Egypt: who didn't see this coming?

[Occhidiangela]

Standard moves after a revolution. Gotta make things right ... well, for somebody.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/...morsi?lite

"The Arab Spring"
Is it Thermidor yet?

Opposition protesters clashed with police in several Egyptian cities Friday after new Islamist President Mohammed Morsi awarded himself sweeping new powers.

Police fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse tens of thousands of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square ...

"The people want to bring down the regime," shouted protesters, echoing a chant used in the anti-Mubarak uprising. "Get out, Morsi," they chanted.

State TV also said Morsi opponents set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Port Said and Ismailia.

Clashes also erupted between police and opposition protesters in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the southern city of Assiut and in Giza, the sister city of the capital. In Alexandria, Morsi opponents hurled stones at Brotherhood supporters outside a mosque and stormed a nearby office of the group.

However, Muslim Brotherhood backers gathered in front of the presidential palace in northern Cairo to support Morsi -- illustrating a widening gulf over Egypt’s future.

Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating a truce between Hamas and Israel, Morsi on Thursday ordered that an Islamist-dominated assembly writing the new constitution could not be dissolved by legal challenges.

Other changes give Morsi power to take security measures to protect his position, which rights groups say are like new emergency laws.

Protesters have burned a CSF (police truck) tear gas very heavy

Morsi belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood until he ran for the presidency and still depends on the group for political support.
On Friday, Morsi confirmed that he will move forward on his plans because he insisted they were for the good of the country.

Of course they are good for the country ....
SSDD

Mind you, this might be the media making a mountain out of a molehill. That's been done before. Also, the malcontents may have been "encouraged" by various factions who didn't do so well in the recent election ...

More to follow, to be sure.

EDIT 24 Nobember, AP article by Maggie Michael and Aya Batrawy:

Quote:

Mohammed Morsi:

I don't like, want, or need to resort to exceptional measures, but I will if I see that my people, nation, and the revolution of Egypt are in danger.

Good morning, Egypt, meet your new boss, who looks an awful lot like your old boss. Pete Townsend wept.

Morsi has encapsulated a king's sense of ownership and entitlement, arrogance (my people)" and a Leninist's (single mindedness of purpose ~"Protect The Revolution at all Costs!"~ as though he were reading from a Hollywood script. He professes to be in the process of rooting out "the weevils eating away at the nation of Egypt."

Can a purge or some ethnic cleansing be that far behind? My betting money says this one will end in tears.

Anyone care to make a few bets on this one?

EDIT 25 Nov:
Explicit language is interesting:

"Morsi created a new "protection of the revolution" judicial body to swiftly carry out the prosecutions in retrials of Mubarak and top aides."
(From article by Hamza Hendawi, AP)
The question: is this merely a 'special prosecutor' that you or I would recoginze, or is this an extra judicial court?

El Baradei, also appealing to "the revolution" objects to centralization of power, and has promised to joining other opposition leaders to reverse this trend.
So, who is Kerenski here?

http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=6793

His angle is that President Obama was taken, yet again.

Won't be the first American president who was sand bagged in the Mid East.

[kandrathe]

It seems too early to tell exactly where this is going. Mursi is aiming for "Dictator" whereas everyone else seems to not be in favor of that concept. It may be a power play that he loses in a big way. But, then where do they go? New elections?

[Taem]

Looks like you were right: News

The vote was so close too. I guess nothing will change over there after all. So all these civil wars are for nothing. So sad. I guess they like their Islamic law over there.

[shoju]

Islamic law, is so much more than religion over there. It's a part of the culture. I was hopeful, that the young people, and those who want change, were finally starting to out number those who are rooted in an old way of doing things. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an element of fear in the vote.

Fear of Change.
Fear of "What happens to me if I vote for 'freedom'"
Fear of losing the "Faith"
Fear of plunging into "Anarchy" through change.
Fear of the unknown.

The "Law" has been beat into people, and the fear is real. Their culture has become dependent on it, because it is normalcy. It's sort of how we Americans get all hot and bothered about "freedom" (as a society) get a little stupid about it being our "right" and our "freedom" when something might change our perspective. It's a culture thing. And change needs to happen gradually, and at the will of the population if it's a real change that will last.

I don't think that this is the end, and I do think (maybe a little naively and hopefully) that things will change. I don't think that this chapter of history is finished writing itself just yet.

[Hammerskjold]

The vote was so close too. I guess nothing will change over there after all. So all these civil wars are for nothing. So sad. I guess they like their Islamic law over there.

Excuse my bluntness, but no. If 'they' like their islamic law so much, the first arab spring would never even happen.

The fact that it did, means at least to me that not every 'Ay-rab' bought and believed the 'rawr rawr, Murka Satan Western Ideology is to blame for every single problem' line.

Again excuse my bluntness, but the West did not perfect 'Democracy' overnight either. 'Amurca' did not perfect it either when George Washington single handedly punched Megatron in his freedom hating robot face, and last I looked it never claimed to be perfect. It is still an ongoing process.

So let's not write off the other folks who didn't quite hit a grandslam right out of the park, on the first try, according to 'our' own rules.

Otherwise it would look like the West is really a big(ger) hypocrite. "C'mon guys, why not try more democracy with checks and balances bla bla bla...oh my, you actually did...uhm...it looks kinda messy though. Maybe you're too in love with your Sharona I mean Sharia laws.

But hey give us a call when you reach our level of perfection at half the time it took us. Hmmm, on second thought, make it a quarter of that time. While performing a cartwheel too."

[Taem]

Well, Megatron was a pansy .

I'm not dismissing their obvious desire for change, and considering how close the vote was, it's clear change is in their horizon. I'm merely stating my disappointment with the vote is all. You don't think strict Islamic law might set back the time-machine for a full generation or more? It seems to me they were closer to democracy before their civil war than they are going to be under this new strict Islamic law. Did they make progress? Yes. Was it enough? Not yet. Will the progress continue? Not if conservative Islamist's get elected throughout the arab-spring areas and enforce their form of martial law, reducing all the hard-earned Democracy to rubble. But I'd like to believe you're right. As you put it, time will judge.

[Occhidiangela]

hammerskjold, OK, our experiment was begun in a petri dish already full of cultural food.

In Egypt: really?

I don't see it. But I hope to be wrong.

[Hammerskjold]

hammerskjold, OK, our experiment was begun in a petri dish already full of cultural food.

In Egypt: really?

I don't see it. But I hope to be wrong.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, while I do think religion does play a factor I think there's another common pattern in the big picture.

I really think the common thing here is the battle between moderates and extremists in the power vacuum left by Mubarak.

Problem is, extremists tend not to have any qualms shedding blood by the gallon if it means 'saving the country', or other people's soul (by liberating them from their mortal coil), or whatever justification they can come up with.

I want to be clear here. I'm not a 'pacifist every time, all the time' kind of guy. Sometimes there really is a need for lethal force.

Problem is, again. The extremist mindset tends to think the extreme action is not only the right choice, it is the -only- choice. Because they're extreme like that. And not in a snowboarding down a mountain while drinking the Dew kind of extreme.

This would not be news to you IIRC, you know enough about the 'realpolitik' of the world if I remember previous discussions etc.

So while I am not an Egyptian, (I only occasionally walked like one during the 80's) I don't particularly put much stock in how close the vote was. For one, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some implied or very overt voter suppression going on.

These tinpots all seems to be cut from the same cloth, or at least go the same tailor.

But yes, I'm hoping it will turn out with as few bloodshed as possible. I'm not an expert, but I recognized a few familiar pattern here. It won't be the west Morsi or the group propping him will go after first, if at all. No, my bet will be the trouble makers, and/or the non true Egyptians. In short, any fellow Egyptians who keeps pestering him about checks and balances. Because they obviously hate Egypt and are corrupted by Western decadence.

It's a familiar and unfortunate tune I've heard played before. Blame a boogeyman, whip up a distraction, a violent frenzy if need be, so el presidente can clean out the silverware out of the 'People's Palace'.

[Occhidiangela]

It may just be SSDD.

Merry Christmas, Egypt.

Happy New Year.

[Tris]

I'll never get the spelling of the name right, but the PM of Israel said it best when he basically said: we knew what we had before, now who knows.

The US has been fortunate that it did not have a dictatorship following our civil war, as results many times. And, it wasn't for lack of trying on the 1860's Republican's part either.

Civil wars/revolutions usually don't end well. There are only a few that I can think of that had beneficial, or at least non-harmful, results. The nobility uprising that created the Magna Carta. The installation of William and Mary. The US Civil War. There are probably others.

And, I would be remiss, given where I live, to forget to mention May 17; seems that particular bit of strife worked out okay (supposedly the day of Norway's independence from Sweden). May 17, is that *only* day in Williston when a flag is flown on the tallest pole in town, which is next to the old 1910's era post office building. On May 17, a large Norwegian flag is hoisted above the city.