42 replies to this topic

[and then]

BlackRedLittleDevil, on 29 December 2012 - 04:23 AM, said:

My impression is that this in Egypt was never an Islamic revolution.  Neither was the one in Lybia, Yemen, Tunisia or is the one in Syria etc.  The Arab spring revolution, as far as I'm aware, started off as a protest against ruling despots, crooks and dictators, some of which were pro western (Mubarak for example) and some weren't (Ghaddafi).  Some of the uprises were even influenced by the West.  None of these nations were previously secular before the revolution and all were influenced by a geopolitical policy where the majority Muslim and Islam influenced in one way or another, their political systems.

Therefore, analysing the above, it doesn't make sense that Muslims would revolt against their Govt's so they could become more pro Islamic.  Unless you want to believe all Muslims have a Taliban philosophy.

The simple answer is that the majority of Muslims are moderate and want a better life for their families.  They do follow their religious beliefs but only a small number are fanatics.  The problem with the ME is that you have Islamic groups such as the MB, who was never a political party but started off as a religious movement back in the 1930's, succeed in gaining some popularity through anti western propaganda (and associating it with a religious resistance against Christianity and Judaism).

This because the west is seen as the great evil and can you blame the average Muslim in believing there is a line of truth in this propaganda when they see what’s happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine or when they constantly hear beating drums against Iran for things Israel gets away with?
I don’t want to turn this thread into an anti western or Israeli bashing but this, IMO, the reason Islamic fundamentalism prospers in fertile land.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty certain given the right conditions, many Muslims would be more than happy to live in a secular society, including the majority of Egyptians and I too believe the elections were rigged.

This was my thought on the Egyptian revolution as well.  And the MB appears to have been the party with the best "ground game" for a western style campaign.  And those they couldn't convince they just steam rolled.  Morsi is definitely Islamist to the core and I don't think the majority of Egyptians really want that for themselves.  We will see soon enough I suspect.

[odas]

meryt-tetisheri, on 28 December 2012 - 10:16 PM, said:

Have a good look at the lower half of this ballot box before asserting that the referendum was "fair by all democratic rules" because in this case these rules appear to be breaking the 'rules of physics'.

Odas please don't mingle politics with religion; most of those who oppose the MB are just as Muslim as they are; even more so I would say, because they are not opportunistic and do not use their faith to attain power at any price.

I dont mingle politics with religion. My post was an answer to eldewita and and then. Please read their posts before you judge mine.
As met.t.correctly stated most muslims would like to live in a secular politic envirinment and most muslims are moderate to non religious as opposed to ealdewitas post that all muslims are radical terrorists.
Mursi is an islamist, no doubt. But why did the majority of egyptians not bother to vote? They csn not always have a revolution. They had the chance to vote for whatever they wanted but did not do it. Can I blame the nature because my garden is a mess if I dont cut the grass, exterminate weed..?

[meryt-tetisheri]

odas, on 29 December 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

I dont mingle politics with religion. My post was an answer to eldewita and and then. Please read their posts before you judge mine.
As met.t.correctly stated most muslims would like to live in a secular politic envirinment and most muslims are moderate to non religious as opposed to ealdewitas post that all muslims are radical terrorists.
Mursi is an islamist, no doubt. But why did the majority of egyptians not bother to vote? They csn not always have a revolution. They had the chance to vote for whatever they wanted but did not do it. Can I blame the nature because my garden is a mess if I dont cut the grass, exterminate weed..?

I am not judging your post. It is very clear from this post and your previous ones in other threads that you are a moderate Muslim, just like, as you said, the majority are. I wanted to stress that the defense of Islam or Muslims should not be equivalent to the defense of the practices and policies of MB. They regularly portray their opponents as 'not true Muslims', or even 'kafirs'; with them being the only 'true' Muslims. This is how they managed to polarize and almost split the Egyptian society, don't fall for their propaganda.

As for the majority which abstained from voting, a large part of their apathy was due to their conviction that the referendum will be rigged anyway (notice the nicely stacked ballots in the box). Also, in voting districts where the MB were sure they would not garner favorable votes, the stations were closed early, or the electricity was cut. The voting process was deliberately slowed down to force people to leave before voting, in some stations representatives of MB were seen filling ballots themselves. Ballot boxes were found stored in supermarkets, filled ballots trashed in backstreets; even some villages were sieged by fundamentalists to prevent people from voting. People were simply aware that the whole referendum was a sham and did not want to participate in it.

[ExpandMyMind]

Is there any reliable evidence or proof that the latest vote was rigged? Or the election?

[odas]

meryt-tetisheri, on 29 December 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

I am not judging your post. It is very clear from this post and your previous ones in other threads that you are a moderate Muslim, just like, as you said, the majority are. I wanted to stress that the defense of Islam or Muslims should not be equivalent to the defense of the practices and policies of MB. They regularly portray their opponents as 'not true Muslims', or even 'kafirs'; with them being the only 'true' Muslims. This is how they managed to polarize and almost split the Egyptian society, don't fall for their propaganda.

As for the majority which abstained from voting, a large part of their apathy was due to their conviction that the referendum will be rigged anyway (notice the nicely stacked ballots in the box). Also, in voting districts where the MB were sure they would not garner favorable votes, the stations were closed early, or the electricity was cut. The voting process was deliberately slowed down to force people to leave before voting, in some stations representatives of MB were seen filling ballots themselves. Ballot boxes were found stored in supermarkets, filled ballots trashed in backstreets; even some villages were sieged by fundamentalists to prevent people from voting. People were simply aware that the whole referendum was a sham and did not want to participate in it.

I know that islamists call us, me, kafirs, like the rest of my bosnians. But, as I said, we fought when it was necessary and now we vote. Voting is another way of partcipating in a battle. If you dont vote because you think you dont have a chance then you have already lost.
Not giving your vote to your candidate is giving it to your opponent.
Eventually the egyptians will learn how democracy works. It is new to them. The west had to learn it to.

[and then]

odas, on 29 December 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

I know that islamists call us, me, kafirs, like the rest of my bosnians. But, as I said, we fought when it was necessary and now we vote. Voting is another way of partcipating in a battle. If you dont vote because you think you dont have a chance then you have already lost.
Not giving your vote to your candidate is giving it to your opponent.
Eventually the egyptians will learn how democracy works. It is new to them. The west had to learn it to.

But with them the revolution is still fresh in mind, the sacrifices still painful and since the thievery is obvious they may decide to strike at the thief rather than negotiate with him.  This is not a comparison to Bosnia - this is about Egypt and their situation.

[meryt-tetisheri]

ExpandMyMind, on 29 December 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Is there any reliable evidence or proof that the latest vote was rigged? Or the election?

With the majority of judges on strike, and refusing to supervise the voting, the MB had a free reign. There is no functional process to handle or investigate complaints with the MB being both the ruling party and beneficiary of vote fraud. Human rights organizations have voiced their concern about voting irregularities, as did the opposition and some foreign countries. Language is also a problem. I cannot translate everything that was recorded by people who went to vote but will nevertheless link some incidents which were recorded to give you an idea of what occured.

-Group voting aided by a general and an Islamist member of the judiciary in committee 43 Badrashin:
https://www.youtube....d&v=ih7pA1aj_Hk  

-FJP member stamping ballots:
https://www.facebook...&type=1

-Marking ballots for women voters:
https://www.youtube....d&v=estdQCNfa4I

-'Stray' ballot boxes (tilt your head to watch)!
https://www.youtube....h?v=BhP2bDq7LLQ

-Another stray ballot box at Munira school voting station, women voters who were unable to vote protesting (notice carton box infront of judge)
https://www.youtube....h?v=7DZqtIyiy1k

-Report of the discovery of 3000 pre-marked ballots by the director of Human Rights organization, Damietta (Arabic)
   https://www.youtube....h?v=KzukOAqC-1Y

- A child participating in the processing of ballots in Kafr El Dawar
   http://ow.ly/i/1hKVL

-Another child this time at Ain Shams!
http://globalvoiceso...s-still-silent/

-Ballot boxes found on a public bus in Beni-Sweif
https://www.facebook...&type=1

- http://english.ahram...fraud-char.aspx

- http://english.ahram...s-demand-n.aspx

[ExpandMyMind]

Nothing concrete it seems, but nevertheless, it is clear that this was not a standard election, if not a complete fraud.

To be honest though, I think with the disgracefully low turnout that the majority of the people of Egypt just really didn't care too much about this vote one way or another. And I doubt that the opposition would have won, even if all voters had turned out to vote. But of course that is always impossible to state definitively, regarding any election in the World.

Good luck. Looks like you'll need it. Though I don't think the future of Egypt will be quite as bad as a lot of people are making out.

[odas]

and then, on 29 December 2012 - 05:12 PM, said:

But with them the revolution is still fresh in mind, the sacrifices still painful and since the thievery is obvious they may decide to strike at the thief rather than negotiate with him.  This is not a comparison to Bosnia - this is about Egypt and their situation.

Not intended to really compare, just giving an example on how important it is to vote regardless of the votes are rigged or not. If the turnover was 70% then a fraud would be obvious but this way one can not complain. There were US elections just recently. Happy with the turnover of Romney supporters or Obama opponents? What if the turnover was higher?

[and then]

odas, on 29 December 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

Not intended to really compare, just giving an example on how important it is to vote regardless of the votes are rigged or not. If the turnover was 70% then a fraud would be obvious but this way one can not complain. There were US elections just recently. Happy with the turnover of Romney supporters or Obama opponents? What if the turnover was higher?

The turnout was quite high and our election appeared to be mostly clean...Obama won.  The people spoke.  But I think that when a sham is run on the people they have no obligation to lend it any credibility by attempting to do an "end run" around such obstacles.  No way to win when you play a cheater's game.  But your opinion is your own and you're welcome to it.

[and then]

ExpandMyMind, on 29 December 2012 - 07:37 PM, said:

Nothing concrete it seems, but nevertheless, it is clear that this was not a standard election, if not a complete fraud.

To be honest though, I think with the disgracefully low turnout that the majority of the people of Egypt just really didn't care too much about this vote one way or another. And I doubt that the opposition would have won, even if all voters had turned out to vote. But of course that is always impossible to state definitively, regarding any election in the World.

Good luck. Looks like you'll need it. Though I don't think the future of Egypt will be quite as bad as a lot of people are making out.

Thought this might shed a bit more light - but it isn't proof of wrong doing.
http://news.xinhuane...c_132069987.htm

[ExpandMyMind]

and then, on 30 December 2012 - 02:24 AM, said:

Thought this might shed a bit more light - but it isn't proof of wrong doing.
http://news.xinhuane...c_132069987.htm

I don't think anyone can try to claim that the low turnout was due to a boycott against Morsi. If it was it shows a complete lack of mental faculties. The best way to have boycotted him was to vote against his Constitution, no? Even the dimmest person could work that out...

[meryt-tetisheri]

Unfortunately, when it comes to voting, political apathy - or bitter realism - has become ingrained. I do not condone abstaining from voting, and so do my friends and family who are still in Egypt, and who did vote. However, there are those who either believe that participating in a sham plays into the hands of those who organize it by giving it the appearance of legitimacy. There are others who simply give up voting out of despair. There is a long history since the days of Nasser and his 99.9% results, down to Mubarak's era when pre-filled ballot boxes were seen being brought in to polling stations by police vans. For example, it was reported in Youm7 that the previous head of National Security filed a police report when he went to vote in the recent referendum, only to discover that another had already voted for him, using his correct national number! Another complaint was the inclusion in voters lists of people who have been dead for years!

People readily vote when they believe that their vote will be counted or will be worth the paper they are marking, this is after all the sine qua non of all democratic elections. When faced with the prospect of standing for long hours in disorganized queues, sometimes only to find a closed polling station at the end; or to cast a vote knowing that it will be trashed in a back street, many just preferred to stay at home. The results sought by those in power will be "cooked" anyway, whether they went through the trouble of voting or not.  

I would have voted anyway, if only to make the job of fraudsters that tiny bit more difficult! Nevertheless, I hesitate to give a blanket condemnation for those who did not vote.