Check Mate Muhammed Mursi ?

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) Tonight Cairo´s Tahrir Square is packed with people, tents, fires and banners. Down Down Mursi, Mursi must go it reverberates through the streets of Cairo. The problem with the Islamo-Fascism of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood and Mursi, after decades of waiting, is that they seem so eager to show their true face that Mursi almost blew the Muslim Brothers chance for power already during the presidential election campaign. “Islam and Democracy are incompatible” Mursi said.

On 22 November Mursi announced a series of Presidential Decrees which, according to the decrees could not be opposed, and which represented a sweeping power grab, away from the judicial system and into the hands of the President.

Mursi was right in one sense; that the Islamo-Fascism of the Muslim Brotherhood is incompatible with Democracy. Tonight millions of Egyptians in the streets of Cairo and other Major Egyptian cities show Mursi that they have understood what Mursi meant when he stated that Islam and Democracy are incompatible. Most of them are in fact Muslims, just not Muslims that support the Islamo-Fascist powergrab.

The question is whether Mursi will understand the people of Egypt or if he will try to use force and show his countrymen how little the Muslim Brotherhood has to do with Democracy in deed. Check mate Mursi ?

The first response to Mursi´s sweeping decrees came from Egypts judiciary system which threatened with a nationwide general strike unless Mursi withdrew the decrees. Mursi responded on 25 November by pleading, that the power grab was only temporarily and that it was exclusively meant to speed up the trials against members of the Mubarak administration and those who had been accused of violence against protesters during the 2011 Arab Spring.

Whether Mursi is suffering from delusions of grandeur is questionable; but the fact that President Mursi though that he could calm the concerns of the judiciary by implicitly telling them that all what he wanted to achieve with the decrees was a number of speedy show trials against his political opponents was a miscalculation that could support the statement.

Mursis´s power grab began in June when he disbanded the lower chamber of Egypt´s parliament. In August Mursi fired two top generals and and gave himself increased influence over Egypts powerful military.

On 26 November 10.000 people protested against Mursi´s latest power grab, calling him Pharaoh Mursi. Two youth died during clashes with security forces. The funeral possessions grew into mass protests. Tonight Mursi is confronted with millions of Egyptians protesting in Egypts major cities.

Like the evil Emir Iznogood in the cartoon series Iznogood, who wants to be Caliph instead of the Caliph, and who is riding himself into one troublesome situation after the other, Mursi is looking like an Iznogood figure tonight.

The comparison between Mursi and Iznogood is not far fetched. Sweeping power grabs meant to facilitate speedy show trials against those accused of violence against protesters have brought him into a situation where he is confronted by millions of Egyptians tonight. Many of them carry banners and posters with the photos of the two youth who were killed in protests against him.

Tonight and tomorrow Mursi will have to make serious decisions. Decisions which will determine if one of his next moves brings him into a Chess Mate Mursi situation. Will he dare to further challenge the people of Egypt, will he challenge an ever more united Egyptian opposition and the still very powerful Egyptian military ?

Will he dare to compete with the violence of Murbarak and risk sharing a prison cell with him soon and become a victim to his own decrees ? Or will he try to appease the opposition and the angry millions in Tahrir Square and throughout Egypt and loose his remaining credibility ?

Almost two years after it began, tonight the people of Egypt smell a fresh breeze of a Real Arab Spring and Mursi  is smelling the cold air of an approaching Fall.

Christof Lehmann

27.11.2012

In Portuguese Translation

Cheque-Mate, Muhammed Mursi?