After a long phase of political and verbal violence, the situation in Egypt has shifted to one of tangible and direct violence among citizens in streets and public squares, knowing that in such violence resides exceptional danger that threatens the state, the society and the economy, i.e. all the pillars of the nation. As was made clear by the events that took place during the day and in the evening of Friday, such violence has become standard practice for all political forces: the army, which asked for backing in confronting the Muslim Brotherhood; those who took to the streets to support the army; and the supporters of Islamist movements opposed to the transitional phase in the country. This kind of violence may very well be more dangerous than armed confrontations and military operations in the Sinai Peninsula. Indeed, in the latter case, there are armed groups with limited numbers, whose members are known to security services and are being pursued, keeping confrontations confined to a security framework, even if they are beginning to spread gradually, with the possibility for the Gaza Strip to turn into a safe haven for armed fighters. As for the confrontations taking place in streets and public squares, they involve the participation of what are in effect all segments of Egyptian society, in addition to the army and the police. This means that the violence is linked directly to political division in the country, and that it will persist unless all parties reach a kind of settlement, by virtue of which the conflict would move from protests and the street to the hallways of state institutions. Clearly the circumstances that could have led to such a settlement have ceased to exist. Regardless of the reasons and the motives that have led to toppling the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, after the series of monopolizing steps taken by now-deposed President Mohamed Morsi, the situation in Egypt is witnessing the rise of two poles, each trying to negate the other. There is the military institution, and with it millions of Egyptians, affiliated to political parties or independent, brought together by their opposition to the rule of the Brotherhood and their refusal for it to return. On the other hand, there are the groups that represent political Islam, and with them other millions of Egyptians who hope to take back power from the military institution and over its ruins. On the background of the political dead-end facing these two movements, and of this vertical division within Egyptian society, violence remains the only outlet. This has been demonstrated by scenes from protests in which one can note the ease and the swiftness with which weapons are resorted to in confronting one's political opponents. And such a trend is likely to escalate under the slogans currently being raised: on one side, criminalizing the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies and hunting them down, with the popular weight that they represent; and on the other, forcing the military institution to backtrack and returning Morsi to power. There is nothing but the violence we are currently witnessing to manage such a predicament. Breaking such a vicious circle would require two parallel steps to be taken on both sides of the equation. Indeed, on the side of the movement of political Islam, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, there should be reassessment of the entire experience, from its start and to this day, going through the circumstances of the ascent to power, and this should include the group's internal structure with its ironclad organization, and not just policies. Indeed, unless it turns into a democratic political party whose leaders are elected in a transparent manner, and abandons the authoritarian organizational frames of reference that were prevalent when it was founded in the late 1920s and have been reinforced by experience throughout its history, the Muslim Brotherhood cannot coexist with a democratic system. This is what the experience of its year in power has confirmed, and this is what is feared will be repeated if it is to return to power once again. This means that the Muslim Brotherhood must as soon as possible move to undertake these core reforms, at the organizational and political levels, and elect a serious leadership that would take charge of managing the next phase, before it drowns in slogans of revenge and military operations. These reforms alone can provide guarantees, to the millions of people who have taken to Egypt's streets, that the Muslim Brotherhood has become part of the country's political fabric, accepting pluralism, its conditions and the alternation of power, and not merely a faction that seeks to seize power, monopolize it and establish its own authoritarian rule, as the experience of Morsi's presidency has shown. The military institution, on the other hand, must provide sufficient guarantees, through the new constitutional committee, that there will be no returning to the military rule the country suffered from throughout the republican period. Indeed, the millions who opposed the Muslim Brotherhood, backing the army as it requested, did so in order to exclude the danger of the Brotherhood's tyranny, not to pave the way for a return to military tyranny. Moreover, the military institution should facilitate, through such guarantees, the process of reform within the Muslim Brotherhood, and hasten the latter's return to the overall political fabric of the country and its reengagement in the peaceful political process. Can both sides then embark on such profound reassessments and painful concessions in order to reach the solution of a settlement?
