Muslim Brotherhood 'stole' Egypt's revolution: Kerry

[DJKeefy]

In a speech to a forum on enhancing links between private sector businesses and diplomatic security agencies, Kerry said "the best antidote to extremism is opportunity."

"Those kids in Tahrir Square, they were not motivated by any religion or ideology.

"They were motivated by what they saw through this interconnected world, and they wanted a piece of the opportunity and a chance to get an education and have a job and have a future, and not have a corrupt government that deprived them of all of that and more," the top US diplomat said.

"They tweeted their ways and Facetimed their ways and talked to each other, and that's what drove that revolution.

"And then it got stolen by the one single-most organized entity in the state, which was the Brotherhood."

Since Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the military in July a year after coming to power, the United States has repeatedly said that he had failed to live up to calls for an inclusive, transparent government.

And Kerry in August defended the army's action to remove Morsi, saying it had moved as a bid at "restoring democracy."

But as the interim government has moved only slowly towards new elections, the US in October suspended a part of its $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt.

Kerry vowed earlier this month during a brief, surprise visit to Cairo that the United States would work with Egypt's interim leaders and called on them to press ahead with reforms.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/87099.aspx

[carrie]

"facetimed" what on earth is that, not something else I've never heard of.

[Angela]

Facetime is an application, a bit like Skype, for Apple users. I use an Apple Mac and have video calls with other people on Mac's in the UK, you can get the app for iphones too. I reckon he meant to say Facebook but got his "faces" muddled up

[Remus]

Forget about 'Facetime' - this is a very significant
statement from Kerry, perhaps not totally unconnected
with the interest that Russia is showing in Egypt ....

[Glyphdoctor]

FB may be full of bickering expats. Twitter is just a tool of intelligence agencies and people and sockpuppets with hidden agendas. There are a few real revolutionaries there but there are far more liars and manipulators.

[Hafiz]

Kerry is right. All those Islamic countries which have exploded in the past 3 years have economies so badly managed, and so full of corruption, that job opportunities for young people, including for graduates, were and are very poor. Clearly there were other factors at work but having millions of frustrated, educated men and woman with high expectations and time on their hands breeds anger and desperation which is a threat to any government in power.

These rates of unemployment are unchanged, and possibly worse, so the threat to stability will continue until Egypt can get its economy to work and use the skills of the currently unemployed particularly the young.

Iran which has been stable to date also has very high rates of youth unemployment because, in part, of sanctions so maybe there are other countries yet to face their spring.

The very few western commentators who predicted the 'Arab' Spring all pointed, before the event, to youth unemployment and particularly youth graduate unemployment as a predictor of instability.

[Dusak]

And there's me thinking that the Egyptian voter ''gave'' the MB's their place in this countries Government. And then some twit says it is down to twitter and facebook messaging and pigeons. Obama uses these does he not to push his daily thoughts forever outwards? [not to certain about the pigeons]

[Hafiz]

The role of twitter et al in 2011 has been looked at by commentators in the West and found to be very overstated. If you are interested I will find the reports.

Commonsense tells you that it was merely a medium. If leaflets were handed out would it be a 1968 roneo revolution (I like that) or would later demonstrations be called a photocopier revolution? If land lines had been called would it be a phone revolution or a mobile phone revolution if 15 years ago.

Confusion of means and ends which is exactly what you would expect of the Cairo chattering classes. To much time on their hands, too many devices, a narcissistic need to put themselves at the center of anything and, most importantly, a complete inability to articulate the ends of the revolution. They were all tied up in the means and gave no thought to what would follow Mubarak. A bit like not giving much thought about what would happen after Morsi. Revolution! Seems more like crowd surfing!

No tech egg head is looking at the Cairo and Alex living densities and the 'segregation' by class and religion as having anything to do with organizing a knees up. When you are cheek by jowl with coreligionists of the same class and the site of the demonstrations is not 10's of k's away some things are easier than others. Shared poverty and police abuses may also have been relevant.

My guess is that its largely an urban myth propagated by tech heads overstating their role and the evidence can neither prove or disprove the allegation.