Egypt’s President Turns to Religion to Bolster His Authority

[rug]

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt at an economic development conference last March in Sharm el Sheikh. In recent months he has used religion to justify a crackdown on his rivals. Credit Khaled Elfiqi/European Pressphoto Agency

By DECLAN WALSH
JAN. 9, 2016

CAIRO — When President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi opened a much-heralded extension to the Suez Canal in August, the official Friday Prayer sermon that week hailed it as a “gift from God.”

When Egyptian voters elected a new Parliament in December, a preacher on state TV urged its members to “obey those in authority, specifically the highest authority,” and referred indirectly to Mr. Sisi as “God’s shadow on earth.”

And when a Russian airplane leaving the Sharm el Sheik resort crashed in the Sinai Desert in October, killing 224 people and crippling Egyptian tourism, the Ministry of Religious Endowments encouraged clerics to vacation at the deserted resort — notable because many observant Muslims here view it as a sinful fleshpot.

Fears of Islamist rule helped propel Mr. Sisi, then a military general, to power in 2013 following giant protests that led to the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood government. But as Mr. Sisi wrestles with militant attacks and a struggling economy, he has increasingly turned to religion to bolster his authority and justify a crackdown on his rivals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/middleeast/egypt-abdel-fattah-el-sisi-islam.html?_r=0

[saltpoint]

1. One's Spidey Sense goes

instantly to 'high' when religion is trotted out to support tyranny.

[rug]

2. Forget spiders. Sometimes all you need are the reflexes of a sloth.

[saltpoint]

3. : ) eom