Recent events in Egypt a severe blow to the political Islam project
By Mahmoud A. Suleiman
July 25, 2013 – This article comes against the backdrop of the recent momentous events taking place in the Egyptian people’s political life that made the elements in the Islamic Movement in Sudan scrambling and making unbalanced statements detrimental to the age-old relationship between the peoples of the Nile Valley.
From the outset, one should recognise and acknowledge that what has been happening in Egypt’s political arena is an Egyptian matter in the first place. Moreover, we recognise that we, as Sudanese, live amidst complex problems eluded us a solution. Nevertheless, we need to recognise that what is going on in Egypt has echo and significant impact on Sudan, given the strong relationship between the ousted Muslim Brotherhood leader Morsi and the Islamism regime led by Omer al-Bashir in Sudan. That said, the misdeeds of the Muslim Brotherhood administration in Egypt left them no sympathy but lots of gloating. The 25th January 2011 Egyptian Revolution is an unprecedented qualitative triumph victory over a three- decade (14.10 1981 – 11.02. 2011) totalitarian dictatorship regime.
Political analysts said that what’s going on in Egypt these days is no longer a pure Egyptian affair, in that Egypt’s second revolution on the thirtieth of June 2013 against the President Mohamed Morsi who was sacked is in fact a revolution for the entire region. Recent events in Egypt are the strongest indicator for the defeat of the Islamists and their political Islam project in the region and beyond. Islamists from all over the region and the whole world of different orientations scrambled to stand in support with their brothers in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamists all over the globe saw in the fall of Dr. Morsi as an ominous omen for them and the beginning of significant shifts in the region against what they call the Islamic project. Al-Rabie Abdul-Atty one of the elements of the National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum reported to have passed his remarks on the opponents of Dr. Mohamed Morsi, as saying “the opponents to Morsi are those who carry tyranny in their veins; and they want to push this emerging nation back after being at the forefront and gave a rare example of self-sacrifice in the 25th January 2011 Revolution”.
Ironically, Dr. Hassan Abdalla al-Turabi, the godfather of the Islamic Movement in Sudan, who engineered the ill-fated 30 June 1989 coup d’état overthrowing the democratically elected government in Sudan said what that happened for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a military coup against legitimacy. At that theatrical farce, al-Turabi chose the role of a prisoner, went to Kober prison, and sent Brigadier General Omer Hassan – later named al-Bashir- to the General Gordon Presidential Palace in a Khartoum neighbourhood! Hassan al-Turabi should be the last person to talk about legitimacy, if he has a glimmer of conscience; he violated legitimacy in Sudan despite his specialty in the Constitutional Law. Similarly and as expected, at the forefront the Islamists in Sudan who came out in roaring demonstrations to denounce what they called a coup in Egypt, and for their rusted memory have forgotten that their rule headed by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir came to power in 1989 on the back of a tank in a military coup against democracy. They should have realised what has happened in Egypt is very different from a military coup. It is a second real popular revolution where millions of citizen took to the squares and streets in the largest rallies known to the mass media, to demand democratic early presidential elections. Furthermore, the crowds also called for denunciation and the rejection of the intransigence of Dr. Morsi and his group. Based on this the Egyptian Army took the side of the popular demands in light of real risks brought by the Muslim Brotherhood regime through the alliance with terrorist groups in Sinai. Moreover, through his intention to involve the country in an absurd endless Sunni-Shiite war. Morsi and his clique also planned to take over all state institutions and transferring into a property of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi has failed to fulfill his obligations in the management of the affairs of the country. Worse, he headed to the violation of the legitimacy by announcing the constitution and but depriving the Egyptians of participation in writing, with the view to monopolize it for himself and his allies.
The Sudanese government has announced that the events in Cairo are an internal affair of Egypt. In addition, a Minister denied that the Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir has sent a letter of support to deposed President Mohamed Morsi. The usual complacency and overconfidence, after each regime change, known in the region continues to prevail; the elements in Sudan’s regime ruled out the scenario that is happening in Egypt to their country! Nevertheless, amid doubts and where the Egyptians talk about big amounts of ammunition and weapons flowing across the border with Sudan, the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in Sudan announced that they foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons and ammunition to Egypt. The Sudanese army has also denied what appeared informational websites that Turkish weapons have been smuggled and transferred via Yemen to Sudan and from Sudan to political parties and groups in Egypt.
Sudan’s state-sponsored genocidal machinery revs up again in Darfur this year. The resumption of mass atrocities in Darfur, after a bit of a lull, has led villagers to flee to IDP and refugee camps. Camps are full of Darfuris who have arrived in recent months after Sudanese government-sponsored militias began a new spasm of murder, rape and pillage against two minority ethnic group.
Ironies are rife and continuously repeated in the wonderland of Sudan. After the abject failure of his so-called “Islamic Civilisation and Apostolic Orientation Project” that turned out to be a fiasco, Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) remains the only opposition party that is calling to establish an Islamist fundamentalist regime again in Sudan. After slaying the principles of legitimacy and constitution in Sudan, Hassan al-Turabi came out, shamelessly, to talk about Mohammed Morsi’s rights for legitimacy in Egypt.
The Egyptian masses imposed a corrective path for democracy and the Egyptian military understood the seriousness of lawlessness and the threat of the loss of the country in a spiral, like Syria. What happened in Egypt is not a coup; it is in defence for legitimacy and democracy that the popular 25 January 2011 Revolution has achieved. Many of the peoples living under repressive and dictatorial regimes in the Third World can learn lessons from the great people’s revolution in Egypt.
I conclude echoing the words of the writer and veteran politician Mohammed Hassanein Heikal: ‘what happened in Egypt is not a coup, but rather a national call for the Armed Forces’.
Dr. Mahmoud A. Suleiman is a columnist and an author. He can be reached at [email protected]