No End In Sight

Three years ago on August 14, 2013, nearly 1000 Islamist protesters were killed by Egyptian security forces in Rabaa and Nahda squares in Egypt’s capital. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its Islamist allies had camped out to protest the popularly-backed coup that ousted the Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi the previous month. The hastily put together protest camps were the Brotherhood’s last stand as they saw themselves falling from power just as quickly as they had seized it. The Brotherhood’s world crumbled that day and the organization has yet to recover, if it ever will. The clearing of Rabaa proved to be the group’s Karbala moment, the defining moment in the 7^th century when Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein was decapitated by a Sunni army and around which Shiism still revolves.  

The countdown to August 14 had begun long before the coup. Following the 2011 revolution, the Brotherhood sought to amass political power and believed that it could co-opt Egypt’s military and security institutions. However, the group gained power faster than it could gain legitimacy or build political consensus.