I was just listening to the latest news out of Egypt about the hundred or so people killed today and I kept wondering what kind of convoluted logic would be used to blame it on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). And, sure enough, I heard one pundit saying that the demonstrators were responsible because they were not peaceful but armed. Another commentator then admitted that holding the democratically elected president in jail was not an option and that new elections should be organized in which Morsi should be allowed to participate.
Does any of that look totally crazy to you or is that only me?
Honestly – I find no redeeming quality to the MB, nor do I want to see these guys in power in Egypt. I dislike their ideology which I see as profoundly reactionary, I don’t like their leaders whom I see as irresponsible and, frankly, rather stupid, and categorically disagree with Sunni Islamists’ stance on the war in Syria.
But for all my dislike for the MB, it is rather obvious to me that they simply cannot be blamed for the violence in Egypt. Violence needs to be looked at two levels here: an individual one and a corporate one. On an individual level I am sure that both pro and anti Morsi demonstrators have used violence, as did individual policemen and soldiers. However, in this case the individuals are to be considered responsible – not the organizations they belong to. But on the corporate level, the only ones who used violence are the coup leaders and the police. As an organization the MB did not unleash the current wave of violence – the Army did – and at the most the MB can be accused of defending itself or responding to violence.
Furthermore, if the military and the police are the only one guilty of the corporate violence on an immediate level (i.e.: they directly engaged in it), on an formal level the cause of all the violence is the coup itself (they created the circumstances which made it all possible).
Considering the above, I am baffled to hear somebody suggest that new elections have to be organized. Organized by whom?! By the same military which is guilty of the current violence and the coup which preceded and triggered it? And, if Morsi is allowed to run, will he do that from his jail cell? Or will the MB be banned by the “democratic military” as a “terrorist organization”?! Would it not be more logical to have the MB organize these elections and ban all the parties and political figures which supported the coup? I know, just kidding. But seriously – would that not be at least as logical.
As I said, I intensely dislike the MB and I really do not wish them well. But I have to admit that if I was an Egyptian member of the MB I would have to come to the conclusion that the entire democratic process and ideology is, at best, a farce and, at worst, an evil and toxic lie and that real change in Egypt can only happen as a result of an armed insurrection followed by a *real* revolution, one which does not only remove puppets, but achieves an irreversible regime change.
Is that not the only logical conclusion?
This all reminds me of a poem by Bertold Brecht:
Die Lösung
Bertolt BrechtNach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
Zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
Bertolt BrechtAfter the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writer’s Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
(check here and here for historical context)
The Saker
That the Brecht poem has had so many appropriate applications in the years since it was written is a testament not only to its greatness and his genius, but also to the fact that Brecht, while certainly loyal to Soviet Communism for much of his adult life, was never a party hack.
@M.B.: yes, while I never liked his books (which I had to read in school in my German classes) the day I came across this poem I mentally bowed to his honestly. Now, many decades later, I have come to conclude that I almost don’t care what a person thinks, what his/her ideology or religion or political views are, as long as they are sincerely held and always amendable to the Truth. Brecht certainly was local to Soviet Communism, but when he saw the events of 1953 he had to set aside his ideological inclinations and be a witness to the Truth.
This is, in part, why today, even though I really dislike the MB, I feel forced/compelled by the Truth to say that the MB is the victim and those who crush it, even though they are probably far closer to me in their views, are the villain which has to be denounced.
I strongly believe that the Truth, with a capital ‘T’, not only has an objective reality, I even think that it is the ONLY “real reality” as the Greek word “alethiea” so beautifully suggests: that which remains when all that is wrong is forgotten, or that which does not die.
This is why I, an Orthodox Christian, can feel a profound sense of solidarity and kinship with Muslims like Malcolm X or Hassan Nasrallah, a Papist Bishop like Josip Juraj Strossmayer, a Communist like Brecht or even a Fascist like Robert Brasillach.
I might post something about this topic – the Truth with a capital “t” here – at some later date (I need to find a rare text for that).
Cheers,
The Saker
The governments in the Western world are “electing another people” through unrestrained illegal immigration. And these immigrants do not identify with the history and values of the people whom they are demographically displacing. Such is life in the Zionist dominated west, where the elites harbor deep hostility to the values, traditions, beliefs, and people who have comprised the demographic majorities in the states they rule over.
“There is no religion higher than Truth”
– a particular Russian
@Anonymous2:“There is no religion higher than Truth”
This is a tricky statement because it strongly implies that no religion can be true by suggestion that the Truth is above any religion, thus affirming a necessary difference between the two. Furthermore, coming from a person whose personal belief was a rather silly hodgepodge of various religious traditions it is rather illogical: how can the sum of various errors yield the Truth?
Finally, there is a logical argument against the very premise of this quote: if the Truth is indeed bigger or ‘above’ human perception and power of imagination and insight (as it is by logical necessity), then how can the Truth become known ascent a revelation of some kind? But any system of though based upon a revelation is, of course, a religion. Therefore, ONLY a religion can be a true source of Truth. Of course, “The Truth” in its totally is “bigger” or “higher” than the revelation which is at the foundation of any religion, but that is not what Madam Blavatsky meant in this case.
Finally, Blavatsky’s quote does not foresee a statement such as “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) in which a specific creed, a specific religion, *IS* equated with the Truth :-)
Cheers!
The Saker