A REQUIEM FOR EGYPT

As we read this, funerals continue for the thousands of unarmed, innocent, democracy-loving people of Egypt who were massacred by the American-financed and Zionist-inspired Egyptian army. And the question is ‘bi ayyi zambin qutilu’ (for what crime were they murdered?). Nothing, only ‘qalu rabbunal Lah’ (our Lord is Allah!) and we want democracy – Western-style […]

As we read this, funerals continue for the thousands of unarmed, innocent, democracy-loving people of Egypt who were massacred by the American-financed and Zionist-inspired Egyptian army. And the question is ‘bi ayyi zambin qutilu’ (for what crime were they murdered?). Nothing, only ‘qalu rabbunal Lah’ (our Lord is Allah!) and we want democracy – Western-style liberal electoral democracy. No, they cannot have it! It is not meant for them!
The recent words of Ayman al Zawahiri, so-called leader of Al Qa’ida, continue to ring true; he told the Muslim Brotherhood after the coup of July 3 that toppled the legitimately elected government of Dr. Muhammad Mursi that when the West ‘created’ its contraption called ‘democracy’, no Muslim who says rabbunal Lah (and whom the West calls ‘Islamists’) is allowed to participate; ‘Persona non grata’. How ominously true!
(For more information on how President Mursi was undermined to pave way for his overthrow, google for these articles dated around July 10, a week after the coup: “SUDDEN IMPROVEMENTS IN EGYPT SUGGEST A CAMPAIGN TO UNDERMINE MORSI” by Ben Hubbard and David D. Kirkpatrick; “DOCUMENTS REVEAL U.S. MONEY TRAIL TO EGYPTIAN GROUPS THAT PRESSED FOR PRESIDENT’S REMOVAL” by Emad Mekay; and “ANTI-DEMOCRACY: A RESPONSE TO ELBARADEI” by Mohamad Hamas Elmasry.)
And there are crocodile tears being shed all over the ‘liberal’ West, but the sharp teeth of these crocodiles betray ‘ma fi qulubihim’ (what is really in their hearts). The actual emotion in the hearts of Obama and co. is glee, and the condemnations and calls ‘for quick return to democracy’ are nothing but drama of Shakespearean proportions.
If this were the first time so-called Islamists are prevented from actively participating in the ‘democracy’ the West is propagating for the world (except for the monarchies of Arabia), one would have been surprised. But no, this is not the first, or the second, time. And it will not be the last time.
To the west of Egypt lies Algeria. There, back in 1991, the exact thing happened. The Islamic Salvation Front, FIS, was a political party of the Algerian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Like the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt, it was very popular with the masses who appreciated its social services. In 1991, the Algerian military regime organised elections to return the country to civil rule. But when the military attempted to redraw electoral districts to ensure FIS did not win, the Islamic party called for a protest in Algiers. Millions turned out, and the military dropped its gerrymandering plans but arrested FIS leaders Abbasi Madani and Ali Belhadj.
Despite its leaders being in jail, the FIS handily won the first round parliamentary elections of December 26, winning 188 of the 231 seats, far ahead of rivals. The army panicked, seeing the seeming certainty of FIS rule as unacceptable. On January 11, 1992, the military cancelled the whole electoral process. The military itself sacked its own president, Chadli Benjedid, and imported an exiled secularist Mohammed Boudiaf to take over. Many FIS members were arrested, including FIS number three leader Abdelkader Hachani who led the party to elections. A state of emergency was declared, and the government officially banned FIS on March 4. On July 12, Madani and Belhadj were sentenced to 12 years in prison. What followed in Algeria is not palatable to remember.
The Algerian Civil War claimed an estimated 250,000 lives in a population of around 30 million. Much of the merciless and gruesome murders were perpetrated by the army itself, so that the blame would be heaped on armed Islamic groups.
But Algeria was not the last experiment where so-called Islamist parties would be denied a popular mandate offered by the nation’s masses.
To the north east of Egypt lies Turkey, another Muslim nation which had been under Western-supported and openly anti-Islamic secular military rule since the early 1920s. There, in 1996, a certain Prof. Necmettin Erbakan (engineer, academic and politician with Islamic tendency inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, and who had been banned from politics several times) had won election in a coalition, and had become prime minister. His earlier party, Refah, which had been banned, had been replaced by the Welfare Party, on which platform he went to the polls.
Immediately he came to office, Erbakan started re-asserting Turkey’s Islamic heritage by pursuing stronger economic and political relations with other Muslim nations, ultimately founding the D8, a group of mainly Muslim developing countries (of which Nigeria continues to be a member). Erbakan was seen as an open supporter of the Palestinian cause. At home, he instituted an elaborate social welfare programme. These policies, among others, again re-endeared the Erbakan government to the Turkish people. In just one year, the political barometer pointed to a resounding success of the Islamic political experiment.
The military and the opposition would have none of that. There were daily demonstrations against the government, openly instigated by Western-supported secular elite. The military warned Erbakan to put things in order (while at the same time encouraging the dissent). On 28 February 1997, the military toppled Erbakan. The Welfare Party was banned, accused of heading towards Islamic fundamentalism. Erbakan was once again banned from politics, and he died in 2001.
His followers, the present Turkish leaders Recep Tayyib Erdogan and Abdullah Gul, founded the Virtue Party in 1997; it was banned again in 2001. They came back with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and won the 2003 elections (after many of them had spent time in jail). Despite the outstanding success of the present Islamist government in Turkey, the military and the secular elite continue to daily undermine it through social unrest (such as the recent daily protest purportedly to protect a park).
But nor was Turkey the last in truncated Islamist political participation.
On the doorsteps of Egypt is Palestine. There, on 25 January 2006, in elections for the Palestinian Legislature, the so-called radical Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement, Palestine’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) won massively with 74 seats to the ruling secular Fatah’s 45, providing Hamas with the majority of the 132 seats (the rest won by others). On 19 February, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya became prime minister. The results stunned U.S. and Israel who have designated Hamas a terrorist organisation. In Washington, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “Our position on Hamas has not changed.”
But Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said the Palestinian people had “voted democratically and peacefully. But these results may confront us with an entirely new situation which will need to be analysed…” When the situation was “analysed”, Europe followed U.S. and Israeli dictation: No Deal, democracy is a no-go for Islamic parties. And Haniya and Hamas were never allowed to rule.
Palestine was not the last. And neither will Egypt be.
We end our lament with “sabran ya aala Misr, fainna mau’idakum al jannah” in sha Allah (Patience, O family of Egypt! Your abode shall be paradise by Allah’s Grace), a paraphrase of what the Prophet of Islam Muhammad, upon whom be peace, told ‘aal Yasir’ (the family of Yasir, Islam’s premier martyrs) for the Prophet had also said, “man mata duna irdhihi fa huwa shahid” (whoever dies protecting his honour is a martyr).
May Allah accept your martyrdom.