well you're watching on t.v. time for the qatar main headlines that. anger against egypt's military rulers gathers momentum but the arab league meeting in cairo seems more focused on condemning syria rushing out of the spate of deaths on their own doorstep. serbs in northern coast of us saying nato forces broke their promise by trying to remove the border barricade that follows a night of violence when warning shots and tickets were used against protesters.

underdone mog don't suit his father against and if you wanita been sitting on of america's secret prisons as human rights activists speak up for him and taken them the edge of the pool should pointing up in guantanamo bay head. up next it's crosstalk people a bell and his guests debate the unfolding events of the arab spring and look at what the real goal of protesters may be. hello and welcome to crossfire computability we new tensions in violence between doubt many of the hopes that the heart of the egyptian revolution is mubarak's military establishment angling to remain in power will next week's parliamentary elections be held and if they are it will be seen as fair and legitimate.

to cross-talk egypt's prospects i'm joined by ronnie alkie in cairo she is state chief editor of the daily news egypt and i thought we have david because he is a professor of middle east studies at the university of haifa and in london we cross the carl charo he's a middle east blogger all right this is cross-eyed i mean we all know my guest can jump in anytime they want but first march it is egypt's revolution progressing well events are changing fast and it's hard to say right now but tension in egypt has remained unrelenting for more than a week now the country's health ministry says at least forty people have been killed and almost four thousand were injured in clashes between security forces and protesters calling for the end to the military's heavy handed rule or the riots some of the fiercest since the ouster of president hosni mubarak last february have plunged the country into the kind of turmoil that market early days of the arab spring unquote mission to get things in those in charge in egypt would be well

advised to take people's political demands and justify concerns seriously and to act fast to create the right environment for the upcoming elections. but several political parties have already suspended their electoral campaigns while protesters say the parliamentary elections scheduled for tomorrow by twenty eight will be meaningless unless the supreme council hands over a power play on tuesday filled march. mohamed time tally the man currently in charge of egypt and trust the public say the staff did not want power. we will stick to the timeline of parliamentary elections followed by presidential elections in june twenty twelve and then the military will return to its barracks but only if the people want to and only to a referendum. but the statement does little to placate the protesters who have come to terms and the military leadership as the continuation of the mubarak regime there are claims that the military has a record of abuses on par with that of mubarak's have been backed by organizations

like amnesty international. but not everyone has joined the protesters the muslim brotherhood who are poised to claim them all seats in the upcoming elections are taking a wait and see approach in part out of fear that the road could be moved and many in egypt believe that postponing elections can only entrenched military rule which in turn will further inflame the current instability one thing's clear is that the status quo is untenable well let's see about that i mean if i go to you first let's start with the conspiracy theories a lot of people saying that the current violence of this week and that's going on as we speak right now is something that the military actually wanted to have happen in the first place because they dream we don't want to have these elections because they're actually afraid of the outcome i think this is the biggest mystery it seems like this would be motive for them to postpone the elections but they were at the same time they're insisting on having the elections i mean this morning there was a press conference with members of. this cast and. the head of the

electoral commission and they were just voicing the plans. they've had in place for the november twenty eighth elections and it seems it will not oppose the elections so at this point it is not really clear why this situation has been made to reach this head. to me i think this is just gross mismanagement which is characteristic of this cast since they first took over ok so you're saying karl maybe the military should get out of the business of politics but it doesn't seem that way because it seems to me that no matter what you actually outcome if there is the election the military is a net loser because everyone talks about losing political power but actually they will be the bigger. loser in terms of the economy because as is well known that the egyptian military is so heavily invested in the economy that any kind of democratic election that reflects the will of the people will say hey it's now belongs to the state not to the military it could be taken away from them yeah but what

threatening them at the moment is not only sort of democratic elections that might or might not happen in five days what is really a threat to the military rule over egypt now is that he awakening or their evolution is and cements among the people of egypt and that's what at stake what is at stake of the moment and many people especially in the west are scratching their heads or thinking but you have elections in five days why would you go back to this three it's well they haven't been paying paying any attention to what's been happening in the past eight months and what the military has been doing in terms of violations and excesses all aimed at maintaining its control and elections had they brought in let's say a victory for the muslim brotherhood would have actually strengthened the position of the military and that's why i think what's happening at the moment in the here and elsewhere in egypt this we forget is very very important in stopping that and saying very clearly it's time for their military to get out of the business of politics completely if i go to david i think it's very interesting here is that the

military me actually be carrying a page from mubarak's way of rule and being backed by the united states for so many decades is it saying to the people look it's so unstable whatever the election outcome is is it we're the guardians of security we're the guardians of peace all of this stuff going out all going on and i tell you scare it is just chaos that you need which of course egyptians don't believe that anymore very few arabs in the middle east believe their governments are actually protecting them actually in most cases they still oppress them so the military is trying to have it both ways matey . well i'm not quite sure about the speculation going over the military code is a conspiracy to dispose elections i have derived it i have written about it and have derived from the so many elections before in egypt that in thirty or forty years the military regime time and again we have had the

coast of the most of brotherhood look to participate in the elections and with our provocation they have a dialogue about a lot of quite sure this is a question right now because it is the situation in egypt the sousa veer is so frightening is so unstable a baby is so cozy really are a danger to the situation through the whole situation the middle east so i'm not quite sure this is according to the situation but let me tell you that about what we've seen this is a site we've seen from that how do you square this is really frightening because this is that this does not leave to progress to democracy to open society but simply to energy and the put it when politics go down to the streets doesn't mean politics. is. a much

a careless and when there is chaos in the street and politics are it doesn't work it means that the government had has a has not could not to rule as the a political reigns and this is absolutely disastrous appear and if i go back to you in cairo it seems to me that you know people are using the the muslim brotherhood one way or another saying oh oh well we should have the elections because we really don't want them to have so many seats in parliament and at the same time saying that you know the country isn't ready for democracy that we have to postpone their so you know again it's kind of lecturing the people because the people are going to vote in a certain way and there are certain powers that be within egypt in iraq saying that would be the wrong vote the wrong decision. well i think we need to go back to why this crisis has emerged i don't think it had anything to do with elections this is it i think people are i think in general we're looking at there at the wrong picture where we're tying it to the elections because the elections are so i mean

they're going to happen and a couple of days but the issue is not about elections i think the explosion of started on saturday was a manifestation of the frustrations that have been building up and culminating over the past ten months there have been twelve thousand people subjected to military trials there have been reports of terrible abuses by the military police and by the police their trials of the former icons of the of the former regime have been dragging on and a way that has proved i think beyond a doubt to many people that they are not being taken seriously a lot of the police officers who were implicated in the killing of protesters during the uprising in january have been even released they're not even held in prison pending investigations or pending court cases and they've been released and they are intimidating the families of the of the martyrs so there's a whole combination of issues that culminated. on saturday when it exploded on

saturday when the police used excessive force with a handful i mean maybe not more than one hundred protesters who were families of martyrs who decided to continue as they tend to draw attention to the fact that they have not been given any compensation and have been there have not been given any compensation for their you know or did get given any medical treatment by the state since the uprising this is the real problem the fact that elections seem to be taking place there that this happened right before the elections has just complicated the issue and the fact that it's been mishandled so badly. that there is that there is a problem going on and what is happening now is a manifestation of all this frustration ok carol do you really. i believe the military when they say they want to get out of politics if they really want to promote the democratic process because the military just has such a comfortable position in egyptian society and they have for decades that was one of mubarak's ways to divide and rule they gave the military so many privileges that

the military just just can't fathom not ruling egypt. absolutely not i don't buy that for one second and the military class that's remember the rulers of egypt at the moment don't just imprisoned the officers that came into power after mubarak left they are the same class the military class that has been ruling the arab republics for four or five decades and they have been on pressing and stifling the development of societies so this is their very last stand and they need to go or they need to go for democracy to prevail in republics as i say and i fully agree with iranian had and i this is but to add them a very important point that many people onto this three it's when they're trying to prevent the possibility of staff as it's called their superior council for the armed forces kind of establishing its itself as a supra constitutional authority ahead of the coming changes in egypt and thereby

kind of having an overall control of the political system so regardless of the outcome of the parliamentary and presidential elections it would still with a lot of power but but lastly i just want to go back to what david was saying which i think are let me let you finish and we have to go to a short break and after lecture approach will continue our discussion on egypt state r.t. . if you. want. the world with. more and more mouths to feed but where will the food come from and can science provide the answers to the future of food under the microscope. we've

got the future covered. today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world seeing from the streets of canada. before asians are day.

if. if if the. welcome back to cross talk i'm purely beltre mind you were discussing egypt's political quagmire if. we can. ok david i'd like to go to you in haifa i mean we've been talking about the disturbances in the violence in the last few days and going as we look towards the elections here but you know ever since mubarak has has left the scene it's really the issue of social injustice that is not being addressed whatsoever as you know we see a lot of state workers getting a nice pay increase the army has everything the military hasn't had anything it controls in society changed whatsoever and you just have the same social issues of the dictatorship of mubarak still exist under this military that runs the country

and that's what's really angering people well first of all this is not a difficult picture to. authoritarian regimes egypt is a pretty state from july twenty third one thousand nine hundred fifty two and this is really to regime in the mirror is is there is is a regime will not give out there will not give up and thousand perhaps he's weak i don't know i haven't yet decided what his character is but. they would not give out and the masses this is the most important things first the mass is marching on the streets and the second is the power of the while in a hurry in egyptian politics but mainly if you can say arab politics now it's a mess is marching on is it exists three they really drove towards locusts and you are mistaken whether this is career they if they don't mean he believes it or fried the western way why. they mean is to less is

a question of the rule or to be more completion that but not if they don't understand what democracy's as they don't understand what a girl is an easy western way now if i if i understand what's going on in the streets of cairo where i'm at and it's going to always the streets or in other arab states the they don't they don't go marching positively to outside our so we are our. friends. it institutions are a political game six which is political goals i'm afraid of what they do would really want is not the civil society but to lead a society the railroad their rights to the stadium you've run down here from some other throwing reason you brought up a lot of volume so the younger generation you that i would go in to create a generation you brought up a lot of right around here if i could go to you so we just heard what we just heard and we just heard from david is that education saying basically arabs are just not

ready for democracy they can't fathom the idea of one person one vote right that's what i got from that i could i completely i completely disagree with that point of view i think a difference understand exactly what they want i think the airlines the marker see they want rule of law they want. quality they want social justice and they want to feel that their human rights are being respected this is why people went out into the streets on january twenty first and i do not believe all that egyptians want a religious rule or islamic rule this is not right what egyptians of all political currents are talking about except for a fringe group of maybe salafist who are giving that discourse without really knowing what it means in general this is absolutely not true i think people and egypt know what they want exactly and her hands are still continue continue to fight for it's ok to carl in looking at western media mainstream media covering these events here i can't help but feel that they say so well they're not ready yet

they're not ready for they're just out let me go to college to let me go next are also going to go to karl in london first here i still get this and this impression that you know that you know look at all these disturbances maybe they should coffee elections because you know they don't have us or they lecture you please i mean you know they may have going to morrow say carl did you hear my question karl. yes yes i heard your question and i think there's a lot of anxiety in this that's reflected by what david is saying as well and i must congratulate him because he's doing his very best to kind of impersonate the character to an article zionist and he's carrying it off very very very successfully i mean why his saying is utterly despicable about his perception of people which he threw it off as a comment like that as muslims they are not muslims there are muslims and christians in that area and they're fighting for a better future the fact that he and others in israel and maybe in the west would portray it as some kind of decline and going back to the middle ages only to france

this sense of anxiety about what they're calling down arkie but this is a very constructive sense of an arche if we don't like this direct form of politics in these were writing off hundreds of years of kind of the history of western democracy look at the french revolution look at the pride movements look at all these movements that are about direct democracy and going through the streets to get it to get your rights we can't have a situation of parliamentary election and pretending to bring about democracy in this polite way when there's a chorus of controlled by by the military so please spare us the stereotypes and let's look at very the situation on the ground which is about their real aspirations for change and i'm not going to accept any sort of dismissive denial of the right david which i can reply did i agree i david reply and there is there is a time delay so david would you like to reply to that. i like very much three if you can please this is not to be the israeli look we have the newest floral

published in egypt thirty eight percent of the egyptian would vote for a muslim brotherhood freedom and justice party twelve percent for the no less radical in a new party in. the queue research poll published in june two thousand and ten indicates that ninety five of the egyptian public would welcome islam with politics eighty four percent support a death penalty for those who leave islam eighty two percent in favor of stoning people who could lead to adultery fifty four percent justify suicide bombings fifty nine percent side these are mostly fundamentalists and only twenty seven percent was the modernizers these are the the polls investigation done by america and. they cite davis thank you thank you for that of being israeli i'm sorry i have to say to my viewers when you haven't time delay here is your brain going to hire regard hire only that's equal to go to cairo now please ok

runnier you did look like you agreed with what david had to say go right ahead. yes i don't agree with any of what he's saying and i think you should spare us also the polls that don't clarify the poll results don't clarify what questions were asked when you when you make these strange percentages this is absolutely not true and even if thirty eight percent of the people choose the muslim brotherhood does that does not necessarily mean that the muslim brotherhood represents regression of some sort or a represent some kind of iran style islam a cruel or a demand for that they are part of the fabric of the society and they will have to be incorporated like everybody else in the society all the you know i've been covering at islamic movements over the past five years in my newspaper and everybody at this time is there not as long as all believe that every single is that there of the society needs to be involved in the political process so we are

not in any. way going to exclude anyone from this this mosaic the situation now is as follows we are innocent and about to have elections and mind you most of the people here are not against having the elections now the fact that there have been angered and have been driven to go back to the here because of the excesses of the ministry of interior and because the people have been killed. a few tiley will for no reason at all does not mean that we are against having elections and going through the process of the democratic process that will read us all of the army council ok and this is the situation we're in now karl thank you again looking at it's taking we can change the angle here is the outside looking in it the egyptian situation in the election that the impending election i just can't help but feel that the the west particularly the united states just like to see the military stay in control of egypt in one form or another or over a very slow time period phased out because that's an ally that's

a strategic ally it's not the status of egypt it's the egyptian military that's their ally right now and all of these fanning about. you know the brother of the the muslim brotherhood is going to take over and fanaticism and all that but still you still that still see that in the mainstream here i just can't help that it west would like to see much slower change in egypt and other countries look at bahrain for example. absolutely i mean this is one of the most important a side effect if you like of the arab spring is it exposed in decline the west and in particularly the american power to influence events in the middle east has become and it's allowing all these other agents to kind of push forward and try to dictate their own agenda i mean they've just withdrawn from iraq that that was a big retreat and in egypt they kind of unlike other countries where you hear them being more vocal so you hear the american administration calling for change much

more aggressively they've had the second chance and they've had a chance to rehearse what they could have said in the case of diarrhea and they still fluffed it because they have absolutely no kind of consistency they have nor real policy and they have not in direction what they what they're hoping at the moment is somehow that the military would regain control and ensure a more kind of transition in favor of their own interests than our looks for that reason but what absolutely a kind of deserve is the lark actually the power to influence events and they are not any coherent and consistent idea about how to advocate change or or even kind of maintain a consistent position about the democracy movement which in my opinion in making them lose a lot of credibility and also is weakening their position a lot of the outside of that as i say is for anyone who's interested in democracy and secular forms of practice in politics is that kind of weakening of

external influence opens up great opportunities in our country is and i think it's an opportunity that progressive politics and parties have to kind of result to ok i'd like to finish up in cairo because that's where the election is going to be in egypt there's going to be held a few days it will be election after the fact is illegitimate in fear do you think . i hope that they are managed that i hope this staff does one thing right is that they managed to secure these elections my biggest fear is that people will be too afraid to go out in the streets and vote and the next couple of days. if that is the scaf does this right and manages to secure the polling stations and manages to just see this happen you know and it is transparent way as possible then i think they should be. there and and then they should be i'm hoping that they will be fair and transparent and then just people are very vigilant they're all watching. me out

the best for the egyptian election many thanks my guest today in london haifa and entirely thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember our top. story.

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