The heated conflict between those who oppose President Mohamed Morsi and those who support him, ahead of the one year commemoration of his access to power, warns of a much darker tunnel than the one Egypt finds itself in today, with a clash having occurred between the two sides on the ground on May 30. It seems that both sides believe that the "decisive blow" will not come through politics, but rather by way of muscle-flexing and exercising influence, control and violence – despite the speeches, statements, and interviews that both have been giving in the media, condemning and rejecting violence and asserting the peacefulness of their movement. Yet, as is always the state of politics in Egypt before and after the Revolution, one's deeds do not always match one's words or remain in tune with them. In fact, rejecting violence may well be turning into a way of inciting or provoking it. The scene at the presidential Heliopolis Palace, the fortifications around it and the gates that were removed only to be replaced with other enormous ones; the declarations about its electricity; the President's talk in his interview to the Al-Ahram newspaper, in which he considered talk of anticipated elections to be "absurd"; the attacks against the offices of the Tamarrod movement in several of Egypt's governorates, including its headquarters; and the resolve of Islamists to organize gatherings parallel to the protests of Tamarrod and other opposition forces on the same day; all of this confirms the fears of those in power of the protests turning into another revolution – one that would bring down the Muslim Brotherhood's dreams for the future, the present of the group in power and the history forged by its founder Hassan Al-Banna and his "brethren", despite attempts by prominent Islamist figures to minimize the ability of Tamarrod and of other angry movements and forces to mobilize the masses or do away with those in power. What matters now is the fact that the views, expectations, and perhaps goals of every party from "commemoration day" now pass through the prism of their own interests or goals, regardless of reality or of the truth. One truth that cannot be ignored but is being handled with the logic of "interests" is the point of view held by each side of the conflict on the document issued by Morsi a year ago, when he was preparing to wage the second round of the presidential elections, in which he set forth his pledges as follows: - To work seriously and as quickly as possible to resolve five daily problems in the lives of Egyptian citizens: restoring security and stability; regulating traffic; providing fuel; improving livelihood; and solving the garbage problem. - To form a presidential team comprised of MPs, aides, and advisers that would include all national forces, from among presidential candidates, young people, Egyptian women, the Salafist movement and Coptic Christians, in order to strengthen together the significance of the presidential institution. - To form a broadened coalition government with the various national forces and competences, with a Prime Minister selected on the basis of his competence in agreement with Parliament, and one in which the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) would not hold the majority. - To increase the amounts provided by Social Security and double the number of its beneficiaries from one and a half million to three millions. - To reduce the tax burden, i.e. exempting one and a half million families from taxes. - To increase agricultural land surface by one and a half million acres and forego the agricultural debts of farmers. - To increase spending on healthcare fourfold, and thus provide proper healthcare; increase the number of health insurance beneficiaries; and provide care for those with special needs. - To provide over 700 thousand job opportunities per year. - To reduce the burden of education cost on Egyptian families; develop education and scientific research; and improve conditions for school and college teachers. - To protect women's right to work and participate fully and actively in society, and prevent women's right to choose to be taken away from them. - To refrain from infringing on the freedom of the press, silencing writers, forbidding opinions, or closing down newspapers or television channels during the President's term, while abiding by the law and the deontological code of journalists. - To guarantee workers' rights according to the labor law and through restructuring the wages of workers and craftsmen, in addition to ratifying an appropriate yearly increase that would provide a decent living for them and their families. - To pledge to drivers the simplification of licensing procedures and the resolution of the problem of white taxi installments. - To abolish all kinds of discrimination against all Egyptians. - To abide by the contents of the presidential program, as issued from the renaissance project, and to achieve the goals of the Revolution and just retribution for martyrs. If we were to ask antagonists of the Muslim Brotherhood, their Freedom and Justice Party, and President Morsi what had been achieved of those pledges, their answer would be: nothing at all. And if we were to ask the same question to any Egyptian Islamist, they would quickly answer: all of them. Between the two opposites, Egypt remains hostage to the will of the masses, on the one year commemoration of the first democratically elected civilian president, and the Egyptians will be the ones to decide whether he will remain in his post or whether it is time for the "second president".
