Excellent article by McCarthy (Cliff notes below).
With the trillion-plus dollars U.S. taxpayers have expended to promote Islamic democracy and its companion fantasy that elections equal democracy...In effect, Morsi has used the Wests democracy fetish to put a gun to his populations head: Either democratically approve anti-democratic sharia or accept the sharia-compliant rule of your democratically elected Islamist despot. Some choice....
While Morsi basks in the spotlight, you should know that Shater [Khairat al_Shater] is the power behind the throne because he is the avatar of sharia. He is the author of the Brotherhoods announced Islamic Renaissance plan, which the Western media continue to ignore. As Spring Fever recounts, however, here is how Shater proclaimed the Brotherhoods objective in April 2011, right after the Islamist victory in the amendments referendum:
You all know that our main and overall mission as Muslim Brothers is to empower Gods religion on earth, to organize our life and the lives of the people on the basis of Islam, to establish the Nahda [i.e., the Renaissance] of the ummah [i.e., the notional global Muslim nation] and its civilization on the basis of Islam, and to subjugate people to God on earth.
Morsi was a constant presence at his side, introduced at rallies as an architect of Shaters Renaissance plan. His principal task as president has been to get a new sharia constitution across the finish line. That is why he claimed dictatorial powers last week: not to aggrandize himself further but to shield the constituent assembly from being de-commissioned by judges.
Sure, it provides that principles of sharia are the main source of legislation, but that, the report crowed, is the same thing the Mubarak-era constitution said the Islamists did not alter it. You are supposed to conclude from this that principles of sharia are not as repressive as plain old sharia (the formulation preferred by Salafists) would have been.
Yet, the new constitution actually goes much farther. Not only does it add provisions that make clear principles of sharia means sharia; it also installs the scholars of al-Azhar University as official expert consultants on all sharia-related matters a longtime Morsi goal. Egypt thus becomes the Sunni version of Irans totalitarian regime, in which Shiite mullahs exercise ultimate authority.
And how exactly is sharia interpreted by the scholars of al-Azhar, whose alumni include such jihadist eminences as Sheikh Qaradawi and the Blind Sheikh? Not to wear you out with Spring Fever [The Illusion of Islamic Democracy], but as it outlines (with citations to the Azhar-approved, Brotherhood-certified sharia manual, Reliance of the Traveller), they interpret it to call for:
* death to apostates from Islam;
* charitable contributions to those fighting jihad (expressly defined as war against non-Muslims);
* discrimination against women;
* discrimination against non-Muslims;
* death to homosexuals;
* death to those who spy against Muslims;
* death by stoning for adulterers; and so on.
Recent related threads:
Has a nice ring to it, let's see if they can feed themselves first. Over 80 million people, no tourists and not enough agriculture without massive imports...and IMF Loans. Unless of course the US intends to support them all.
I must read this tomorrow.