Truth will prevail

After the military coup against elected President Mohamed Morsi, we can say that the January 25 revolution has ended. The blood and sacrifice of that revolution appear to have been wasted. Egypt suffered 60 years of oppression and poverty under army officers and yet they have been returned by so-called liberals claiming to be building a “modern” state.

The army used the liberals in this cowardly act, guided by the intelligence services and funded by a notorious character with known links to the CIA. Together they have destroyed democratic and constitutional legitimacy behind the shield of the Constitutional Court.

However, nobody is deceived by all of this, despite the veneer of respectability with religious figures next to the generals announcing the coup. They understand that military coups have no role in a modern state, so they needed to pretend that it was something other than what it so clearly was. But the truth will prevail.

It was not a surprise to see the Grand Shaikh of Al-Azhar there; he was one of Mubarak’s main supporters and a member of the political committee in the former National Party. He is the shaikh behind the “Azhar Militias” which led to the imprisonment of Muslim Brotherhood members and leaders. He is the one who issued a fatwa (legal opinion) during the January 25 revolution saying that Islam does not allow the ousting of a ruler or even demonstrations against him despite his appalling human rights record. Somehow, he twisted his logic to issue a new fatwa allowing the ouster of democratically-elected President Morsi.

Nor was it surprising to see the Coptic Pope on the coup platform. He is known for his hostility towards Islam and Muslims, whom he considers to have invaded Egypt, which must now be “liberated”.

Mohamed ElBaradei is known for his anti-Sharia stance. He refuses to accept Islamic Sharia and wages rhetorical war against it to make sure that it is not included in the constitution. He went as far as demanding that the constitution should guarantee the right of Buddhists, of which there are none in Egypt, to build temples, but won’t accept Islam in a Muslim-majority country.

Moreover, it wasn’t strange to see a the Salafist Al-Nour Party represented at the coup announcement, even though the Muslim Brotherhood supported its demand to include articles in the constitution which enraged the secularists and caused them to withdraw from the constitutional committee. The shaikhs and preachers of this party were the friends of the old regime and the notorious State Security Service during Mubarak’s reign. They also issued a fatwa similar to Al-Azhar’s during the January 25th Revolution about the impermissibility of ousting a leader.

All of the anti-Brotherhood forces gathered to oust democracy in Egypt. They were supported by the media and intelligence services, which spread black propaganda.

The new division in Egypt is that those who claim to support freedom and human rights are silent about media censorship and mass detentions without charge. Truth and falsehood have been switched so that one becomes the other in their eyes; freedom is only for secularists; and Islamists belong in prison. One pro-coup journalist, Adel Hamouda, made it clear when he said, “They [the Islamists] have to be returned to their natural place; the backbench [prison].”

Egypt’s deep state loyal to tyranny and corruption couldn’t bear to see the people chose a president in open and fair elections. When will they get another chance to do so? Nobody knows, and the deep state represented by the “coup committee” on show the other day probably doesn’t even care. Nevertheless, truth will prevail sooner or later

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.