Egypt and Tunisia Prove that the Arab Spring Is about Self-government

Early Wednesday, Egyptian security forces began to clear two sit-ins by supporters of the country's ousted president Mohamed Morsi, who is the titular head of the Moslem Brotherhood. The security forces of the military-backed government moved into a square near Cairo University at dawn and cleared it. The much larger protest camp located at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square near a large mosque in an area of Cairo that is the stronghold of the Brotherhood is still being cleared as I report at 3:30 pm European time. Access routes around the Rabaa camp have been blocked but CNN reported that 15,000 pro-Morsi Brotherhood supporters have entered the camp to re-inforce their numbers. The military have reported that ammunition and weapons caches were found in the Rabaa camp. Officials have also halted all trains into Cairo, presumably in an effort to keep Brotherhood supporters out of the city. But, south of Cairo there have been reports of Brotherhood attacks on police stations and Christian churches, with one church being burned. Morsi's supporters continue to say that they will not leave the camp until the president, ousted in a popularly supported coup July 3, is reinstated. The international community tried without success to negotiate a truce between the Brotherhood and the interim government, which says the Brotherhood protests have frightened residents of Cairo and disrupted normal life and business in the Egyptian capital. Both sides blame the other for using firearms today and the government reports 15 deaths while the Brotherhood says 200 are dead. CNN says both estimates should "be taken with a grain of salt." A Brotherhood spokesman in London today said the Brotherhood protest is completely peaceful and called the military-led interim government a "junta." Interim government supporters have told CNN that the Brotherhood has captured, beaten and killed people in the camp neighborhood who refuse to support them. Reports of the Brotherhood using children in the camp as shields is denied by leaders of the camp, who say they cannot prevent families from joining the protest camp, which independent sources describe as a small town occupying several city blocks. A CNN local citizen-reporter said today that it is time to take Cairo back from the Brotherhood which took power and then used it to try to force Egyptians into a radical-islamist society. ~~~~~ Dear readers, we could be watching the beginning of a long, bloody civil war in Egypt. It would turn Egypt into another Syria. The consequences would be disastrous for the Middle East, calling out the region's sectarian partisans on both sides of the radical islamist-democratic factions. It would also almost certainly threaten the existence of Israel, calling in the United States. I believe that it is the last chance for the international community to prevent such an endgame. It is not easy to choose sides between two questionable forces, but we already know two things about the Brotherhood : (1). They are incapable of governing Egypt economically. (2). The Brotherhood cynically used democratic processes to gain control of the Egyptian government and then use the power gained to turn Egypt into a radical-islamist society against the will of the majority of Egyptians, who demonstrated massively, calling on the military to oust Morsi. What we know about the military is that even today they are supported by the vast majority of Egyptians and they were willing to try to compromise, something the Brotherhood refused to do. America, Europe and the UN should do all they can to support the military...stop suggesting that the Brotherhood was "democratically" elected...refuse to become naive proponents of extremist radical-islamists. Refuse to blame the Egyptian military for today's events. Denounce the cynical protests of the Brotherhood. Help Egyptians find their way toward a democratic society.~~~~~ If the Arab Spring has taught us anything, it is that once younger Moslems get a taste of self-government, they are not easily herded back into radical-islamist straightjackets. Tunisia and Egypt are the proof. I hope the world can understand this by looking at the mechanics of initial manipulated elections in Tunisia and Egypt instead of simplistically focusing on the fact of voting as the total reality. Once this truth sinks in, it will be much easier to help those groups and governments in the Arab and Moslem worlds who deserve our help.