Foreigners do more harm than good in Egyptian affairs

13/8/2013

In recent weeks, foreign officials flowed into Egypt with hypocritical slogans claiming that they had come to help the conflicting parties reconcile. Among them, the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who speaks a balanced language; the U.S. deputy secretary of state, William Burns; and two republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

Considering that President Obama called for us to waive our right as Egyptians to prosecute our former rulers for crimes ranging from treason and espionage to corruption and fraud, it is telling that upon their return to Washington, McCain and Graham changed their position 180 degrees. In the Washington Post last Saturday, they demanded that the MB leave the streets and criticized Mohamed Morsi’s non-democratic policies and actions that had resulted in massive public discontent. They concurred that there was no way that Morsi would ever be brought back to power.

To the “brilliant” international diplomats, I ask that you leave Egypt and return to your own countries. We do not need you. Also, I ask God to forgive those of our leaders, who, with the best of intentions, thought that foreign delegations could do better than we in facilitating reconciliation among the citizens of our homeland. Egypt is a country with seven thousand years of history and Egyptians know well that undermining the prestige of the state leads to the collapse of law and order.

If the international community paid close attention and spoke the truth, it would affirm that the state tried to find a peaceful solution to the crisis and gave protesters repeated opportunities to leave voluntarily. The MB refused to disperse their sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya peacefully, using the same defiant language they had used in clashes with the judiciary, the police, the media, and then the army. That day they chose to clash with the Egyptian people as a whole.

I am confident that when the police disperse sit-ins they make every effort to avoid violence and casualties. However, when attacked, they must defend themselves. And it was not until official overtures were rejected several times that the law was finally applied and security forces stepped in to rescue the nation from destruction and humiliation.

Translated from Al Youm 7