Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

A New Egyptian President

Mohamed Morsy has been elected President of Egypt. There was much rejoicing, and there was much angst.

Rejoicing, because something like a democratic process has now for the first time elected the political leader of Egypt. Among some of those the rejoicing is due to the simple fact of his Muslim Brotherhood party allegiance. Among others it is due to his US education, two American citizen children and arguably moderate political positions.

Angst among some because he represents the Muslim Brotherhood at all, that he is the possible harbinger of an open Gaza border over which arms flow to fire at Israel.

The game is afoot among political pundits and prognosticators. What the future holds remains uncharted.

As usual my sunny optimism sides with Mira Tzoreff instead of Zvi Mazel in the Jerusalem Post:

While Mazel pointed to the Muslim Brotherhood’s history, its rhetoric and its stated aims of an Islamic Middle East, Dr. Mira Tzoreff of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University offered a more optimistic view.

Tzoreff, who has written about the Muslim Brotherhood, said while Morsy would almost certainly spout more hardline Islamic-sounding rhetoric, there would likely be a gap between what he says and what he actually does.

In order to succeed politically and economically, Morsy will have to adopt policies acceptable to all Egyptians, including liberal and secular people, Tzoreff said.

“If he does that, he might succeed in unifying Egypt and pulling it out of the socioeconomic mire,” she added.

According to Tzoreff, Morsy is “theoretically capable” of succeeding, but only if he cooperates with SCAF and other parties and does not become a captive to his Brotherhood ideology.

What say you, Moose? Is it time for Joy, Angst or Pondering in and about Egypt?


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 9 Comments

9 comments

  1. IL JimP

    is the right reaction.  The fact that they entered the political process will moderate any radical views they might have as the burden of governance takes hold.  

  2. amr

    The MB are power hungry, manipulative, and would score at the higher half of the 9th percentile on a MACH-IV test. They follow a social structure similar to a fraternity; most members that are able fund the MB, and they do have quite a rich network both vertically and horizontally. But it goes much deeper than that, children of MB parents get raised according to a specific way. I call it brainwashing, they are saying that it is according to the teachings of Islam. Thus at heart the MB are a mixture of (prioritized) theocracy and technocracy.

    Their definitive goal is to simply dominate by any and all means. Doing that through politics, economy, or technology is irrelevant, they are quite persistent. Though they are also obviously traditional, unenlightened, and inflexible. And like any other theocracy, they had quite the bloody history and radicalism.

    Given this brief introduction; Egypt will economically partially recover and have an overall enhancement of government. Although it will do poorly at diplomacy, at first, but it will become better with time. Though political instability will remain for an unpredictable period of time due to the cultural shock of the rather moderate non-authoritarian side of the society with the salafy portion of it, though at first it will mostly be welcomed by a majority of the population. Because of the deep social pressures in the society and the demographic nature of Egypt, segregation is quite unlikely and costly to implement.

    Iff they do not dissolve their ideology and integrate with the different alternatives in the MENA region, Egypt’s rule in the hands of MB will not endure, they will simply, given sufficient time, indirectly disintegrate.

  3. Strummerson

    that is motivating Morsi’s interest in working more closer with Iran:

    http://forward.com/articles/15…

    Yep.  Apparently, the Iranian VP is claiming that the “fact” that there are no Zionist drug addicts (wouldn’t that be nice?) represents evidence that Zionists, and the 8th century compendium of rabbinic literature called the Talmud (which a majority of Zionists do not live by) are behind the international drug trade.

    Just as with the claims that Jews were behind the slave trade, what I want to know here is…where’s my cut?  

Comments are closed.