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Egypt

The Four Fingers Holding Up The Muslim Brotherhood

Sept.14 protests in Cairo
Sept.14 protests in Cairo
Laura Thompson

TUNIS – At a recent Ghana vs. Egypt World Cup qualifying match, Ghanaian soccer fans wore yellow t-shirts and held signs featuring a dark black hand holding up four fingers. The clear attempt to taunt the Egyptian fans is the latest appearance of what has become an increasingly important symbol of the sharp divisions in Egypt — and broader regional fault lines between Islamist and secular forces.

Backers of the Brotherhood inside Egypt and abroad have been displaying the four-fingered hand to commemorate the Egyptian security forces' August massacre of more than 600 supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi.

The four-finger sign, also know as the "R4bia" salute, is a reference to the name of the Cairo mosque that held the largest pro-Morsi sit-in protest: RabaaAl-Adawiya, as the word rabaa means "fourth" in Arabic. More and more images of the four-fingered hand are appearing, and have been accompanied on social media by hashtags like "#anti-coup," and have popped up elsewhere among those supporting the Brotherhood, from Turkey to Tunisia.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the four-fingered gesture to greet crowds during public speeches in August, while Turkey's official news agency reported that following the August massacre in Cairo, more than 300 Turkish babies were given the name Rabaa in a gesture of solidarity.

Across the Mediterranean, Tunisians anxious about the future of their own Brotherhood-branded Islamist party, Ennahda, have made the four-fingered hand their Facebook profile picture and have brandished the image at demonstrations.

Rabaa Al-Adawiya, the namesake of the Cairo mosque, was an 8th century Sufi mystic and poet, both radically different from and curiously similar to those who hid within her mosque's now destroyed walls:

A slave in Egypt who came from a poor Iraqi family, Rabaa Al-Adawiya was set free by her wealthy master who was moved by her resolute religious faith and patient devotion to prayer.

History aside, opponents of the Islamists have not taken kindly to the spreading symbol. When a photo circulated of an unidentified Tunisian school teacher and her students holding up four fingers for a class picture, an anti-Islamist Tunisian news site singled out the one young boy who appeared to be defying his teacher: "Let us salute the child to the left of the teacher who kept his hands in his pockets and who seems to refuse to participate in this masquerade."

In Egypti, anti-Morsi journalist and blogger Amr Ezzat shared an ironic Facebook update about a scheduled protest that vowed to shatter the coup by “adding two new fingers to the image of four."

In the meantime, pro-Morsi demonstrations — led by the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy and Reject the Coup — continue. On Friday, following the major Muslim religious holiday of Eid Al-Adha, Egyptian security forces closed off the space around what remains of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya mosque.

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eyes on the U.S.

The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

The U.S. legal system cannot simply run its course in a vacuum. Presidential politics, and democracy itself, are at stake in the coming weeks and months.

The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

File photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Clyde, Ohio, in 2020.

Emma Shortis*

-Analysis-

Events often seem inevitable in hindsight. The indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on criminal charges has been a possibility since the start of his presidency – arguably, since close to the beginning of his career in New York real estate.

But until now, the potential consequences of such a cataclysmic development in American politics have been purely theoretical.

Today, after much build-up in the media, The New York Times reported that a Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Trump and the Manhattan district attorney will now likely attempt to negotiate Trump’s surrender.

The indictment stems from a criminal investigation by the district attorney’s office into “hush money” payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels (through Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen), and whether they contravened electoral laws.

Trump also faces a swathe of other criminal investigations and civil suits, some of which may also result in state or federal charges. As he pursues another run for the presidency, Trump could simultaneously be dealing with multiple criminal cases and all the court appearances and frenzied media attention that will come with that.

These investigations and possible charges won’t prevent Trump from running or even serving as president again (though, as with everything in the U.S. legal system, it’s complicated).

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