This is Sunday afternoon, August 18, 2013. I listened to a
number of the pundits who normally hit the Sunday morning television shows to
pontificate on the issues of the week. This time the central issue was Egypt , and if
there is one thing I can say about the performance of the participants, it is
that they have demonstrated how ignorance goes about perpetuating itself when
left in the hands of ignoramuses.
Despite the fact that the hands were many, they all played
one and the same tune as if the orchestra was made not of one maestro
conducting several musicians, but made one lone bugle responding to the command
of several maestros. And the remarkable thing was that the hands were so well
synchronized, they looked like the limbs of one and the same organism. In fact,
they were the tentacles of one and the same monster. Thus, in the end, we had
one monster playing one tune that was conducted by several pundits, all
masquerading as maestros in their field.
As if they were clones of each other, one pundit after the
other opened the mouth and played the same tune. It was to the effect that the
demise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will force the group to go
underground and resume the terrorist activities it relinquished sometime ago.
The talkers based their view on the fact that al-Qaeda had argued that no
Muslim will ever be allowed to govern via the ballot box, therefore Muslims
must seek to govern via the bullet.
It was added that the group has several examples by which to
illustrate its point-of-view such as, for example, what happened in Gaza where
the Muslims won the election but were marginalized by most of the world, and
what happened in Algeria and Egypt where the military in those countries denied
the Muslims the victory they won fair and square at the ballot box.
Well, the fact is that this debate took place in Egypt more than
a year ago when there seemed to be hesitancy on the part of the military that
was governing the country at the time, to announce that the Muslim Brotherhood
had won the election. At the end of that debate, the military concluded it
would be wise to let Mohammed Morsi of the Brotherhood become President. He did
govern Egypt
for about a year but then things changed.
It is that the millions of Egyptians who saw the good side
of the Brotherhood when it was doing social work – helping the people who
needed help – and voted for it, now saw its darker side. Thus, the people who
made it possible for Morsi to be President now thought he was not the person
they had in mind to lead the country. Since they could not recall him from
office – though they asked him to depart voluntarily – the people called on the
military that installed him to remove him the same way it removed his
predecessor Hosni Mubarak.
The military responded to the wishes of the people so now,
the pundits who go on the American talk shows, are repeating the elements of
the old Egyptian debate. At the same time, however, the current debate in Egypt has
advanced well beyond the old points. The current debate in Egypt is to the
effect that there are at least two factions making up the Muslim political
body. There is a faction that wants to resort to terrorism to attain power, and
there is a faction that wants to continue pursuing its political ambitions via
the ballot box.
For this reason, the provisional government and the military
have left the door wide open for the latter to join in the peaceful exercise of
their political right, thus help in the reconstruction of the country. But the
government also made it clear that terrorism will be dealt with harshly because
the intention is to root it out permanently. This will now be possible, says
the government, because of two trends.
First, having seen what can happen, the entire population
will be vigilant and will participate in ridding the country of all extremist
tendencies and extreme elements. Second, the Muslims will turn on each other,
and the good guys will help root out the bad guys because they will have the
entire society on their side.
And when Egypt
will have become what its people want it to be, it will engage in a brand new
debate that no one can at this time begin to imagine what it will be. But
whatever the order of the day will then be, the many-tentacled monster of the
American talk shows will be catching up with the new debate, and will advise
its American audiences that Egypt
is now planning to rid itself of terrorists.
Well, better late than never.