In his latest televised message, Doctor Essam El-Erian specified the conditions needed to put a stop to the Muslim Brotherhood's protest activity as follows: reinstating Doctor Mohamed Morsi as President, revoking the dissolution of the Shura Council, and prosecuting Colonel General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Interior Minister Major General Mohamed Ibrahim, and some of those he called the "leaders of the coup". He promised that, after this, Morsi and the Brotherhood would follow a political roadmap not much different from the one being followed now, which would include amending the constitution and electing a new parliament. There is nothing new to the stance taken by the Brotherhood before and after Morsi was deposed, and there is no way to look into what Erian said and to submit his conditions to discussion, between what would be possible and what would not be. It is as if the matter has turned into useless futility. Moreover, the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood, outside of Egypt as well as inside, indicates that no political solution will soon be reached that would put an end to the crisis between the Brotherhood and the interim government. Those who are waiting for reconciliation and consensus to take place soon will be waiting for a long time, perhaps years, without their wish being fulfilled. On the other hand, one sometimes feels as if the Egyptian political elite, when it does not find anything or does not manage to preoccupy itself with something useful for it or for the country, starts looking for the most futile or least important issues. And once it finds what it was looking for, it exerts tremendous effort trying to convince us that it bears the burden of the nation's concerns, that it seeks to solve the nation's problems and would sacrifice all that it holds dear in order for the nation to rise up and become prosperous – while it in fact obstructs existing processes, puts the cart before the horse and ties itself up in knots, for no rhyme or reason but its own helplessness, powerlessness and lack of influence, and presence among the people. The best example reflecting this state of vacuum within the elite is the debate over Egypt's need for a new constitution, or for steps to be taken to amend the suspended constitution that was adopted last year. Thus, the street flares up – always on Friday and often during the rest of the week, with confrontations between the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi supporters on the one hand, and the masses of ordinary citizens, the police and the army on the other. This happens amid constant, incessant and assiduous attempts to block the roads, obstruct traffic, and prevent government services from working, and on the backdrop of a language of threats and menaces to bring down the state, the army and the police, to reinstate Morsi as President and to restore legitimacy to power. Meanwhile, one finds the elite's prominent figures, having left state services to confront terrorism in the Sinai and in other cities and face the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood and of its supporters. They fill the world with pointless churning about the nature of the constitution, on whose articles Egyptians are supposed to vote in a referendum before the end of the year, and about whether there should be a new constitution or whether it would be sufficient to merely amend the suspended one. Those demanding a new constitution base their arguments on the fact that the suspended constitution has been discredited, that it was produced by a Constitutive Assembly made up of a majority of Islamists, that its articles reflect the wishes and the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular and of Islamists in general, and that the people's revolution on June 30 deserves to be rewarded with a new constitution, rather than merely amending the very constitution Egyptians rebelled against. As for those who support the notion of amending it, they point to the fact that the constitutional declaration issued by acting President Adly Mansour states that the suspended constitution should be amended, not that another new constitution should be drafted. They assert that drafting a new constitutional text would require another constitutional declaration that would be binding for the Committee of Fifty. Neither of the two sides realized that, although the constitutional declaration states that the suspended constitution should be amended, it did not set any limits or restrictions for such amendments, and did not set up conditions of keeping or removing any specific articles. Those in the elite did not exert themselves to reach a result that would satisfy both sides and put a stop to this fruitless debate and its useless exhaustion of people. Indeed, the issue is settled, as no one has pointed out to those debating the issue that the suspended constitution could be amended to the extent of producing a new one! This would satisfy those who wish to limit themselves to amending the suspended constitution as well as those who are demanding a new constitution, knowing that some articles of Egypt's constitutions have not changed since 1923, being moved from one constitution to the other until that of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Such articles are often formal or stylistic ones, yet their inclusion is necessary. The end result is that the Muslim Brotherhood is busy carrying on its struggle, through numerous procedures inside Egypt and outside of it, paying the price in the form of enmity towards it by additional segments of the population, in hopes of foreign intervention that does not seem to be coming. Meanwhile, the elite, which was supposed to seize the opportunity and offer something to the nation, has chosen futility, the limelight, and reaping the fruits of the Revolution without having to plant or irrigate anything. And what is most surprising is that its prominent figures want everyone to believe in their futility!
