It seems to me what we are seeing in this crisis is another example of factional or tribal organizing. In this case the Muslim Brotherhood, who suffered many years of suppression by the Mubarak regime, won a narrow victory in the recent elections. This apparently was due to the fact that they maintained a highly organized structure whereas most of the rest of Egyptian society was unorganized. But, given a narrow sectarian outlook and having attained power, they now wish to impose their views and interests on the rest of Egyptian society. With political power as a self-reinforcing dynamic, they then went for more power by securing the backing of the US Empire and its leading financial weapon, the IMF.
So long as people organize around factional, sectarian, or tribal interests, they will always end up fighting other such interests; and worse, they will be encouraged in this inter-factional conflict by agents of the Empire who love to use the old tried and true method of divide and conquer. Thus, the basic lesson that 99 Percent humanity needs in order to survive and prevent the descent into barbarism is to learn how to organize on a completely inclusive and universal basis.
- "The decline and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood" from Ahram Online.
- "On the current crisis" from Al-Ahram Weekly. (I don't get the author's "troika" concept when all three represent the Muslim Brotherhood organization. Freedom and Justice Party is the name of their political party.)
- "In Tahrir, the beginning and end of a Pharaoh" from Reflections on a Revolution.
- "The Battle Over Egypt’s Constitutional Referendum" from Muftah.