Well a week into the mystery, that brought down a Russian holiday-maker plane on the Sinai, where except for 3 Ukrainian nationals aboard, all passengers and crew were Russia, the media won’t stop sharing a concern that leaves little doubt about its intentions.
While Prime Minister Cameron apparently ordered his government to bring British nationals immediately back to the Kingdom, which caused major logistic stress to the comparatively small resort air-port in Sharm El-Sheik, I’ve just read that 80.000 Russian won’t be subjected to ’emergency evacuation’. Wouldn’t logic suggest, that president Putin would have decided such a step? –
One reads about thousands of ‘stranded tourists’. – Havoc in Egypt’s most popular resort? Safety concerns are of course in place.
My annoyance and growing sense, that something is foul about the emergency-evacuations is related to the timing of the shrunk empires prime ministers reaction, an empire whose orbit is reduced to its very borders, a kingdom that survives in considerable proportions on his Middle Eastern investment partners, a state that draws his prestige from the presence of a royal family, whose financial calamities forced the sellout of most prominent properties in the city of London.
“Russia halted flights to Egypt on Friday amid growing fears that a Russian jet downed in Egypt last week was bombed.” [Ahram online today, Saturday Nov 7th, 2015]
‘Was bombed’ ?? – While a possible bomb aboard the airliner is the scenario adopted by main-stream media, which had at first been suggested from American intelligent services, pushed into the limelight by US-media, with others quick to follow, leading – an hour after release – a couple of European airlines to halt flights to and from Sharm El-Sheikh without, prior to the disaster, heeding Egypt’s calls for greater coordination to fight terrorism and not having shared intelligence with Cairo about the crash of the Russian passenger plane: the bomb-scenario has not been proven yet. It is worth pointing out here that neither British nor American experts are part of the investigation team, that consists of 47 aviation and terrorism specialists. The investigators are from Egypt, Russia, France and Ireland. The investigation core team is surrounded by several sub-committees.
It is based on the very same spirit of assumptions, that seem sufficient these days to process political agendas, as time is becoming crucial in light of a world-wide recession, that governments prefer to sweep under the rug.
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When I first noted that president El-Sisi is going to the UK to meet with Cameron, plus that prime minister Cameron had announced a crack-down on the Muslimbrotherhood, ‘things’ again made sense to me, as this announcement was in line with the UK government having send MI5 personnel over to Egypt, in the aftermath of the clearance of the ~6weeks long Muslimbrotherhood sit-ins in defiance of the ouster of short-lived- pres Morsi at two prominent squares in Egypt’s capital.- After all: the UK – ‘Brotherhood operates media center and its English website from London. 245 Brotherhood affiliates took over the notoriously extremist Finsbury Park Mosque after the removal of radical preacher Abu Hamza plus they foster relationships with numerous British Islamic organizations.'[*1] many of whom have made headlines with supporting or recruiting British nationals to fight for IS in Syria, like some Islamist groups do elsewhere in Europe.
However I kept wondering: how is the British government going to accomplish a ban on Ikhwan? Would a crack-down on the Muslimbrotherhood not upset one of his key-investors from the Gulf, namely the Emir of Qatar? As is well known in the meantime, Qatar hosts, accommodates and sponsors big calibers of the MB who fled Egypt after July 3rd. Even Saudi-Arabia had decided to label the MB a ‘terrorist organization’. “Brotherhood exiles including Hamas [a branch from MB] leader Khaled Mashaal and spiritual leader of the MB Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi. They have found a haven in Qatar and are supported in the state owned media, Al-Jazeera. In March 2014 Saudi Arabia threatened to close its border with Qatar unless its support for the Muslim Brotherhood ends. How does big-business come to evolve? – Through lobbying.- We need to read a well researched paper on how many lobby-groups, with what kind of long-term strategy, Qatar is financing in the UK.
If I had any at hand, I would place a cartoon here, showing the British empire at a leach, of Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, while the Emir of Qatar himself is at the leach of the US-intelligent services, all three of them standing at a $-black-hole, while the Muslimbrotherhood – remember their ‘strategy-of-gradualism’ – hold the end of a supra- leach.
But they have lost Egypt..
At the point of history, where we at are for now, Egypt is still key to Qatar’s geopolitical ambitions – as a matter of fact, the only key-player next to Turkey.
That all makes me wonder: to what extent is the British sovereignty compromised, when sovereignty means more than self-declaration and protocol. To what extent are the British still in charge of their own policy? Who urged Cameron to create chaos in Sharm El-Sheikh?
Noticing the media hype followed by Cameron’s fight-restrictions I first thought ‘what a hoax’, a possibly vile act of revenge for Russia’s military initiative in Syria as most ME-pundits who occupied themselves with the disaster agreed upon – it was indecently premature to draw conclusions that would have a foreseeable devastating effect on the Egyptian tourism industry. I found no logical explanation for it other than ‘a certain foreign country persuaded Cameron to act’, because the crash caused no loss of lives of British nationals. Yet another most lamentable plane-crash in the history of civil aviation has apparently been hijacked for opaque political ends.-
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Will the plane-crash, neatly established as ‘bomb’ attack – again: based on assumptions, not on investigation results – constitute a set-back for the Egyptian economy, which was slowly about to recover?
Who is interested in Egypt’s well-being, prosperity and success? Is it legitimate to wonder who might be interested to ‘give a helping hand’ to hinder Egypt to get its place in the community of nations, where it ought to be, “to built a modern, civil society, proud of its values and cultural legacy”? – These questions emerge here in Egypt as the most logical mental response to an otherwise incomprehensible blaming campaign. I’ve read a post on Twitter with a mental nod, that when 9/11 befell the US, the whole world media shared bewilderment and compassion.
Now, that Egypt perhaps fell victim to a vile terror-scheme, the media kept focused on technicalities & bomb-scenarios, others stressing how painful the evacuation was for the tourists, how poor the Egyptian authorities provided etc. – thanks God the British ambassador had been in Sharm. He underlined the logistical challenge, the mass evacuation of holiday makers caused and made a case for the airport authorities live on camera.
For whom is it good news, if ‘the military dictatorship clique in Egypt’ is found unfit to govern? – I think for the same people, who still try to convince the world, that only the Muslimbrotherhood had a democratically elected president.
To my delight, a long-standing friend & ally to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, raised up against the UK government amidst the flood of opinions that poured out of the media. like the unprecedented torrential rains recently that have hit parts of Egypt with extreme damages and loss of lives.
The media, backed by pundits drew a grim picture of ‘Egypt’s security as a chimera – the government was negligent and certainly under the thump of terrorists in the Sinai’. Punditism goes/went as far as claiming ‘Sinai is occupied by terrorists’. –
In that hailstorm, suddenly a warm rain fell on my soul.
Khaldoon Al-Mubarak,chairman of one of Britain’s most popular soccer clubs and close business associate of UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed urged the UK government to crack-down on the Muslimbrotherhood as Cameron announced his government intended to or else: the UAE will withdraw a multi Billion arms deal from the UK- state-portfolio. In the UAE, the Brotherhood movement is being monitored with great concern. Over 100 MB-members are awaiting trial.
In context of UK-economy, the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia should be mentioned. As for the Muslimbrothers, the new King too has no overt relations with the brotherhood. While over time, the brotherhood has adopted most of Saudi-Arabia’s Wahabism-interpretation of Islam and ‘exported’ it to Egypt, the royal court remained distant to the movement, instead of embracing and integrating it. Because?.- The Brotherhood had been listed as terror-organization in KSA, shortly after late King Abdullah might have realized, that preventing the realization of their ultimate plans – as unfolded in Egypt – necessitates a formal ban.
Saudi-Arabia too is a big spender in the United Kingdom.
Are we going to see proxy-wars soon emerging in the UK?
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Modern societies as well as societal utopia need no septic think-tank theories who are being imposed on countries as ‘creative chaos’. But we read: “A spectre is haunting Egypt. The spectre of a dead revolution.” Really? What then is a revolutionary goal? What does a revolution [assumed to serve the people] really want? I thought it’s about grave change of how the state handles affairs, with the main goal to bring social justice to the poorest and most ineloquent humans of the Egyptian society. The only spectre that is haunting Egypt is that of outdated ideas which prevent what they claim to stand for.
How, if not as supportive, can one read a tweet from one of the architects of the Arab-Spring, a US based key-advisor for Middle-Eastern affairs, with special assignment to Egypt, when she on her twitter account conveyed the headline of an Egyptian daily newspaper “Social media activists launched several campaigns on Facebook and Twitter to call for a new uprising on 25 January 2016.” Activists try to gather masses to ‘complete the revolution’ as the Muslimbrotherhood relentlessly demand, with an online campaign hash-tag #BackToTahrir.
Like the protest against president El-Sisi’s visit to prime minister Cameron, long prepared through online & social media campaigns prior to his trip by Ikhwan & their supporters in the UK and advertized for in Egypt too didn’t materialize into more than a hundred, [a rather high estimate] rather less, people participating on, what was probably intended to become the ‘day-of-solidarity & resurrection’ in London on the day, president El-Sisi had been expected to be received in No.10. –
To support dissatisfaction & frustration over economical hardships of what the then 3 years of more-or-less civil-disorder left behind until the 2014 presidential elections as fertile soil for what the campaigners seek moral & financial funding for is irresponsible from a person, whose opinion translates into politics, and who works for an organization, that claims to foster peace, while the Muslimbrotherhood have sown hated, violence and divide.
“Don’t forget that we are plagued by terrorism along our 1,000-km-long border with Libya, Sinai and around Egypt. We need stability, so the rest of Egyptian society can survive.” [quoted POE from the UK-presser]
While Egyptian citizens, me included, don’t feel the war against the foundations of the Egyptian state, as the security forces and members of the Egyptian army are mainly exposed to terror and aimed at in attacks: I reiterate: “Don’t forget that we sleep safe in our beds while others are dying on our behalves.”
When the state of emergency had been lifted in November 2013, I felt relief and grief at the same time. Relief for obvious reasons, grief for the predictable ‘streets-back-to-normal’ conditions, that would come with lifting the curfew and would prevent a brisk and efficient work-environment for security forces to rid the country of numerous ill intended individuals, who conveniently find shelter and fast escape in the ever so busy streets of Egypt.
But the economy…
To my surprise, all major limelight events passed without having been even touched by terror-attacks.
To my surprise, a sense of security has been reestablished, leaving all non-politically agitating citizens look up in awe, when the remark ‘we have a war in Egypt’ comes up in a conversation.
We might never fully get to know a convincing reason for what caused the Russian plane to crash.
But we most certainly will all feel its implications.
We know that a healthy economy is the key to achieve social justice and care to provide the infrastructure needed for trade, big or small, to mention just one aspect.
I respect president El-Sisi for many reasons. One main reason still is: until now, he never made a promise, he could not keep. That translates to me: he takes the people very seriously. I don’t resent, that president El-Sisi has no soft-spot for activists. As activists have failed Egypt until now. – One aspect i.e.: from 2011 until 2012 they didn’t bring forward valid candidates to compete in the presidential elections, and finally gave their vote to the Muslimbrotherhood candidate Morsi, banking on his promise that he will include liberals in his government. Then in 2014 again they didn’t bring forward competitive presidential candidates. Boycotting elections or invalidating votes had been their answer to the challenge to finally redeem the promises they made to their fellow contemporaries about their abilities and to work together for the goals of the revolution.
I certainly don’t expect those, still well funded ‘pro-democracy’ agitation NGO’s & selected individuals, financed to a vast extend through subsidiaries on behalf of or upon order from the absolute monarch in Qatar, and to a lesser or similar extent from the notorious Soros-funded ‘pro-democracy & against national borders’ organizations, to bear results, other than that their local appointees, as they are getting if not regular wages, at least project-related salaries, having some financial relieve.-
Costs of living have climbed for external and for internal reasons. External reasons are subjected to world economy and Egypt is part of the international trade-machinery. As for the internal reasons: bizarre profit expectations are still one reason that pushed prices up. However: the chain is much more complex.
My conviction is that recycled political ideas imposed on Egyptians from Western based think-tanks will eventually be marginalized as their protagonists will continuously fail to deliver.
Because with Egyptians “it seems that there is a recurrent problem in our culture of being unable to reach people efficiently, except on some superficial level. When people say they’re ‘in tune’ with a particular segment of society other than their own, it almost always means that they deal with a minute fraction of what they assume is a sample of it. Each social class, sub-culture, or at best, building (let alone neighborhood) is so self-involved that it ends up speaking, critiquing and analyzing itself.”
While the realization, that democracy is a process, which first and foremost requires participation, might well take another generation. In the meantime the new parliament will start their sessions and who knows – … some parliamentarians might inspire discussions, that lead to a long anticipated governmental transparency and some might inspire people to care for each other.
Karina Loren 