I grew up as a teenager in Alexandria, back in the 1960s. My favorite place there was next to a small mosque named after Al Qaed Ibrahim Square by the beach, where we used to relax in the serenity of the cool sea breeze, listening to stories and dreaming of what could be as teenagers often do. I left more than 40 years ago. By those very same marble steps today is a battleground I never imagined the city would have to witness.
The leader of the recent coup-d’état in Egypt, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has called for popular support to fight those he has deemed “extremists and terrorists.” His call for Egyptians to demonstrate against the supporters of the first Egyptian president to be freely elected in its modern history has been criticized by neutral observers inside and outside Egypt. The opponents of Sisi have occupied the square of Rabia al-Adawiya in Cairo for the past four weeks with numbers oscillating between half a million during the day to nearer 1 million during the night, demanding the release and reinstatement of the elected president Mohammed Morsi; hence the army’s push for counter demonstrations, which have resulted in scores of deaths, and a clear warning for Morsi’s supporters to disperse or else.
