A statement about the events in Egypt

History will mark that despite the incessant vilification campaigns by academics, pundits and politicians in the West and in the east of the Islamists (portraying them as enemies of freedoms and democracy, as savages, as pre-modern creatures of barbarity) the Islamists were the first political group in the Arab world to bring forward an elected president who made a concerted effort to take the military out of the political game, who affirmed time and again his opponents’ right to peacefully demonstrate against him and who until the last second defended democratic principles against enormous background of intimidation. History will also record that while being continuously described as violent, and while coming under attack by thugs and security personnels who burned and looted their headquarters across Egypt, and who violently killed their men and paraded them in the streets, bleeding and helpless as the disgusting images from Egypt showed ( Human Rights Watch documented some of this), the only ammunitions that their adversaries had against them are images of cases of self-defense. If the MB has nothing to brag about for the next how many years of darkness in the Arab world, then these should suffice. The challenge now for the Islamists, as they combat tyranny, is to make sure not to descend into the abyss to which their oppressors descended. They were the vanguards of yesterday’s battles against dictatorship and they are destined to be those of today. They shouldn’t resort to violence except in extreme cases of self-defense and they shouldn’t burn the headquarters of the other parties on the political scene, even as these clearly side with thugs and military coup plotters. They should remain steadfast and uphold the democratic principles; these are worth defending.