This lifting of shields to claim and proclaim the right of all citizens to protest “peacefully” has something tragicomical about it.
Consider the facts:
-the Rabaa mosque, where the Brothers were holed up was a real armoury where incredible arsenal of war was discovered. No denunciations from the West.
-For weeks, the Brotherhood’s militias, armed to the teeth, sowed terror among the whole population of Egypt: killings, abductions, kidnappings, ransom demands, abductions and rape of girls forcibly married to Muslims. No reaction from the West.
-More than 20 police stations looted and burned; nearly fifty policemen and officers killed and tortured in the most savage way. Silence from the West.
– Sufi mausoleums destroyed and Shiite families massacred raise NO international emotion.
-Some 50 churches, schools and Christian institutions burned in the single day of August 14. No protest on the part of the West.
-Priests and Christians attacked and killed – including children of tender age – for the sole reason that they were Christians. No Western denunciation appeared which might be accused of “Islamophobia”, which today is the crime of crimes.
-Nearly 1,500 people massacred by Morsi militias during its one-year reign. Silence from the media.
– Secret agreements from Morsi to sell Egypt, piece by piece to its neighbours: 40% of the Sinai to Hamas and the Palestinians, Nubia to Omar al-Bashir, and the western portion of the territory to Libya… This is a gift for the West, since it is their doing…
When Egypt finally decides to react and put some order in the house… the West cries ‘persecution’, ‘injustice’ and ‘scandal’!
It’s a secret to no one that the presidential elections were a broad farce and that the election was tainted by massive fraud. Nevertheless, the media persisted in asserting that Morsi was the first president in Egyptian history to be ‘democratically’ elected and that he achieved ‘legitimacy’.
The Egyptian people are easy to blame, since they agreed to play this game, saying to themselves: ‘Let’s see what they actually do.’ The result was so catastrophic – insecurity, unemployment, inflation, bread and gasoline shortages, the economy in free fall, moribund tourism – that at the end of one year the entire population requested Morsi to clear out.
Within two months, the Tamarrod movement collected more than 22 million signatures calling for his departure. In vain! Facing his obstinacy, tens of millions of Egyptians – the majority of which were the humble people who had been his former supporters – turned out on the streets of major cities to demand his departure. Still in vain!
The Army – neutral until then – decided to intervene to support the people and toss the bums out, keeping them under house arrest. During long hours of interrogation, the Army got revelations of exceptional wrongdoings that compromised both the Muslim Brotherhood and a number of foreign countries.
Faced with the Army’s power grab, the West immediately cried ‘coup d’état’. If it had been a ‘coup d’état’, it was a ‘people’s coup’, rather than military one. The Army had merely acquiesced to the will of the people. The people were fed up with a president who had betrayed, flimflammed and hoodwinked them, and they reacted with a survival reflex, calling for his departure.
A delightful little story illustrates what I am saying. A guy buys a can of something at the grocery which, once opened, appears to be spoiled. What’s he going to do? Eat it or toss it? Toss it, obviously.
It’s kind of what did the Egyptian people did after Morsi and the Brothers promised the moon and the stars. Once the can was opened, they realized that it was all rotten. And so they reacted by rejecting them.
Following Morsi’s house arrest, the Army still wanted to have the Muslim Brotherhood contribute to the new Government, offering them to team up with other parties. That met with systematic and stubborn refusal.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts of dialogue and negotiations with them, a new provisional Government was set up.
It was then they decided then to go underground and sow terror; in this they were highly successful. But this strategy has only increased their unpopularity and we can say today that the Egyptian people despise and abhor them.
Equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, the Brothers are everywhere burning, attacking, killing, destroying…
The Army then decreed a State of Emergency and imposed a curfew from sunset to sunrise. But the Muslim Brotherhood considered themselves exempt from compliance. Yesterday, August 16, in my room near Ramses Avenue and Ramses Square (that were swarming with their militias), I heard explosions, single shots and submachine gun fire from the surrounding streets.
After several warnings to young people to go home, the Army decided to send in tanks to enforce the curfew. Seeing the collateral damage, well-thinking Westerners indicted the Army for having the nerve to attack ‘peaceful’ demonstrators!
Whom are they trying to kid?
_________________________________________________
Fr. Boulad was religious superior of the Jesuits in Alexandria, then provincial of the Jesuits in the Middle East, and professor of theology in Cairo. In 2004, he became rector of the College of the Holy Family of the Jesuits in Cairo.