Sisi is sissy

 

President Sisi has ruled Egypt since 2014. The former general is the latest in an almost unbroken line of Egyptian military dictators. Not all military dictators are bad especially when one considers the alternative. However, Sisi has little to recommend him.

In Egypt’s 5 000 year history it has had one fair election. That was won by the Muslim Brotherhood. Love them or loath them – this party won fair and square. Mohammed Morsi became President of Egypt in 2013.

Egypt’s only ever democratic president faced an exceptionally challenging situation. The economy was screaming. Tourism – a vital source of revenue – had all but evaporated after the Arab Spring of 2011. The country had massive unemployment. The population explosion had made it virtually impossible to create enough jobs. Wage compression had made the middle class  declasse – driving them into working class status and the working class were demoted into abject penury. If the price of bread rose a few cents that sparked riots. This price rise was the difference between life and death for many people. Decades of peculation and embezzlement by the Mubarak regime had ruined civil society. People had no faith in public institutions such as the courts, the police, the armed forces and the civil service.

People blame Morsi for all that went wrong on his watch. This is unfair. No president has complete control. But in particular Morsi’s wings were clipped. Despite civilian rule having been introduced in January 2011 the army still arrested people as well as the police. Courts martial still tried civilians.

What was so bad about Morsi? People accused him of having an Islamist agenda. He was not exactly Osama Bin Laden. He called for the maintenance of peace with Israel. Morsi did not outlaw alcohol. He did not introduce stricter clothing laws. Entertainment was not prohibited. He did very little to move the country in a more puritanical direction. Morsi was willing to shake hands with women. Islamic fundamentalists do not do this. He had also spent some years studying in the United States.

There were some terrorist attacks on Coptic Christians whilst he was president. This is no wise implicates the president. That would be like saying that Putin set off all the bombs that ever went off in Moscow.

People had been oppressed under the military dictatorship that they yearned for better. Hopes for an improving situation were too strong. The expectations of higher living standards in the short term were unrealistic.

Some of Morsi’s acolytes said some worrying things. A few wanted to reduce female emancipation or suggested making the Copts have dhimmi status and pay jizya. But these were nutcases within the party. No party should be judged by its lunatic fringe.

By the summer of 2014 there was serious disorder. Who benefitted? It was certainly not the Muslim Brotherhood. Did the army want it this way? They were itching to get back into power. Disorder provided them with the excuse to launch a putsch. A knot of reactionary militarists hatched a plot.

The military top brass gave Morsi a few days to bring the situation under control or they would remove him by force. It was an impossible task especially as the generals refused to help him. Morsi was overthrown in a military coup. He was given a flagrantly unfair trial. The military kangaroo court convicted him on trumped up charges. Morsi was awarded life imprisonment. He died in prison.

Abdel Fattah El Sisi was then selected by a coterie of generals to be their front man. Sisi was installed as interim president. He called an election.

An army spokesman informed the public that the poll would be ‘’one million per cent democratic.’’ The need to make such a ludicrous claim speaks for itself. It is surprising that Sisi did not announce that he had won 1 000 000 % of the vote!

Sisi is clean shaved which in Egypt hints at his being relatively secular. However, his attitudes belie his image. His beliefs are not dissimilar to Morsi’s on religious issues. Just because Morsi was hirsute does not mean he was ultra-conservative. Sisi is a bland control freak. Morsi was more cosmopolitan than Sisi. Morsi at least spoke fluent English.

There was a massacre of hundreds of people by Sisi’s ‘’security forces.’’ The Rabaa Massacre was carried out by his men. Even the Egyptian Government admits that over 600 civilians were killed. They claim that some police officers were killed too. The regime cannot get its story straight on how many police were slain. It is anywhere between 8 and 43. That is quite a discrepancy. If some policemen were killed is not possible that some were accidentally killed by other policemen? Some undercover policemen may have been in the crowd. If protesters used force against the police it was surely in self-defence. They would not use it pre-emptively. The police would use the slightest excuse to slaughter hundreds of people. Unbiased sources such as Human Rights Watch say that the true death toll is over 1 000.

The people who were murdered were demonstrating as is their right under the Egyptian Constitution. Remember Sisi said he wants to uphold people’s rights. Which rights? The right to be murdered with impunity?

Sisi is remorseless about this wanton butchery. This massacre is far worse than anything that ISIS or Al Qa’eda has done in Egypt.

The Al Rabaa Massacre took place AFTER Morsi’s ouster. Why did Sisi say he had to overthrow Morsi? To prevent violence. No, the coup was so Sisi could commit violence.

As Sisi’s religious beliefs are akin to Morsi’s why did he overthrow him? Sisi presumably hates democracy. Moreover, Sisi and his military cronies had been ripping off the public for decades. They wanted to continue. They did not want to be held to account.

Egypt is a deeply dysfunctional country. The military is about the only institution that actually works. The officer corps have lorded it over the civilian population for decades. Every president since the overthrow of the monarchy has been a military man even if he wore a civilian suit as president. The top brass has been creaming off the budget since 1954.

In fine old style Sisi has appointed his sons to high positions for which they are unfit. One of head of Mukhabarat. That makes him in effect witchfinder general. His job is to smell out human rights activists and call them terrorists.

President Sisi has presided over grossly unfair trials. At a single trial over 500 people were sentenced to death for murder. The judges are the lapdogs of the regime.

There is almost no freedom of expression in Egypt. Undercover police officers are still arresting dissidents. They are still entrapping gays online. Torture is widely used as many human rights organisations have documented.

The Egyptian Government co-operates with Israel on eliminating their enemies. Sisi moronically admitted this in an interview on American TV. He asked for that statement to be edited out. Of course, the TV channel went with this scoop. Assisting Israel is unacceptable to Egyptian public opinion. The Palestinian cause has been abandoned.

Sisi was asked why he oppressed his people. He claimed his opponents want to deprive people of their rights. In fact Sisi allows his people almost no rights.

Egypt has backed the Libyan National Army (LNA). The LNA is rebelling against the Government of Libya. So much for Sisi represented stability. He is now threatening to invade a neighbour which does his country no harm.

Someone who fights illegally against his own government is generally regarded as a terrorist. Yet Sisi supports the LNA who do just this. By contrast, those who are peaceful and law abiding dissidents in his own country are called terrorists. Egyptian Law grants people all the rights you might want. But the government simply flagrantly breaks its own laws.

Sisi has not made the country more secular. A woman was convicted for wearing a dress that showed her lower legs! A woman who ate a banana suggestively on television and said having a child outside wedlock was fine was convicted of outraging public decency. A man can divorce his wife by telling her ‘’I divorce thee’’ thrice. Egypt is not as bad as Saudi Arabia. But neither it a free country.

General Sisi is not anti-Christian. That is one of the few things which can be said in his defence. But the same was true of Morsi.