The mistakes of the Muslim Brotherhood did not become apparent and did not attract anyone's attention before the January 25 Revolution, except for very few people, or when major historical events would bring us back to Judge Ahmad Khazendar, Prime Minister Mahmoud Al-Nukrashi and the attempted assassination of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Yet the campaign against the Brotherhood, especially in the 1960s, allowed its second Supreme Guide, Hassan Al-Hudaybi, and his "brethren" after him, to close the chapter of past violence. Furthermore, the pressures the group was subjected to, the pursuits that targeted its prominent figures and leaders, as well as the campaigns and the lawsuits that were brought against them gave rise to sympathy for the Brotherhood, even among those who opposed their ideas or doubted their intentions. Yet the situation changed a great deal after the Revolution, worsening and reaching its climax after President Mohamed Morsi was toppled and deposed, the group excluded from governing Egypt and its theory of enablement thwarted. What happened yesterday was yet another of the Muslim Brotherhood's failed choices – not because what it had called for was not achieved, as the group had pledged that it would enter Tahrir Square and protest there, yet was defeated and did not achieve its goal, but because it caused more harm to the Brotherhood's image and increased the distance even more between it and the rest of the Egyptian people. Here is an example: a scene that seems to reflect a reality that is no longer easy to change, despite being merely a segment from a video showing a barrier of barbed wire, with an officer and some soldiers from the Egyptian army standing behind it, and a number of Muslim Brotherhood protesters standing in front of it. The officer asks the protesters not to cross the barbed wire – to protest, chant and do whatever they please in complete freedom but without crossing the barrier. He warns them that he and his fellow officers and soldiers would do their duty to protect the buildings. Those standing in the front rows of the demonstrations respond by taking off their shoes and waving them in the face of the officer and soldiers, following this with an outpouring of abuse and insults directed at the latter without any limits or decency. The officer in charge then responds by saluting them, placing a hand on his brow, to signal that, despite what they are all doing, he is at their service. Under different circumstance or perhaps in a different age, those who had been hurling abuse or insults would have been ashamed to have people know of their deeds, and their supporters would have erased any trace of such deplorable behavior. Yet amazingly, the members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are themselves the ones spreading, publishing and posting the video on social media websites, promoting it as something to be proud of and even praising the behavior of the male and female activists, militants and holy warriors, who support legitimacy and reject the coup! Yes, the Muslim Brotherhood may consider the army to have toppled its dreams, deposed its president and taken away what it had held, without looking into the reasons that allowed the army to do so. Yet what is most surprising is that the Brotherhood and its supporters are engaging in acts that could in no way bring them power, restore them a seat or make people sympathize with them. The Muslim Brotherhood has promoted the notion that the police had been defeated on National Police Day, January 25, and that the army would collapse on Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the victory of the 1973 October War. It is as if the issue was connected to events, dates and memories, not to popular consensus and factors that make the fall of any regime inevitable. The group chose for Egyptians not just to celebrate the only victory they have ever achieved and felt in reality in the modern age, but to also celebrate the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood had left power. And while Egyptians were going through the rituals of victory and rejoicing in Tahrir Square, guarded by the army, Muslim Brotherhood supporters were on the margin, in the streets leading to the square, insisting on reaching it without asking themselves: what if we do reach it? Some considered that the Brotherhood was looking for any new bloodbath and further bloodshed to return to the forefront or smear the army, while others were convinced that the group was advancing mindlessly and making enemies of everyone while claiming to work for the good of everyone. There are also those who explained this by saying that Morsi's supporters, despite being certain that their attempt to protest in Tahrir Square would fail, sought to attract the attention of the foreign and local media, so as for the scene on satellite television, in the media and in political circles to be one of violence, clashes and bloodshed, not one of celebration. And between what was happening in Tahrir Square and the violence taking place around it, someone pointed out that the Brotherhood had raised the pictures and the memory of Lieutenant General Saad Eddin El-Shazly as one of the heroes of the October War, in order to prove that he was different from the current leaders and officers of the Egyptian army. This is without realizing that Shazly, according to all those who knew him, being the exceptional military man that he was, was affiliated to a school ideologically opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and hated by it... as he was a Nasserist!
