Counter-revolutionary groups in Egypt and other Arab countries have rushed to exploit the events that have been provoked by hard-liners in Egypt, in order to engage in fear-mongering about the danger of "a Salafi emirate" that is in store for the region. The least that can be said of this new wave of opposition to the Arab revolutions, and hostility, in a profound sense, to the change that is required, is that it seeks to turn the truth on its head. This takes place by exploiting the incidents that the Arab forces of change and democracy find themselves unable to take responsibility for. In Egypt, for example, the groups that are being termed "Salafis" remained the fiercest supporters of the regime of President Husni Mubarak and opponents of taking part in any revolutionary action, based on a special understanding of religious orders and requirements, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, the activities and ideas of the "Salafis" would not have arisen without the close relationship they established with the authorities during the long Mubarak years. The attempt to marry the "Salafists" to the revolution is no more than a flagrant disregard for the facts of not so long ago, and the interests and desires of the two sides, in the first place. Thus, the events that were witnessed in Imbaba in recent days are not a result of the revolutions showing their true, religious, extremist face, as much as they represent the revolution's role in revealing the political and social reality that was imposed by the regimes of authoritarianism and dictatorship. The same applies to what is taking place in Syria. The idea that soldiers and officers whose deaths the regimes has announced, in the dozens, are martyrs of confronting the project to establish a "Salafi emirate" contains various errors. One of these errors involves the ideologist background that drives Salafi groups, most of which do not acknowledge the right to abandon the ruler, in the manner that took place with Mubarak (with the exception of "Salafi jihadists"). Also, the regime's raising the specter of the "emirate" is no more, practically speaking, than a functional application in the context of a struggle that the authorities want to be armed, and security-oriented, so that they can suppress it and destroy the forces that support it. However, this does not deny the existence of a profound problem in the Arab world's socio-cultural structures, which produce phenomena such as extremist groups that can be penetrated and recruited, in all different sorts of ways, and by all types of intelligence organizations. Meanwhile, one should not ignore the role of the regimes, which today claim to be confronting these phenomena, by providing the conditions that constitute an incubator for extremist groups that exploit religious slogans. In particular, one should not deny the responsibility of regimes for the organized and methodical killing of opponents, the campaigns of random and intensive arrest of anyone who takes part in peaceful demonstrations, and the ignoring of the fact that the authorities in Arab authoritarian regimes have not for a single moment permitted the monopoly on violence to escape their grip. In other words, the spread of the phenomenon of extremist groups and religious and sectarian violence can only be the responsibility of the authorities, which have silenced people, banned free expression, and forbidden the peaceful rotation of power. Thus, it is difficult to believe everything broadcast by the non-independent media, which is involved in defending the regime. It would be better for the Supreme Military Council and the government in Egypt to view the so-called "Salafi" groups as the remnants of the previous phase, and deal with them on this basis. Democracy is difficult to achieve with those who do not acknowledge it, and its foundations, to begin with.
