Egypt’s High Court Tries to Stave Off Sharia
by Robert Spencer, FPG
[..]
Will the court’s action be enough to prevent Egypt from becoming an Islamic state? For that, it may be too late. Many see the upcoming runoff presidential election between Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi and secularist Ahmed Shafiq, a longtime friend and associate of Hosni Mubarak, as the great showdown that will determine whether Egypt will embrace Sharia and become an Islamic state, or whether it will continue on the relatively secular path it has been on for decades. But in reality, even if Shafiq is elected, it is unlikely that the Islamization of Egypt is going to be stymied in any significant way.
The transformation of Egypt from a Western-oriented state to one dominated by Islamic law has been proceeding for decades. The Muslim Brotherhood’s societal and cultural influence has long outstripped its direct political reach, and shows no sign of abating. One highly visible example of this influence is the fact that while in the 1960s women wearing hijabs were rare on the streets of Cairo, now it is rare to see a woman not wearing one.
Meanwhile, since the presidency of Gamel Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), the Egyptian government has practiced steam control with the Brotherhood, looking the other way as the group terrorized Coptic Christians and enforced Islamic strictures upon the Egyptian populace, but cracking down when the Brotherhood showed signs of growing powerful enough actually to seize power. Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat (1970-1981) not only released all the Brotherhood political prisoners who had been languishing in Egyptian prisons, but also promised the Brotherhood that Sharia would be fully implemented in Egypt.
Sadat didn’t live long enough to fulfill that promise; he was murdered by members of another Islamic supremacist group that was enraged by his peace treaty with Israel. Sadat’s successor Hosni Mubarak didn’t keep that promise to the Brotherhood either, and so it remains unfulfilled to this day, and the Muslim Brothers still want to see Sharia in Egypt.
So do most Egyptians. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in Spring 2010, before the Arab Spring and the toppling of Mubarak, found that no fewer than eighty-five percent of Egyptians thought that Islam was a positive influence in politics. Fifty-nine percent said they identified with “Islamic fundamentalists” in their struggle against “groups who want to modernize the country,” who had the support of only twenty-seven percent of Egyptians. Only twenty percent were “very concerned” about “Islamic extremism” within Egypt.
Another survey in May 2012 found little difference. 61 percent of Egyptians stated that they wanted to see Egypt abandon its peace treaty with Israel, and the same number identified the hardline Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the country that should serve as Egypt’s model for the role Islam should play in government. 60 percent said that Egypt’s laws should hew closely to the directives of the Qur’an.
Morsi would be happy to oblige them: “It was for the sake of the Islamic sharia that men were…thrown into prison,” he recalled at a recent rally. “Their blood and existence rests on our shoulders now. We will work together to realize their dream of implementing sharia.” In an ugly hint of what might happen if he loses, Morsi’s supporters have pelted Shafiq with stones and shoes, and set fire to his campaign headquarters. Campaigning for Morsi, Muslim preacher Safwat Hegazy warned Egyptians: “If you choose a man who corrupted the country, you will be responsible with him for his corruption and will be held accountable with him [before God]. But if you choose a man who abides by the law of God and establishes justice, you will be rewarded with him. Everyone will be held accountable [by God] if the next president is ill-chosen, and we should not blame but ourselves.”
A Muslim cleric, Shaykh Usamah Qasim, was clearer about what this meant when he warned of violence if Islamic supremacists were denied power and Shafiq or anyone else but Morsi were elected president: “The fate of any of them who reaches the presidency will be like that of former President Anwar al-Sadat, who was assassinated.”
Egypt’s Coptic Christians are understandably worried. Yousef Sidhom, a Christian newspaper editor, said flatly: “There is a Brotherhood strategy to work toward building an Islamic country.” He said, according to the Associated Press, that Christians were concerned that “the Brotherhood will keep Christians out of some government positions, tax non-Muslims, base education around Islam and create a foreign policy that favors Muslim over non-Muslim nations.”
The Brotherhood and the Salafis may still get a chance to do this, despite the Egyptian high court’s Thursday action. The court may have just been trying to stave off the inevitable.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted,
I would like to see your prognostics: “How will the middle east look incase Shafiq’s victory,or what happens if Morsi wins.”
Just like the helicopters America claimed: that Russia was selling attack choppers to Syria, in order for it to kill more poor innocent civilians. Turns out that those choppers were Syrian undergoing manint.. and upgrades in Russia.
Lazy media accepted without checking American govt. claims.
So far in Syria I have to decide between two alternatives. I certainly don’t want to be surrounded by the MB. So I prefer that they be kept out of power there knowing also that Turkey would be part of the problem. An inconclusive war suits me fine just as it did between Iraq and Iran. The DEBKA Report suggests a deal has been cut between Russia and the US. That works for me. The US and others will defeat Assad and secure the WMD’s. As to what follows, it won’t be the SNC. They don’t have enough local support. The best shot is what I am working on and that is a federated Syria.
Debka becomes the tool of US Imperialism.
What happens is the usual. The US tell the Media in America that Russia is taking over a Southern Port.
Debka reports this as Gospel (that is Spook Gospel)
But the situation is roughly the same as Libya with one difference and a significant one. In Libya the Imperialists got their UN Resolution and did so by making promises to Russia and the Chinese that it was a very limited affair. They swallowed that Lie and then when it turned into a total counter-revolutionary and pro Muslim Brotherhood operation the Stalinists in Russia and China could do little. It was too late.
Here in Syria of course the Russians and Chinese would agree to NO resolution at the UN. They remembered the trick played on them by Obama, cameron and Sarkozy before in Libya.
But nothing stops the Empire. Thus the latest as reported by Debka.
The Empire will just move in anyway and use this cock and bull story of the Russians taking over a port. Do they think we are all stupid! Why would the Russians do such a thing and offer this opportunity to the Imperialists.
Meanwhile Belman and Gordon are doing everything they can to divide the opposition to the CIA and Empire in Syria.
Belman has learned NOTHING from all of these countries over the past year. You remove Ben Ali, gaghbo, Mubarak or Gadhafi you have the Muslim Brotherhood in power.
You talk on this site about the huge betrayal of American Jews voting for Obama and I agree it is a huge betralal. But this betrayal here which will lead directly to the Muslim Brotherhood backed by US Empire taking the power in Syria is FAR FAR WORSE.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, Debka is sometimes a rumor mill. But assuming they are correct about an understanding between the USA and Russia regarding Syria, I agree that a federated Syrian state would be in the best interests of the stability of the region. But I hope it would bring the Kurdish nation closer to realization of an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds, though they mostly are Sun’a Muslims, are an Indo-European people who resent Arabization by the Baathist governments of the Assad family and the now-defunct dictatorship in Iraq, along with oppression by the Shi’a Muslims of Iran. A long-term alliance between Israel and the Kurds would be a better means of guaranteeing Israel’s safety and satisfying the rights of the Jewish nation, than of depending upon the US departments of state and defense, the UNO, NATO or the now-decaying European Union.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Kenneth Mathews Said:
Democracy alone is only a guarantee that the majority of voters will rule the rest. In a democracy the media is in control as most people are uneducated, ignorant or lazy in their thinking. A mafia round table that votes on whether to “hit” a recalcitrant member is exercising the democratic process, exercising the rule of “law”(their law) and expressing their culture. The more of them that vote for the hit the more democratic is the process. This is the same process as the UN, etc.
Felix Quigley Said:
On the contrary. I am totally against the MB dominated north Africa and Levant. I am aslo against the Shiite alliance of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
So far in Syria I have to decide between two alternatives. I certainly don’t want to be surrounded by the MB. So I prefer that they be kept out of power there knowing also that Turkey would be part of the problem. An inconclusive war suits me fine just as it did between Iraq and Iran. The DEBKA Report suggests a deal has been cut between Russia and the US. That works for me. The US and others will defeat Assad and secure the WMD’s. As to what follows, it won’t be the SNC. They don’t have enough local support. The best shot is what I am working on and that is a federated Syria.
NormanF
My own organization http://www.4international.me takes a clear position on tomorrow’s election, we call clearly for Egyptian people to vote for Shafiq and the Army, and against the Muslim Brotherhood in alliance with the US Power Establ;ishment. Do you take a position on this?
Robert Spencer
If you are reading what position do you take on this election. Do you make a call for a vote for Shafiq? You seem to be abstaining seeing the election as meaningless?
Ted Belman
Are you taking no position between Shafiq and the Musliom Brotherhood?
@ NormanF:
NormanF Said:
Once the people of Germany rejected even the most basic morality in favor of the evil ideology & propaganda of the Nazis – the Nazis control of the government was assured until their total military defeat. The same is the case with MB/Islamism in Egypt. There are always catastrophic results when people/nations accept evil ideologies and/or evil religious beliefs – nazism, fascism, communism, “Christian” anti-semitism/anti-zionism, Islamist anti-semitism/anti-zionism, etc.
@ NormanF:
NormanF Said:
Muslim Brotherhood’s control over civil society will inevitably lead to control over the government. Robert Spencer understands this very well. Democracy alone is no guarantee of a wise and just government. If the people hold foolish and evil beliefs a “democratic” government will inevitably reflect this. The West has willfully forgotten the moral requirements of a wise and just democratic government and a free society.
“Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a disgrace to any people.” Psalms 14:34
There is a difference between the Muslim Brotherhood’s control over civil society and its control over the state. A very significant difference Robert Spencer fails to appreciate.
Without state power, the MB cannot implement Sharia law, radicalize the minds of the next generation of Egyptians, indoctrinate the clergy, repress women and persecute minorities. It also can’t start wars with Israel or aid Islamic terrorists abroad.
We must do all in our power to keep the MB from running a modern state just like the Nazi gang ran Germany. It would be catastrophic for American interests and for world peace.