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6 Responses to “Egypt as Pac-Man?”

1. Scott Says:
   June 25th, 2012 at 1:02 am

   So…are you saying the classical liberals will get eaten up by La Revolucion?

2. Charles Cameron Says:
   June 25th, 2012 at 1:26 am

   Heh — at the moment I’m trying to lip-read people who know a whole lot more about Egypt than I do — but I do hope it’s not all just a video game!
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   The money interest is behind Tantawi, the popular groundswell at least partially favors Morsi, I imagine there will be some degree of compromise and restraint.
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   So what do you think?

3. morgan Says:
   June 25th, 2012 at 6:50 pm

   My bet is on La Revolucion.

4. Charles Cameron Says:
   June 25th, 2012 at 8:14 pm

   Indicative of the sort of trouble we may have sorting fact from fiction:

   Shortly after Morsi’s victory was announced earlier today, the Fox Nation website of Fox News put up a short unsigned blog headlined “Muslim Brotherhood Takes Egypt, Cleric Declares: ‘Our Capital shall be Jerusalem, Allah Willing.'”
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   Embedded in the short blog is a video, which identifies the source as “Breitbart Non-syndicated” that purports to be a speech from Egypt’s President Morsi. Before the speech begins, the following text appears upon the screen: “Rabbilive.com introduces… Egypt’s newly elected president as declared by the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi, Israel’s new neighbor.”
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   Then a fiery sermon begins with a bearded man, the prayer callous on his forehead prominent: “Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina,” he says, according to a translation provided by the US State Department-funded Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an organization founded by a retired Israeli colonel. “It shall be in Jerusalem, Allah willing. Our cry shall be ‘millions of martyrs march towards Jerusalem.'”
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   Scary stuff, right? Egypt’s new president, within hours of his victory, essentially promising to immediately launch war on Israel. There is of course one problem. The man in the video isn’t actually Mohamed Morsi. It’s the preacher Safwat al-Hegazy delivering an address in support of Morsi a few weeks ago. Morsi later distanced himself from Hegazy’s remarks, saying “Jerusalem is in our hearts and vision. But Cairo is Egypt’s capital.”

   As Juan Cole notes:

   Mursi is an anti-Zionist, but he is a Ph.D. in engineering from USC and not known as a wild man.

   I think the outcome of the impending SCAF / Presidency tussle is a bit of a toss-up, frankly. And when a bystander correctly calls the outcome of a flipped coin, they may have won a bet — but we don’t necessarily trust them to have won based on expertise in coin aerodynamics.
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   The shifting sands of Egyptian politics are too subtle for easy and sure analysis, IMO…

5. morgan Says:
   June 25th, 2012 at 8:44 pm

   Is Juan Cole hinting that having a better education might/will dim possible Muslim Brotherhood fantacim> Both George Habash and Zawahari are medical doctors and head very murderous fanatical terrorist groups. Most modern revoltions were started by intellectuals who were better educated than the masses they were launching their revolutions on behalf of [Castro had a alw degree and Che was rumored to have a medical degree, Pol Pot was a graduate of the elite French Sarbonne, to name just three.]   Don’t think being better educated quite links to moderation

6. Charles Cameron Says:
   June 25th, 2012 at 10:11 pm

   Good point re intellectuals and revolutionaries.
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   I think Cole is saying his sense is that Morsi is (by reasonably informed reputation) no Zawahiri.  Sometimes people get into power with a reputation for moderation and turn viciously dictatorial, of course — but my guess is he’s saying, Let’s not jump to any hasty negative conclusions, let’s give the man a chance.  Always remembering that the SCAF hasn’t exactly relinquished power, to the point where at least one writer has referred to Morsi as Tantawi’s Vice-President.
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   We live in (Chinese) interesting times…