Enclosed are the following seven items. For ongoing news from Egypt, The Guardian newspaper is reporting live and publishing extensively.
1. It only gets worse from here, by Issandr El Amrani, published on The Arabist, Aug 15, 2013
2. U.S. will pay a price for its hypocrisy on Egypt, by Haroon Siddiqui, columnist and foreign affairs editor, Toronto Star, Aug 15, 2013
3. Statement of the National Salvation Front of Egypt, Aug 14, 2013
4. The Brotherhood after 30 June: An interview with Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery of the Freedom and Justice Party, by the editors of Jadaliyya, Aug 14, 2013
5. The government of Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador from Egypt, Aug 14, 2013
6. Two statements from Tunisia
7. Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt, including comment by Roger Annis and brief introduction by the ISO
8. Statement by the Anti-Coup, Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance of Egypt, August 14, 2013
It only gets worse from here
By Issandr El Amrani, published on The Arabist (‘The website on Arab politics and culture’), Aug 15, 2013
You could ask a thousand questions about the violence that has shaken Egypt, from why police decided to move now against Islamist sit-ins and with such brutality after making so much of its careful planning in the last week, to whether the attacks on churches and Christians more generally that erupted in reaction are part of a pre-planned reaction or the uncontrollable sectarian direction political tensions take in moments of crisis. But the question that really bothers me is whether this escalation is planned to create a situation that will inevitably trigger more violence – that this is the desired goal.
The fundamental flaw of the July 3 coup, and the reason those demonstrators that came out on June 30 against the Morsi administration were wrong to welcome it, is that it was based on an illusion. That illusion, at least among the liberal camp which is getting so much flak these days, was that even a partial return of the old army-led order could offer a chance to reboot the transition that took such a wrong turn after the fall of Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011. This camp believed that gradual reform, even of a much less ambitious nature than they desired in 2011, would be more likely to come by accommodating the old order than by allowing what they perceived as an arrangement between the military and the Islamists to continue. Better to focus on fixing the country, notably its economy, and preventing Morsi from sinking it altogether, and take the risk that part of the old order could come back.
In this vision, a gradual transformation of the country could take place while preserving political stability through the armed forces. It would be negotiated and hard-fought, as so many democratic transitions in other parts of the world have been, but the old order would need the talent and competence of a new technocratic, and ultimately political, class to deliver and improve governance. Their hope was that the Islamists would understand that they had lost this round, and that they could be managed somehow while a new more liberal order emerged. This, in essence, was what Mohamed ElBaradei and other liberals bought into on July 3, no doubt earnestly, and what so many other outside of formal politics fervently hoped for: not the revolution radicals want, but a wiser, more tolerant, order in the country.
Unfortunately, among the broad liberal camp in Egypt, those who entertained such hopes are in a minority. Even among the National Salvation Front, as its obscene statement [text below] praising the police today showed, most appear to have relished the opportunity to crush the Muslim Brothers and appeared to believe that other Islamists could simply choose to be crushed alongside it, kowtow to the new order, or be pushed back into quietism. It appears that much of the business and traditional elite – represented politically by the Free Egyptians and the Wafd Party among others – falls into that category. They are joined by the security establishment, or deep state if you prefer.
Over the last week there was much talk of divisions between this segment and those symbolically important liberal members of the government, such as ElBaradei, over whether or not to negotiate with the Brothers or break their sit-ins. The camp that eventually won does not just believe that the Brothers are not worth negotiating with. They want to encourage it in its provocative sectarian discourse, its supporters desire for violence, and the push as much as the Islamist camp as possible into being outlaws. Those who nurture such eradicateur sentiment do not so much actually want to physically eradicate all Islamists as to provoke them into a situation where their political existence will be eradicated because they will have opted for violence. They are willing to endure that violence, even a return to the counter-insurgency of the 1990s, and sporadic sectarian and terrorist attacks, because they believe it will strengthen their camp and enable them to permanently block most Islamists from politics. This is why I believe I think that analyses such as this one that argue that such an insurgency is not possible any more are wrong – not only is it possible, but it is desired .
Their thinking is cynical in the extreme, not unlike Bashar al-Assad’s push towards militarizing the political conflict he faced in 2011. They are willing to live with the violence, impact on the economy, and other downsides if it strengthens their own power and legitimacy. An Islamist camp that, as elements of it are apparently beginning to, sets fire to churches and attacks police stations is one that becomes much easier to demonize domestically and internationally. But it is also much more unpredictable than Egypt’s homegrown violent Islamist movements were in the 1980s and 1990s, because there is a context of a globalized jihadi movement that barely existed then, and because the region as a whole is turmoil and Egypt’s borders are not nearly as well controlled as they were then (and today’s Libya is a far less reliable neighbor than even the erratic Colonel Qadhafi was then.)
In their strategy against the July 3 coup, the Brothers and their allies have relied on an implicit threat of violence or social breakdown (and the riling of their camp through sectarian discourse pitting the coup as a war on Islam, conveniently absolving themselves for their responsibility for a disastrous year) , combined with the notion of democratic legitimacy, i.e. that they were after all elected and that, even if popular, it was still a coup. On the latter argument, they may have gained some ground over time both at home and abroad. But on the former, they got things very, very wrong: their opponents will welcome their camp’s rhetorical and actual violence, and use it to whitewash their own.
Issandr El Amrani is a freelance journalist and commentator. An editor of the now defunct Cairo Times and founder of Cairo magazines, he has lived in Cairo since 2000, writing about Egypt and the Middle East for a wide range of UK and US publications.
2. U.S. will pay a price for its hypocrisy on Egypt
By Haroon Siddiqui, columnist and foreign affairs editor, Toronto Star, Aug 15, 2013
There has always been a hierarchy to the value of life. Kings mattered more than peasants. Killing continental European colonialists in Africa or the British in India brought the wrath of the empire down on the natives, who were strapped to the cannons and blown to bits by the hundreds. The contemporary era, with its spread of democracy, globalization and greater egalitarianism, raised hopes that all human beings would have equal value.
But the murder of 2,977 innocents on Sept. 11, 2001, led to the killing of at least 100,000 Muslim civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan. An Israeli life is deemed infinitely more valuable than that of a Palestinian. Our own government in Ottawa makes no bones about caring more about Christians in Egypt and Pakistan than Muslim victims of similar religious persecution there or in Myanmar. When the West does care about Muslims, it does so for the secular “good Muslim,” not the Islamist “bad Muslim.”
When Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s thrice-elected “Islamist” prime minister, ordered tear gas and water cannons on peaceful protesters in Istanbul, he was duly reviled. But the Egyptian army that has been firing live ammunition into peaceful “Islamist” protesters and killing them by the hundreds in the last month has only been told, politely, of our “concern.”
On July 11, Ottawa raised just such a pipsqueak “concern.” Stephen Harper’s government was more emphatic as it condemned the shooting death of a Coptic Christian priest near El Arish. “The targeting of religious leaders is unacceptable.” Following the second massacre, July 27, in which about 80 protesters were gunned down, Ottawa was “deeply concerned and appalled” — and fixated on its clarion call for respecting “religious minorities,” namely Coptic Christians.
Barack Obama was also mostly silent about the two massacres. So was David Cameron. So was much of Europe. They had refused to call the July 3 military coup a coup. In fact, John Kerry passed the perverse judgment that in toppling the elected president Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian army was “restoring democracy.” American annual aid of $1.3 billion was to continue.
It’s only now after Wednesday’s bloody massacre of pro-Morsi protesters that Obama stirred himself to shed crocodile tears. The U.S. and its allies have been enablers of the grave crimes committed by the Egyptian military as well of the Goebbelsian lies it has been peddling.
The U.S., the E.U and others have also been doing the Egyptian army’s bidding by calling on “all sides” to refrain from violence when, in fact, the violence has been almost always one-sided. Western governments and media have also accused Morsi of having been unduly partisan when, in fact, he was far less so than most ruling political parties in democracies.
Morsi was inept in the extreme. But he did reach out to his opponents who simply refused to accept their repeated defeats at the polls.
It has now been credibly reported that the secular anti-Morsi forces formed an unholy alliance with Egypt’s Deep State (the army, the intelligence, the security forces, the police, the interior ministry and its paid thugs, the judiciary and the bureaucracy), along with the beneficiaries of the Hosni Mubarak era (crony capitalists and corrupt politicians) to undermine the Muslim Brotherhood government. They collaborated in mounting mass protests, in a blaze of hateful anti-Brotherhood propaganda by both the state and privately-owned media, which heralded the unproven and unprovable claims that 20 million people had taken to the streets and 22 million had signed anti-Morsi petitions. Postcoup, acute shortages of gas and electricity miraculously disappeared overnight. Law-and-order situations improved in selective neighbourhoods.
Reportedly in on the plot were the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other oil-rich Gulf states except Qatar. They hate the Brotherhood, not so much for its Islamic ideology but the democratic threat it poses to their monarchies. They rewarded the coup with $12 billion in aid.
What we’ve witnessed is “fascism under the false pretence of democracy and liberalism,” said Amr Hamzawy, an Egyptian political activist and former MP.
All this will not be lost on the Muslim masses in Egypt and elsewhere. There will be a price to pay — we don’t quite know when and where and how. But as American pollster Dalia Mogahed, who has surveyed Muslim societies worldwide, says, it is useful to remind ourselves that “Al Qaeda was conceived in the prisons of Egypt and, contrary to conventional wisdom, not the caves of Afghanistan.”
3. Official Statement by the National Salvation Front
Official statement by the National Salvation Front published today, received originally by email in Arabic, August 14, 2013. Translation by Jay Roddy and Nawal Hegazy.
Today, Egypt lifted her head high, announcing to the world her victory over not only all political forces that seek to traffic in the name of religion in Egypt and the region, but also over the countries that tried to support the rule of the Guidance Bureau. These powers failed in the face of the presence of the great people on June 30, and continued to conspire to deprive Egypt of complete victory of its revolution of January 25, 2011; of establishing a democratic, national community seeking progress, prosperity, and social justice; and the drafting of a civilian constitution that guarantees citizens’ freedoms and all citizenship rights, for women and men, Muslims and Copts, poor and rich – all on equal footing.
The conspiracy then attempted to impose on Egypt a half victory, proposing what they called a “safe exit”, returning the organization’s money and letting it continue its activity. But the firm leadership of the armed forces and the collective will of the people demanded the dispersal of the sit-in at the hands of the security forces. The leaders of this group that exploits the innocent – women and children! – for their own protection are now fleeing from the fortifications that they built over the past six weeks and trying to conceal their escape from what they call “sit-ins” at the squares. The Egyptian people will disperse these gatherings themselves before the security forces.
While the front continues to claim the need to prosecute all leaders of the Brotherhood who are responsible for incitement to violence and the escalation of attacks throughout the day on citizens’ property, public facilities, and Egyptian churches in Beni Suef, Minya, and Sohag, it calls upon the national Egyptian youth to form popular committees to defend homes and Egyptian property, as we did in the wake of the revolution of January 25, 2011.
The NSF salutes the police and military forces, and bows its head in tribute and respect for the great people, imposing their will of complete victory and continuing to strive for a constitution befitting a civilized Egypt, rising to a bright future with democracy, a civil state, and social justice.
4. The Brotherhood after 30 June: An interview with Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery of the Freedom and Justice Party
By the editors of Jadaliyya, Aug 14, 2013
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/13597/the-brotherhood-after-30-june_an-interview-with-th
5. The government of Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador from Egypt
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54743
6. Two statements from Tunisia:
* By the Ennahdha Party (Islamist governing party of Tunisia)
Tunis, 14 August 2013
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=31237
The coup authorities in Egypt have committed a massacre against peaceful protesters in Cairo squares and in other cities across Egypt killing hundreds and injuring thousands, including women and children.
Ennahdha Party which is following with pain and great concern the ongoing crime:
1. Strongly condemns this crime against the people of Egypt and its revolution, and condemns the grave violations against women, children and other peaceful civilians.
2. Express its complete solidarity with the Egyptian people and their right to regain their freedom and their rejection of the overturning of their will.
3. Calls on all Egyptian, regional and international parties to assume their responsibilities in ending this terrible crime and supporting the Egyptian people’s struggle against the coup.
Ennahdha Party (moderate Islamist governing party of Tunisia)
Rached Ghannouchi
* Joint statement by two human rights organizations in Tunisia (in French
Nous condamnons le massacre de la police Égytienne contre les manifestants
La Fédérations des tunisiens pour une citoyenneté des deux rives (FTCR) présidée par Tarek Hiba ainsi que le Comité pour le respect des Libertés et des Droits de l’Homme en Tunisie (CRLDHT) représenté par Mouhieddine Cherbib ont condamné fermement le massacre commit par la police égyptienne ce mercredi 14 août 2013 contre les manifestants partisans du président Morsi destitué.
La FTCR et le CRLDHT condamnent le plus fermement possible le massacre commit par la police égyptienne contre les manifestants partisans du président Morsi destitué.
La charge de la police et des forces de l’ordre contre les places occupées par les manifestants ont provoqué a été un véritable bain de sang qui s’est soldé par la mort de centaines de personnes dont des policiers, des journalistes et d’innombrables blessés.
Notre soutien aux revendications démocratiques légitimes du peuple égyptien et à sa lutte contre le fanatisme religieux est un soutien de principe basé sur notre attachement aux valeurs universelles des droits de l’homme et à toutes les libertés d’expression et qui n’accepte en aucun cas les violences policières et le massacre des manifestants.
La FTCR et le CRLDHT dénoncent les décisions du gouvernement égyptien d’utiliser la violence sauvage contre les manifestants, et demandent la création d’une commission d’enquête internationale indépendante pour déterminer les faits et les coupables qui doivent être jugés et sévèrement condamnés.
La FTCR et le CRLDHT demandent aux forces démocratiques en France et en Tunisie de condamner cette répression sauvage et de s’engager plus fermement dans la défense des valeurs pacifiques de la démocratie, du respect des libertés et des droits de l’Homme. Notre lutte commune contre l’intégrisme et le fanatisme religieux qui essayent désespérément d’avorter les révolutions arabes au profit d’un projet réactionnaire et liberticide doit rester continuellement pacifique et attachés aux valeurs démocratiques.
Pour la FTCR et le CRLDHT
Tarek BEN HIBA et Mouhieddine CHERBIB
Tunis le 15 août 2013
http://www.tuniscope.com/index.php/article/29868/vie/associations/egyptienne-471012#.Ugzud6zd8QE
7. Statement of the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt
Below is the August 14, 2013 statement by the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt. It has been widely published by socialist groups around the world. It has been translated into French and published by A l’Encontre in Switzerland. The statement is published without comment by the SWP in the UK and by the Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal website published by the Socialist Alliance of Australia.
The U.S. ISO publishes this introduction (below) to the statement. Of note in the introduction is a reference to the National Salvation Front as “formed to challenge Morsi and the Brotherhood”. It would be more accurate to describe the NSF as “formed to provide a political cover for the violent overthrow of the elected president and government of the Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The Muslim Brotherhood-led political forces are being blamed widely for attacks on Christian churches. The statement by the Revolutionary Socialists highlights these attacks, making an almost equal sign between them and the massacre itself. The statement does not cite examples or sources. A quick look online finds all kinds of right wing, Christian sources blaming Islamists and or the Muslim Brotherhood for the attacks. There is no doubt that attacks on churches are taking place. But what is their exact political origin and intent? How many occupants or followers of the churches have also been targeted? And most importantly, to what extent can the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood be said to be directly responsible? We await evidence.
The Revolutionary Socialists statement proclaims: “The Revolutionary Socialists did not defend the regime of Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood for a single day. We were always in the front ranks of the opposition to that criminal, failed regime… We strongly participated in the revolutionary wave of 30 June.
“Neither did we defend for a single day the sit-ins by the Brotherhood and their attempts to return Mursi to power…”
RA
* * * * *
(Begin ISO introduction): Nearly 300 people were reported dead by the end of Wednesday, and the toll was sure to mount higher in Egypt after the military and police carried out an assault on protest camps of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, sparking further deadly clashes in Cairo and around the country. The interim government headed by Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi declared a state of emergency for the next month, putting the dictatorial powers once wielded by Hosni Mubarak in the hands of the military, led by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi.
Brotherhood members had maintained a sit-in outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo since Mohamed Morsi was removed as president by the military on July 3. Morsi’s downfall came a few days after massive demonstrations across Egypt brought millions into the streets to protest Morsi on the one-year anniversary of his taking office as president. This day of action was the culmination of the Tamarod (Rebellion) petition campaign calling on Morsi to resign–a stark symbol of the Brotherhood’s loss of support and legitimacy.
But in the six weeks since Morsi was toppled, the military has become increasingly bold in moving against the Brotherhood, including two previous deadly attacks in which dozens were killed. Wednesday’s assault was aimed at clearing two protest camps in Cairo once and for all–with the use of utmost brutality. According to a doctor interviewed by CNN International, soldiers raided field hospitals where dead and dying demonstrators had been taken, and forced medical personnel to leave at gunpoint, leaving the victims behind.
Protests by Egyptians who opposed the Morsi government and also oppose the military’s crackdown have been small, but the shock and outrage at the latest massacre is growing. Late on Wednesday, Mohamed ElBaradei, a leader of the National Salvation Front formed to challenge Morsi and the Brotherhood, had resigned from the position of interim vice president.
The Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt issued a statement responding to the military’s massacres and calling on revolutionaries to stand against the rule of the army and defend the aims of the Egyptian Revolution. (End ISO)
* * * * *
Down with military rule! Down with Al-Sisi, the leader of the counter-revolution!
Statement from the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists on the massacre in Cairo, August 14, 2013
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art/34141/Statement+from+the+Egyptian+Revolutionary+Socialists+on+the+massacre+in+Cairo
The bloody dissolution of the sit-ins in Al-Nahda Square and Raba’a al-Adawiyya is nothing but a massacre—prepared in advance. It aims to liquidate the Muslim Brotherhood. But, it is also part of a plan to liquidate the Egyptian Revolution and restore the military-police state of the Mubarak regime.
The Revolutionary Socialists did not defend the regime of Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood for a single day. We were always in the front ranks of the opposition to that criminal, failed regime which betrayed the goals of the Egyptian Revolution. It even protected the pillars of the Mubarak regime and its security apparatus, armed forces and corrupt businessmen. We strongly participated in the revolutionary wave of 30 June.
Neither did we defend for a single day the sit-ins by the Brotherhood and their attempts to return Mursi to power.
But we have to put the events of today in their context, which is the use of the military to smash up workers’ strikes. We also see the appointment of new provincial governors—largely drawn from the ranks of the remnants of the old regime, the police and military generals. Then there are the policies of General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi’s government. It has adopted a road-map clearly hostile to the goals and demands of the Egyptian revolution, which are freedom, dignity and social justice.
This is the context for the brutal massacre which the army and police are committing. It is a bloody dress rehearsal for the liquidation of the Egyptian Revolution. It aims to break the revolutionary will of all Egyptians who are claiming their rights, whether workers, poor, or revolutionary youth, by creating a state of terror.
However, the reaction by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in attacking Christians and their churches, is a sectarian crime which only serves the forces of counter-revolution. The filthy attempt to create a civil war, in which Egyptian Christians will fall victims to the reactionary Muslim Brotherhood, is one in which Mubarak’s state and Al-Sisi are complicit, who have never for a single day defended the Copts and their churches.
We stand firmly against Al-Sisi’s massacres, and against his ugly attempt to abort the Egyptian Revolution. For today’s massacre is the first step in the road towards counter-revolution. We stand with the same firmness against all assaults on Egypt’s Christians and against the sectarian campaign which only serves the interests of Al-Sisi and his bloody project.
Many who described themselves as liberals and leftists have betrayed the Egyptian Revolution, led by those who took part in Al-Sisi’s government. They have sold the blood of the martyrs to whitewash the military and the counter-revolution. These people have blood on their hands.
We, the Revolutionary Socialists, will never deviate for an instant from the path of the Egyptian Revolution. We will never compromise on the rights of the revolutionary martyrs and their pure blood: those who fell confronting Mubarak, those who fell confronting the Military Council, those who fell confronting Mursi’s regime, and those who fall now confronting Al-Sisi and his dogs.
Down with military rule!
No the return of the old regime!
No to the return of the Brotherhood!
All power and wealth to the people
The Revolutionary Socialists
14 August 2013
Original in Arabic: http://revsoc.me/statement/ysqt-hkm-lskr-ysqt-lsysy-qyd-lthwr-lmd
8. Statement by the Anti-Coup, Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance of Egypt, August 14, 2013
https://multipluralworld.com//anti-coup-alliance-of-egypt-statement-major-massacre-during-crackdown-against-rabaa-and-nahda-sit-ins/
