Can I rant about Egypt for a second? 

Of course anything I say is with a grain of salt, I’m just some white girl in Switzerland, but I am really tired of people getting their panties in a wad about ZOMGS THE CREEPING SHARIA THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD WHY EGYPT GOING TO BE HAMAS etc etc and the stupid Friedman-likequestions that go along with it like “Is Islam compatible with democracy”  *gags self*

Here is how I see it, with the usual disclaimers of dumb white girl in ivory tower etc. Let’s assume for the purposes of this exercise that the elections were free and fair, which I think they were to the extent that they could be. We can’t even have fair elections without voter fraud in the US so how can you expect a country having its first democratic election ever to get it perfectly right?  Morsi doesn’t have a very strong mandate if he only got like 24 or 25 percent in the first round. You had voters in the second round who thus had to choose between the military or the MB. Considering the lovely legacy the military has had during its reign the past year, I think a lot of people probs held their noses and voted MB.  So no, stupid MSM, I don’t think this is some sort of “Egyptian voters want Sharia” vote but rather a “anything but scaf” vote. 

Another point about the MB that people are missing out on is that for a long time they were the only opposition with any real organization.  Political participation involves money and logistics, and the MB was the only group “organized” enough for many years. This legacy is shown in the election results. it isn’t the whole answer, of course, but it is a relevant part IMO. And since people are talking about Hamas, I feel the same way about Hamas that I do about the MB, if you want to go out on the pan Arab conspiracy theory tip. Namely, When you have a single group in power, that group also decides who will be “allowed” to organize in opposition.  It is no coincidence that Hamas was “allowed” to organize itself, and when you go back to the idea that political organization involves logistics and money- who was better organized than Hamas? 

Finally, I don’t think the revolution is over just because this dude got elected. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Egypt isn’t done yet. I like to think, and hope I am right, that this is just the beginning.