For someone to start as a revolutionary voice of change to part of a new regime itself now the subject of serious protests is not new-just see the Syrian President. We know him now as a dictator who is firing on his own people but he was once the freedom fighter fighting the dictator. Talk about full circle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad
It is rather jarring how quickly it happened in Egypt. Morisi and his Administration don't seem to know what to say:
"Mr. Morsi’s administration appeared caught by surprise. “There are protests; this is a reality,” Omar Amer, a spokesman for the president, said at a midnight news conference. “We don’t underestimate the scale of the protests, and we don’t underestimate the scale of the demands.” He said the administration was open to discussing any demands consistent with the Constitution, but he also seemed exasperated, sputtering questions back at the journalists. “Do you have a better idea? Do you have an initiative?” he asked. “Suggest a solution and we’re willing to consider it seriously.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/06/the_2nd_act.php?ref=fpblg
Is this a Maoist dream come true-the dream of Permanent Revolution? Where there's never a stable center of power but constant upheaval and uprisings? It recalls what the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said about revolutions-'things tend to go around in a circle.' What the 20th century demonstrated so starkly is that its possible for the new regime to outstrip the old in sedition and oppressiveness. Not that Morisi is in any way oppressive at this stage of the game. He's doing his best to honor the mandate of the people-he means to be one of the good guys.
Part of the trouble is that often you get blamed for things beyond your control that really aren't your fault. Ironically, these forceful protests are in part to: protest that lack of security. Yep. If you feel there's no law and order the way to fix that is more uprisings and disorder. Part of it, however, is unhappiness with his party the Muslim Brotherhood, and a sense that he has and his party have failed to rise above their sectarian past as promised.
"Demonstrators said they were angry about the near total absence of public security, the desperate state of the Egyptian economy and an increase in sectarian tensions. But the common denominator across the country was the conviction that Mr. Morsi had failed to transcend his roots in the Brotherhood, an insular Islamist group officially outlawed under Mr. Mubarak that is now considered Egypt’s most formidable political force. The scale of the protests across the country delivered a sharp rebuke to the group’s claim that its victories in Egypt’s newly open parliamentary and presidential elections gave it a mandate to speak for most Egyptians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad
It is rather jarring how quickly it happened in Egypt. Morisi and his Administration don't seem to know what to say:
"Mr. Morsi’s administration appeared caught by surprise. “There are protests; this is a reality,” Omar Amer, a spokesman for the president, said at a midnight news conference. “We don’t underestimate the scale of the protests, and we don’t underestimate the scale of the demands.” He said the administration was open to discussing any demands consistent with the Constitution, but he also seemed exasperated, sputtering questions back at the journalists. “Do you have a better idea? Do you have an initiative?” he asked. “Suggest a solution and we’re willing to consider it seriously.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/06/the_2nd_act.php?ref=fpblg
Is this a Maoist dream come true-the dream of Permanent Revolution? Where there's never a stable center of power but constant upheaval and uprisings? It recalls what the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said about revolutions-'things tend to go around in a circle.' What the 20th century demonstrated so starkly is that its possible for the new regime to outstrip the old in sedition and oppressiveness. Not that Morisi is in any way oppressive at this stage of the game. He's doing his best to honor the mandate of the people-he means to be one of the good guys.
Part of the trouble is that often you get blamed for things beyond your control that really aren't your fault. Ironically, these forceful protests are in part to: protest that lack of security. Yep. If you feel there's no law and order the way to fix that is more uprisings and disorder. Part of it, however, is unhappiness with his party the Muslim Brotherhood, and a sense that he has and his party have failed to rise above their sectarian past as promised.
"Demonstrators said they were angry about the near total absence of public security, the desperate state of the Egyptian economy and an increase in sectarian tensions. But the common denominator across the country was the conviction that Mr. Morsi had failed to transcend his roots in the Brotherhood, an insular Islamist group officially outlawed under Mr. Mubarak that is now considered Egypt’s most formidable political force. The scale of the protests across the country delivered a sharp rebuke to the group’s claim that its victories in Egypt’s newly open parliamentary and presidential elections gave it a mandate to speak for most Egyptians.
“Enough is enough,” said Alaa al-Aswany, a prominent Egyptian writer who was among the many at the protests who had supported the president just a year ago. “It has been decided for Mr. Morsi. Now, we are waiting for him to understand.”
"Shadi Hamid, a researcher at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar who studies the Muslim Brotherhood closely, said: “The Brotherhood underestimated its opposition.” He added: “This is going to be a real moment of truth for the Brotherhood.”
You get the sense that Mr. Morisi is sincerely suprised and kind of desperate for answers-he's more or less begging 'you tell us if you have an ideas.'
Still, the trouble is that there's a deep sense that the Brotherhood has taken too much power too itself. In the past, they've always been able to ascribe this as just pro-Mubarak reactionaries trying to return to power. The raw huge numbers of this protest discredits this facile answer.
"“It is a cautionary note: don’t be too eager for power, and try to think how you do it,” Mr. Hamid said, faulting the Egyptian Brotherhood for seeking to take most of the power for itself all at once. “I hear concern from Islamists around the region about how the Brotherhood is tainting Islamism.”
Meanwhile, many are now ironically enough demanding that the military step in and force out Egypt's first democratically elected President.
"Many vowed to stay in the streets until Mr. Morsi resigned. Some joked that it should be comparatively easy: just two years ago, Egyptian protesters toppled a more powerful president, even though he controlled a fearsome police state. But there is no legal mechanism to remove Mr. Morsi until the election of a new Parliament, expected later this year, and even some critics acknowledge that forcing the first democratically elected president from power would set a precedent for future instability."
"Some of the protesters called for another intervention by the military, which seized power from Mr. Mubarak and held onto it for more than a year. Chants were directed to the defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi: “Come on Sisi, make a decision!”
Yep. More than a few ironies here.
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