Source: CNN
By Fareed Zakaria
Egypt’s top military leader has announced that President Mohamed Morsy has been removed from power. The move followed massive anti-government protests as demonstrators massed in Tahrir Square to express frustration with Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood. But what happens next? Fareed speaks with CNN and shares his thoughts on how the U.S. should respond, whether this is a “soft coup” and where Egypt may be heading.
What does it say to you when you hear reports such as the major state-run newspaper in Egypt, Al-Ahram, apparently taken control of by the Egyptian military?
Well, it tells us that the Egyptian military has very large equities in this whole thing. Remember, this is a country run by the military for seven decades, ever since Nasser in the 1950s. It has enormous power and economic privileges. Of course it’s worried about the country. But it’s trying to make sure, among other things, that its power and privileges stay intact.
It puts the Obama administration in a bit of an awkward situation. On the one hand, the U.S. wants to support a democratically-elected president of Egypt. On the other, the U.S. clearly has not been very happy with some of the policies of this leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was democratically elected, albeit by a narrow margin, 52 percent to 48 percent. What kind of influence does the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state have on what’s happening on the streets of Egypt right now?
The Muslim Times’ Editor’s comment
Through this whole struggle of suspending one Constitution in Egypt and hoping for another, is the all important issue of Separation of Mosque-Church and State. The West stands for this separation and so should the moderate Muslims.
This is a wonderful principle on several counts, as many of the articles in the Muslim Times demonstrate. We have a category for this principle under the menu ‘Law and Religion,’ under the picture of the Mosque of Medina in the header.
As long as the Muslims violate this golden principle in electing their leaders, whether it is Egypt, Turkey or Pakistan, they will not have the right to self govern themselves, as they are completely dependent on the West for all sorts of resources, economic, intellectual, scientific, technological, as well as defense and military.
I believe, the Muslims should focus on gathering prosperity for themselves in the ‘Muslim world’ and human rights in the West.
Any inspiration we draw from religion for Law or Constitution should be shown to have utilitarian value and stand the test of contemporary times.
This is the only way to serve Islam and themselves and humanity at large. All else backfires sooner or later, for one reason or another.
This will hold true until we truly have a global village, in all manners of speaking, when everyone will have exactly equal rights regardless of race, religion or geography.