Author and political thinker Tarek Heggy shares his thoughts on the developments in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s relations with Russia and the USA.
For 85 years, the Muslim Brotherhood remained an underground movement. They dreamed of power and they gained it on July 1, 2012. There were in power for 369 days. I don’t think they will be back. We can expect a guerilla war which will last several years. It will be powered by dreams of returning to power, until they realize that people simply don’t want this. Later, many new movements will emerge from the Muslim Brotherhood, and they will be able to adapt and co-exist with a secular government.
The Muslim Brotherhood would like to turn the Egyptian people into Islamic fundamentalists. One of their former representatives said that their idea would become a reality when each director, ambassador, official, everyone with any kind of responsibility, was their devoted follower. I think some people in Egypt will still feel sympathetic toward the Brothers and this could lead to clashes and violence.
Russia is the only state that does not call the events of July 3 a coup. The United States immersed itself into supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and lost its influence among people in Egypt, who now consider the US an enemy. I will not be exaggerating if I say that the hostility toward the US is as strong as that toward Israel. And why is that? Because the US brought even more problems than Israel. The Egyptian people have also seen what happened in Libya and what is going on in Syria. And they thank God that they escaped that fate.
