BS: Egypt?

Subject: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 06:49 AM

What do the protesters really want?

Liberty from religious dogma (if any) from the "Muslim Brotherhood"?

Or just to be wealthier (a difficult demand in current world conditions)?

Or what?

What are the world-level risks from the current Egyptian unrest?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 07:43 AM

After the euphoria of toppling the old regime, a year of Morsi has been a let down.
The Brotherhood got more votes than other groups, but still a small minority.
Most people do not want Islamism.

The worst case is that the army will take control again.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 08:24 AM

But how Islamist has Morsi been?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 08:41 AM

From The Daily Beast:

"Since winning the first parliamentary election, and then the presidency, the Brotherhood has broken every promise it has made to friend and foe alike. It has not only alienated, it has infuriated, almost everyone outside of its core constituency or its direct partners. The degree of overreaching and political miscalculation has shocked even those of us who took the Muslim Brothers to be political cretins.

They rammed through a ridiculous, counter-revolutionary Constitution by terrifying the country with a red herring "constitutional declaration" that granted virtually monarchical powers to the President, far exceeding those of any of Egypt's modern dictators. They've attempted to purge the judiciary. They are clearly trying to take over the Armed Forces by stacking its junior cadres with their own members. They've gone on a veritable bender applying blasphemy and libel laws at the drop of a hat against a breathtaking array of minority groups and political opponents, and even satirists."

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 11:31 AM

The myth of "democracy" exposed.....next?....the myth of "equality"

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 12:27 PM

So that of which people disapprove was not conduct that was Islamist, nor even Islamic, but the seizure of the forms of power?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 01:02 PM

Guess you missed this part:

"They've gone on a veritable bender applying blasphemy and libel laws at the drop of a hat against a breathtaking array of minority groups and political opponents, and even satirists."

Take a look at how the Christian Copts are faring under Islamic rule.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:07 PM

Have the Morsi regime changed such laws?

What has been done to the Christian Copts?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:13 PM

Where is the evidence of newly imposed theocratic governance - as for example claimed here -

http://www.catholic.org/clife/advent/story.php?id=51561


Bear in mind - I was concerned at the election victory of the Muslim Brotherhood - I want to know what it has actually done that is attributable to Islam or Islamism, or what other vectors have brought about the massive dissent.

I wouldn't mind contrasting it with the inexplicable absence of a popular uprising in the UK, mind.



Oh - and please, Wannabee Pharaoh - don't just tell us that the sky is falling. Clarify what sort of sky you'd prefer. Thanks in advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:18 PM

A claim that "it's the economy, stupid" http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/352555/copts-under-gun-religious-freedom-egypt-kathryn-jean-lopez


Little here seems to finger the Morsi regime in discrimination against Copts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts#Persecution_and_discrimination_in_Egypt

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:29 PM

The BBC suggests a drive towards Islamisation - but gives no relevant examples - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23151452

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:34 PM

A superficial profile of the Tamarod movement - which still leaves almost nothing answered -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23131953


Given the importance that so many attached to "the Arab Spring" the lack of information on this unwinding of the spring seems remarkable.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 03:42 PM

From the presentation of Mamdouh Nakhla a Christian Copt and chairman of the al-Kalema, "Word", Organization for Human Rights to the fifth session of the UN Forum on Minority Isuues in Geneva:

"Those Copts suffer being marginalized, under discriminatory acts on many of their rights through many decades but it got harder after January 25th 2010, when the Islamists reached power of the state.   

1- Many of the Copts are exposed to daily assaults by some fundamentalists and extremists without any legal justification.

Their churches are burnt, their prosperities are damaged, their economical activities are sabotaged, and they were forced to leave their lands and houses in addition to the forceful migration.

In many of these cases the criminals were not arrested or if arrested they were released or escaped penalty, in so many occasions the Copts were forced on reconciliation with those criminals without a fair trial.

http://www.minorityvoices.org/news.php/fr/1323/egypt-copts-exposed-to-daily-assaults-says-chairman-of-rights-group

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 04:02 PM

Thank you. But how is that linked to the Morsi regime?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 04:13 PM

WTF? Do you ever read anything?

"...it got harder after January 25th 2010, when the Islamists reached power of the state."

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 05:53 PM

That expresses temporal synchronicity, not causation. Don't you ever THINK about anything?

AND it sets out no causative mechanism.

Sometimes I think it would be nice if stupidity was a terminal condition. Darwin and all that. Sheesh!

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 06:33 PM

Well, now you're just being an asshole - but you're a lawyer.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 03:59 AM

Reuters April 2013.

In his first interview since emerging from seclusion after eight people were killed in sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians this month, the pope called official accounts of clashes at Cairo's Coptic cathedral on April 7 "a pack of lies".

He also voiced dismay at attempts by President Mohamed Mursi's Islamist allies to purge thousands of judges appointed under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, saying the judiciary was a pillar of Egyptian society and should not be touched.

"There is a sense of marginalization and rejection, which we can call social isolation," the pope told Reuters on Thursday of the feelings of Christians, who he said make up at least 15 percent of Egypt's 84 million people. Most Egyptians are Sunni Muslims.

Attacks on churches and sectarian tensions increased significantly after the rise of Islamists to power following the 2011 uprising that overthrew Mubarak, even though Christians had demonstrated alongside Muslims for his removal.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 04:09 AM

Richard...When the sky falls, as it is doing all over the developed world, even my extensive store of scaffolding will not be enough to effect repairs.
Reconstruction will involve several generations and a complete change in how we view our allotted time on the planet.

In my view some sort of spirituality will be involved, but not an "organised religion", as well as re-education on the protection,not exploitation of nature.

I think at the end of the day,the colour of my sky will be not far removed from the colour you would wish for.

It won't be easy...and there will be no Health and Safety inspectors.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 05:10 AM

Now that is more like information. Not a lot more, but a little. Of course Mubarak's judges could have been bent and so far do we have evidence that Morsi judges are bent?

Have there been a raft of new laws, tilted the Sharia way?

I am aware that there is talk of, effectively, a licence to grope women who are not dressed "modestly" - but does it come from the regime or other religious diehards and nutters?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 08:22 AM

A fairly good, although from a conservative perspective, synopsis of the reasons for the uprising in Egypt - it's not that simple:

"Much of the commentary we're seeing conflates two importantly different things: opposition to the Brotherhood and opposition to Islamic rule. The prospect of being governed by sharia has always been more attractive to Egyptians than the prospect of a sharia state administered by the Brotherhood, whose well-deserved reputation for dishonesty makes it unpopular with both secularists and the groups referred to as "Salafists" — Islamic supremacist organizations, other than the Brotherhood, that are even more zealous for rapid Islamization than the Brothers.

The commentary seems to assume that everyone on the streets is a pro-democratic secularist. Not true. What unifies the protesters — who include former regime elements, hard Leftists, and persecuted religious minorities, in addition to pro-Western democrats and transnational progressives — is that they detest Morsi and the Brothers. It is not "democracy." Many of the protesters would prefer to have a military government (when Morsi was elected president, the candidate he edged out in the run-off was a Mubarak relic, not a democrat). Many say they want "democracy" but are not in harmony about what that actually means."

Will the Egyptian Military Scrap the Sharia Constitution?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 12:13 PM

I just hope our governments keep well clear of doing anything about it, which would certainly make things worse. As with Syria.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 01:18 PM

It seems to me that they've forgotten that they ELECTED this one, and that they are supposed to VOTE him out of office.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 04:21 PM

Oops - just heard he's out. US embassy evacuating (as is Morsi, I'm sure).

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 04:53 PM

Thank you bobad - that makes a LOT more sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 05:19 PM

When are we going to start supplying the opponents of the coup with weapons....or set up a no fly zone?

Are there different kinds of "democracy"?

Is it all nunsense?

Is someone taking the piss?

How many knots can a "liberal" tie himself in?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 07:20 PM

I'm glad I visited Egypt in May of 2012, not this year. I was there just before the elections, and things were hopeful and relatively calm. I get the impression that this has been a very tough year for Egypt. When we cruised the Nile last year, 40 of 400 cruise boats were operating, and ours had 40 passengers on a ship that held 140. There seemed to be good numbers of peoples at the temples and other historic sites, but it wasn't crowded anywhere. I imagine many of these places are like ghost towns now.
The streets of Cairo and Alexandria were jammed with traffic last year, and it'm my understanding that vehicle traffic has never slacked off.
I noticed a lot of harassment of women, including some physical violence. I understand that in the last year, vigilante groups have tried to control some of this harassment, since the police have done nothing.
There is no easy answer to the situation in Egypt. The Islamists see many things as detrimental to their living a religious life, and the non-religious people see the Islamists as a thread to the tourism that the only source of income for so many.
I have a friend who's a tour guide in Luxor. He is always careful to be very diplomatic in what he says, because it's just not safe to be frank - so I don't really know what he thinks.
-Joe-

---

USA Today: Army Ousts Morsi, orders new elections in Egypt

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 08:33 PM

I suppose one way of looking at it might be as a kind of improvised "power of recall".

Typically people get elected making various promises and pledges which they throw over once they are elected, doing things they prmised not to do, and not doing things they promised to do.

I'm not sure how far that's been true of Morsi, but I suspect that a lot of the people who've been demonstrating against him would see it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 08:35 PM

Here's the problem: fascism...

One side get's the power and vamps on the other side and then...

...the other side get's power and vamps on the other side...

Until folks figure out how to share power Egypt will do this every year or two until they have their own civil war (which it won't be) and kill everyone off...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Songwronger
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 11:34 PM

Pictures from Egypt

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 11:57 PM

Obama was trying to walk the narrow line and officially 'support' the guy that got 51% of the vote...knowing full well that 49% did NOT want Morsi.

What else can the US do besides say that "we hope the Egyptian people will find a path to stability that promotes freedom and fairness to all."?

It's a no-win situation trying to straddle that fence.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Songwronger
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 12:03 AM

Obama gave Mubarak an ultimatum, to step down "or else." Then Obama helped install the party from hell. Mission accomplished, he moved on to Libya, where he collected all the al queada riff raff he could to fight the popular Assad government. He's going to send them Stinger missiles now. Obama IS a terrorist. The Egyptians have figured it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: bobad
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 08:33 AM

The US props up Egypt's military to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars per annum.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 10:34 AM

Their issues are too many people, too much sand, not enough water; the huge bulk of the population is crammed into poverty and Cairo. The military doesn't want to lose its position of privilege it had under Mubarak and his predecessors. The government is saddled with debt. The nation that was the breadbasket of Rome now imports half its wheat, a major dietary staple. There are huge regions of land which cannot be used because they are desert.

To me the critical junction-point is water, and desalination.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 11:47 AM

Yes, there are all those problems. There is also the problem that the USA/Great Britain/Israel axis have considered Egypt to be part of their Greater Middle East Prosperity Sphere for a long time now, but they're having a hard time keeping it under control lately, because the aspirations of the Egyptian public are causing the edifice to crumble. Mubarak did what he was supposed to do for the Anglo-American Alliance for a long time, but his people grew restless for democracy and modernization. Finally his position became completely untenable. So, Obama reluctantly decided that Mubarak had to go...they would symbolically chop off the head of the "bad guy" to make it look like things were changing...a standard propaganda technique...but nothing really changes except the "face" at the top of the power pyramid.

Next, get a new stooge elected, preferably a fundamentalist Muslim stooge, because that's who Anglo-American likes to work with...what they absolutely detest is an independent secular government in a Muslim country...which is what the Russians usually favor (although not necessarily an independent one always...thinking of Afghanistan's Najibullah there...but certainly a secular one).

Saddam's was an independent secular government, and they (Anglo-American Alliance) got rid of him. Gaddafi's was an independent secular government, and they got rid of him. Assad's is an independent secular government, and they've been trying to get rid of him for some time.

This latest attempt to prop up a Muslim fundamentalist government in Egypt has evidently failed, due to majority of the Egyptian people realizing "they was had". What happens next? We'll see.

The reason the Anglo-American Empire does what it does is simple: Divide and Conquer. How do you control a subject region when you're building an empire? You exacerbate the existing divisions among its different tribes, cultural, and religious groups. In Vietnam, they used the Vietnamese Catholic minority and the Montagnards against the Buddhist majority. In North America they used the various Indian tribes against each other. In the Middle East they use Sunnis against Shiites, Kurds against Sunnis and Shiites and Turks, Alawites and Shiites against Sunnis in Syria, Jews against Muslims against Christians, moderate Muslims and modernists against fundamentalists and Jihadists. While all these people are provoked to violence and set up to kill each other off, the West's politicians wring their hands publicly over the humanitarian crisis and cry crocodile tears...and the western corporations secure what they're after. Oil, Lithium, control of local governments and other strategic resources. And Israel expands its land holdings.

The Egyptians are in a bad spot, and it will probably get worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 11:57 AM

Woe, woe, and thrice woe...

So if Egypt was the breadbasket of Rome (and I think I remember that from Roman history at school) and still has one of the biggest rivers in the world flowing through it - why is it not more agriculturally productive?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 01:09 PM

Because they dammed the river and stopped the annual flooding.

If the people ask the military to take over, though, IS it a coup?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: selby
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 02:02 PM

Was in Egypt in June the people where struggling, huge queues for petrol/diesel, there was graffiti on the Coptic churches and I was told it was anti Coptic, I was also told that all Egyptians have lived together well enough, but now there was brother against brother. The number of boats working the Nile had dropped to 30 in Luxor and consequently the tourist trade was in meltdown causing more problems for Egyptians. Nobody would specifically say what the root of the problem was but enough suggestions led us to believe the goverment was not performing and had its own agenda and not an agenda for the people

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 02:12 PM

Whether a "coup" is a coup or not is strictly a matter of opinion, depending on one's favored line of propaganda.

"the goverment was not performing and had its own agenda and not an agenda for the people" Gee, that sounds familiar! ;-) I think that's what we have here too...

The Egyptian people were right to want an end to Mursi's rule. What worries me is what will be foisted on them next.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Jul 13 - 05:11 PM

Mrzzy, please expand and explain why it is irreversible.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jul 13 - 02:11 PM

Consider - 1 million Egyptians on the streets, which means I believe almost 70 million not on the streets. Are the one million representative of the other 70 million? I doubt it.

What Egypt does have in its favour is that there is more or less just one tribe and one religion, so the problems of many other Middle Eastern states where they don't know what they want but they want it now does not exist there.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Jul 13 - 04:26 PM

Don't tell the Copts that Egypt is "just one tribe and one religion." The Copts were in Egypt before Islam came to be, and they still make up ten percent of the population.

My sister lived in Alexandria for a year until June, 2012 - and I visited her there for most of the month of May, 2012. I found it to be a fascinating place, and I met some wonderful people there. I couldn't find out how important government and politics are to most Egyptians. I think they're more concerned about day-to-day living, and feel that politics is beyond their control.

My sister found an interesting analysis of the happenings of the last few days. Take a look: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/75808.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 03:42 AM

Coptic priest murdered.
Christian homes torched.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 01:38 PM

When and by whom Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 02:07 PM

The houses near Luxor a couple of days ago.

Egypt Independent


Al-Masry Al-Youm

Reuters




A Coptic priest was shot dead Saturday (yesterday) on al-Sentral Street in the North Sinai neighbourhood of al-Masaeed.

Gunmen shot dead a Coptic Christian priest in Egypt's lawless region in the third recorded instance of sectarian violence against Christians since President Mohamed Morsy was ousted.

The shooting in the coastal city of Arish was one of several attacks believed to be by Islamist insurgents that included firing at four military checkpoints in the region, the sources said.

A security source said Saturday that gunmen riding a motorcycle shot dead the priest, named as 39-year-old Mena Aboud Sharoben, who lived in Arish.

The source added the motivations behind the murder were not known.



Maspero Youth Union meanwhile denounced what they identified as Muslim Brotherhood attacks on churches, claiming sectarian attacks aimed at hurting the revolution and undermining people's demands for freedom.



"The president's supporters attacked [the] churches in Luxor, Qena, Minya, Towa, Sharm el-Sheikh and Marsa Matrouh," the statement said.



"We say to them, tear down all the churches, it is not going to stop us from building Egypt...We will use the stones of our churches to build our homeland."

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Jul 13 - 04:40 PM

So the first one is unexplained and the second on the face of it looks remarkably like a political conjuration - not to mention one not in fact linked to the regime (or should I say deposed regime?) and plainly impossible to be connected to the regime's own activities while it was the regime.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 02:57 AM

So you prefer not to know?
Persecution of minorities is an important issue in the Egyptian struggle.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 04:48 AM

No, Keith, I want to know the truth. I do know from experience that I cannot rely on you to present truths that might cast Islam in a favourable light, whereas I can rely on you to present possible facts and innuendo that cast it in an unfavourable light.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 04:58 AM

Did I present any fact that was only a "possible fact" or any "innuendo"?
I resent your criticism which is undeserved.

Subject: RE: BS: Egypt?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jul 13 - 09:03 AM

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