Egypt’s second revolution: Questions of legitimacy

The US government, a substantial section of mainstream Western media and the ousted Muslim Brotherhood all seem to agree: what took place in Egypt over the past few days was a military coup, a setback for the country’s alleged “transition” to democracy. Irrespective of the variety of vested interests involved, what the three detractors of one of the most potent popular revolutionary upsurges in modern history share is contempt. Twenty-two million signatures (at nearly 50 percent of the nation’s adult population) are collected demanding the ousting of the president; the same demand is made by some 17 million people (at nearly 30 percent of the adult population) as they hit the streets throughout the country, in what has been described as the biggest demonstration in the history of mankind, and they do so against a barrage of threats and predictions warning of 30 June’s “rivers of blood,” and stay there.

Hani Shukrallah in Egypt’s second revolution: Questions of legitimacy (Ahram online)