EGYPT - Army, Muslim Brotherhood Vs. Tahrir Square

Robert Dreyfuss | May 27, 2011
Things don't look good in Egypt.

The emerging alliance between the Egyptian army and the right-wing Muslim
Brotherhood seems to be in control, and it's likely that the elections for
parliament will produce an assembly dominated by the Brotherhood and the
(military-linked) National Democratic Party, the remade party that
controlled the country during the Mubarak era.

Today, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, many of those who organized the revolt that
toppled Mubarak were back in the square, protesting the slowness of Egypt's
democratic evolution. They were calling, they said, for a "second
revolution." But according to reports from Cairo [1], only "several
thousand" appeared. Noticeably absent was the Brotherhood, which denounced
the rally. (In a statement today, the Muslim Brotherhood asked [1]: "Who are
the people angry with now?") In the square itself, one the slogans chanted
was: "Where is the Muslim Brotherhood?"

On its Facebook page-isn't it perverse that the ruling Egyptian military
council communicates its positions via Facebook?-the military warned [1]
that the Tahrir Square rally was organized by "suspicious elements who will
try to pit the military against the people." Not far away, a rally of
several hundred people held a counter-rally of sorts. Their slogan [2]? "For
the sake of our country, we want to be ruled by the army."

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria had it about right [3]:

"We think of Egypt as having gone through a regime change. But it really
didn't go through a regime change. Egypt has been run since 1952 by a
military dictatorship. It is still run by a military dictatorship. Mubarak
resigned. A few people around him resigned. But at the end of the day the
military still holds power. They have a huge vested interest in maintaining
the current system politically, financially and socially. They aren't going
to go quietly into the night."

According to Al Ahram, the semi-official Egyptian daily, which has undergone
a regime change of its own, there were reports that the "youth wing" of the
Muslim Brotherhood has planned to take part in the Second Day of Rage events
today, but it isn't clear that they did so. The younger members of the
Brotherhood are far less dogmatic than the older ones, but they're also not
part of the group's leadership, and it isn't clear what clout they have.
Reports Al Ahram [4]:

"Many of the leading activist groups, including the 6 April Youth movement,
the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, Al-Masry Al-Hurr, ElBaradei Campaign,
the Egyptian Movement for Change, the Maspero Copts movement, the Muslim
Brotherhood Youth wing and expected presidential candidate Bothaina Kamel
have all announced their intention to take part."

And the military, through the so-called Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,
is arresting people-including leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement-who were
organizing today's events, and taking other measures to curtail it, reports
Al Ahram [4]:

"The SCAF used several tactics to prevent people from joining the protest,
from sending ousted president Mubarak and his two sons to criminal court,
releasing statements on Facebook saying suspicious elements were asking
people to protest and playing on the relationship between the people and the
army, and finally on Thursday arresting activists leafleting about the 27
May protests."

Source URL:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/161002/army-muslim-brotherhood-vs-tahrir-squar
e
Links:
[1]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jdMC9guuuB94fKrfsxgWIrOJU
bdQ?docId=CNG.0206d44090e532472f61a2b49b0b4a9c.31
[2] http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE74Q1J620110527?sp=true
[3]
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/26/zakaria-egypt-is-still-ru
n-by-a-military-dictatorship/
[4]
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/12998/Egypt/Politics-/Everythin
g-seems-possible-in-"Second-Day-of-Rage"-.aspx
[5] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nationnow/id399704758?mt=8