Someone Successfully Explained Egypt’s Politics! (In English)

Below, an excerpt from must-read, Cairo-based Sarah Carr (tagline: “1/2 Egyptian. It’s My Country Too You Bastards”) who de-mystifies the bogeyman that is the Muslim Brotherhood. Who said international relations has to be complicated and eat-your-vegetables-esque?

Every day that passes puts another dent in the legend of this 80-year-old group with its dazzling powers of organization and moderate Islamic vision and familiarity with the Egyptian street. Snort. Morsi is a dull cheating husband who misbehaves and attempts to make amends by offering surprise dinner invitations after he beats his wife up, where his wife is the Egyptian people you understand. The MB itself are a glorified soup kitchen with excellent logistical skills that end at distributing food to the poor and organizing large rallies. They are a charity organization with a militia that finds itself in charge of a country and which seems to think that its decisions do not need to be backed up by reason or say, the rule or law, but can rely entirely on the Egyptian people trusting Uncle Morsi.

This was most evident in the Constitutional Assembly debacle. Virtually all members of the political opposition – and most crucially minorities (women and Christian representatives) -walked out of the Assembly. Those that remained produced a mess of a constitution, but its proponents see no problem in its having been drafted by a largely homogenous group of males. The thinking seems to be:  we have faith in God so have faith in us…..

…The moralizing would be tolerable except that they are failing to do anything about the million everyday problems blighting ordinary Egyptians’ lives… while they have the temerity to think that they can thrust a dictatorship on us because God is on their side and they know best.All this is very Mubaraky.

Read her whole dispatch here. (Really, click that: you’ll laugh darkly more than once and understand the Middle East a little better afterwards.)