Wednesday, April 10, 2013

A specter is haunting the Egyptian uprising


An alarming situation is developing in Egypt threatening to tear the revolution apart & destroy its achievements. It’s the specter of sectarian conflict between traditions of Islam & between Muslims & Christians. It’s the same pattern of divide & conquer which nefarious political forces (the CIA, Mossad, & agents of the Saudi regime) are using throughout the Middle East to thwart the Arab uprisings against US-backed tyrants.

This is not conspiracy thinking since there are recent documented revelations about the orchestrated efforts of these malignant forces to create conflict & turn the revolutions against themselves. If we don’t have the names of operatives in every country, we recognize the pattern.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) played a weak & minor role in ousting Hosni Mubarak in 2011, their extremist zealots are now riding high with Mohamed Morsi as president & are playing a central role in dividing & demoralizing revolutionary forces. You can be damn sure their aggression & violence toward democracy protestors, especially women, are instigated, tutored, prodded by police agents.

The crescendoing conflict between Muslims & Coptic Christians left four Christians & one Muslim dead last Saturday. Assaults on Christians emerged full tilt after the ouster of Mubarak but there have been several instances reported of Muslims attending Christian religious services & acting as human shields for Christians under attack. Many Muslims attended the funerals of those Christians killed Saturday. This violence has the stench of undercover operatives written all over it.

The mass attacks on women protestors is skyrocketing while women & their allies organize protests demanding protection & self-defense squads. Activists are carrying electric prods & knives to protect themselves & others. Meanwhile, riot police stand by mute & do nothing to stop the attacks. Once again, there is the distinct malodor of undercover agents in collusion with the Morsi regime.

When the Egyptian constitution was rammed through last year, it excluded religious freedom for those other than conservative Muslims; it excluded women’s rights, worker’s rights, freedom of speech, democratic rights of all sorts. It denied legal protection for millions--though no constitution (even the most democratically formulated) is going to save the ass of the revolution. That’s a far more dynamic & complicated process. But the divisiveness & violence fomented by the undercover low-lives pose a serious threat to revolutionary change in Egypt--as it has throughout the Middle East. Unity in action against tyranny is the hardest thing to achieve but it is the only hope of wresting the Egyptian uprising from the reactionaries & imperialist operatives attempting to destroy it.

This photo is of a protest by Muslims, Christians, & many others in a suburb of Cairo against the policies of the Morsi regime.

US hands off Egypt! No military aid to Egypt! Our fullest solidarity with the women of Egypt & with the fight for religious & democratic freedom. And one last demand: Dismantle the CIA & prosecute every one of its operatives for crimes against the people of Egypt & against humanity!

(Photo by Ed Giles/Getty Images)




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