Following letter we received from Amal Ramsis, a lauded Egyptian filmmaker and political activist of the Tahrir. She was invited to the Anti-imperialist Camp in Assisi, Italy, in 2012 to screen one of her films and to discuss the situation after the toppling of Mubarak. Her intervention is a reaction to an article written by a member of the editorial board of this website condemning the military’s coup d’état and denouncing the ensuing harsh repression against the Muslim Brotherhood. While we do not share her position, we feel that it is representative for a certain part of the Tahrir movement.

The Muslim Brotherhood has gone too far. They were even unable to read the recent mass movement as a sign that their own influence was waning and some kind of compromise was necessary. Eventually the army intervened in form of a soft coup in order to avoid a further escalation and to stop the popular mass movement before it gets out of hand.

For the vanguard Mursi is a counter-revolutionary driving the country back to a Mubarak-type dictatorship under Islamic guise. Conversely for important sections of the broad and often passive masses he is the guarantor of the revolution. The protests against Mursi’s authoritarian degrees tend to escalate into a struggle for toppling the president altogether. Set in this way the revolutionaries will hardly be able to win such a confrontation.

If the elections of May 23/24 would have been for a proportional parliament the pro-Tahrir forces with some 40% of the electorate behind them had emerged as the strongest force. Actually that is a big step ahead compared to the parliamentary elections of last autumn. The run off will be, nevertheless, between the two other players of the power triangle: namely the old regime backed by the army and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The Tahrir will have to rely on taking to the street. The recent acquittal of Mubarak sons and police generals poor fresh fuel into the fire. Huge popular mobilisations are possible.