The Nightmare is Over

Standing in the middle of the crowd outside the El Eitihadya presidential palace for hours, listening to the chanting of people calling for Morsi to leave, filled me with hope and pride.

At a coffee shop, finally sitting down to eat something after a long day at the protest, I look up as El Sisi, head of the armed forces in Egypt, appears on TV. His voice is heard from parked cars and shops close by.

During the speech, the loud and bustling streets got so quiet so fast. This is what everyone in Egypt was waiting for; a speech from Sisi to tell us what is going to happen. Egyptians are deeply invested in the hope that the military will do the right thing, and stand by the peaceful anti-Morsi protesters.

The people listen carefully, and hang on every word. After the crowd understands that the Military has actually forced Morsi out of office, the streets roar, and screams of celebration everywhere break the silence.

What I felt, and what the people felt at that moment, is hard to put into words. Pride, happiness, and a sense of achievement. The peaceful protest really worked. You can get what you want without bloodshed.

Egyptians have been in a nightmare called the Muslim Brotherhood since the end of the initial revolution on January 25, 2011. Morsi's religious party swarmed into power, and they felt very comfortable very fast. Right away they started to change Egypt to what they called "Islamist Egypt."

Now that Morsi is under house arrest, Egyptians have said loud and clear that they don’t want an Islamist state, and do not trust a Muslim Brotherhood government. The Egyptian people not only removed two presidents in two years, but Egypt has become the first country to overthrow an Islamist state; a new notch on the Egyptian belt.

What really bothers me is that most of the headlines around the world read as if Egypt is having a military coup. We called on our Egyptian military to end Morsi's regime, and to help prevent the threat of civil war. We all know that our military isn't perfect, but they answered the call of millions of Egyptians, and we are grateful.

I'm proud of the actions of our military and police in the past few days, and very glad that our Muslim Brotherhood nightmare is over.

Anti-Morsi 'Rebel' campaign is Going Strong

Millions of signatures are being collected on the streets of Egypt to show Morsi how unsatisfied Egyptian people are with the job he is doing, or failing to do.

Morsi allegedly won the presidency with a little over thirteen millions vote out of fifty million registered voters. You might ask why Egyptians voted for him in the first place?  Egyptians were not ready to vote for a president after all that the country had been going through right after the 2011 revolution. But due to the power vacuum that happened with the removal of Hosni Mubarak on Feb 11, 2011, many counter-elite Islamist parties like the Muslim Brotherhood moved in to gain the political power they had been deprived of for over sixty years.

Most of people who voted for Morsi believed in choosing someone other than what they had under Mubarak for years. The preliminary election was full of candidates without organized parties or name recognition, making it difficult for anyone with a new voice to rise up. The field was quickly narrowed down to two options, as people voted either for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate based on their shared religion, or on a name they recognized from their past. In the final election, Morsi faced Ahamed Shafiq, a military men turned businessman who had worked in many high-level positions under Mubarak, and was also a close ally of Mubarak.

So you can see, when Egyptians went out to vote, they had to choose between a member of the old elite, Shafiq, or a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Morsi. Not exactly the democracy Egyptians had hoped for after a revolution.

Almost a year after Morsi became the new Egyptian president, people have not been happy with his performance or decisions. But Egypt has not been the same. Egyptian people are talking openly about politics in public, and voicing their opinions. Egyptians are no longer afraid of being jailed or persecuted for their opinions.

So they started collecting signatures under a movement called "Rebel" to directly show how deeply disappointed they are in Morsi's job as a post revolution leader. The effort has no formal legal standing, but it is an attempt to demonstrate the scale of the opposition by collecting more signatures opposing Morsi than the number of votes Morsi had when he won the election.

Despite the fact the this rebel campaign is only symbolic, people are very excited to be a part of this campaign. The Rebel document calls for the rejection of Morsi for the following reasons:

We reject you … Because Security has not been recovered so far We reject you… Because the deprived one has still no place to fit We reject you … Because we are still begging loans from the outside We reject you … Because no justice has been brought to the martyrs We reject you. .. Because no dignity was left neither for me nor for my country We reject you… Because the economy has collapsed, and depends only on begging We reject you… Because Egypt is still following the footsteps of the USA "Since the arrival of Mohamed Morsi to power, the average citizen still has the feeling that nothing has been achieved so far from the revolution goals which were life in dignity, freedom, social justice and national independence. Morsi was a total failure in achieving every single goal, no security has been reestablished and no social security realized, thus and gave clear proof that he is not fit for the governance of such a country as Egypt."

Amazingly enough the number of signatures so far already exceeds six million. In the first ten days of the campaign, over two million signature were collected. The Rebel campaign is going strong, with a target date of June 30, when they are hoping to reach fifteen million signatures.

I have a feeling they will reach a much higher number.

Conversations with the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan)

I have been in Cairo since February, 2013, and now it is May; I have met with many people of all kinds of social status, education, background, and political party affiliation. But I have been most interested in talking to is someone who is a Muslim Brotherhood active member, to hear their perspective. It has been difficult finding a Muslim Brotherhood member in Cairo who was willing to talk on the record.

Yesterday I got my wish. Not only did I talk to one person, I talked to several Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters, and they were very willing to talk to me about their opinions of Morsi.

But the conversations mostly went in the same direction, and ended up with no variety of results at all. They all loved Morsi, and said any criticism of him was the fault of the media, or foreign influences. But other than their support for his faith, they couldn't point to specifics to show good things he has actually done.

As an example, I will go through part of one conversation I had with a Muslim Brotherhood member. Since all of the conversations went almost exactly the same way, I’m just going to call this person MB.

Me: How do you like Morsi's presidency so far?

Muslim Brotherhood Member (MB): I like it a lot. He is an amazing man. He will set Egypt in the right direction politically, economically, and internationally.

Me: Well that sounds great, however I have been living in Egypt for few months, and I've never heard anything but criticism against Morsi and his administration. How do you feel about that?

MB: The media are the ones to blame. They are attacking him all the time, and they don’t focus on his achievements. You have a democratically elected president for the first time, and the media people are insulting him, making fun of him, and fighting him every step of the way.

Me: Wait, I never mentioned the media. I’m telling you everybody I sit with says they don’t feel or see that Morsi has been doing anything good to help Egypt recover.

MB: It is because people watch the TV to much, and believe what the TV is telling them. The media are making fun of Morsi non-stop, and they highlight his mistakes more than his achievements.

Me: But what about inflation, the lack of the security, and the lack of the job opportunities for young and poor people?

MB: There are many people who want Morsi to fail. Israel, the USA, and such.

Of course that didn’t answer my question.

The interviews all went on that way, covering a wide range of topics. The answers I got were all defensive about the reasons for Morsi's failures, but vague about any actual accomplishments.

Morsi seems most interested in installing his Muslim Brotherhood members in any high position, like the prime minister and many other ministerial positions in the country, with total disregard to their qualifications

The majority of the people I've spoken with don’t feel that the country is going in the right direction to move beyond the hard times they live in right now. These are real issues, and they don’t feel that Morsi has the answers for any of these issues.

People don’t have to watch TV, or listen to foreign sources, to know that they don’t have jobs or money to spend to get their next meal.