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By Abdelrahman Mitib Altakhaineh

Egypt's Tamarod protest movement, a new grassroots protest movement in Egypt that has been behind the recent nationwide protests against President Mohammed Morsi a year after he took office, began in early May last year for the overthrow of President Dr Mohammed Morsi by calling for early presidential elections. Tamarod believed that Dr Morsi failed to manage the affairs of Egypt and took the country to the brink of civil war. Now, after the acceleration of events and the increase number of the deaths and victims in many occasions such as the Federal Palace and Rabaa El Adaweya massacre and after the media that forgot transparency and credibility and started to prove the brutality of each party, some wise Arab people started raising some voices to that we are in a disaster and precious blood shed like water and that Egypt violated the sanctities moral collapse. Nowadays, people are not just killed, but their corpses are smashed after. I can see now that it becomes more as a competition between two winners without paying attention to the blood that is flowing and they are waiting the winner to be announced. Here, I say, “People of Egypt… You are all losers.”

My Liberal Egyptian friends..............

None of the parties and movements, including Tamarod protest movement, thought that even if the Muslim Brotherhood has deviated from the goals of the January 25 revolution, it won’t be crushed and all of its leaders will be arrested and thrown in jail. All parties and movements also did not want to stop the Muslim Brotherhood from having political activity as well as not killing them in the hundreds. In fact, these movements wanted to have a greater role in the political process because they are the majority in the Egyptian civil parties in various directions such as: patriotism, liberalism and nationalism. Certainly, after having many people killed, they regret what happened not because they want the Muslim Brotherhood to rule again, but because the Egyptian Liberals believe in people’s right to protest peacefully as well as the security forces who killed peaceful civilians must be sued to the court and get punished.

I am not one of the Muslim Brotherhood Organization. I admit that Muslim Brotherhood members were stubborn and arrogant until the last minute. They insisted on a monopoly of power and refused to fully recognize that there is widespread opposition to their policies from the Egyptian Liberals and nationalists who had a crucial role in the success of the revolution of 25th January. Also, the Muslim Brotherhood alienated large segments of the society and state institutions. Thus, it became impossible that the Muslim Brotherhood can continue managing the affairs of the country despite the fact that President Dr Mohammed Morsi won the presidential election in a transparent democratic way. Again, I think that this does not justify killing protesters. Anyone from the security forces or who is in charge and gave commands to kill protesters, and is found guilty of killing protesters should be punished.

Overall, based on my duty as a liberal democrat, I feel that Egyptians should urgently return to the ideas, values and principles of 25th January revolution. Old regime supporters are fighting against these rights and ideas such as: liberty, justice, integrity, transparency and most importantly human dignity. Finally, I say “Wake up Egyptians, time is not yet over. You can unite the country again but please stay away from listening to others and giving priority for the country itself regardless of personal desires.”


Abdelrahman Mitib Altakhaineh is a PhD Candidate in Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University, England. He contributed this article to Ammon News English.