The two-faced nature of these people or camps has become so obvious that one does not need to be a genius to recognise them. Let us look at the following issues:
1. The leaders of the Tamarrud (rebellion) movement and National Salvation Front Mohammed ElBaradei, Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabahi and others have shown their true colors. Prior to last year’s election in which they lost to Morsi, they had been the advocates and heroes of democracy. Fiery speeches were made about nation-building, the rule of law and respecting the constitution. But when democratic processes clearly did not favour them, instead of cooperating with the government to improve the condition of the Egyptians, they started plotting against the elected president. In December 2012, Egypt’s top prosecutor ordered an investigation into accusations against ElBaradei, Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi of overthrowing Morsi. Don’t be surprised. Their tones have changed now, and they are no longer the pro-democracy heroes people once knew. What if they had won in the election? Surely they would condemn such street politics and violence to oust a president.
2. The military
The Egyptian military has several problems: arrogance, confusion and being wishy-washy. When it first announced the threat of intervention within 48 hours following the mass protest, the reason given was that it could not let the country slip into chaos and civil war. It wanted to be popular and claimed that the military sided with the Egyptian people. Once president Morsi had been ousted, hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy supporters gathered to rally, and to the world’s utter shock and dismay, the military opened fire on them. And this only after a few hours of stating that it would allow peaceful protests to continue. What happened to protecting the people? Were the pro-Morsi supporters not Egyptian citizens? The claim that the junta does not have any political preferences is false and hollow by any definition. It is now evident that the top military commanders were part of the whole undemocratic plot. It is not Egyptians they wanted to protect, but their own greed and interests.
3. Surrounding Arab countries
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Iraq rushed to congratulate the unelected, undemocratic interim leader and claimed to have shown respect to the will of the Egyptian people. Putting Iraq aside for a while, these leaders are not only confused but also showing complete double-standards. They do not seem to understand what democracy means (and hence the never-ending monarchies they uphold) and what is actually happening in Egypt. Furthermore, who are they to comment on ‘the will of people’ when democracy never even existed in their countries in the first place! Didn’t Morsi come to power with ‘the will of people’? If they were sincere about honoring the wish of majority, they should abolish absolute monarchy, step down and let free elections determine the future of their countries. So is it really the ‘will of Egyptian people’ that they support, or a will which goes in their favour? What makes them so scared of the Muslim Brotherhood? Actually, words like election and democracy are the biggest threats to them. It is not the Brotherhood that they are scared of, it is the very essence of democratic practices that causes a shivering fever in their consciousness.
4. The European Union
Despite its statement of ‘being concerned’ about the political crisis in Egypt and ‘urging for calm’, as a powerful body the European Union should have a made a clearer and stronger stand in favour of democracy in Egypt. When the Taksim event happened in Istanbul, the Union tried to show itself as a champion of democracy by harshly criticizing the Turkish government in order to show support to the protesters. It even delayed some scheduled talks with Turkey to punish the country for its way of dealing with the problem, which, the Union claimed, was not in line with the principles of democracy. However, the same EU completely changed its tone when Morsi was ousted by a coup. They seemed highly reluctant to condemn it. To make things worse, despite the more undemocratic and criminal way of handling things by the anti-Morsi Egyptian protesters and by the military, the EU was quick to announce that it was not re-thinking the promised aid for Egypt. It seems Egypt is lucky to have avoided a similar ‘punishment’ given to Turkey, even when the coup has clearly breached all basic principles of democracy.
Perhaps there are many more hypocrites in this world than merely those mentioned above. The list can be longer, and the degree of hypocrisy seen at moment is only the tip of the iceberg.
At least the ongoing test Egypt is going through has more or less revealed to us who the regional and international impostors are. I hope people who find it difficult to condemn the illegal, undemocratic ouster of Morsi will spare us from their lectures in the future. We have had enough of hypocrisy. Enough is enough!
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