Freedom, Justice, Development

Egyptian authorities - which is to say, for the present the ruling Supreme Military Council - hardly know how to react to the ongoing mobs screaming for the life of former President Hosni Mubarak to be forfeited to the justice of revenge.  They are not placated by the lifting of emergency rule.  They know what they want, and it is being denied them.  The death of Mr. Mubarak at the very least, a sentence of life imprisonment for his two sons, and likewise for his colleagues arrested with him.

FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 30, 2011 file photo, thousands of protesters chant slogans against the country's military rulers decision to retain the much hated emergency laws used throughout the reign of ousted President Hosni Mubarak at Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egyptian uprising, in Cairo, Egypt. Under Mubarak, there were no mass killings along the lines of South African or some Latin American dictatorships in the 1980s. But tens of thousands of political prisoners were detained under emergency laws that expired last week after 31 years in force. Torture was systematic, and often extreme, and corruption was completely endemic. Arabic on the banner, center reads, "no to emergency law." Photo: Amr Nabil / AP 

Needless to say that is not all they want.  They want the Supreme Military Council - the military that was once hailed in gratitude as the saviour of the nation because it agreed to that gentle shove that saw Mr. Mubarak exit rule - to exit themselves.  For reasons of rational orderly temperance facing off against the passion of the mob mentality of the Egyptian street, and in protection of the rule of law, such as it is, that protects ordinary, law-abiding Egyptians, the Council is loathe to depart.

Of course, possessing the power that comes with its authority as the lead arbiter of the administration of justice, is a powerful incentive in and of itself.  That, and the simple fact that the Supreme Military Council knows that what awaits them is what happened to Turkey's military, itself once the bulwark against Islamization and now reduced to obeying the dictates of Turkey's Islamist parliament and president, former ruling generals accused of treason.

Egypt will most certainly continue its trajectory toward Muslim Brotherhood rule.  Egyptians voted massively in parliamentary elections to give the Muslim Brotherhood a majority, and the Salafists also did very well; combined the two parties will alter the face of Egypt, taking it back to the 8th Century, where heretofore it was mired only in the 19th Century.  The nomenclature of Turkey's and Egypt's Islamist parties is geared to manipulate the vote.

Who would not, after all, vote for a party naming itself the Freedom & Justice Party?  (Muslim Brotherhood)  Or the Justice and Development Party?  (Turkey's Islamist President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party).  The women of Egypt, for one demographic, can anticipate that Islamist dress codes will erode their rights, along with other issues that will be seen to be insulting to Islamic culture.  They can take their cue from the women of Turkey who have decided they will not go quietly into that Islamist night.

Thousands of abortion rights demonstrators stage the largest protest yet against plans by Turkey's Islamic-rooted government to curb abortion, which critics say will amount to a virtual ban, in Istanbul, Turkey, June 3, 2012.

Unsurprisingly, the Muslim Brotherhood is fully in support of Egyptian protesters who insist on capital punishment for Mr. Mubarak consistent with his crimes.  Did he personally order the murder of 850 protesters across Egypt during the Tahrir Square and other locales?  If he was deemed to be complicit it was under the old Truman rubric of where the buck stops.  And so further indignities and harsh hardships will be inflicted on the man who loves his country and believed he was advancing its future.

Doing so in a way that did indeed advance its future; a country forever impoverished, its underclass eking out a life under an antiquated and tyrannical system of government reflective of all other countries in the Middle East and North Africa.  He was cleared of the charges of corruption, the slanderous accusations that hatred made seem like reality.  Alaa and Gamal, his two sons, face additional charges, while acquitted of corruption.

Concrete and material evidence in lieu of wild and slanderous accusations simply was not accepted in the Egyptian court.  "God's verdict is execution" screamed the outraged banners held aloft by families of those who died during a period of especial violence, claimed by the protesters to have been orchestrated by the Mubarak regime.  Yet the police chiefs, in control during the bloodshed also were acquitted.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi along with former vice-president Omar Soliman had informed the court of the trajectory of events within the ruling circles, leading to Mr. Mubarak's resignation.  Neither had any interest whatever in accusing their old colleague of guilt in the charges brought against him. 

Egypt in transition is not a pretty place.