Muhammad Morsi, may Allah have mercy on him, accepted the death of a martyr and completed his earthly trials along with thousands of his comrades and like-minded individuals. The regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which sentenced him to death in 2015, wanted to kill him explicitly and demonstratively, just like the hundreds of executed supporters. However, under pressure from the international community, it was forced to abandon this plan and instead kill him slowly under inhumane conditions and exhausting trials, as it has done with tens of thousands of its other victims.
Well, the leader of his people’s struggle never feared martyrdom and spoke of it repeatedly. In the end, unlike many Egyptians who were destined to face death or imprisonment and torture at a very young age, he completed his earthly journey at a mature age and managed to become not only a father and grandfather, but also an accomplished scholar, politician and leader of such an epochal phenomenon as the Arab Spring.
It has been said many times that the Arab Spring has recently been replaced by either an Arab or a global winter, and the death behind bars of its pioneer and leader is a vivid illustration of this. Let us also remember how it happened.
In Egypt, the democratically elected president was overthrown by the military, which took advantage of the unrest in the streets to regain power, drowning in blood the civilian demonstrations that tried to defend their president.
In Syria, the cannibalistic regime of Bashar al-Assad, with decisive support from Iran and Russia, drowned in blood the nationwide uprising that began with peaceful protests that he brutally suppressed.
With the support of the new US President Donald Trump, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates decided to suffocate Qatar, a country that supported the Arab Spring, while sentencing to death dozens of popular Islamic preachers and scholars who embodied its spirit.
But let us not forget the notorious role played by the former US President Barack Obama, who theatrically demonstrated his favoritism towards the Arab Spring, in suffocating it. The overthrow of Morsi also took place during his presidency, and it is unlikely that it happened without his knowledge — at least the CIA was clearly aware of the plot by the military, financed by America’s partners, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Obama bears considerable responsibility for the continuation of the Assad regime, which some see as the result of his indecisive policies, while others involved in formulating them claim that overthrowing Assad was never part of his plans.
The Muslim Brotherhood, of course, banned in Russia as the vanguard of the Arab Spring, has drunk the bitter cup of its defeat, with the recent death of President and martyr Morsi just another sip. Perhaps the only exception to this series of defeats is Turkey under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who managed to avoid the fate of his friend Morsi, who was overthrown by the military at about the same time three years ago. In order to survive, however, he had to abandon the policy of supporting Arab revolutions associated with former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and instead prioritize Turkish national interests, forming alliances with nationalists at home and cooperating with Russia and Iran abroad. To be fair, it should be noted that it is Erdogan’s Turkey that is trying to save the resistance stronghold in northeastern Syria, where the Syrian revolution has shrunk, and supporting the other remaining revolutionaries in the Arab world — the Libyans — in their military confrontation with el-Sisi’s local analog, Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by the same Saudi Arabia/UAE, as well as Russia and France.
How events will continue to unfold in the Middle East is a topic for another conversation. But one thing is clear — for hundreds of millions of Muslims, Muhammad Morsi, who passed on to his Lord unbroken, will remain not only an example of steadfastness and courage, but also a symbol of hope. A hope that has not yet been fulfilled, but has been preserved in the face of the coming twists and turns of history…