by Zafar Bangash (Editorials, Crescent International Vol. 42, No. 7, Shawwal, 1434)
Islamic Awakening movements (also described by some as the “Arab Spring”) are being subverted through a combination of brute force and vile propaganda. The subversion started in tiny Bahrain, moved to Libya and then engulfed Syria where it is still raging. Egypt has become its latest casualty.
Hopes aroused by the Islamic Awakening/Arab Spring in the Muslim East (aka the Middle East) have been dashed. Death and destruction have become common. Egypt provided the best hope where the Islamic movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood won successive elections to put their stamp of authority on the political map, yet this experiment in electoral democracy lies smoldering in the ruins of the burned out masjids and the smashed skulls and broken bones of thousands of people.
How could things go so terribly wrong so quickly? Even the limited loss of control by the West in Tunisia and Egypt was deemed unacceptable. The claw back started on the tiny island of Bahrain where the majority has been denied its fundamental rights. The US’s local agents — Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other sheikhdoms — were used to send troops and tanks to crush the people’s aspirations for freedom, rights and dignity. Libya was the next target and relatively easy. A massive fraud was perpetrated on the Libyan people by selling them the false promise of freedom. Since the overthrow and lynching of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has become a hellhole for the majority of its people. There is neither freedom nor dignity; heavily armed militias terrorize people. There is complete anarchy in Libya.
Puffed up by their “success” in Libya and assuming that they will have similar success in Syria, the West and its local agents went after the government of Bashar al-Asad. Again, the false promise of “freedom from tyranny” was touted as the objective of the mayhem unleashed in Syria. Another, more destructive ploy was also used: sectarianism. This plays on the emotions of ordinary Muslims that are easily aroused by negative propaganda. The Saudi regime has always been in the forefront of this campaign. With nothing to offer to Muslims in terms of ideology, system of governance or political thought, the Saudis can only spread fitnah in the Ummah. Unfortunately they have been quite successful in this, thanks to the thousands of preachers they have on their payroll worldwide. These mercenary mullahs are willing tools in the Saudis’ destructive propaganda. The Saudis claim they are fighting for the rights of “Sunnis” in Syria against the Alawites that are a breakaway faction of “Shi‘ism.”
Mercenaries from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a host of other countries have flooded into Syria to help liberate their “Sunni” brothers from “Shi‘i infidels.” The military coup in Egypt exposed this fraudulent claim. The Saudi regime was the first to congratulate the coup-makers against a democratically elected “Sunni” government. It has also given billions of dollars in aid to the mass murderers in uniform. Almost overnight, the Saudis’ claim to fighting for the rights of “Sunnis” was exposed. For informed Muslims, the Saudi claim was always nonsensical. After all, they have harbored the Tunisian fugitive from justice, General Zine el-Abidine since his ouster in January 2011. The Saudis never cared for the rights of Tunisia’s “Sunni” Muslims.
There are other troubling issues as well that have come to light. One is the background of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Who is he? It is on public record that he was trained in the US and he had served as military attaché in Saudi Arabia. He cultivated close contacts with important players in the political and military circles in both countries. It is, however, his family background that raises serious questions. As Abu Dharr writes in his column in this edition of CI, al-Sisi’s mother is from Morocco and is of Jewish origin. Nothing wrong there; she had to give up her Moroccan citizenship and adopt Egyptian nationality to enable her son to join the Egyptian military academy. Even that is not a problem. But what explanation does General al-Sisi have for his mother’s maternal uncle who migrated to Israel and was a member of Ben Gurion’s political party for many years?
Based on this information and background, al-Sisi is not only a Zionist agent but is a Zionist Jew. He has a lot of explaining to do. In fact, al-Sisi is the new Lawrence of Arabia. It also shows how the enemies of Islam can so easily penetrate Muslim societies. Who facilitated al-Sisi’s elevation to head the Egyptian military and become defence minister of one of the most important countries in the Muslim East? What role did the Americans and Israelis play in this? We know that the Zionists have been lobbying on his behalf with the Americans not to cut off aid. There is little prospect of Washington doing any such thing because the coup in Egypt was coordinated with the Americans and the Zionists. It is essentially an American project to put Egypt back under the boots of imperialism and Zionism.
While Muslims have been fighting and killing each other in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan and many other places based on tribal and sectarian differences, their enemies have been quietly planting their agents in key positions in these societies. With al-Sisi’s exposure, we are forced to ask how many Zionist and imperialist agents have ensconced themselves in the ranks of the Syrian National Coalition?
Will Muslims now realize that imperialists and Zionists can never be their friends and that extreme caution is necessary in dealing with them? Further, the lessons of Egypt should be internalized not to fall for the false promises of freedom made by the West and its agents in the Muslim world. If Muslims refuse to learn from the tragedy of Egypt and do not abandon the destructive campaign of sectarianism, they will end up paying an even bigger price.