Run Sisi Run

Many people think the idea of Abdelfattah El Sisi running for president is a great idea, and that it might bring the stability and security that Egypt needs right now. Among the supporters of Sisi running for president is Omer Musa, who used to work for Mubarak's government, and many other Mubarak cronies. Why do they support Sisi's canadcy? Because they are used to the system of corruption from Mubarak's era and they hope that it might come back if Sisi becomes the president.  

I think that having another military man running the country is a huge step back. Not only would Sisi follow in the footsteps of Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, his retaliation will go a lot farther than detaining activists, or locking up the Muslim Brotherhood. He will have nothing to stop him from keeping the whole country in a state of submission.

Despite the the history of military violence against the protesters and the Muslim Brotherhood right after removing first Mubarak and Morsi, I have been hearing many talk on Egyptian and international media about the possibility of Sisi running as a presidential candidate in 2014. Not only has his candidacy been occupying people's minds, it is also a hot topic among activists who have experienced the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces “SCAF” in 2011 to 2012, which resulted many deaths and detentions for activists.

The idea of Sisi running is unpopular among activists because it means that all their hard work, and the people who died since the initial revolution, will have been for nothing. Everyone understands that if Sisi runs he will become the president no matter who is running against him. Sisi’s winning will mean one thing; that he will have absolute power. Really think about it. The military already has control over the economy and the weapons.

After removing Morsi, the military provided Egypt with better security than they had experienced since Mubarak, or during Morsi's one year presidency. Sisi captured most if not all Muslim Brotherhood heads, after giving them a chance to show their true skin by inciting violence and protesting endlessly until Egyptians were sick and tired of the Muslim Brotherhood and their sore loser strategies.

On the other hand, I don’t think that the military was behind the lake of the security during Morsi's presidency. But they witnessed it and didn’t do anything to stop it. Which makes it obvious that the military's strategy for allowing the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood was to let them fail, and turn the public opinion against them. I’m not saying that the Muslim Brotherhood would have succeeded if there were security in place, but it would have made it harder to get rid of them.

The reason why I think that Muslim Brotherhood would have failed anyway is that they had no vision. All that Morsi and the supreme leader of Muslim Brotherhood wanted was to have greater control of Egypt, and to install Muslim Brotherhood members in the government to replace the representatives of the Mubarak regime. They had complete disregard to the people needs.  

Not only did the Muslim Brotherhood have no vision to rule the country, but they allowed the fact that they were the winners of two elections consecutively to cloud their judgment, so they turned a blind eye to the people who elected them in the first place.

I’m glad they are gone, and no longer ruling Egypt. And I’m specifically happy that what they did during the time of Morsi may have ruined their chances of ever being elected again.

However now Egypt has to face the harsh reality that there's nobody worth voting for when it comes to President. Egyptians are longing for someone like Nasser to come and rule the country, and rally people around him. Unfortunately we don’t have such a person.

On Monday Sisi met with a group of representatives from Congress, and I have to wonder why. I do think Sisi might be smarter than the average military leader, but I still think it will be the worst thing for him and the country if he runs for president.

Calls to Commemorate Mohamed Mahmoud

Two years ago in Cairo, in November of 2011, I participated in a huge march from the Haram, in the Giza area, which is a suburb of Cairo, all the way to Tahrir Square: probably about nine miles. Here, ten months earlier, the revolution had emerged to remove Hosni Mubarak from power.

I was filming and photographing the crowd as it grew larger and larger, every block we walked, every neighbourhood we crossed. There are no words that could express my feelings on that day. Egyptians mobilizing and organizing to call on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to stop the violence, and  make the demands of the revolution come to life.

Many of the protesters knew that the SCAF could attack them. The previous month the SCAF had carried out an attack on peaceful protesters in front of the Egyptian State TV building. The attack resulted in the deaths of several protesters and wounding of many others. But that didn’t stop the protesters from participating this day.

Happily no violence took place.  However the following day in the late afternoon the state police attacked a group of Occupy Tahrir protesters, who were determined to stay till their demands were met. Most of those were wounded people from the revolution, and families of people who lost their loved ones during the revolution and other clashes that followed.

The state police attacked the peaceful protesters who were camping in Tahrir, and killed five people within half an hour. The attack was not anticipated by the protesters. In no time, the word got out through social media and cell phones about what was happening in Tahrir. The activists responded right away to defend the Occupy Tahrir people. After a few hours they managed to force the state police to retreat to their headquarters a few blocks away.

What stood out in my memory is that the protesters asked for help from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, and both groups declined to lend a hand, probably out of fear of losing in the upcoming parliamentary election.

These attacks sparked the week-long Mohamed Mahmoud clashes. I’m proud that i was there to document what happened. Here is some of the video that I shot during the clashes.

Mohamed Mahmoud clashes in NOV 2011 from Khaled Sayed on Vimeo.

Are we seeing the last of the Muslim Brotherhood?

Another Friday protest from the Muslim Brotherhood supporters against the Egyptian military. However their call to protest attracted a low turnout. The protest was another attempt from the Muslim Brotherhood to rally in Cairo and other cities in Egypt to show their discontent with what they call the illegal removal of an elected democratic president, Morsi. The low turnout in Cairo, and the non-existent rallies around Egypt, show the unpopularity of the Muslim Brotherhood at the moment.

The military has had the upper hand so far. They have put Cairo under curfe,w and barbed wire is surrounding several squares in Cairo after the bloody clashes that left over 1,000 people dead.

The Muslim Brotherhood are losing ground in all over Egypt, and after the military detained many of their leaders over the past week, they appear scattered and less organized.

The issue I have now is that we are going backward. Many Egyptians were killed, and many people were arrested arbitrarily. It is not the right way to seek justice, or to move forward toward democracy. The Egyptian revolutionaries in Egypt fought for freedom and the end of emergency law in 2011. However, after the Muslm Brotherhood protests turned violent, the military chose to restore emergency law for the protection of the people. I have a feeling they could have done it without bringing back emergency law, but this is the way they decided to handle it.

The former President Hosni Mubarak, meanwhile, was let go from prison on Thursday and taken to a military hospital in Cairo. Mubarak was ousted during Egypt's 2011 revolution, and his release has angered Egyptians from all walks of life, and has sparked concern that the Egyptian military authorities are reinstating the old regime, which is highly unlikely. Mubarak will still appear before court to face trial for different charges related to the January 25, 2011 revolution.

However I think that if Morsi were still in power today Mubarak would have gotten out of prison anyway. Mubarak wasn’t released because of the failure of Morsi. It is a failure of the judguary system we have in Egypt. The whole Mubarak trial was filled with mistakes, in addition to a corrupt judiciary system that was installed long before Mubarak or Morsi took office.

After the arrest of many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders over this past few weeks, is the Muslim Brotherhood weakened, or is the worst yet to come?

Friday of Rage Muslim Brotherhood Style.

Violence broke out as thousands of Islamists marched in several cities across Egypt in what they Called the "Friday of Rage" to protest Wednesday's crackdown on pro-Morsi protest at Al-Rabawiya and Nahda square sit-ins, which left more than 600 people dead and thousands wounded.

Health ministry sources said four were killed in clashes in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia and eight in Damietta.

A makeshift hospital in Cairo's Ramses Square, where Morsi supporters are converging, has put the death toll at 42.

Earlier, Egyptian state television reported that at least 7 were killed so far in Cairo. At least one person has been reported killed in Giza, according to the health ministry.

Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported clashes between security forces and pro-Morsi protesters at Giza Square in the Giza district, saying security forces fired teargas in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

Pointing Fingers

There is always a tendency to point fingers and blame someone else for your problems. However when you do that, you're really only making it worse.  What you need to di is to own the problem and try to fix it.

On major social media platforms, Egyptian people from all walks of lives are starting to point fingers at the USA for having a role in the mess Egypt in right now. “The USA supported Morsi,” or “Obama support terrorists.”

These statement have been going around, and they are only letting us avoid discussing the big elephant in the room: we need to start our own democracy down the right path; a new constitution, and electing a truly representative president. Then under the supervision of the president and the army we can establish new way of voting. The system we have had since Mubarak's time is what Ikhwan used to get 60 percent of the parliament seats in 2011, and what Morsi used to become president.

We have to step back and look at our history. Our leaders after Nasser are to blame for the state we are in right now. Why? Sadat and Mubarak started the trend of getting the USA involved in our internal affairs. The USA is, of course, only interested in their own concerns, as we should be too.

The USA cares about their own security, and Israeli security. Sucks for us that we share a border with Israel, and we also have the strongest army in the whole arab world. The USA needs to keep us in peace with Israel, and keep the Camp David agreement 1978. That deal was made in the time of Carter and Sadat to end war between Egypt and Israel, and give back Sinai land to the Egyptians. With the USA involved in the agreement, of course some parts of the agreement favored the Israelis against the interests of the Egyptians. However Camp David did end the war between us and the Israelis, and that is a good thing.

People are saying online that the USA and Obama supported Morsi. Did they really? The USA would support anyone that will secure the border between us and Israel, no matter who he is. This time it happened to be a Muslim Brotherhood member who won the vote somehow.

The problem was that after the January 25 revolution, we didn’t remove the whole regime. We just got rid of the head of the regime, Mubarak. Then we were not ready for an election. Due to people's ignorance, we were forced to participate in a premature referendum, and then election after election without oversight. That is how we ended up with Morsi in power. And just like the president before him, he had to get on the good side to the USA. In addition, Morsi chose to work only from the playbook that was provided to him from his own Muslim Brotherhood party, ignoring the real needs of his own people.

So stop blaming the USA. The people who want you to blame other countries for our problems are the people who don't want you to realize what we are doing to ourselves. We have helped by being silent for too long, and we still get fooled by the people who use religion to get what they want. But no more! On the June 30 I saw new Egypt, and its people rose to the challenge and demanded the military to help us get rid of another corrupt regime.

Egypt is a civilization that has been amazing people from all corners of the world for thousands of years with its rich history and amazing people. I know our road ahead is full of bumps, but we are on the right track to rebuilding this great country of ours.

Is the End of the Muslim Brotherhood Regime Imminent?

I was talking today to Mostafa Bakery, a Journalist and the chief editor of the newspaper The Week ( Elaosboa ). He shared with me an interesting and very different perspective on what is going on in Egypt right now. 

According to Mr. Bakery, “The Muslim Brotherhood regime is going to fall.” He continued, “We removed Mubarak regime, and the Muslim Brotherhood stole the young people's revolution. However it was a good step toward educating people on how Muslim Brotherhood leadership is failed leadership.”

Before all the elections, there were many promises in the name of democracy by the heads of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that president Morsi belongs to. The Muslim Brotherhood promised they wouldn’t seek more than 25 percent of the seats of the Parliament in November 2011. During the revolution, Abed Elmenim Abu El Foutuah promised that the Muslim Brotherhood wouldn’t put up a candidate in the presidential run. However after he left the group, he ran in the presidential race himself. And of course Mohamed Morsi ended up winning the presidential election with 13,500,000 votes.

According to Mr. Bakery, more than 125,000 ballots in that election were printed with Morsi's name preselected.

















“The Egyptian people are feeling the pinch, and the economy is getting worse. The national security is in shambles, and the Muslim Brotherhood's main concern is replacing all the branches of the government with representatives of the their own organization,” Bakery said. “They want to gain control over all the political stage, and paralyze their opposition.”

Mr. Bakery's opinion seems to match the popular opinion in one way. He says that the Muslim Brotherhood is more concerned about their political future than moving the country to a better economic and social state. Every time we hear Morsi interviewed or giving a speech, it's like Morsi lives in a different country, where there is no economic inflation and the people live in better conditions than they did under the Mubarak regime.

According to Bakery, the policies of the Muslim Brotherhood are making people turn their backs on the party, and that will eventually lead to their fall.