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Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi dies in court while facing trial, state television reports wapo.st/2MVRCDs?tid=ss…
RIP Mohamed Morsi. He and his #Ikhwan colleagues made a poor job of governing, were v. naive in their failure to foresee/forestall the military's super-vicious, anti-democratic counter-attack. But he was democratically elected! Small thread...
In Spring 2011 I was one of very few Western analysts who predicted that if there were democratic elections, likely the #Ikhwan (MB) would win. I was right. This was not because I supported their program but becuz I understood & admired their organizing capability. >
At the very beginning of the "Tahrir Square" phenomenon, some of the older MBs were wary of getting involved. They knew it wd be a big roll of the dice. But the younger members persuaded them to join the big sit-ins thruout all of Egypt. >
They played a massive role in organizing logistics for the prolonged sit-ins. They and all their allies in the street movement rigorously kept to nonviolence, despite army/police provocations that killed >800 and injured 1000's more before Mubarak left. Few people remember >
that nonviolent discipline that they helped to keep. Then, after being elected, they (inc Morsi) proved fairly incompetent at governance. But there were parliamentary elections scheduled for later in 2013. Ppl unhappy with Morsi's governance had a chance to change things thru >
electoral means. But no. By mid-2012, Egyptians disaffected by the MB's rise were plotting with MBZ, the deeply anti-democratic strongman of the UAE. They created an entire, faux "grassroots" movement (astrotroturf movemt) called Tamarrod which, >
using a massively well-funded & mendacious social media campaign, roiled up numerous Egyptian "liberals" on an anti-MB platform and then in mid-2013 organized a mass street protest in Cairo with the demand to bring the military back to power!
So what we see in #Sudan today is deja vu all over again. (UAE funding to restore a military to power over the expressed wishes of the people.) God help the peoples of both countries.
