Why are all those protesters going about protesting? There will be a referendum on the constitution in a week and if they do not like newly drafted constitution they could simply say so at the ballot box?

They are also fond of adding:

Those who are currently protesting want to bring down a democratically elected president. They are such sore losers and pathetic whiners. But we will defend the will of the people, we will not let a corrupt and counter-revolutionary minority dictate their will on the rest of society. In a democracy we work out our differences via the ballot box, not protests.

So here I am, standing with those who are crying out for freedom, and being labeled an enemy of democracy and an elitist. Such has been the message that the MB incessantly trying to spread to western media during this recent crisis in Egypt. The message it sends to its members and other hard core “Islamists” supporters is far less varnished, it goes something like that:

Those who oppose the president are enemies of Sharia.  They are westernized secular liberal infidels who must be fought by every means possible. They are enemies of Islam.

In short, they present themselves as victims of retrograde forces that are trying to kill Egypt’s young democracy and that they must also protect legitimacy and sharia (such was the slogan of their demonstration as Cairo University last Friday). Internally, they label their political opponents as infidels and enemies of Islam. In their twisted ideology, such enemies are fair targets for “jihad”, which in the minds of their more hardcore members often translate to physical liquidation.

From the MB’s demonstration  on Dec 1. Egypt’s flag is a sitting mat, and the MB’s banner is held high

It is telling that during their demonstration their were two prominent chants:

يا باديع يا باديع انت تؤمر و أحنا نطيع
Oh Badie, Oh Badie, you order and we obey

and the more ominous

إدي يا ريس الإشارة واحنا نجيبهوملك في شكارة
Give us a signal president and we will be bring them (i.e. your opponents) in a body bag

Such are the peaceful way of the brotherhood. The president, it seems, wields secondary power compared to Badie (the MB’s supreme guide). It was the supreme guide who was issuing statements today about how get out this impasse and not Morsi.

Most of those who voted for Morsi in the presidential elections thought they were voting for a president, not a marionette who is controlled by the leader of an organized that is shrouded in secrecy and that is implicated in numerous terrorists activities.

It is becoming clearer by the day that Morsi is not your garden variety president, he is backed by highly organized group who can act as his shock troops on demand. Morsi has been trying hard to maintain a strangle hold on popular media via his minister of information (a sort of miniature Joseph Goebbels). In the past few months, Morsi’s administration has been politically appointing members of the brotherhood in key position in Egypt’s sprawling governmental bureaucracy. Most Morsi’s speeches have been from inside mosques and the language and rhetoric are more akin to a grand khalif  that a president.  Liberals as becoming increasingly aware that if left unchecked Morsi might do seriouse damage to Egypt’s tolerant and cheerful culutral DNA. Morsi has not given reason in the past five months for his non-MB and non-Salfi supporters to trust him. Hence, the vast majority of liberals and leftists have come to the conclusion that this is man who is almost impossible to do business with. Almost all Morsi’s non-Islamist advisors have abandoned him.

Morsi has given himself unlimited powers via his illegal constitutional decree. There was nothing in the constitution that he had sworn to respect that  gave him the power to issue constitutional decrees at will. In the early days of his presidential term, Morsi had annulled a similar decree that was issued by the supreme council of the armed forces (SCAF) on the grounds that it was not put up for referendum.  In the face of mounting public criticism, Morsi seems to be trying to deflect attention away from his failing by  pushing the country to the brink of a civil war. He does that by painting his opponents has enemies of religion and unleashing his shook troops to cow them into submission. The counter reaction is often quite ugly and many, in response to losing hope in attaining any measure of justice, are resorting to attacking  the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice party (FJP).

Morsi declaring to the MB and other Islamists: “In the name of the infallible, inerrant, and untouchable ruler. I call upon thee to prepare for a  holy ‘Jihad’ to protect my holiness”  (by Ahmed Nady)

I feel we are living under a reign of terror. MB militias can go about and beat-up and torture anyone with impunity. They can then claim to be victims, and try to muster sympathy for another vicious attack. They even stoop so low as to claim those who died during clashes with their militias as their own martyrs. Things were never that bad under Mubarak. The MB have no problem reneging on oaths or promises, they lie, they deceive,  they distort, they torture, and they murder. They even have the nerve to do all of this while falsely claiming that it justified by divine law. They flagrantly violate the Sharia that they claim to be protecting. They pose the greatest threat to genuine message of  Islam (at least from my perspective)  in modern times.

Morsi is asking us to be patient and trust him fully for two month while he retains his god like powers. We have a very bad history to giving rulers full trust and full authority and hoping they will relinquish it when it is no longer necessary. It started with the coup d’etat in 1952, when the generals promised they would restore democracy in a year or so, and they stayed in power for 60 years.  Mubarak has his emergency status that was supposed to last a few months, extended to 30 years. SCAF was suppose to hand over power to civilian control in 6 months and it lasted for over a year (it could have lasted much longer, if was not for the tax in blood that the revolutionaries had to pay).  Now we have Morsi! He has given us no reason to trust him and has no accomplishments that would vouch for him. But, he has his militias and his supporters to call up to crush those opposed to him. They fail to see how absurd they sound when they declare “We are going out to protest against the protesters who are protesting against our president.”

Why am I going out in protests and risking live and limb? Is it to thrust this or that politician forward? Is is pure hatred for  Islam (as the MB and their friends like to claim)? No. I am simply fighting for right to live in this land with a modicum of freedom. I do what I do because I do not want my children to be tortured or disfigure for expressing their views.  I do not want them to be arrested for the crime of thinking differently as Morsi and his friend would have it. I do not want people issuing fatwas that it is okay to kill them for opposing a particular politician (yes we have that now and they do so without any risk of prosecution). I do not want them to live as second class citizens in while the MB lays waste their history and cultural heritage.

It is absurd to cast the current struggle as one between pro and anti Morsi groups. It is one between those whos stand for fascism and those who fight for freedom.

The protester at the presidential palace (Itihadeya) on Dec 7, after the broke through the army’s barricades and occupied the road leading to the palace.

We will fight this battle out to whatever conclusion. Our failure would be a disaster for Egypt and a terrible calamity for the rest of the world.