On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, in which he said: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent (i.e. Europe). Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow." It was in this speech that Churchill coined the term “the iron curtain", which remained part of the European and international political lexicon, until the USSR collapsed between 1989 and 1991. Today, I feel that an iron curtain has descended across Egypt. There, there is now one party rule led by the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls the presidency and the parliament, and holds sway over the army and a strong (nationalized) media. The one-party system has been a disaster in every country where a single party monopolized power. In Egypt, it is a disaster that goes beyond its border and the iron curtain that surrounds it – or that beleaguers it -, because the leadership of the Arabs is entrusted to Egypt. Indeed, just like the Arabs mimicked Egypt's military coups (and not Syria despite the many coups that took place there), her socialism, and in the nationalization of industry and the media – that is, intellect-, I fear Egypt will be mimicked this time by countries establishing one-party systems. The military council headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi handed power over to the Muslim Brotherhood, after presidential elections that had very questionable results. Here, I will just say that the elections have shown that the Egyptians are equally divided between the Islamist group, on the one hand, and the democratic, civil and liberal factions represented by General Ahmed Shafik, on the other. The new administration rewarded the generals that helped it take power by sacking the Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff, and before them, the chief of intelligence Murad Muwafi. All this took place under the pretext of the terrorism that killed Egyptian soldiers while they were having iftar, and the Muslim Brotherhood administration ended up destroying tunnels to Gaza that even the Mubarak regime had not touched. Were the vile terrorists close to the generals, or were they closer to the ideology of the Islamist group and the factions that splintered from them throughout its long history? Do I even need to ask? An hour before President Mohamed Mursi declared his decisions I was on the phone with General Ahmed Shafik. He seemed worried about the future of his country, even before the dismissal of the heads of the armed forces. He said that he was afraid that highly educated citizens, without whom the country can never stand on its feet, may immigrate in bigger numbers now. In truth, I have a personal experience with this issue. Since the Muslim Brotherhood took power, many colleagues, both men and women, have been asking me to help them find jobs in the Gulf countries. Two colleagues told me that many of my Lebanese friends had been naturalized as Canadian citizens, and wanted me to ask those friends to help them immigrate to Canada. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is practicing what it had once bemoaned. Before the ouster of Hosni Mubarak's regime, the word that went hand in hand with the group's title in the official media was “banned" – a term meant to belittle, isolate and perhaps even insult the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, the term “banned" applies to everything that is not of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Freedom and Justice newspaper and the Egypt 25 TV both attack whoever dares to criticize the Muslim Brotherhood, and sometimes even make accusations of treason and blasphemy. This means that both freedom and justice are absent. Moreover, [January] 25 was the making of the revolutionary youths, not the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists who hijacked the uprising. I have noted down in this column, both before and after the revolution, that the policy of the Muslim Brotherhood is best described by the popular saying “Pretend you're weak until you have the upper hand". Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is practicing this policy publically, as well as the other policy pursued by George W. Bush, namely that if you are not with us then you are against us. I had also noted down in this column the opinion of several senior Egyptian officials, both current and former, and thinkers and colleagues who said that a military coup was likely to happen, if the Muslim Brotherhood fails to resolve the economic problems, pushing the citizens to rise up against the Islamist administration. In addition, many important countries in the region have doubts about the Brotherhood's intentions and have refrained from helping the group. So what happened was that President Mohamed Mursi staged a coup against the coup, preempting the military in the process. Perhaps he won the battle, but he has not yet won the war. Major General Omar Suleiman had told me that the generals do not know how cunning the Muslim Brotherhood is, and do not understand that the group is planning to take control of all of Egypt. In the meantime, I am waking up in the early morning every day, to check the radio and television for news about a military coup in Egypt. I am not so vain as to propose solutions, so all I can do is pray that God have mercy on the people of Egypt and have mercy on us. To be sure, the iron curtain that has descended across Egypt has also descended on the heart of every Arab who loves Egypt and its people.
