This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
MARC STEINER Absolutely.
SEIF DA'NA And, let alone, that we're talking about a democratically-elected president in this case, who was mistreated in a very clear way. We've seen the images from the court in on many occasions and it's obvious that he was mistreated. All you have to do is just compare that with what happened with President Mubarak before, the treatment that the former President Mubarak received before, so this is one thing. There is no question about this. Regardless of how catastrophic the politics of Morsi was, or his failure to do anything, but that's a red line that no government shouldBut, in this case, we're talking about literally, seriously a despotic regime in Egypt. That has been the way President Sisi handled the situation in Egypt from day one, using the security forces as a first option to deal with his opponents, or actually activists who are demanding basic things.
The second thing is, regardless ofI mean, it's very difficult to see any legitimacy for the military coup that Sisi led against Morsi. Particularly now, we know that the movement that was called Tamarod that was spearheaded, a popular protest in Egypt against President Morsi, this very much disappeared now, which basically means that it was guided by essentially the Sisi camp. Anyway, the sad part about this tragedy is it's being politicized from day one by all sides, unfortunately. I'm sure that the Muslim Brotherhood movement and the non-Muslim Brotherhood activists are very sad for the loss of the president. He's been a symbol to them, but we've seen attempts to politicize that case. On the other side, we've seen attempts to politicize his death by the other side, by President Erdogan of Turkey, by Qatar and by other countries. Unfortunately, that did not allow for the proper burial or allow even to give his family the time to grieve.
In this case, we've seen calls for investigations, international investigations, and that's part of the politicization of the case. The issue here is for the Egyptians and they are right about this, the Egyptian government this is a matter of sovereignty, and they can make this claim at this point. Actually, they can be convincing about that because unfortunately, previous experiences in the Middle East with international commissions of such nature have been also politicized. We only have to see the case of Rafic Hariri's assassination in Lebanon and how the international commission has been used as a ploy by the international forces against Syria at one time, like that against Hezbollah another time. It is very hard to trust such commissions. On the other side, we know that it is very difficult to imagine that the Sisi regime would actually carry out if they do actually any transparent, impartial investigation in this case. They won't.
MARC STEINER And I won't hold my breath.
SEIF DA'NA Any attempt to do such a thing will be also manipulated by the Sisi regime for his own benefit. What we know is this is a major event in the modern politics of Egypt, so it's going to have significant consequences. We don't know how it will unfold in the future, but this is not just a simple issue. It's a president who was elected by 51 percent of the population, democratically-elected probably in the first and only fair elections in the history of modern Egypt. He received 13.5 million votes. Regardless of anything, he was democratically-elected. Now, we still have his followers and people who accept the premise of the Arab Spring which I disagree with was about democracy or liberal democracy. I think there were socio-economic demands at the heart of the Arab Spring, but that's not really the issue at this point.
For his supporters and followers and the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is a very popular movement, a strong movement not only in Egypt but all over the Arab and Muslim world, to believe that one of their symbols has been assassinated is even if they don't believe that he was assassinated that his death in this case, the mistreatment, the improper burial, which was highly undignified by the Egyptian tradition and by the Muslim culture and tradition, I think that would lead to reactions and consequences that would not be simple in the future. I think we have to wait and see, but it is going to be a major event in the contemporary politics of Egypt.
MARC STEINER I think we're just in the beginning of what's about to unfold because of all of this. Seif Da'na, I want to thank you once again for joining us here at Real News. We deeply appreciate your time and your thoughts and look forward to talk to you again very soon.
SEIF DA'NA Thank you, Marc.
MARC STEINER And The Real News will stay on top of this, obviously. I'm Marc Steiner here for The Real News. Thanks for joining us. Take care.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
