And The Winner Is...

We cheered when Tunisia's president fell. We cheered when Egypt's president fell. We cheered when Libya's president fell. We're all wishing for Syria's president to either get killed by a fat man wielding an axe or get blown up by one of his own tanks.

You would think that through all this, Middle Easterners were actually starting to move forward, to pick up from where they left off after the fall of the Ottomans. This wish may be too much to hope for.

Egypt's highest court declared the parliament invalid Thursday, and the country's interim military rulers promptly declared full legislative authority, triggering fresh chaos and confusion about the country's leadership.

The Supreme Constitutional Court found that all articles making up the law that regulated parliamentary elections are invalid, said Showee Elsayed, a constitutional lawyer.

What does this mean? It means that the military assumes full responsibility for law in the country, doing as it wills with whomsoever it wills, and that the parliament has been invalidated, giving it no more legislative power than a man on a soap box. Yes, dear readers, we've just witnessed a coup in Egypt.

Parliament has been in session for just over four months. It is dominated by Islamists, a group long viewed with suspicion by the military.

I would go off on that word, "Islamists," but I think I've exhausted that topic; you get the point.

So they don't like the party that may win, and therefore they say "hey, you know what? We suddenly decided that you people can't make laws anymore. Bye."

After all that Egypt has been through, it was that easy to revert everything. Islam suffers from the same thing it has suffered from ever since the death of Prophet Muhammad (SAWH)--power-hungry fat-behinded first-century so-called Muslims who want everything for themselves. Think of Abu Bakr's reign. Didn't he just slide into power like the military coup?

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist party, said SCAF leaders were taking matters into their own hands "against any true democracy they spoke of."

The court also ruled that former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister to serve under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, may run in a presidential election runoff this weekend.

Look at Iraq and you will notice how slowly the country is progressing politically. The reason is that the Baath party, Saddam's political affiliation, still has authority--although it is through insurgency. If Mubarak's people obtain political office, the consequences could be dire.

Some Freedom and Justice members, including parliamentarian Mohamed el-Beltagy, called the rulings "a complete coup d'etat through which the military council is writing off the most noble stage in the nation's history."

I couldn't agree more. Egypt has worked so hard to be where it is; with no help from the U.S. They fought their own battle--and won; and now, the military just throws it away, insisting that Mubarak's party will be allowed to run.

The part that struck me most about the situation were these couple paragraphs.

Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights decried the court's decisions in a tweet.

"Egypt just witnessed the smoothest military coup," said Bahgat "We'd be outraged if we weren't so exhausted."

Egyptians are throwing up their hands and asking, "What else? What more do we have to do just to get freedom from dictatorship, a right explicitly granted to us by the very religion these people in power claim to follow, and a right the West takes so much for granted?"

By executing this coup, the military also forced a former Mubarak-regime member to participate as a candidate in the elections. Just like Saturday Night Live said so long ago about Mubarak bringing about reform that he'll fire his old cabinet, and then form a new one that will be made up of members from the old one. I think your joke may actually turn into reality, SNL.

Morsi and Shafik are the most nonrevolutionary of all candidates and represent "two typically tyrannical institutions: the first (Morsi) being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the second (Shafik) a senior official of the former regime," Sonya Farid wrote for Al Arabiya earlier.

There you have it. Even as elections do take place through Sunday, the revolutionary ideals are nonexistent. I find a striking similarity to their situation compared to that of the U.S. We get to choose between a Socialist, or a businessman, neither of whom have our best interests at heart. Welcome to Democracy, Egypt. I'm sorry if they told you the Democratic system is perfect and the best around, because they lied. Democracy is based on forcing one of two "choices" on people, and it becomes a problem when both choices are everything except for what's right for your country. Here in the United States, it's based on popularity and looks. Over there in Egypt, it's based on a Harem and the military.

The worst part is that I'm sure Mubarak is sitting in court laughing himself to death, and it's not the Alcohol this time.
Ma'a sallamah,
Munawar