Ok these are my remarks about general El Sisi speech in the graduation of the Navy and air defense academies in Alexandria on Wednesday. I could not post it yesterday because I was extremely tired for real.
First here is the speech translated in to English
Now I do not believe that the army or the police needs a mandate to do its job in fighting terrorism and violence. I do not believe either the justifications that he needed that this mandate in the populist way because there is no parliament to ask for such mandate from !!!!
Already that term “War on terrorism” is open and vague as well dangerous when it comes to human rights abuses. Just apply the law and do your job accordingly.Taxes are already paid to the government so the army and police to do their work.
I believe that El Sisi is trying to push harder in the negotiations with the MB as according to all leaks it reached to the dead end as the MB is insisting on having Morsi as a president once again !! You must know if the MB leading figures step back on this particular demand they could be killed by younger supporters.
It is a deadend indeed especially you got highly polarized two teams , one religiously radical and the other nationalistically radical and here I am not referring to the army, but rather the public that backs up the army.
Both teams are armed, and both believe that they are right and ready to die for it. No one wants to give concessions.
Some say that this speech or to be accurate that call to the public to mandate the army to fight terrorism was a message to the world that he does not care for pressure and he will bring down the Muslim brotherhood.
Well I am afraid what the world got two different messages as far I could tell from following foreign politicians’ reactions and reading international coverage. Of course Egyptians now believe that all the newspapers and channels in the world are on the payroll of the Muslim brotherhood.
First message that the world got from the speech that what happened is a coup and that the army runs the show in Cairo. Ironically it is the message that the army and Egyptians were working so hard in the past weeks to deny. The absence of both Adly Mansour , the interim president and his vice president “ElBaradei” as well PM El Beblawi enforced the message that General Sisi and the army are running the show.
Ironically VP Mohamed ElBaradei and FM Nabil Fahmy are trying hard to prove that it is not a coup through their talks to World leaders and then this speech came in this way to make their work even harder.
OF course the National Defense council led by interim president Adly Mansour had a meeting and issued its orders to fight terrorism on Thursday in accordance with the law and human rights.
The second message the world got from the speech is there will be a war on terrorism in Egypt and that war actually is to get rid from the Islamists or rather Morsi’s supporters. The War on terrorism got a very bad reputation thanks to G.W Bush and what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. It has become a synonym to human rights abuse thanks to Bush administration worldwide.
Some people now believe that the Egyptian army is going to destroy both Rabaa and Nahda sits in and peaceful protesters are going to be killed and imprisoned. Of course the MB did not waste any time and spread this from their side. Again they are masters in playing the victim role. “ Without admitting that they are part of the problem and according to eye witnesses there are some armed protesters in both sits in”
The army knew that the world got this message and thus the army spokesperson issued a statement later today insisting that this speech was not a threat to use power against a certain group but rather an invitation for all Egyptians to fight terrorism.
By the way many people in Egypt including myself believe that Rabaa sit in will end in a disaster even without this speech and that call.It is just a tragedy
Another remark unfortunately also the look of General El Sisi itself with the big black eye glasses and uniform gave the world the image of a coup leader not an army commander who wants his country to have democracy. This remark was raised in different news websites and tweets from around the globe. These small things make huge difference when you want to deliver a message internationally if this speech’s target audience was the world indeed.
We are no longer living in a small country and we can not care less about the world especially while having extreme bad economy in a country that needs foreign investments and tourism once again. I think PM Beblawi made this clear in his TV interview last week.
There were many religious references in the speech and the word “God” was used several times. Of course El Sisi is trying as best it can to show that He is not a secular anti-Islamic army commander as the Muslim brotherhood is trying to portray him whether directly or indirectly.
This can be noticed in the photos spreading like fire for El Sisi while praying as well for the Egyptian army officers and soldiers praying and reading Quran in military bases and checkpoints in the social media.
Tonight Reuters claimed that the army has given the MB a 48 hours deadline to accept a reconciliation.The admin of SCAF official FB page “yes he is back” says that the 48 hours will finish tomorrow.
There are talks as I hinted above and they are not good well.
After few hours millions of Egyptians will go to the streets. Hopefully it will end well.
First here is the speech translated in to English
Now I do not believe that the army or the police needs a mandate to do its job in fighting terrorism and violence. I do not believe either the justifications that he needed that this mandate in the populist way because there is no parliament to ask for such mandate from !!!! Already that term “War on terrorism” is open and vague as well dangerous when it comes to human rights abuses. Just apply the law and do your job accordingly.Taxes are already paid to the government so the army and police to do their work.
I believe that El Sisi is trying to push harder in the negotiations with the MB as according to all leaks it reached to the dead end as the MB is insisting on having Morsi as a president once again !! You must know if the MB leading figures step back on this particular demand they could be killed by younger supporters.
It is a deadend indeed especially you got highly polarized two teams , one religiously radical and the other nationalistically radical and here I am not referring to the army, but rather the public that backs up the army.
Both teams are armed, and both believe that they are right and ready to die for it. No one wants to give concessions.
Some say that this speech or to be accurate that call to the public to mandate the army to fight terrorism was a message to the world that he does not care for pressure and he will bring down the Muslim brotherhood.
Well I am afraid what the world got two different messages as far I could tell from following foreign politicians’ reactions and reading international coverage. Of course Egyptians now believe that all the newspapers and channels in the world are on the payroll of the Muslim brotherhood.
First message that the world got from the speech that what happened is a coup and that the army runs the show in Cairo. Ironically it is the message that the army and Egyptians were working so hard in the past weeks to deny. The absence of both Adly Mansour , the interim president and his vice president “ElBaradei” as well PM El Beblawi enforced the message that General Sisi and the army are running the show.
Ironically VP Mohamed ElBaradei and FM Nabil Fahmy are trying hard to prove that it is not a coup through their talks to World leaders and then this speech came in this way to make their work even harder.
OF course the National Defense council led by interim president Adly Mansour had a meeting and issued its orders to fight terrorism on Thursday in accordance with the law and human rights.
The second message the world got from the speech is there will be a war on terrorism in Egypt and that war actually is to get rid from the Islamists or rather Morsi’s supporters. The War on terrorism got a very bad reputation thanks to G.W Bush and what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. It has become a synonym to human rights abuse thanks to Bush administration worldwide.
Some people now believe that the Egyptian army is going to destroy both Rabaa and Nahda sits in and peaceful protesters are going to be killed and imprisoned. Of course the MB did not waste any time and spread this from their side. Again they are masters in playing the victim role. “ Without admitting that they are part of the problem and according to eye witnesses there are some armed protesters in both sits in”
The army knew that the world got this message and thus the army spokesperson issued a statement later today insisting that this speech was not a threat to use power against a certain group but rather an invitation for all Egyptians to fight terrorism.
By the way many people in Egypt including myself believe that Rabaa sit in will end in a disaster even without this speech and that call.It is just a tragedy
Another remark unfortunately also the look of General El Sisi itself with the big black eye glasses and uniform gave the world the image of a coup leader not an army commander who wants his country to have democracy. This remark was raised in different news websites and tweets from around the globe. These small things make huge difference when you want to deliver a message internationally if this speech’s target audience was the world indeed.
We are no longer living in a small country and we can not care less about the world especially while having extreme bad economy in a country that needs foreign investments and tourism once again. I think PM Beblawi made this clear in his TV interview last week.
There were many religious references in the speech and the word “God” was used several times. Of course El Sisi is trying as best it can to show that He is not a secular anti-Islamic army commander as the Muslim brotherhood is trying to portray him whether directly or indirectly.
This can be noticed in the photos spreading like fire for El Sisi while praying as well for the Egyptian army officers and soldiers praying and reading Quran in military bases and checkpoints in the social media.
Tonight Reuters claimed that the army has given the MB a 48 hours deadline to accept a reconciliation.The admin of SCAF official FB page “yes he is back” says that the 48 hours will finish tomorrow.
There are talks as I hinted above and they are not good well.
After few hours millions of Egyptians will go to the streets. Hopefully it will end well.
I do not think it will end well. The only positive thought I have is that while I am convinced that el Sisi is in command of everything, maybe he will turn out to be a good person with Egypt's interest in mind. He overthrew an elected president and encroached on civilian political authority, but what's done is done. Charles de Gaulle was a military leader who became president and ruled France in an authoritarian way, but France was better off in the end. Maybe el Sisi will worry about his legacy and work to improve Egypt. Even if he thinks he is the new Abdel Nasser we live in a world where everything is recorded and can be sent to the internet. Already groups like 6 april are turning against him. Inshalllah khair.
ReplyDeleteWith or without sun glasses al Sisi has got a job to do and he knows that all will be lost if he backs down in the face of terrorism. It does not matter whether one commits terrorist acts or promotes terrorism by peaceful means. Any support of terrorism must be crushed.
ReplyDeleteThey brought death on themselves.
ReplyDeleteThey deserve to die.
They want to die.
All peaceful democratic secular liberal forces are forced to ensure mob rule allied to military despotism delivers them death in the name of freedom. ....Hmmmm
We really don't want to see any one killed.
DeleteWe are not the ones running around burning the country to rule it back, when the only thing we know is running grocery stores. True, we have degrees, many of them, but we never used them to benefit of those poor people. We want power, we want to rule in the name of Islam.
We carry the sword in one hand, and the gun in the other. We through kids from the top of building then we slit their throats. We go around hitting women who dare not to cover, punish men who we think they don't fast, and cut fingers of those who we think they stole our fancy mobile phones.
And you call us thugs. Elh.
I certainly agree with what you identified as the first message.
ReplyDeleteAlso note that El Sisi did not ask the people to mandate the "Army", but to mandate HIM, which only supports the MB's claims that he is running the country.
He definitely needs to lose the glasses. they don't inspire confidence. Look the people directly in the eyes eye to eye if you have nothing to hide.
ReplyDelete