July is the month for coups

Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh

June 1967: Israeli statesmen David Ben-Gurion (1886 - 1973) and Yitzhak Rabin (1922 - 1995) lead a group of soldiers past the 'Dome of the Rock' on the Temple Mount, on a victory tour following the Six Day War, Old Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Although the month of June comes and goes every year, the effects of incidents during the month are apparently never ending. In June, 1967, for example, Israel defeated the Arab armies in the Six Day War. The Arabs lost Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, and the Zionists went on to annex East Jerusalem and declare the city to be their unified capital. Donald Trump has recognised this illegal annexation and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. He has also recognised Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Then came his “deal of the century” to legalise annexation of the West Bank. These are all consequences of that awful June defeat.

In June 2013, a new tragedy hit the Arab nation. The forces of evil in the region, represented by Saudi Arabia and the UAE —the counter-revolutionary forces against the Arab Spring, with Israeli support — plotted against the nascent democratic experience in Egypt that was the dream of all the people in the region and to which all the Arab Spring revolutions aspired.

These forces overthrew Egypt’s 2011 January Revolution, thus derailing all of the other revolutions in Syria, Yemen and Libya and destroying the Arab dream for a dignified life free of their oppressive rulers. If the Saudi-UAE axis of evil hadn’t overthrown President Mohamed Morsi, Syria wouldn’t have been destroyed; tens of thousands of Syrians wouldn’t have been killed; the butcher of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad, wouldn’t have remained in power; and Saudi Arabia wouldn’t have dared to invade Yemen, destroy it, and kill tens of thousands of its people. Moreover, the UAE would not have dared to seize the south of Yemen and try to split the country in two, and wouldn’t have been able to destroy Libya and kill thousands of Libyans through its treacherous agent Khalifa Haftar. If it wasn’t for the 30 June, 2013 plot, the counter-revolution would not have won.

After June, of course, comes July, the month of military coups. In July 1952, the coup overthrew the monarchy in Egypt and replaced political life with a military regime. The regime controlled all aspects of the country, from the smallest to the biggest state affairs, include its executive, legislative, judicial, security and media institutions. The net effect was that the army had a state, rather than the state had an army. The 3 July, 2013 coup d’état came to deepen this concept and legalise the situation.

In 1952 Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power. He was a leader skilled at delivering enthusiastic speeches that ignited the feelings of the Arab masses from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf, making them believe that they were living in a beautiful dream, only to wake up to the nightmare of the June 1967 defeat.

Former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser waves to crowds in Mansoura from a train car on 7 May 1960 [Bibliotheca Alexandrina/Wikipedia]

Useless political debates take place about the achievements and failures of the 1952 coup. It is utilised for political purposes entirely on the whims and contradictions of the supporters and opponents of the regimes past and present. We find that both sides are similar in making comparisons between the current regime and the Nasserite era, and they agree that Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s regime is an extension of the Abdel Nasser regime, albeit from two completely different points of view. Its supporters see in it a continuation of Abdel Nasser’s great accomplishments, with Sisi the heir of the hero, while opponents see it as an extension of injustice and oppression.

Propaganda mouthpieces are authorised by the July regime to do what it likes while they spread their propaganda and mobilise the masses on this basis. Meanwhile, the opposition also takes what it wants from the July regime and a political debate between the two sides occurs. Those following social media platforms over the past days will have seen the battle unfold and reach a peak with each side wanting to support their opinion at the expense of the truth.

I will end by saying that on the morning of 23 July, 1952, Egypt was no longer the country it was during the monarchy; and the Egypt after 3 July, 2013 was no longer the Egypt it was before Sisi’s coup. Yes, the military regime continues, but it is not the Abdel Nasser regime that was biased towards the poor, anti-Israel and in control of Africa. Ethiopia did not dare to build the Renaissance Dam during his rule. The new Egypt post-Sisi coup is still looking for itself in the new administrative capital towards which the regime gives all of its attention, forgetting the major economic problems that the country suffers from.