Ayoon Wa Azan (Egypt in the eye of the storm)

Are we witnessing the last days of Hosni Mubarak, or the last days of Mohamed Morsi? The protests in the past two days were perhaps larger than those we saw between January 25 and February 11, 2011. Beyond that, the comments and reactions of the former and current president to the protests against them are similar, if not identical. Today, President Morsi is accusing those rising up against him of violating ‘constitutional legitimacy.’ But this talk comes from an expert on metallurgy rather than a statesman, because constitutional legitimacy emanates principally from the millions that make up the populace. Indeed, they are the ones who represent this legitimacy, and determine its provisions and withdraw it if these are not implemented. I stop here to say that to date, President Morsi continues to be popular among wide segments, and his party, the Freedom and Justice Party, can win in a free and fair parliamentary election. One must not deny the popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, but what happened a year after the rule of this Islamist group was that everything that the Egyptians had complained about under Hosni Mubarak only became worse, and continues to get worse. Perhaps the only apparently good relationship that the regime has is with Israel and the United States. If the president, his regime, and the Brotherhood want a solution to the problem, then denying that it exists does not help. Instead, they must provide at the very least the minimum requirements for a decent living for most citizens, including in their livelihoods, healthcare, social welfare, and education. In truth, Egypt is in need of around 300 million bread loaves every day. Where will the regime get all of these? The bread that visitors eat at 5-star hotels in Egypt is different from what the average poor Egyptian citizen eats. To be sure, bread in Egypt may now contain bran and sometimes even sawdust, and the poor can either go hungry or eat and fall ill. Perhaps the president thought that he was able to face the demonstrations by the opposition. His supporters rallied in Rabea al-Adawiya in response to the protests called by the Tamarrod (Arabic for Rebel) campaign in Tahrir Square. But the anti-Morsi protesters are now saying that they are in a state of sustained civil disobedience until the president steps down, and new presidential and legislative elections are held. If all Egyptians were united and worked together as one hand to reform the economy and restore security, they still may not succeed. So what can we expect when divisions are so deep, and half of the people are in one trench and half in another, and every side wants to impose its views on the other? Denying the problem does not help solve it, and only makes the problem worse. As we mentioned before, the economy is at rock-bottom, and many a political mistake was made to boot. To be sure, the Muslim Brotherhood has been trying to impose its ideology on the Egyptian state, and extending its control over the latter’s institutions is almost the only policy of the regime. Meanwhile, corruption increased: While under Mubarak it was limited to senior leaders or the villains of the regime, it is now ubiquitous. As a result, the Egyptians who had risen up against the Mubarak regime are rising up once again today, with greater momentum, against the Brotherhood regime. Meanwhile, I read that Tamarrod gathered 22 million signatures on a petition calling for the president to step down. Personally, I do not believe the figures proffered by the government or the opposition, and only believe what I see, and I see that millions of Egyptians have risen up against the Brotherhood’s rule and the role of the Murshid, its ‘supreme guide,’ in a country that represents the Sunni depth of all Arabs. I also see that the president still retains the support of millions of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, but this support is dwindling more by the day, to the extent that the Brotherhood’s HQ in Mokattam was ransacked and burned. As I write I feel sorrow and even despair, and the nation will not rise again and succeed unless Egypt leads the way. But what I see today is a disaster in Egypt that I fear may spillover from the land of the Nile to all our countries. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.