The Morning After

What now? I’m looking onto Tahrir Square and the crowds are growing again. Not on the same scale as yesterday. But they clearly do not want to stop. They need to show this second uprising has popular support. They know that pro-Morsi protests are taking place too in Cairo, that his supporters are portraying this as a military coup, the stealing of democratic progress. They know too that Britain and America are very nervous about what has happened and what comes next. In London and Washington they cannot welcome a military intervention, and they have great fears that an Islamist backlash will follow. The worst possible result would be if the Muslim Brotherhood now refuse to take part in the new elections and dismiss it all as a sham. If Gamaa Islamiya are similarly disillusioned that leaves a lot of young Islamists marginalised. Precisely the situation so many in the region and the West fear.