Politics for Dummies: What is Happening in Egypt?

I am so confused and I tend to have this block in my head whenever it comes to politics and people, especially foreign affairs and then double the confusion when violence is concerned, My brain just automatically shuts down, but I really feel the need to get my head out of the sand and at least try to understand can anyone here on ATS point me in the right direction as far as links or books that I can as a dummy understand? I am not starting this thread to debate anything I would just appreciate some unbiased facts and/or where to look to find them. Thank You, shells4u

What is happening in Egypt.

1 Lot of people got mad at their government and decided to protest
2 After waiting a few days the military decided to help them out.
3. Muslim brotherhood was over thrown.
4 US supported that Muslim brotherhood but refused to call it a 'coup'.
5. Egyptians are still mad, but now they are mad at the US for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and now they are getting Mad at the military for making them 'Behave'.
6. People getting hurt from the beginning and still now.
7. Some people think Egypt is 'better off'.

The politics part is the US waiting to see who comes out ahead, and then it's back to business as usual.

Basically the same crap different day the only thing that changes is the day.

reply to post by shells4u


There was a revolution in Egypt

They removed a standing president. His name was Mubarak, it was why they had the revolution. To remove him from power.

Then there were elections for a new president. The Candidates were:

Morsi.... 24% of those who voted, voted for him. (5.7 million eqyptians) He is the leader for the egyptian muslim brotherhood, or their spokesperson anyway....

Shafiq: 23% of those who voted, voted for him..(5 million egyptains).. he was the military spokesman....

Sabbahi... 20% of those who voted, voted for him (4.8 million egyptians)

Fotouh... 17% of those who voted, voted for him (4 million egyptians)

Mousa... 9% of those who voted, voted for him (2.5 million egyptians)

53% of registered voters did not vote at all. Those were the primary's.


Many people claimed there was vote rigging going on in those primary elections....but the final elections came down to two candidates

Morsi and Shafiq.... Morsi won the final elections with only 13 milliion votes in the second round of elections.... many registered voters never voted at all.... and more people claimed there was vote rigging going on. Morsi got more people to vote for him that time because those extra people simply didn't want Shafiq as their president but of those who voted he still only just barely won with 52% of the vote.

But now....Morsi is brotherhood, and brotherhood is bad, and most of the people did not like his policies, so they took to the streets in a second revolution, but the military stopped it, (as they had with the first president who was revolted against) and removed Morsi from office for the people...

But now you have that 5.7 million people who like Morsi and his policies, and some of those are rioting and protesting and causing many bad things.... So the military are trying to stop them from disrupting the peace of the rest of the people...(more than 82 million people live in Egypt)

and some of them (the Morsi/ brotherhood people) are dying for it....

thats about it

reply to post by shells4u


Thank You Neo and Opinionated you both kept it in terms that even I could understand...3 for the help

reply to post by shells4u


If you want to understand the middle east a bit better -

There are many different sects of "muslims" - the main are sunni and shiite - there are more, as Assad of Syria is something else (can't remember what it is)

Most people in the middle east are very poor, and the rich shieks control the profitable oil - not much sells fromt he middle east, except for oil and poppies for heroin (I'm sure someone will come along to disagree with me)

Look up "sharia law" for yourself - the muslim brotherhood is more fundamentalist and would like sharia law to be the law of the land, and to be rid of anyone else in their region who does not live by these muslim rules - see coptic christians in egypt and the middle east.

That's a lot to understand, I'll leave it at that.

sunni, shiite, sharia law, muslim brotherhood