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Rantings of a Sandmonkey

Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off

Saturday, February 11, 2006

The MB's game

A while back I asked one of my friends if he noticed how the MB in Egypt has been silent in reagrds to the whole cartoon issue, and he said to me that now that I mentioned it, yeah, and that it is weird, since this is the kind of issue that they would be expected to make a big stink over. I replied to him smilingly that it makes sense for them to be silent, because the government was the one who started this whole mess and posed as the defender of the Prophet. What are the MB supposed to do? Praise the Government for its strong faith, islamic behavior and defense of the prophet? No way they would do that, since their whole argument is that they are the defenders of Islam, while the government is run by un-islamic infidels . No way they would give them that kind of islamic credibility by supporting their actions.

My friend told me that I was being too cynical and that not everything is politically motivated this way. I said that maybe he is right. But the MB in Egypt continued their silence on the topic. No statements by Akef, no fiery proposals by the MB's MPs in parliament. Nothing. That was, of course, until the Government showed signs that it wants the whole controversy to be over.... ....and that's when the MB broke their silence. Big Time.

Egypt saw its most widespread protests yet, with thousands protesting in 21 of its 26 provinces, including in Cairo and the second-largest city, Alexandria.

Many were organized by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, which has called for marches to continue — but peacefully. The group's deputy head, Khairat el-Shater, appealed to Muslims beforehand "not to let their furor drag them into attacking properties ... or to turn into a clash between civilizations."

But violence erupted when police tried to stop demonstrations.

In the northern Delta city of Mahalla el-Kubra, where some 15,000 people marched, security forces fired tear gas and water cannon when demonstrators refused to disperse. Protesters pelted them with rocks and attacked shops and cars. At least 20 people were arrested.

About 1,000 people protested outside Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque, some chanting "Osama Bin Laden, explode Copenhagen," and burning a Danish flag. Some threw shoes at police trying to bar their way, and security forces beat protesters with sticks.

Afterward, Brotherhood official Mohammed Bishr said the violence and flag burnings were caused by "intruders who infiltrated the peaceful demonstrations."

Oh, yeah. I am sure those were intruders. Riiight! Now , with the MB entering the scene, the government will regret ever instigating this "outrage" in the first place. You can't out-islamize the islamists. The government has invoked and stoked the fire of islamism, and now they will get burned by it, again. Too bad we will get burned along the way as well! Sigh...

3 Comments:

At 2/11/2006 08:02:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Sandmonkey,

I am one of your 30.000 new readers. Congratulations on your and Freedom for Egyptians' scoop.

Thanks for keeping us posted. Being Dutch I can say that you are doing an awesome job describing the western side in this madness, so I can safely assume you know you business when it comes to telling me what people are thinking (or not thinking) on your side of the mediterranean.

I respect you. A lot.

On topic:
Thanks for the insight into the predictability of the MB's PR department. Funny how those departments across the globe think alike, isn't it?

(give me a second while I play around with a conspiracy theory about PR-guys attempting to take over the world.)

...

(There. Done.)

By the way, I never really expected these riots to stop on account of the Al Fagr newspaper thing. When people work themselves up into a good frenzy, they to have a blind spot for facts that don't suit them.

Even if they do realize that this is stupid, they will have forgotten about this kind of stuff being stupid the next time someone cracks a joke about the prophet.

final thought: please excuse a poor infidel for thinking that the one where mohammed yelling at the Jihadi's that he's all out of virgins, was pretty damn funny.

peace and good luck to you,

LiquidSimian

 
At 2/11/2006 08:14:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"No way they would do that, since their whole argument is that they are the defenders of Islam, while the government is run by un-islamic infidel"

This is absolutely not true, I mean the Ikhwan don't think the government is run by infidels unless u meant it to be funny, well it's not!

 
At 2/11/2006 09:13:00 AM, Blogger Papa Ray said...

Here is an interesting article.

The Cartoon Jihad - The Muslim Brotherhood's project for dominating the West.

This is not really all new, they have professed to have a plan for years.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA

 

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