THE ANGRY ARAB: The First Elected Egyptian President? The Death of Mohammad Morsi

There were Egyptian elections before Mohammed Morsi, who underestimated the anti-democratic impulses of Arab tyrannies, and assumed Western governments wouldn’t stand for an overthrow of a democratically-elected president.

By As`ad AbuKhalil
Special to Consortium News

The death of Mohamed Morsi, former Egyptian President, in an Egyptian court two weeks ago focused attention—albeit briefly—on the nature of the tyrannical regime of Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. El-Sisi’s coup in 2013 was largely the work of the UAE-Saudi alliance and was quickly blessed by the Obama administration.

el-Sisi has done everything possible to endear himself to the U.S.: he has brought his security coordination with Israel to an unprecedented level and has even allowed Israeli fighter jets to conduct raids on Egyptian territory (in the Sinai). He also has tightened the grip of his regime on Gaza, reinforcing the Israeli siege. Those are the priorities of the U.S. in Egypt, along with political subservience to U.S. dictates.

The Muslim Brotherhood is now the object of state and regional harassment in most countries under Saudi and UAE influence. Western governments, which for decades supported or indulged the Brotherhood in the long years of the Cold War, have come under pressure from the Saudi and UAE regimes to outlaw their organizations and declare them terrorist groups. Qatar and Turkey, who are now the official sponsors of the Brotherhood, lobby Western governments to keep the Brotherhood off the terrorism list.

Morsi: Banked on the West to save him. (Flickr)

But there is a paradox in the UAE-Saudi-Israeli campaign against the Brotherhood: the few cases where there were elections in the era of Arab uprisings (in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen), the Brotherhood proved that they are a powerful political force who command support from a substantial segment of the population. Banning the Brotherhood in the Gulf merely pushes them underground.

The bitter campaign against the Brotherhood in the UAE and Saudi Arabia is a testimony to their political salience, not to their irrelevance; both regimes are concerned that the domestic opposition prefers the Brotherhood to the ruling dynasties. A recent Arab public opinion survey (with very questionable methodology and phraseology conducted by the Arab Barometer, which is partly funded by the U.S. government) reveals a wide popularity for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an among the Arab population. (One notices in talking to Saudi students abroad that Turkey constitutes the most attractive model for young educated Saudis because its version of Islam is more palatable than the House of Saud’s).

Morsi’s Miracle Run

Morsi became president of Egypt in 2012, and lasted almost a year. It was a miracle that he lasted that long given the Gulf regimes’ insistence on imposing tight control over the Arab state system. The West, especially the U.S., learned to live with the Brotherhood, particularly its branches in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, who all proved willing to abandon past slogans in relation to Israel. Their economic policies were also congruent with Western lending agencies. But Morsi underestimated the anti-democratic impulses of Arab tyrannies, and he also assumed that Western governments would not stand for an overthrow of a democratically-elected president.

Nasser’s funeral procession along the corniche in Cairo, Oct. 1970. (Al Akhbar, public domain)

The era of Morsi in Egypt was an interesting one; it is said that he was the first democratically elected president of Egypt. But who can question that Gamal Abdul-Nasser (who ruled from 1952-1970), was the most popular Arab leader since Saladin, captuing the hearts and minds of Egyptians from at least 1956 until his death? Egyptians continued to be loyal to Nasser even after the 1967 defeat to Israel, and his funeral remains the most massive Arab funeral in history (and one of the biggest ever worldwide). There were elections in Egypt under Nasser and wide sections of the social classes were represented in ways that parliaments under capitalism aren’t. (Naser broke the monopoly of the upper classes over political representation).

Elections in Nasser’s time were not held in the context of a multiplicity of political parties, but that does not cast doubt on the legitimacy of the successive elections of Nasser as president. Even if the Brotherhood were allowed to field their own candidates during the 1950s and 1960s, they did not stand a chance in that secular era.

The election of Morsi took place in a different context. There was a multiplicity of political parties but the elections were not entirely free (assuming that you can have free elections per se, especially in developing countries where foreign money and foreign embassies play a big role in influencing and determining results). The state apparatus clearly intervened to support the candidacy of Ahmad Shafiq against Morsi, and Gulf and Western governments most likely funneled money to the campaign of Shafiq, just as Qatar and Turkey intervened on the side of Morsi, who probably won with a larger margin than the one announced by the state.

The year of Morsi was an interesting period in contemporary Egyptian history. It was by far the freest political era, where political parties and media flourished and the state tolerated more criticisms against the ruler than before or since. But young Egyptians who participated in the 2011 revolt stress the point that freedoms under Morsi were not so much a gift from the leader to the people as they were the result of insistence on their rights by the revolutionary masses. They had just managed to oust the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak and they were not going to settle for less than an open political environment.

Sisi: Fooled the liberals, Nasserists and even some progressives.    (Kremlin photo).

But that also did not last, and the rise of el-Sisi was entirely an affair hatched by foreign governments and the security apparatus of the state. Secular, liberal, Nasserists, and even some progressives were accomplices of the coup of 2013; they were alarmed with the Islamic rhetoric of the Brotherhood and some even resented the political rise of poorer Egyptians with an Islamist bend. el-Sisi knew how to appeal to a large coalition and to pretend that he would carry on the democratization of Egypt. But the signs were on the wall: the blatant role of the Saudi and UAE regime in his coup were not disguised, and el-Sisi was an integral part of the Egyptian state military-intelligence apparatus, whose purpose is to maintain close relations with the Israeli occupation state, and to crush domestic dissent and opposition.

Morsi’s fate was sealed when he decided to coexist with the same military council that had existed in the age of Mubarak. He could have purged the entire top brass, and replaced them with new people who were not tainted with links to the Mubarak regime. Worse, Morsi made the chief of Egyptian military intelligence—the man who is in charge of close Israeli-Egyptian security cooperation—his minister of defense (that was el-Sisi himself). Morsi assumed that the military command would quickly switch their loyalty to the democratic order instead of the old tyrannical regime.

Not Dead Yet

It is too premature to write the obituary of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is still a force to be reckoned with in many Arab countries, and whenever the people are given a chance to express themselves in the ballot boxes, the Brotherhood will be represented. But it is tainted: in the experience of Tunisia and the brief experience of Egypt under Morsi, the Brotherhood proved to be quite unprincipled, in both foreign and domestic policies. It has also engaged in armed combat in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Morsi was mocked and condemned mercilessly for a formal congratulatory letter that the then Egyptian president wrote to then Israeli President Shimon Peres. The Brotherhood’s old rhetoric about “Jihad against Israel” was quickly discarded to win approval from the U.S. The Brotherhood had semi-formal deals with the Israel lobby in Washington and with the late Sen. John McCain to prove its good intentions if allowed to reach power.

The death of Morsi did not so much create sympathy for his person as much as it underlined the cruel repression under el-Sisi. Political satire flourished under Morsi and Bassem Yousef owed his career to him (Morsi was quite easy to mock). The Brotherhood in Egypt are not finished; they will come back, and their return will unlikely be peaceful.

As’ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the “Historical Dictionary of Lebanon” (1998), “Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New War on Terrorism (2002), and “The Battle for Saudi Arabia” (2004). He tweets as @asadabukhalil

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45 comments for “THE ANGRY ARAB: The First Elected Egyptian President? The Death of Mohammad Morsi

  1. SocraticGadfly
    July 8, 2019 at 00:31

    IMO Robert Fisk covered this even better a few days earlier.

  2. Ehab Talaat
    July 5, 2019 at 10:48

    When the 25 January revolution emerges against Mubarak regime.. It was supported by about 3 millions peoples but the Muslim brotherhood didn’t show up until they found the collapse of the police.. They started to gather on 28th of January.. Then the situation worsens, Mubarak resign and election brought Morsi in. After a year in power, 33 million Egyptians brought Morsi down,cause of corruption and inefficiency .

  3. David G
    July 4, 2019 at 16:13

    “… the most popular Arab leader since Saladin”

    A leader of Arabs and other Muslims, Saladin was himself a Kurd.

    • juki
      July 7, 2019 at 18:16

      David G, has it ever occurred to you that modern ethnic classifications were a bit looser the farther back in history you go? Heck, the Irish Uprising of 1798 (in which the British who are forever moaning about how “violent” the 9 month reign of terror in French Revolution was, killed more people in 6 weeks than former, and that too in a country with an order of magnitude less people than France) was led by Protestants.

  4. Vera Gottlieb
    July 4, 2019 at 14:55

    The “democratic” West is all in favour of democratically held elections. The fly in the ointment is when the winning person is not to the West’s liking. But hypocrite that the West is, we continue talking about democratic rights. I think we have forgotten what “democracy” really means.

  5. Zenobia van Dongen
    July 4, 2019 at 12:04

    If the Muslim Brotherhood is so democratic, how come its main backers are Turkey and Qatar, the very same powers that created, financed, supplied, protected and encouraged ISIS?
    President Morsi asked President Obama for the release of the late so-called Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, the founder of the Islamic terrorist group Gamaat al Islamiyya, who was serving a life sentence for planning a terrorist bombing campaign in New York City in the 1990s.

  6. Hassan Helmi
    July 4, 2019 at 08:41

    I am as Egyptian and have 60 years old, I do not agree with what this As`ad Abu Khalil says !!!
    First I am living in Egypt and every body saw how Moslems brotherhood Jumped on and stolen the revolution , every body saw
    how they killed the Egyptian people in Tahrir square and how Terrorist of Hamas crushed the Egyptian border and opened prisons
    to free the criminals and Moslem brotherhood members .
    Second this writer said that Morsi was the first democratically-elected president!!! I wonder how ?? is this writer was living in Egypt
    during the elections or he just repeats the same words of Turkish Ardoggan like all social media working against Egypt ???
    The writer doesn’t know that the mob and rabble specially the ignorant upper Egyptian who were paid L.E 200.00 in every demonstration threatened the Egyptian people to Burn all of Egypt if Morsi failed in the election ?? the writer doesn’t know
    that General Shafik succeeded and changed because the Egyptian Army avoided brotherhood threatening to be civil war ??
    The writer doesn’t know that brotherhood were paying LE. 200-300 /day at Rabaa sit-in to each person with full board with
    tents residency ?? the writer doesn’t know that Robert Fisk visited Rabaa sit-in and confessed that all the demonstrators were
    Armed ??
    Finally I am one of the witnesses who saw all the events , I can say that president SISI is the most suitable man for this time !
    Most of Educated Egyptian support president SISI as they felt and watching his steps to New civilized Egyptian life …
    And if the writer cannot see that so he is blind or one of them (Moslems brotherhood) .

  7. Baz
    July 4, 2019 at 07:39

    The march towards real Democracy.

    For years the Muslim brotherhood had been the focus of resistance to Dictators and outside interference in Arab countries.
    For this reason, traditionally more moderate factions have cooperated with this Powerful organisation.

    The majority of those protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in early 2012 were however, the educated, young, modern thinking citizens seeking genuine Democracy.

    However, the election embraced the whole of Egypt, therefore with the rural population Egypt opted for the traditional heroes-the Brotherhood.

    It soon became clear to the educated of Tahrir, that the ‘freedom’ gained by this election, also encapsulated all of the backward aspects of the Brotherhood creed! This was not the democracy for which they had protested, fought and risked their live!

    So it was that later, in November 2012 Tahrir echoed to the sound of protest once again!

    More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Cairo to protest against a decree by the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, that granted him sweeping constitutional powers.

    “Dictator” was the word being used to describe Morsi’s new status after this decree, which granted immunity for the president from judicial review as well as protecting a controversial constitutional assembly dominated by the group he is affiliated with, the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Thus we see the difficulty of the transition from Totalitarian Dictatorship, Tyranny and Autocracy to Democracy, as is recognised in the West!

    We also recognise the bogus endeavours by the ‘Democratic’ West to bring ‘Democracy’ to Syria, by backing a War which has killed thousands of Syrian citizens, forced equal numbers to flee the country, and destroyed the infrastructure of the country!

  8. Mohamed Wanas
    July 4, 2019 at 06:55

    The Muslim brotherhood doctrine is the blue print for all Islamic terrorists in the world. In addition, they are an exclusive organisation that considers others are inferior even if they are Muslimes. Swearing Oath of loyalty to the guidance of the MB Org. is mandatory to all members. If that’s not Fascism what is?
    I advice the writer to read Sign Posts book by Sayyad Qutb and rewrite his article. It is online and free.
    No one appreciates a military rule but, if the altrnative is another Iranian, Ayatollah theocratic model, No thanks.

  9. T.J
    July 4, 2019 at 01:54

    Morsi was democratically elected. If he was to be ousted it should have been done by democratic means. Egypt is now under a regime far more repressive than the previous under Mubarak. The fact is, the West, especially in the context of Egypt, finds a dictatorship far easier to deal with than a democracy.

    • Mohamed Wanas
      July 4, 2019 at 06:57

      Hitler was democratically elected!

      • Mohamed abbas
        July 4, 2019 at 08:18

        But El-Sisi is a dictator like Hitler too

  10. July 4, 2019 at 00:48

    Morsi was NOT democratically elected. The Brotherhood threatened to set fire all over the country if their cadidate
    did not win. All Egyptian governors since Sadat were open to peace negotiations with Israel

    • Mohamed abbas
      July 4, 2019 at 08:27

      If what you say is correct, So who elected him? His family?.his friends?. I don’t think so… What you say is unbelievable. sorry but i live in Egypt and i know who is elected democratically

  11. Peter
    July 3, 2019 at 20:48

    Morsi’s obvious murder (high tech murder) at the hands of Saudi/Anglo-Zionists is telling. Coming on the heels of Khashoggi’s murder, we are witness to dangerous desperate machinations of a clearly fascist bent. Fascist trolls in the comment sections also reveal a dangerous and ignorant perception management campaign aimed at the dangerously stupid. This is a careful orchestration by a wounded predator, who fear for continued loss of influence in popular support. Propaganda is such an important weapon in their fight for survival. We should all be on highest alert. The rumblings of nasty fascism are increasing everywhere.

  12. johnDoe
    July 3, 2019 at 19:42

    “Banning the Brotherhood in the Gulf merely pushes them underground.”
    Of course. They know that. The most successful dictatorship is the one that builds its own opposition. Treating them as terrorists, letting them appear as victims, concentrating the attention on them is just a way to provide them enough popular support to let them take over when the incumbent can’t hold on power any longer.
    Remember that Morsi until shortly before the elections was unknown, he wasn’t one of the Brotherhood big leaders. A lot of people were surprised when his name was put forward for the presidency, but with some hindsight we might tell that the leaders already knew that their government would have been just a preparation for the new order to come and they chose someone who was expendable.

    “The Brotherhood in Egypt are not finished; they will come back, and their return will unlikely be peaceful.”
    As in the good cop bad cop game, when the bad cop fails the good cop intervenes.

  13. Hany
    July 3, 2019 at 16:06

    I dont like what you said about Egypt and my presedent el Sisi I’m proud of our Egyptian military and our government and stop the pullshit about my country because it’s not your business. Also too much and many projects going on now and also many already finished why you people don’t mentioned it … I’m supporting my country forever and my president and military in my heart what ever happened… Egyptian man here

    • Fahim asif
      July 3, 2019 at 23:12

      You are ignorant and have no conscience.. Butcher of Egypt is your illegitimate sisi whose uncle was an Israeli… And now he is doing dirty work for israel

    • July 3, 2019 at 23:40

      So much misinformation here that it is hard to address the positions taken by the author. My guess is that this piece is funded by IKWAN via Qatari supporters. Having lived in Egypt during the Morsi fiasco.. it is easy to understand why the Egyptians went onto the streets in the biggest protest ever to occur in that counrty to oust him. Sisi was a General appointed by Morsi, however on witnessing the choice on q hether to repres the desires of the majority of Egyptians or to support the Brotherhood, he chose his people. Since that time the economy, security and hope for a better future has improved. The Muslim Brotherhood, during their short reign in Egypt proved themselves to be ignorant, inept, brutal and corrupt. Except for the membership of MB who received kickbacks, honours and impunity before the law (like mafioso) the people if Egypt have no desire to go back to those dark days

      • July 4, 2019 at 01:00

        Thank you for this honest witness.

    • July 4, 2019 at 00:57

      You are right and I agree with every word you said. The Brotherhood are against Islam. From the very beginning Hasan Al Banna was playing politics and using Islam as a propaganda.

  14. Steven
    July 3, 2019 at 13:45

    The West has been compromised by the Deep State who pushes for Chaos so they can then move in their mercenary forces the UN

  15. Tekyo Pantzov
    July 3, 2019 at 12:16

    Your angry Arab writes: “The year of Morsi was an interesting period in contemporary Egyptian history”. How true. As a matter of fact it was considerably more interesting than he lets on, since President Morsi appointed as governor of Luxor Adel El-Khayat, who belonged to Gamaat al Islamiyya, which had admitted responsibility for the massacre of tourists in 1997 at the Hatshepsut Temple in Luxor, in the course of which several female tourists were disemboweled and sacred writings introduced into their abdominal cavities.

    • July 3, 2019 at 23:42

      Very true..
      The Brotherhood = mafia

    • July 4, 2019 at 01:03

      Many facts are ignored by the writer of the article. Is this because of ignorance or purpose?!!

  16. July 3, 2019 at 12:10

    Fact twistig, rediculous article clearly fabricated by a Moslem brotherhood loyal subject.
    No worth the effort to comment.

    • signorRossi
      July 3, 2019 at 13:28

      You clearly don’t know the author, otherwise you wouldn’t spew such nonsense. Or you just want to spew falsehoods…

    • Asad Abukhalil
      July 3, 2019 at 16:52

      Where did you get sympathy for the Brotherhood when I support even Nasser’s crackdown against them? But I was trying as a secular leftist to be fair in my judgement.

      • July 4, 2019 at 01:09

        The only good part in your article is that about Naser. I was against Naser in some decisions, but now I beleive he was honest, brave, nationalist and the best Egyptian governor ever.

  17. Deniz
    July 3, 2019 at 12:02

    I am not sure where the Musllim Brotherood ilk get the notion that Erdogan’s Turkey is a utopia. Turkey is a somewhat functional democracy in which there are some personal freedoms despite the Muslim Brotherhoods influence, not because of it.

    I am glad Erdogan finally got rid of the CIAs in Turkey and used Arab capital to develop the country’s infrastructure, but the country has rampant corruption, patronage and polarization. The countries education standards have been eroded to push religious education and press freedom is in shambles.

    It is unfortunate what happened to Morsi, but to minimize the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood policies overlooks the reality of the detrimental impacts of an Islamicized government.

    And from a secular Turks viewpoint, this is a balanced view of Erdogan compared to many of my compatriots who flew into a rage over the past decade whenever someone even mentioned his name.

    • Asad Abukhalil
      July 3, 2019 at 16:53

      Turkey is far from being a Utopia but for people living under Saudi wahhabi rule, it looks better to them.

  18. Suleiman
    July 3, 2019 at 11:08

    Muslim Brotherhood are only good destroyers .
    They never had a re building agenda.

  19. Desmond Kahn,
    July 3, 2019 at 11:07

    Dr. AbuKhalil, thank you for writing this. I learned much from it. I hoped you would comment on Morsi’s death and Erdogan’s claim that he was murdered.

  20. AnneR
    July 3, 2019 at 09:50

    Thank you, As’ad Abu Khalil, for this enlightening article, providing some much needed background, from Nasser to Morsi, for this person.

    Among the points that you raise, the following caught my eye because it is one that is almost always overlooked by the bourgeois MSM in the western world and not only in relation to Egypt (or other North African/Middle Eastern countries) but also with regard to other parts of the world: “Secular, liberal, Nasserists, and even some progressives were accomplices of the coup of 2013; they were alarmed with the Islamic rhetoric of the Brotherhood and *some even resented the political rise of poorer Egyptians with an Islamist ben[t]*.”

    I would suggest that, as in western countries, (the religious aspect being – beyond US shores – far less significant) the “liberals…progressives” tend to be bourgeois of income and outlook and in general, though not always in particular, dismissive of the views, especially political opinions, of those of the working classes and poor. That is the ones who do *not* benefit at all from neo-liberal, so called progressive (which rarely seems to include income equality), corporate-capitalist politics and societal changes. These people – on the bottom rungs of the ladder, or not even on any ladder – are perceieved by the bourgeoisie (petite a haute) as ignorant, stupid, too thick to know their own interests and, perhaps as important, a potential force for genuine socio-economic restructuring in ways that would benefit *all* not just the well-educated, comfortably off. Thus I imagine that for the bourgeoisie – who can escape the strictures of a military dictatorship and/or benefit from it – better an el-Sisi than a Morsi.

    We see/hear similar things in the western MSM and presumably among western bourgeoisies about on-goings in country and abroad: the riots/demos in Hong Kong are lauded for their participants “pro-democracy, anti-China” stance without any nuance, without a full explanation of that “extradition” law – which arose because Taiwan wanted a man who had run away to HK but he couldn’t be extradited because there was no such agreement in place. All the vitriol has been directed toward China and the leading demo participants who have been interviewed have only helped stoke that by deliberately avoiding telling the whole truth about the extradition treaty and its background.

    Vis a vis the Gilets Jaunes – we don’t hear about their regular weekly protests (nor about the serious injuries to the demonstrators that the French riot police have caused) unless a finger can be pointed at some hangers on who cause damage. Ordinary people’s protests against neo-liberal hardships are not newsworthy, significant, should be binned because why would the bourgeoisie have to feel a touch perturbed as they drink their double espresso while enjoying their breakfast?

    In neither of these – nor any other like – situations (including I would argue the support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi by the poorer levels of Egyptian society – and *why*), do we hear from the given country’s poorer people and how they view e.g. the HK demos/riots, the GJ protest marches (and we *never* hear from the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank, those at the receiving end of Israeli brutal ethnic cleansing).

    I realize I’ve gone a bit off topic, but that sentence in your article to my mind not only reveals much about Egypt’s political situation but also about the reality pretty much elsewhere *and* whose points of view we get from the MSM.

    Thank you.

    • Deniz
      July 3, 2019 at 12:20

      The MB does defend some of the interests of the poor, but they do so under the expectation of absolute fealty to their fiefdom, which is rife with corruption. I had the opportunity to intermingle with top Government bureaucrats in Turkey under Erdogan and they were scared of misspeaking a word which they knew would mean the end of their career.

      Regardless of their rhetoric, the MB’s end goal is to create an autocratic theocracy. So, you can also forget about any notions of a daughter having a mind of her own and creating a career for herself, because her sole purpose in life will be to support the collective ideology as laid out for her in 6th century Arabia.

      • AnneR
        July 3, 2019 at 15:01

        Deniz – thank you for your comment.

        Would you please point to a government, a bureaucracy, that isn’t corrupt, indeed up to its eyeballs in it?

        And given how Assange, Manning and many another of recent years (and others in earlier ones) have been treated for whistle-blowing, for revealing the war crimes committed by the USA (in this instance) and so on, the aim being to ensure that government workers, officials are too afraid to speak up – how is that so very different to the situation in Turkey? Or elsewhere?

        And if the majority of a country’s population want to live in a theocracy, wouldn’t that be their right? Yes, indeed there would be a sizeable minority (usually more highly educated, better off) who would loathe and detest life under such rule – but if that choice (as in Morsi’s case) is the result of a democratic election, one has to live with the reality. That is what western-style democracy is more or less based on: electoral politics which decide what political flavor the ruling party/president/prime minister/ what have you. It is not just a game for the bourgeoisie.

        As for “6th C” females under early Islam – as it so happens they had more standing than females under Christendom in Europe and more than females under early Judaism. Most certainly when it came to inheritance.

        It took hundreds of years – not until the first half of the 20th C – for western females to get close to parity with western males. And that with their supposed superior societies.

        • old geezer
          July 3, 2019 at 17:23

          you’ve come a long way baby. ready to go back to the 7th century ?

          can you say FGM ? sure, i knew you could.

        • Deniz
          July 3, 2019 at 17:52

          The situation is different because Western Society is controlled through sophisticated media propaganda, while MB societies are controlled through coercion. For instance, what happens to Assange does not happen to you. You can be a university professor and criticize Trump as much as you want, even suggest that unfortunate circumstances befall on him and absolutely nothing will happen to you; the same cannot be said if you were in an MB society. The closest to that sort of a world arose right after 9/11 and the maniacal Cheney / Bush had full control of society, that was a very brief period of time and certainly not what happens today. If this is still unclear, imagine Kamala Harris publicly eviscerating an Erdogan stooge.

          Sure, relative to 6th Century Europe, Islam was enlightened; relative to the 21st Century Europe/US, not so much. And really, are you kidding? There are so many extremely powerful, well-paid women in the modern workplace, law, medicine, politics, business, the best jobs are often held by highly successful women. Frankly, the emancipation of women from the C level to the board room, or the presidency, is a first world problem which does not keep me awake at night. Meanwhile, Erdogan tells women that their purpose in life is to raise 3 children each.

          • michael
            July 4, 2019 at 06:56

            “You can be a university professor and criticize Trump as much as you want, even suggest that unfortunate circumstances befall on him and absolutely nothing will happen to you.” True, anyone in the US University system can criticize Trump, but American professors could not freely criticize the Obamas (racism), Hillary (misogyny), or Israel (anti-Semitism).
            One only has to look at the death squad dictatorship re-set up in Honduras in 2009 (a major source of our illegal alien crises), the NAZI government set up in Ukraine (to provoke Russia), as well as the overthrow of any country (regardless of elections) that stands up to the US (or Israel or Saudi Arabia) to realize that our foreign policies are unconnected to the feeble platitudes spewed by our CIA/State Department forpublic consumption.

          • Deniz
            July 4, 2019 at 10:40

            There is a whole industry in the alt right media that makes a living criticicizing Obama and Clinton, but I agree with you on Israel.

            In terms of Foreign Policy, nobody is worse than the US, but my comments pertain to domestic rulership.

    • July 3, 2019 at 23:52

      You like the word bourgeoisie..
      Also complicating something that is simple

      The Muslim Brotherhood operate as long the same lines as mafia.. If you are a loyal “follower” you benefit.. however when you have drunk from the poison chalice there is no escape.. you follow orders or you and your family will suffer the consequences. Till death.( and beyond as they claim a stake in any properties after deatth) or they own their members. Their interest is restricted to their power and the expansionism of it by what ever means.

  21. July 3, 2019 at 06:34

    Wow! For a professor you are so ignorant when it comes to Egypt. Morsi was the worst thing that happened in the history of this country. The MB are the dumbest bunch of morons to ever walk the earth. Non of what you said about them is accurate. Oh and they’re NOT coming back. Trust me.

    • old geezer
      July 3, 2019 at 17:37

      from what i remember, morsi was a University of Southern California PhD Metallurgical Engineer.

      if my knuckles didn’t drag so badly i might be able to make a coherent comment. maybe if i tried real hard i could make a sentence with the word juxtapose.

    • Fahim asif
      July 3, 2019 at 23:39

      I believe you are dumbest one..

    • July 4, 2019 at 01:22

      They are already dead. How can any one claim that Al Sissy seized power by a coup! What about the millions who took to streets in all governorates on June 30 supporting him and then electing him?! Did ex President Carter report

Comments are closed.