Who Will Stand With Egyptian Democracy?
It appears that not enough attention is being paid to the rights of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose inclusion is necessary for Egypt to move forward democratically.
It may be a stretch, but after the removal of President Mohammed Morsi by a popularly instigated coup, there was a small window of time where the army and the opposition could have adopted a genuinely reconciliatory tone, since they had the upper hand in how events were going to play out. While the nature, history and general interests of the army can be blamed for preventing the army from doing so, the opposition — or at the least the “revolutionary core” of pro-democracy youth activists — could have struggled harder to push the new military and civilian leadership to begin shaping the new order on democratic values.
This is not to say that anything can appease the Muslim Brotherhood at this point and push it to reintegrate into the political system, nor to ignore the fractures in the loosely strung-together opposition.
If this is truthfully a continuation of the revolution, and not just an attack on the vilified Brotherhood, where are the continued cries demanding protection of human rights, rule of law, political freedom and political pluralism?
The military is arresting Muslim Brotherhood figures, the army is firing on Brotherhood protesters, Islamist media is prevented from airing and the Constitution remains suspended. The spokesman for the June 30 front, Mohamed ElBaradei, who is expected to take a key role in the interim government, justified these actions in a July 4 New York Times interview indicative of the exclusionary, hypocritical and complacent attitude that is so far defining this transition.
