WHAT IS AN ADLY MANSOUR?

WHAT IS AN ADLY MANSOUR?

(BBC NEWS, Steve Holland, Tabassum Zakaria)

(Sarah El Deeb, Lee Keath, Bloomberg, Josh Lederman)

(Marcus George, Atlantic Wire, Samia Nakhoul, Thomson Reuters)

(Maggie Fick, Shadia Nasralla, Jeffrey Heller, Nasser Karimi, Tarek Amara)

(Alastair Macdonald, Associated Press, Richard Hall, CNN Profile, Frazer Chronicle)

 

What is an Adly Mansour, and I’ll take a double on the rocks. It turns out that an Adly Mansour is not an alcoholic beverage, which I could really use right now. Much to my dismay, an Adly Mansour isn’t a drink, but a man who was sworn into the Presidency on an interim basis by the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Dr. Ahmed el-Tayeb, Coptic Pope Tawadros II and Mohamed ELBaradei.

 

Mansour will remain in his dual roles, (Mansour is also the head of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court), until elections can be held sometime later this year. Whenever there is a mass take-over of a country’s political structure, confusion reins supreme, especially when an appointed official replaces the official that appointed the official; simply put, Mohamed Morsi appointed Mansour to a government post, and than Mansour himself replaced Morsi!

 

Adly Mansour, born in 1945 was educated at Cairo University and the National School of Administration in Paris, France. Mansour also served on Egypt’s Supreme Court in various roles from 1992 until his appointment as interim President of Egypt on July, 4, 2013.

 

Mohamed Morsi is a 62 year old Egyptian politician who served as that country’s 5^th President from June 30, 2012 until his seat was declared vacant on July 3^rd 2013. On June 24, 2012 the election commission announced that Morsi had won the presidential election, making him the country’s first democratically elected president.

 

Morsi was a Member of Parliament in the People’s Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005, and a leading member in the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party, (FJP) when it was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 revolution. Morsi stood as the FJP candidate for president in June 2012.

 

FICKLE FINGER OF A DEMOCRACY

Fickle might not be the right word, but it’s the best that I can come up with after reading this material for more than 10 hours. But throughout the world, fickle seems to depict how people react to their political leaders whenever something seems broken, or people are short changed, or feel that their elected officials aren’t representing them in the proper way…..according to them.

 

We here in the United States dispute mightily how our elected officials treat us, and we point that boney fickled finger almost every day. But unlike many other sectors throughout the world, we remove those officials that we feel misrepresented us…..we remove them through our election process. Our democratic system, and the way we practice it does plod along, but for whatever reason, we pretty much follow that system.

 

Egypt gained her independence in June, 1953 and Muhammad Naguib, (one of the leaders of the Egyptian Revolution) assumed the office of President, and since that 1953 presidency there has been a juggling act of politics, military activity, assassination, and union, socialist and democratic parties.

 

 

The current unrest seems to rest with the Islamic Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi and the sentiment among many that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. The real reason that Morsi has been disposed rests with the simple power grab attitude of the Morsi regime.

 

Morsi cancelled the Constitutional Court’s ruling to dissolve parliament, and then, two days later decided not to challenge the court. Morsi relieved the public prosecutor, and named him the ambassador to Vatican City, and several other moves throughout the rest of 2012 pointed to a distancing of the Morsi regime from a democratic system of government.

 

A COUNTRY’S BLOODY HISTORY OF WAR

Whether civil wars, religious wars, or invasions, Egypt has been embroiled in war on their own turf 27 different times since 1803. With little exception, war has been a daily experience and a way of life, even as wars overlap one another. At the present time, Egypt has the Muslim Brotherhood Rebellion, hoping to topple the pro-Western government, and a Security Campaign, a response to attacks by Salafist Islamist.

 

What Mansour and his people can bring to the country is problematic, it’s kind of (what you see is what you get). Attacks, counter attacks, bombings, shootings, hangings, and almost any other kind of way that one can degrade unto another human being is being done.

 

And it seems, like some in the United States, some Egyptians seem to be living in a bubble, and with blinders on. “Is what is happening in Egypt a coup,” the answer is a resounding NO, to an outside…..like me, actually the feeling by some is rather funny.

 

Clearly there is an overhaul of government practices in Egypt, and that is a worrisome issue for some in Washington as well as some in Cairo. The United States spends more than $1.5 billion dollars annually in military and humanitarian aid…..and if there were a coup the aid could be jeopardy.

 

Egypt’s prosecutors have ordered the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders, widening a crackdown against the Islamist movement, after the ouster of Morsi. The military intervention that removed the country’s first democratically elected leader was met by some with joy, while others seemed to simmer with rage over the move.

 

At least 16 people have died while hundreds have been wounded during a relatively bloodless take-over during late June and early July. The downfall of Morsi has raised the question of whether a democratic style of government can last in the Islamist country.

 

One thing is for sure, the downfall of the Morsi led regime brings into question exactly what type of government will prevail and operate in the complexity that the region is, and who will step forward and throw his hat into the political ring.

 

Another observation is that military intervention is absolutely not going to work in the Middle East, the reaction by many in the area viewed Morsi’s removal from power as a victory against political Islam. Until people can live together in harmony and respect one for another, this military coup will continue to plague the region…..no matter who’s in power, and which deity is prayed to.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!