ISIS murders Coptic
Christians: Seen in Egypt as a matter of restoring
national self-esteem, the country is the first Arab
nation to go to war
against the group, restoring Paris to its role as
mediator for Washington.
French Influence
Soars with Egypt's War on Daesh (Champress, Syria)
"The
Egyptian strikes on Daesh hasten the next anticipated
war in the region, particularly since they are inextricably linked to the
purchase French Rafale fighters. The $5.2 billion
deal could help President Fattah el-Sisi obtain what he's been asking for:
international authorization from the U.N. for action in Libya. The
controversial aircraft deal strengthens relations between Cairo and Paris and restores
to France a role it last played during the Mubarak presidency: as a balancing
element in the strategic alliance between Cairo and Washington."
Few expected the first foray into the Libyan maze to be made
by Egypt.
The war hasn't truly begun but the
Egyptian airstrikes are the first sign that the encroachment of the Islamic
State from Iraq and Syria into Libya will not be tolerated. Contrary to claims by the princes of terrorist
conquest at Daesh, the widely-used nickname for Islamic
State, will not be allowed to repeat its Levantine foray on the North
African coast.
Egyptian state media call it an "airstrike" as a way diminishing
negative public reaction to notions of a major war. More recent coverage
has used the term "raid" as an even more neutral characterization, while
still other outlets describe it as an "aggression" (against Libyan
civilians) or an attack (on Libyan sovereignty). That's the other side of a media
polarization designed to conceal the reality that Daesh
militants have reached Libya, settled on its shores and turned them into a
theater of blood.
The killing
of 21 carefully-chosen Coptic Egyptians had a target audience: an Egyptian
public in which sectarian lust already exists. They portrayed the slaughter as
revenge for the captivity of Kamilia,
the wife of a Coptic priest who has been at the center of a struggle between Christian
Patriarchal authorities and Islamic Salafists since
she disappeared from her home and was alleged to have converted to Islam as a
way of freeing herself from a marriage almost impossible to break. At
the time (July 2010), the Church relied on the power of the Mubarak government
to restore her to the convent, which ignited demonstrations among Salafists under the theme of "I Want My Sister Kamilia ..."
The patriarchal struggle over Kamilia
[contested video above] obscured her individuality by painting her as a "sheep
lost from the herd," making it easy for Daesh to
use her name during their performance on the beaches of Sirte.
"Decapitation is the ultimate tyranny," writes
anthropology researcher Frances Larson of the University of Durham in her book Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found,
which she discussed in a recent interview
with the Boston Globe(an Arabic translation will soon be
published in Cairo's monthly magazine The
World of the Book). She calls beheading a "brutal show of power."
This is what's been happening in Syria and Iraq and now
Libya since the advent of Daesh, which stamps out all
individuality by turning people into victimized members of the "herd."
This resulted in the kidnapping of 21 Egyptians, selected by Daesh because they were Copts. For propaganda purposes this
suited Daesh by appealing to a larger public that
already has Daeshist tendencies. These lie in wait for
the right moment to emerge and destroy the current tyranny by relying on another
with the fragrance of "heavenly salvation," the euphoria of a "prophetic
mission" and the excitement of group violence marketed like a sporting
event which every day attracts tens of thousands more to the bloody and
romanticized world of Daesh.
Posted By Worldmeets.US,
So the air strikes mark the beginning of an inevitable war
to reclaim Egyptian self-esteem. By targeting storage sites and buildings
belonging to Daesh or the Libyan allies it has been
able to attract (such as the group Ansar Al Sharia, which is
responsible for kidnapping most of the beheaded Egyptian Copts), Egypt's
military has sent an unmistakable message that could undermine some of Daesh's magnetic
appeal among Libyans. They also sent a message to Daesh:
border holes between Egypt and Algeria can be plugged under the sponsorship of
the Gulf allies, particularly the UAE. The infiltration
of death squads and tools like money, weapons and logistics, which have turned
the Libyan coast into a launching pad for Daesh
violence, can be stopped.
The Egyptian strikes hasten the next anticipated war in the
region, particularly since they are inextricably linked to the
purchase [French] Rafale fighter aircraft. The $5.2
billion deal could help President Fattah el-Sisi obtain
what he's been asking for: international
authorization from the U.N. for action in Libya. The controversial aircraft
contract strengthens relations between Cairo and Paris and restores to France a
role it last played during the Mubarak presidency: as a balancing element in
the strategic alliance between Cairo and Washington. With its comeback, France seeks
to be a key factor in navigating the Libyan maze through regional players like
Egypt. With the participation of Egypt, beyond the significant role played by a
country with notable military force, its makes it harder depict the war as religious
(Christian vs. Muslim).
Egypt, despite its sectarian feuds, has a strong national identify
that is beyond the reach of countries ruled on tribal or religious grounds and
renders it capable of withstanding the bombardment of images soaked in the passions
of minority groups.
Without getting into a time-consuming debate about the
search for a moderate form of Islam, the approaching war is based on new
arrangements that may have begun on Libyan territory spearheaded by the idea of
Egyptian "national identity;"and Cairo may resort to the old habit of
resolving domestic tensions by entering a foreign war. Daesh,
on the other hand, rather than rebuilding the region by fostering coexistence among
religious minorities, has imposed a war to "restore the sword of Islam"
that would wipe out all religious minorities. That would be hell itself.
*Wa'el Abdul Fattah
is an Egyptian writer on foreign affairs
