It’s Saturday. Overnight, the civil war in Egypt started.
Heavy gunfire rang out Friday throughout Cairo as tens of thousands of supporters of Egypt’s ousted president clashed with armed vigilantes in the fiercest street battles to engulf the capital since the country’s Arab Spring uprising. At least 64 people were killed in the fighting nationwide, including police officers.
Carrying pistols and assault rifles, residents battled with protesters taking part in what the Muslim Brotherhood called a “Day of Rage,” ignited by anger at security forces for clearing two sit-in demonstrations Wednesday in clashes that killed more than 600 people.
Military helicopters circled overhead as residents furious with the Brotherhood protests pelted them with rocks and glass bottles. The two sides also fired on one another, sparking running street battles throughout the capital’s residential neighborhoods.
There was little hope that an evening curfew would curb the violence as the Muslim Brotherhood called on supporters of the country’s ousted Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, to stage daily protests.
Unlike in past clashes between protesters and police, Friday’s violence took an even darker turn with residents and possibly police in civilian clothing battling those participating in the Brotherhood-led marches.
Now, by my count, there are five Arab states with an ongoing civil war, declared or undeclared: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Egypt. We could argue about the numbers. But in all cases, the civil war came out of protests, and was pushed by the mob. Any sane person is wary of the mob. Consider, for a second, that the same city — Jerusalem, had their people described in varying ways over a period that would not have been more than 40 year — from the triumphal entry to Paul’s arrest.
17“After I had returned to Jerusalem and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance 18and saw Jesus saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ 19And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. 20And while the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him.’ 21Then he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
22Up to this point they listened to him, but then they shouted, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” 23And while they were shouting, throwing off their cloaks, and tossing dust into the air, 24the tribune directed that he was to be brought into the barracks, and ordered him to be examined by flogging, to find out the reason for this outcry against him. 25But when they had tied him up with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned?” 26When the centurion heard that, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen.” 27The tribune came and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.” 28The tribune answered, “It cost me a large sum of money to get my citizenship.” Paul said, “But I was born a citizen.” 29Immediately those who were about to examine him drew back from him; and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.
1When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
11Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
On the current war, Spengler has some gloomy predictions.
America forgets that it corrected the flaw in its founding by killing 30 percent of Southern men of military age during its own Civil War, so many that the Confederate Army collapsed for lack of manpower. There are numerous wars which do not end until all the young men who want to fight to the death have had the opportunity to do so. And of all of history’s conflicts, none was so likely to end with this sort of demographic attrition as the present war in the Middle East. Compared to the young Arabs, Persians and Pakistanis of today, American Southerners of 1861 were models of middle-class rectitude, with the world’s highest living standards and bright prospects for the future. The Europeans of 1914 stood at the cusp of modernity; one only can imagine what they might have accomplished had they not committed mutual suicide in two World Wars.
Today’s Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslims have grim future prospects. The world economy has left them behind, and they cannot catch up. Egypt was at the threshold of starvation and economic collapse when the military intervened, bringing in subsidies from the Gulf monarchies. The young men of the Middle East have less to lose, perhaps, than any generation in any country in modern times. As we observe in Syria, large numbers of them will fight to the death.
America cannot bear to think about its own Civil War because the wounds are too painful; in order to reunite the country after 1865, we concocted a myth of tragic fratricide. Wilsonian idealism was born of the South’s attempt to suppress its guilt for the war, I have argued in the past. That is an academic consideration now. America’s credibility in the Middle East, thanks to the delusions of both parties, is broken, and it cannot be repaired within the time frame required to forestall the next stage of violence. Egypt’s military and its Saudi backers are aghast at American stupidity. Israel is frustrated by America’s inability to understand that Egypt’s military is committed to upholding the peace treaty with Israel while the Muslim Brotherhood wants war. Both Israel and the Gulf States observe the utter fecklessness of Washington’s efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Having borrowed an exegesis on the reasons for the mob, the question is what to do. And here I have some advice.
- If you have a family, your first duty is to them. Get out. Get into a bubble. Be where the crowds are not. For any city, in any nation, can have its citizens, particularly the poor and what we now call the “low information” citizens, whipped into a mob.
- Don’t travel there. Yes, that includes the Holy Land. Israel is concerned about what is going on in their neighbour, for very similar reasons to those Saudis. It’s just too risky.
- Pray for the Christians in the Middle East. Our single men who have the gift of evangelism may be able to go in, and teach while working (English teacher etc). We will expect that a fair number of them will die in this.
- The church has a duty to feed and care. If we are driven out, however, we should be driven out. In that case, the native believers should be rapidly sponsored into other countries — as should the Jews — and those Muslims who repent, winning that title of apostate.
- But we should, like Britain did in the American Civil War, stay out of the fighting. We cannot intervene: any intervention we will do could worsen this. Locally, in NZ, I’d advocate that we do not get into an alliance that goes into Syria and Egypt: we have to rebuild after Iraq and Afghanistan.
We need to remember that Civil wars end one of two ways. The first is that everyone has died on one side, and the winning side has barely enough manpower to keep the peace. The second is that one side is defeated, rapidly and in an overwhelming manner, by a change of tactics or technology. The US civil war would be an example of the first, Cromwell’s new model army and example of the second.
So we have a final duty. To pray. That God will cause a turning of the nation to salvation.
