of our leaders had been locked up. So having no leaders again is not new for us.”