The victory in the referendum on the Constitution is the fourth straight Muslim Brotherhood success—including the overthrow of President Husni Mubarak’s regime with army assistance, the parliamentary election and the presidential election–in the process of taking over Egypt for the long-term and fundamentally transforming it into a radical Islamist state. This last one should be sufficient to go all the way. This event is also producing a new stage of Western rationalizations that whitewash the Muslim Brotherhood and rationalize support for Islamists being in power.
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There are three factors involved here in setting Western policy: ignorance, a desire to avoid crises, and a foolish belief that having a radical regime in Egypt will moderate the extremists.
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It isn’t that the constitution, as many Salafists would have liked, explicitly mandates a revolutionary Sharia state. Rather, the constitution sets up a framework that will allow the Brotherhood to do so. Between the president and the constitution, the Brotherhood will now march through every institution and remake it. Judges will be appointed; school curricula rewritten; army generals appointed; and so on. As the Brotherhood shows patience in carrying out this process of gaining total, permanent control, many in the West will interpret that as moderation.
“The problem with [President] Morsi isn’t whether he is Islamist or not, it is whether he is authoritarian,” said a Western diplomat in Cairo. Wow, talk about Western misunderstanding of the importance of ideology. Continue reading “Egypt Votes: Islamic Dictatorship Wins”→
Peanut Gallery: Morsi has decided to “bifurcate” the referendum on Egypt’s new constitution… setting the dates a week apart – Dec 15 & 22.
Andrew McCarthy details below why this works to Morsi’s advantage and why he and the Muslim Brotherhood are likely to prevail.
For those of you who would like a larger perspective on the “Arab Spring” and the “Islamic Supremacy” movement, I commend to you McCarthy ‘s book “Spring Fever” coming soon in paperback. McCarthy also writes regularly for PJMedia.com.
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Amid the continuing unrest in Egypt, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood has now decided to bifurcate the referendum on the proposed sharia constitution. The voting will go forward as scheduled this Saturday, but only in ten governorates. The rest of the country will then vote the following Saturday, December 22.
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The Illusion of Islamic Democracy – Andrew McCarthy
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The whole point of Morsi’s presidency, the point of everything he’s done for the last five months, is the implementation of a sharia constitution. As I explain in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (soon to be published in paperback), that is what Morsi and the Brotherhood promised to do during the campaign leading to his election as president. Sharia implementation is the goal behind his seizures of dictatorial powers: In August, Morsi awarded himself legislative authority Continue reading “Update on Egypt Vote: Divide and Conquer”→
Peanut Gallery: Does anyone doubt how this is going to end?
The same army that ran the show under Mubarak is now co-operating with Morsi. Since Nasser’s time, the military has been entwined in the economic/industrial complex of Egypt. There’s a lot of money, jobs and power at stake.
Morsi has made an unholy alliance with the military that will carry through the referendum at least. Beyond that who knows? But keep in mind, the military has the guns.
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The decree, published in the government gazette, takes effect on the eve of mass rival protests on the referendum and follows street clashes that have left seven people dead and hundreds injured.
It orders the military to fully co-operate with police “to preserve security and protect vital state institutions for a temporary period, up to the announcement of the results from the referendum,” according to a copy of the decree obtained by AFP.
The military, which ruled Egypt between the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and the election of Morsi in June this year, has sought to remain neutral in the political crisis.
Army tanks and troops have since Thursday deployed around Morsi’s presidential palace but they have not confronted thousands of protesters who have gathered there every night.
The opposition, made up of secular, liberal, left wing and Christian groups, has said it will escalate its protests to scupper the referendum.
It views the draft constitution, largely drafted by Morsi’s Islamist allies, as undermining human rights, the rights of women, religious minorities, and curtailing the independence of the judiciary.
Peanut Gallery: This article accurately describes the ideological struggle taking place in the streets of Cairo… between Islam and Secularism.
“Egypt is Islamic, it will not be secular, it will not be liberal,” thousands of Morsi supporters chanted Friday after the funeral of two men killed in clashes earlier this week. Witnesses say the violence began when Islamists attacked an anti-Morsi protest camp outside the presidential palace.
“Bottom line, this is a struggle between ideologies — the Islamic ideology moving with a clear plan with public support, and the secularists,” said pro-Morsi demonstrator Khaled Omar, his head bandaged from Wednesday’s fighting. “We are defending Islam, which people want.”
Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are “fast-tracking” the Islamification of Egypt… and they will not be denied. The article is well worth the read to see what’s at stake in Egypt. It does not bode well for Christian communities in the Middle East.
Please pray for Coptic Christians and the new Coptic Pope who are trying to navigate these treacherous waters.
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CAIRO – One of Egypt’s most prominent ultraconservative Muslim clerics had high praise for the country’s draft constitution. Speaking to fellow clerics, he said this was the charter they had long wanted, ensuring that laws and rights would be strictly subordinated to Islamic law.
Sheik Yasser Borhami
“This constitution has more complete restraints on rights than ever existed before in any Egyptian constitution,” Sheik Yasser Borhami assured the clerics. “This will not be a democracy that can allow what God forbids or forbid what God allows.”
The draft constitution that is now at the center of worsening political turmoil would empower Islamists to carry out the most widespread and strictest implementation of Islamic law that modern Egypt has seen. That authority rests on the three articles that explicitly mention Shariah, as well as obscure legal language buried in a number of other articles that few noticed during the charter’s drafting but that Islamists insisted on including.
According to both supporters and opponents of the draft, the charter not only makes Muslim clerics the arbiters for many civil rights, it also could give a constitutional basis for citizens to set up Saudi-style “religious police” to monitor morals and enforce segregation of the sexes, imposition of Islamic dress codes and even harsh punishments for adultery and theft — regardless of what laws on the books say.
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The spiraling crisis is threatening to turn into an outright fight for the identity of post-revolutionary Egypt, splitting the nation between those who want an Islamic state and those who oppose it, two years after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
For Islamists, the constitution is the keystone for their ambitions to bring Islamic rule, a goal they say is justified by their large victory in last winter’s parliamentary elections. President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, has rejected opposition demands that he cancel a Dec. 15 nationwide referendum on the draft.
“Egypt is Islamic, it will not be secular, it will not be liberal,” thousands of Morsi supporters chanted Friday after the funeral of two men killed in clashes earlier this week. Witnesses say the violence began when Islamists attacked an anti-Morsi protest camp outside the presidential palace.
“Bottom line, this is a struggle between ideologies — the Islamic ideology moving with a clear plan with public support, and the secularists,” said pro-Morsi demonstrator Khaled Omar, his head bandaged from Wednesday’s fighting. “We are defending Islam, which people want.”
The opposition is determined to stop the draft, and thousands marched for a third straight day Friday on the palace.
The Brotherhood is “unleashing its gang chanting jihadi slogans, as if they are in a holy war against the infidels,” said businessman Magdi Ashri, who opposes Morsi. “Their agenda is to monopolize power in Egypt, whatever it takes.”
Peanut Gallery: I’m a lousy predictor of election results (read Nov 6) but this one looks like an easy call.
The people of Egypt will overwhelmingly approve the draft constitution in a referendum engineered by the Muslim Brotherhood. Sharia law will be skillfully woven into the constitution and- when push comes to shove- will trump all other considerations.
All the noise in the Egyptian street right now is just that… noise. The Muslim Brotherhood will have their way and they know it.
The Western diplomatic spin will be “it could have been worse if the Salafist’s had their way.“ Just wait.
Please pray for the new Coptic Pope, the Coptic Church and Coptic Christians around the country. Life is going to become even more difficult for them. God help them.
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Egyptian Islamists are holding rallies in support of President Mohammed Morsi ahead of his expected ratification of a new post-revolutionary constitution that opponents fear is too based in sharia law and does not adequately protect human rights.
The demonstrations in Cairo and across the country come after days of rival protests by supporters and opponents of Morsi, who is expected to call a quickfire referendum on Saturday on the new draft constitution in order to hurry it through before Egypt’s supreme constitutional court can dissolve the assembly that drafted it.
The draft has been criticised for its ambiguous language on civil liberties, women’s and minority rights and freedom of expression, as well as its concentration on enshrining sharia law as the basis for legislation. It also protects army privileges that Morsi’s opponents want revoked, including the ability to try civilians in military courts.
“Egypt is Islamic, it will not be secular, it will not be liberal,” thousands of Morsi supporters chanted Friday after the funeral of two men killed in clashes earlier this week. Witnesses say the violence began when Islamists attacked an anti-Morsi protest camp outside the presidential palace.
The Peanut Gallery 