Today, the Muslim Brothers are trying to steal the anniversary of the October 6 victory. They will lose. They are old news and expired goods. The so-called massive protests turned into protests with a few hundreds or even a few dozen people; and even these limited protests are now being faced with a new phenomenon whereby the citizens are confronting and attacking them or insulting and mocking them. I believe that the MB officials realize that Morsi will not be reinstated. Thus, they are trying to sabotage Egypt. I am not accusing the simple MB members but rather their leaders. Religious parties everywhere depend on analphabets, people with low education, and the poor. They convince them that God will reward them; and so the people wait until they grow weary with waiting. Had Egypt enjoyed a prosperous economy, sound security, and personal freedoms in the context of a democratic regime, the Muslim Brothers would have nothing left to offer to the poor. Therefore, they are now working on destroying Egypt because their popularity depends on destruction. I know that I am being too hard and I realize that there are some MB supporters who want to work for the country and be productive. However, I am just painting a general picture here. Throughout modern history, religious wars have been the worst and the most violent of all wars. Such wars preceded the three monotheistic religions and went on between them or within each religion. At the advent of the twenty first century, religious wars ceased in the world but escalated in our region. Egypt would have avoided this entire situation had it not been for the MB's fatal errors in power. All Egyptians are Muslim Sunnis with a ten percent or less Christian minority. Nevertheless, the group exclusively used religious slogans to respond to the opposition, the majority of which belonged to the MB's same religious denomination. Thus, in one year, the Brothers lost the popularity that had allowed them to access power. This prompted me to review some history. I don't need to tell the Arab readers about the Crusades and their nine campaigns against our countries. I will rather tell them about the European religious wars that they might be less acquainted with. These wars occurred between the sixteenth and seventeenth century and probably started with the Church reformative movement led by Martin Luther then John Calvin. This ended up with the establishment of the Protestant sect that expanded in western and northern Europe (up until this day, north Germany is mainly Protestant while its south is mainly Catholic). The European religious wars proceeded for nearly 120 years starting with the German Peasants' War in 1524 and ending with the wars of the kingdoms of England and Scotland and the Confederation of Wales in 1648. Major atrocities were committed during these wars, which eventually led to separating religion from the state and the launching of the major European renaissance. The European civilization did not prevent the lurking anti Semitism, which ultimately yielded the Nazis and the Holocaust where six million Jews perished. I was looking at the religious aspect of the so-called Arab Spring and I remembered an article published by The Guardian on July 2nd. The article revolved around a book entitled, "For God's Sake" with four co-authors: Rachel Woodlock on Islam , Antony Loewenstein on Judaism, Jane Caro on Atheism, and Simon Smart on Christianity (A book with the same title and a subtitle reading, The Christian Right and the American Foreign Policy, written by Lee Marsden and published in 2008). The Guardian's piece on this subject was entitled, "Doesn't Religion Cause Most of the Conflict in the World?" I have only recently acquired this book and I am waiting for my next trip where I will be spending ten or more hours on the plane reading material outside the scope of my work. Meanwhile, I wrote this piece yesterday, i.e. at the evening of the riots that the Muslim Brothers are threatening to launch. I don't expect that many will respond to the group's call since this has been the case throughout summer. However, I fear that the Brothers are seeking a massacre in order to obtain sympathy. They are thus shoving their supporters into an uneven battle with the security forces where they will perish. I only pray that not a single injury occurs within the MBs or their adversaries. khazen@alhayat.com
