From: mahmoud.1935@hotmail.com
To: mahmoud@generalconstructionproducts.com
Subject: The Future of History
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 15:20:30 -0500
This was the title of a recent article by Francis Fukuyama walking back from his infamous treatise The End of History. Now he is acknowledging the unsustainability of current global economic conditions of winner takes all . Such hubris predicting the ultimate and eternal triumph of liberal Laissez Fair Capitalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he now acknowledges was foolhardy.
The leaders o the Muslim Brothers in Egypt must have believed in a similar fantasy of ultimate and eternal triumph of their Islamic Project (whatever they meant by that) after their candidate Mohamed Moursi won the presidency as the first freely elected president in Egyptian history in a contested ballot.
The Future of History reality for them came in only one short year as their project came down crashing at the hands of millions of Egyptians with the help of the military. As it dawned on them that they have been rudely awaken from the dream (for the rest of Egyptians being a nightmare) of one man one vote one time, they resisted desperately and violently.
The leaders o the Muslim Brothers in Egypt must have believed in a similar fantasy of ultimate and eternal triumph of their Islamic Project (whatever they meant by that) after their candidate Mohamed Moursi won the presidency as the first freely elected president in Egyptian history in a contested ballot.
The Future of History reality for them came in only one short year as their project came down crashing at the hands of millions of Egyptians with the help of the military. As it dawned on them that they have been rudely awaken from the dream (for the rest of Egyptians being a nightmare) of one man one vote one time, they resisted desperately and violently.
Many of my colleagues and friends are aghast at the clumsy heavy handed actions of the security forces and the amateurish and sometimes - in their view- extralegal actions of the interim government. I must agree with many of their observations and their objections. We must demand utmost restraints and the strict observance of due process and the supremacy of the rule of law even if the other side ignores both!
This being said we must recognize that the stakes are nothing less than the survival of the Egyptian Nation/State. We need to look around us from Libya to Iraq, from Lebanon and Syria to South Sudan, while the vultures are just lurking on the treetops!!
Many individuals and groups are demanding reconciliation and inclusiveness. No outcome could be better in the service of Egyptian national interest and future.
This being said we must recognize that the stakes are nothing less than the survival of the Egyptian Nation/State. We need to look around us from Libya to Iraq, from Lebanon and Syria to South Sudan, while the vultures are just lurking on the treetops!!
Many individuals and groups are demanding reconciliation and inclusiveness. No outcome could be better in the service of Egyptian national interest and future.
However, at the heart of the current conflict between the Muslim Brothers' contemporary leadership and the rest of Egyptians is the very definition of the Nation State. For the ordinary Egyptian Muslim or Copt the nation state is the one defined by the inhabitants of the geographic territory virtually unchanged since Mina united Upper and Lower Egypt under his united crown. For the Muslim Brother, it means the Nation of Islam. Thus a Muslim resident of Karachi, Conakry, Bosnia or Dagestan is a part of the Nation while a Copt living and tracing his ancestors to the tenth generation in Alexandria or Luxor is an alien in the Muslim Nation State.
Unless and until that conceptual conflict is settled there can be no possible resolution. And in the geopolitical Twenty First Century world given the utter impossibility of realizing the MB concept of a Nation State, those who wish to dismantle the Egyptian Nation State are using the MB as a cat's paw to draw the chestnut out of the fire, i.e. to spearhead the violence to disrupt the state.
Those of us who continue to call for a dialogue without precondition must remember the promises of Dr. Moursi at the Vermont hotel meeting and press conference as well as every promise and pledge he made until his ouster on July 3rd.
Long live Egypt
Mahmoud Elshazly
No comments:
Post a Comment