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Worry in U.S. Among Those With Ties to Egypt
The Egyptian government’s deadly crackdown on Islamist protesters has renewed fresh worries among people in the United States with families in Egypt.
Their hope is that the latest round of violence, sparked by the Muslim Brotherhood’s protests over last month’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, ends soon.
“It’s so divided to the point that everyone’s trying to justify the bloodshed,” said Mamoud ElAwadi, an Orlando-based financial adviser with Morgan Stanley who left Egypt a decade ago. “They have a right to protest, but they do not have a right to attack government buildings we all paid for. The police have to understand their duty is to protect protesters also, not to attack them.”
ElAwadi’s family lives in Nasr City, a part of Cairo close to the center of the violence. They’ve been wearing gas masks because tear gas fumes from the riots outside have entered their 13th-floor apartment.
ElAwadi said he thinks the best hope for a solution are speedy elections, first for the People’s Assembly and then the presidency. But first, the violence needs to stop and the Egyptian army needs to recognize that it is part of the nation, not in charge of it, he said.
“There’s only one outcome that can work,” ElAwadi said. “People have to understand, from the Muslim Brotherhood and the army, from both sides, that the violence isn’t going to take us anywhere.”
Cynthia Farahat, an Egyptian anti-Islamist political activist who has applied for political asylum in the U.S., said she’s frustrated by the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“I’m of course pleased that the military is getting involved to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators,” said Farahat, who lives in Washington, D.C.
Farahat’s family and friends in Egypt have stayed in touch with her, letting her know what’s happening there and to them. She said violence in the streets has caused them to stay inside for weeks.
“For the past month, they have been hostages in their apartments and afraid of standing by windows because of armed terrorists,” Farahat said. “I don’t know how they’re being called peaceful protesters.”
Sahar Aziz, 38, a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, said she is saddened, but not surprised, by the violence.
“I firmly believe that for Egypt to retrench its new democratic system it needed to survive at least one presidential cycle,” Aziz said. “What’s happening now is inevitably what militaries do.”
Aziz, who has family in Egypt, said she’s grateful that her loved ones are safe. However, she has heard from other friends whose relatives have been killed.
“I just hope that the Egyptians who are pushing for (Morsi) to leave are going to figure out a solution and make sure it does not become a military-run government,” she said.
Mahmoud Elshazly, who lives in Stamford, Conn., said he and some other Egyptian-Americans viewed Morsi’s ousting as a legitimate democratic recall process, rather than a military coup. He’s hopeful that the current spate of violence will ebb until the election of a new president and parliament.
“Of course all Egyptian-Americans were hoping for (Morsi), the first democratically elected president, to succeed,” Elshazly said. “Unfortunately he spent most of his energy during the year trying to lay the roots for a theocracy and reneging on every promise he made.”
Amira Mikhail, 27, an incoming law school student at American University in Washington, D.C., said the divisiveness in Egypt has spread beyond the country’s borders.
“The polarization between different camps and people has reached over here to the states,” says Mikhail, who still has family in Cairo. “You can see it in a lot of people.”
Mikhail recently moved to the U.S. from Cairo, where her family still lives. She said she has been keeping in touch with them as much as possible.
Two national Muslim-American groups with members in Michigan — the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America — released statements condemning the crackdown. In its statement, CAIR also called upon President Obama to stop U.S. aid to Egypt’s military.
In Detroit, home to a large Muslim community, local Muslims rallied against the Egyptian government’s crackdown Wednesday night. Some also said they’re concerned about Dearborn’s Mohamed Soltan, who said via social media that he was shot in his arm by Egyptian security forces.
Soltan, who is of Egyptian descent, said on his Twitter account that “the Egyptian army put a bullet that fractured my arm that I paid 4 w/my tax dollars.
Shereef Akeel, a Troy attorney of Egyptian descent, said “it’s very disappointing what’s going on” in Egypt.
Akeel said the government in Egypt “doesn’t fully understand what it means to have a democratic society that would include tolerating peaceful protests, even if they have views different than yours.”
Michael Auslen, Kimberly Railey and Gary Strauss
USA TODAY