Across Cairo, in the upscale suburb of Heliopolis, thousands of demonstrators had surged past a military barricade and up to the walls of the presidential palace. Abdel Hamid and his colleagues believed that the country’s opposition planned to storm the palace and overthrow Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s Islamist president. If that happened, Abdel Hamid says, Islamists were prepared to take the country back by force. They’d stop playing by the rules of Egypt’s democratic experiment and impose their vision of religious rule.
The first step would be to take over the airwaves and declare that the battle had begun. “I was happy and sad,” Abdel Hamid remembers. “I was sad about the situation the country would have been taken to—to this point where we were clashing with one another. But at the same time, I was happy we were so close to announcing the Islamic State. So it was like, OK, go ahead.”
In the end, the night concluded peacefully. The protesters left the palace, and Abdel Hamid and his colleagues returned to the original focus of their sit-in, protesting what they saw as unfair coverage of the anti-Morsi demonstrations. But the specter of political violence continues to loom over Egypt. On one side, the country’s opposition forces are pushing for a so-called revolution against Morsi. On the other, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies are retrenching in their support of the president.
- See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/01/is-egypt-heading-towards-civil-war.html#sthash.eINIn7e0.dpuf
Egyptian protesters taunt security forces during clashes with riot police, not seen, near Tahrir Square in Cairo last month. (Khalil Hamra/AP)Across Cairo, in the upscale suburb of Heliopolis, thousands of demonstrators had surged past a military barricade and up to the walls of the presidential palace. Abdel Hamid and his colleagues believed that the country’s opposition planned to storm the palace and overthrow Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s Islamist president. If that happened, Abdel Hamid says, Islamists were prepared to take the country back by force. They’d stop playing by the rules of Egypt’s democratic experiment and impose their vision of religious rule.The first step would be to take over the airwaves and declare that the battle had begun. “I was happy and sad,” Abdel Hamid remembers. “I was sad about the situation the country would have been taken to—to this point where we were clashing with one another. But at the same time, I was happy we were so close to announcing the Islamic State. So it was like, OK, go ahead.”- See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/01/is-egypt-heading-towards-civil-war.html#sthash.eINIn7e0.dpufIn the end, the night concluded peacefully. The protesters left the palace, and Abdel Hamid and his colleagues returned to the original focus of their sit-in, protesting what they saw as unfair coverage of the anti-Morsi demonstrations. But the specter of political violence continues to loom over Egypt. On one side, the country’s opposition forces are pushing for a so-called revolution against Morsi. On the other, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies are retrenching in their support of the president.
The Daily Beast 
