Nobody likes a power-grabber.
Which is the essence of the downfall of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
On our Independence Day, Egypt’s military staged a coup of sorts and arrested Morsi and hundreds associated with his political party, the Muslim Brotherhood.
It was a coup by acclamation. Both Muslim and Christian clerics supported the removal of the Islamist Morsi.
It’s important to note 90 percent of Egyptians, and Arabs for that matter, are devout Muslims. But not all are Islamists, a branch of Islam that follows an extremist bent. All Muslims follow the teachings of the Koran; Islamists regard its teachings in a literal fashion. So when the passage reads: “Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the Earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam,” they see the imposition of Islam across the face of the earth as their mission.
Doesn’t leave a lot of room for compromise.
Thursday’s coup is a wake-up call to Islamists that they are not the leaders of the world’s Muslims. The same lesson was illustrated in Iran’s recent election where the more moderate candidate, Hassan Rowhani, won overwhelmingly against his opponents. All were handpicked by Iran’s clerical leadership.
Last year’s election in Egypt was the first of its kind, which was a good thing. Morsi won the election by the slimmest of margins. Voters saw him the lesser of two evils. His opponent was a holdover from the regime of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president-dictator for 30 years.
Morsi was unable to build consensus among various factions because he insisted on remaking Egypt in the image of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Instead of creating an inclusive government, Morsi treated opponents as traitors and focused his sights on making the Brotherhood a preeminent force.
His downfall, however, does little to placate.
Egypt is still a mess.
And at some point the Muslim Brotherhood will have to be welcomed back and included in Egypt’s governance.
Many fences will need to be mended down the road.
BUT FIRST, peace must be maintained. The Muslim Brotherhood has done nothing wrong to warrant violence against its members. And vice-versa, the Brotherhood should not take up arms at the risk of civil war.
Second, a constitution must be constructed, again, but this time to the satisfaction of all Egyptians.
And third, try again with another election.
— Susan Lynn
