It is all about identity

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), May 26, 2014 at 16:24

Dr Pipes

You wrote

In Egypt, many younger activists repudiate Morsi's power grab. Spokesman Hamza Zoba'a accused the Muslim Brotherhood of having "committed errors" and of falling "into the trap of ruling alone

I'm sure you must agree with me that when it comes to Islam and Islamism with a human face "one size fits all"does not really work

Egypt is indeed a case in point

Here is حمزة زوبع or Hamza Zoba3's article in Arabic

http://klmty.net/3423-%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%B2%D8%A9_%D8%B2%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B9_%D9%8A%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A8__%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%A7_%D9%88%D9%83%D8%B0%D9%84%D9%83_%D9%81%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%85___%D9%88%D9%87%D8%B0%D8%A7_%D9%87%D9%88_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%82.html

He is really saying what secularists have been saying for a long time that any leader of Egypt who neglects what Egypt and the identity of its people are all about will be rejected by almost all Egyptians and this is indeed what Morsi did

So what is this identity? This is how the great Egyptian intellectual ميلاد حنا or Milad Hanna defines it in his book "The seven pillars of the Egyptian identity"

http://www.amazon.com/seven-pillars-Egyptian-identity/dp/9770139971/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372860134&sr=1-1

Hanna believed that most Egyptians share an identity that has seven pillars and they are

1. Pharaonic

2. Coptic

3. Greco-Roman

4. Islamic

5. Being part of the Arab world

6. Being part of Africa

7. Being part of Europe via the Mediterranean sea

And Hamza Zoba3 indeed admits that Morsi and the MB did not understand this very complex identity and so are many secularists

This does not mean that he welcomes the Egyptian identity as defined by Hanna but in a subtle way he is saying that if the MB has any political chance in the future this chance will fall in place if the MB indeed works and embraces this concept of identity and that the end (coming to power) justifies the means

And here is a recent article by Tarek Osman from the AUC about the same topic of the Egyptian identity and he is a liberal Egyptian

http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/Pages/articleDetails.aspx?aid=573

And indeed he argues that the MB and Morsi did not really understand the Egyptian identity (as defined by Hanna) and this is why the MB and Morsi had to go

So can we have Islamists with a human face in the case of Egypt? This will only happen if the MB embraces the Egyptian identity but if this would happen then the Islamic Sharia and the caliphates will be a thing of the past

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