Yes, the Muslim Brotherhood has the right to warn against turning away from democracy, as do many others. But this does not mean clinging to a president and a regime of rule who governed Egypt for a year, during which they worked to serve the interests of their own group and made enemies of every state institution and of a broad segment of the population. The Muslim Brotherhood has the right to cling to the ballot box and to elections, and we stand with it in this. But this does not mean ignoring the overwhelming popular will to depose Doctor Mohamed Morsi, who had turned against the state with his constitutional declaration, leading the army to intervene in order to achieve the will of the masses and prevent the civil infighting that nearly struck Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood now has the right to demonstrate, protest or gather. But this does not at all imply granting it the authority to block roads, terrorize people, obstruct their interests, and undermine Egypt's economy. The Muslim Brotherhood has the right to have supporters, sympathizers and allies, but only as long as they are not "terrorists", "advocates of violence", exclusionists or takfiri (who accuse others of apostasy). It is true that dispersing the group's protest resulted in the fall of casualties. But did the leaders of the Brotherhood seek to avoid their deaths, protect them or prevent bloodshed, or did they drive them to their doom under claims of legitimacy and of reinstating the democratically elected civilian president? What is meant here is that the Muslim Brotherhood sought to rule Egypt the way it wanted and for everyone to submit. And it is now opposing the interim government in its own way and demanding that everyone submit too! For the sake of achieving its goals, the Brotherhood is following a path that will not return it to power, except theoretically in the minds of its members and supporters. And with every act in engages in, it is gaining more enemies from among the people, as took place yesterday with the invasion of the metro. One member of the group put forward the idea: for Muslim Brotherhood members to come out of their homes, along with their supporters and sympathizers, men, women and children, and head at an agreed-upon time to different stations of the Cairo Metro. They would then board all metro cars and remain in them for several hours, during peak rush hours when workers and employees are heading to work or returning to their homes, thus preventing the latter from boarding metro cars, as a result of the extreme congestion, and leaving them standing on the platforms. Thus, with the passing of time, as per the plan of the invasion, hundreds of thousands of people would find themselves stranded in metro stations, confounding the state and achieving a civilian protest! Of course, the idea is highly unrealistic and reflects the methods adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood to rebel against the new government in the country, after Morsi was deposed, all of which often rely on forcing people to join protests or participate in them against their will, so as to suggest that a revolution is taking place or that the number of those opposed to deposing Morsi and toppling the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood exceeds the number of those who took to the streets on June 30. A fundamental rule of protests, revolutions, and civil disobedience is that they should take place willingly. Figures of the elite or activists may take on the task of motivating people, or informing and convincing them of their rights, or they may investigate the truth of things and reveal it to people. As for coercing or forcing them to demonstrate or protest, or punishing them for taking a different stance, refraining from joining the Islamists in opposing Morsi's removal or supporting the political roadmap, those are things that aggravate the Muslim Brotherhood's crisis rather than resolve it. They also widen the rift between the group and the masses of the people, as well as entrench the belief that the Brotherhood has failed to govern, has lost the people's sympathy, and has nothing left but to beseech foreign intervention. The same applies to the claims, allegations, and rumors promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, and they are many. It also applies to false news being spread about events that did not occur, figures opposed to the group being sabotaged, or pictures being fabricated to smear the army and the police, only for it to later appear that they are of events and scenes from Syria or other countries. One might ask: why does the Muslim Brotherhood not focus on the real mistakes committed by security forces or by those in power? Why does it resort to fabrications and, in some of its protests, to repeating unacceptable terms and insults, as well as injurious expressions against the people who did not support the rule of the Brotherhood? The answers to such questions will only be accusations of opposing the Islamic project, of being affiliated to the feloul (remnants of the former regime), of siding with the army or of working for security services. Put aside the expressions and slogans that get thrown up in the air and exacerbate the fanaticism of the Brotherhood's public, its members and supporters, such as chants of "millions of martyrs march towards Jerusalem", deluding them into believing that Morsi will stand among them and be reinstated as president in a day or two if they continue to protest and demonstrate, or having Muslim Brotherhood marches attack those who might raise Al-Sisi's pictures or appear to object to Morsi. Indeed, these are all things that reflect what the group is going through, as a result of the shock that overwhelmed it when it lost the rule of Egypt. More important is the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and its members are living in a virtual reality they themselves have built, inside of which their leaders are working to place their followers. From one invasion to another, it seems that the main preoccupation of the group's leaders at the moment is to prevent its members from emerging from such a world to a reality that would bring them to clash not with their state, but with their leaders!
