The summer of 2013 has seen a resurgence of news about the nation of Egypt as another revolution has begun between the nation’s secular liberals and the Islamist supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This new outburst of violence was sparked by a military removal of Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, from power. In the meantime, an interim government has been established by said military. It has received a sizable amount of support from Egypt’s secularists.
Meanwhile, the Islamist supporters of the deposed president are protesting the military overthrow and have begun resorting to violence. This violence, in turn, was met with even more violence from the interim government and its supporters, which has effectively created another Middle Eastern war zone.
Now, the nation’s courts have released former president Hosni Mubarak from prison after his incarceration during 2011’s Egyptian revolution. It was this revolution which brought Morsi into power in the first place.
This has led to a nation in turmoil, as its two primary factions, which are composed of smaller sub-factions, fight each other for total control over a government starving for cooperation.
Egypt, with the court-ordered release of Mubarak, has gone full circle from its original 2011 revolution thanks to the looming threat of an Islamist government similar to those of Iran and Yemen. Egypt is now likely to go full circle again as the Islamists fear a complete secular takeover. It is thought this secularization will aim to stamp out Islam’s influence on the nation’s direction.
What this all amounts to is a revolution that is less a new event and more a continuation of a give-and-take overhaul Egypt has been experiencing since 2011. As long as the two factions struggle for total autonomy, this revolution will continue, and more lives will be lost fighting for their deeply held beliefs.
Meanwhile, the United States remains ambiguous in their response to the situation. The Islamists have petitioned for aid, but granting this aid would be viewed as American endorsement of a theocratic government while refusal to grant this aid would demonstrate support for a military overthrow of a democratically-elected president.
