Abu Faris in Cairo writes:
Today there was another huge demonstration in Tahrir Square against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) – the junta who presently rule Egypt – protesting their continued delay in establishing when free and fair democratic elections will take place (now SCAF are saying they will be run in November) and the regime’s protection of the murderous criminals of the Mubarak regime from justice.
Before today’s demonstrations, the Muslim Brotherhood was conspicuous by its absence, trailing the line that it thought people should give the military junta more time and be patient. This line began to shift after MB observed the size of the demonstrations last Friday and the consequent lethal and sustained violent assault by regime thugs on peaceful protesters, as the latter marched on the Ministry of Defense. Under the noses of the military, who were clearly given orders not to intervene, last Friday the demonstrators were attacked by plain clothes thugs with knives, bottles, molotov cocktails and rocks – some thrown from behind police/army lines.
The outrage amongst ordinary Egyptians at this reversion to the tried and tested state terror tactics of the Mubarak era led MB to adjust its position and declare that it would hit the streets with the other demonstrators today, Friday, in the now weekly demonstration in Tahrir Square.
Wishing for the maximum unity amongst the opposition to the Mubarak regime and its shadow military junta, the organisers of today’s demonstration conceded to MB seats on the organising committees and the right to address the crowds in Tahrir Square. Over 25 secularist and liberal parties and pressure groups, together with MB, then set about the organisation of today’s events.
Today’s events, however, must reveal to the secularists and liberals the mistake in ever trusting the Muslim Brotherhood again.
As the mass rally in Tahrir Square got underway, it became clear that not only had MB rallied its troops to appear en masse in the Square, but that they intended all along to hijack the rally for their own purposes. The streets around Tahrir became full of screaming Islamists, demanding the institution of Shari’a, the abolition of all secular aspects of the old Constitution: in short, the establishment of an Islamist state in Egypt.
If this was not frightening enough, the representatives of the secularist and liberal groups (who, after all, led the Revolution and organised the on-going demonstrations for democracy and freedom every Friday in Tahrir Square), were then prevented by main force, intimidation and violence from addressing the people gathered in Tahrir Square.
Quite understandably, the secularists and liberals then decided that they must now boycott the rally that MB had, quite deliberately and with malice aforethought, hijacked for their own extremist, clerical fascist ends.
MB have been trying to prove to the military junta that they are the best partner for the post-Mubarak settlement in Egypt: they are extremely well organised, they have many resources and have established a strong support base amongst the urban and rural poor.
What is clear from this is that MB have absolutely no interest in working with any other political forces, save those that MB feel will be in the interests of MB’s bid for power. MB are a clerical fascist group, with an extremely cynical attitude and basic hostility to the democracy, freedom and human rights.
Egypt tonight stands at a cross-roads. Will the military junta throw its lot in with MB in the face of mounting protest and anger from the secularists and liberals? This is exactly what happened in Sudan at the time of the coup against the only democratically elected leader that state ever had.
Ominously, for the first time since he collaborated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (later the backbone of al-Qaida) in the attempted assassination of Mubarak on a state visit to Ethiopia back in the ’90s, the Islamist leader and architect of the Islamist-military alliance in Sudan, Hasan at-Turabi, visited MB in Egypt a few weeks back. MB press sources describe his visit as “consultative”. I bet.
