“Egyptians will not be fooled into participating in a fake democracy, regardless of the internal and external pressures,” opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei said, in response to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s call for opposition parties to take part in upcoming parliamentary elections.

The continuously complex political scene, partially due to the positions and competence of those in power and the opposition, is an expression of the conflict between two visions of governance.

If you follow the annual reports of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), you will read a sad catalog of persecution and discrimination against Christians, Jews and members of other religions around the world.

Patriots boast of their affiliation with a homeland. The desert dweller boasts of his affiliation with non-existence. For the Tuareg, the desert is a paradise of non-existence (recall Ibrahim Al-Koni's Anubis: A Desert Novel and Gold Dust).

Christian Newswire/ -- Dr. Essam Abdallah, an Egyptian liberal intellectual, today stated in his article published onFamilySecurityMatters.org's website, that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Jordan now comprise what is becoming the greatest Islamist radical lobby ever to penetrate and infiltrate the White House, Congress, the State Department and the main decision making centers of the US government.

For the first time since 1986, riot police, called the "Central Security Forces" (CSF), as well as police officers, revolted against the regime. Last time, police conscripts of the CSF rebelled because of the inhuman conditions in which they worked; the protest was quickly and brutally subdued by the army. Today, the reasons are much more complicated, the phenomenon broader and the unrest deeper.

A toxic combination is unfolding under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its bid to take over state apparatuses and, more importantly, follow the former regime’s footsteps in oppressing and besieging the people’s right to expression is an attempt to suppress the revolution’s march toward radical democracy.

With the New York Times reporting on the rise of the risk of a military takeover, Egypt seems destined to enter a further cycle of self-fueling conspiracies and self-fulfilling prophesies.

My first encounter with the concept of “democratic transformation” was in South Africa in 2004, when I attended a seminar in Cape Town at the Center of Higher Education Transformation, and asked why the center was given that name.

Calls for the army to take over power, which come from “revolutionary” and “civil” forces, reveal the failures of those in power and the bankruptcy of the opposition, and thus require closer inspection.

As Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government slides toward the financial cliff, what’s the right policy for the United States? That’s becoming an urgent question, as Egypt’s financial reserves decline and the country nears a new breaking point.

In his first visit to Egypt since taking office on 2 and 3 March, newly-appointed US Secretary of State John Kerry came to deliver the following message: that the protagonists in Egypt’s political crisis – regime and opposition – must agree on a political map aimed at breaking the deadlock and making the concessions needed to reach common ground to advance the current chaotic transitional period.

Looking for ways to improve my English when I first arrived in the US, I chanced upon a book about strong and weak words. It now strikes me how the reporting and writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is replete with weak words.

Nobody could have mistaken the horror this 6-year-old girl was experiencing. Nothing more tells of the fear that gripped her than the warm yellow fluid running down her short legs as her knees started to shake. Her heartbeat escalated as the quiver of her little lips began.

Successive events continue to show confusion among political forces on the relation between the state and religion. Shura Council discussions over the past few weeks were eye opening in this regard. The draft law on “Islamic bonds” — submitted by Islamists — was rejected by Al-Azhar (according to Article 4 of the constitution, senior Azhar scholars are consulted on Sharia issues), not because it contradicts Sharia but because it prevents appeals against decisions that are based on it. Also because it gives foreigners ownership rights, which seems more of a political rather than a religious argument. In reaction, civil groups, which fear the interference of religious institutions in governance, welcomed the move.

Successive events continue to show confusion among political forces on the relation between the state and religion. Shura Council discussions over the past few weeks were eye opening in this regard.

Egyptian politics are somewhat like a dining and dancing establishment. Egyptians attend to eat a filling meal, while being entertained by numerous programs that enable them to dance as they eat. Apparently, what really matters to the audience is the copiousness of the meal, not the entertainment program, overcrowded with musicians and singers.

An Egyptian army conscript walks up to 12-year-old Omar Salah Omran, who sells hot sweet potatoes on the street - outside the front gates of Cairo’s US Embassy, close to Tahrir Square - and requests two potatoes from the young street vendor.

From the outset of the revolution, we had dreamy romantic perceptions that it would move us forward. We perceived the rebels as being mature and consolidated, facing the dishonorable political power with bare chests. The situation was easy to describe and the fronts were clear; highly moral and brave rebels facing a tyrannical authority that was trying to eliminate them by arrest, injury and murder, using its security forces and hired thugs. Whenever a rebel was killed or injured by the treacherous authority, they became symbols that we celebrated.

From the outset of the revolution, we had dreamy romantic perceptions that it would move us forward. We perceived the rebels as being mature and consolidated, facing the dishonorable political power with bare chests. The situation was easy to describe and the fronts were clear; highly moral and brave rebels facing a tyrannical authority that was trying to eliminate them by arrest, injury and murder, using its security forces and hired thugs. Whenever a rebel was killed or injured by the treacherous authority, they became symbols that we celebrated.

At the beginning it was Ultras Ahlawy. On 27 January, a judge ordered the execution of 21 civilians in the Port Said football violence, in which at least 72 football fans were killed.