Every time something happens in Egypt, people ask themselves, “Where is Morsi?”

Since taking office last summer, the question has become redundant enough that when people stopped asking, the Egyptian president finally issued a statement. Perhaps that’s because the most recent clashes at Mokattam involved members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Morsi said, “The Egyptian blood is dear and precious.” Interestingly, the Egyptian president forgot that it was precious during the previous months of his presidency as well, when he sat and watched violence happen on numerous occasions.

The notion of “defeat” seems to go hand in hand with “denial” amongst the Egyptian Left — denial that their weak attempt at shaping their country will be productive through the concept of “boycotting elections” and other strategies.

Rather than denying defeat or even allowing it to be undeniably written across their foreheads, the Egyptian Left needs to realize that their past attempts of boycotting not only caused them to lose, but for much to be gained by the Islamists. Therefore, they need to reevaluate their political “strategy.”

In this week’s column, I’ve decided to deviate somewhat from the usual topic of politics and emphasize the historical wonders of Egypt. This past Saturday, I spent a day at the Pyramids of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was probably my sixth time there, but I dare say, the experience never grows old for me.

As usual, Egypt is being pulled in all sorts of directions and it’s getting under my skin. I have decided to dedicate a rant to the victim some of us in Cairo are referring to as the “Egyptian Rodney King.”

Just who is this Egyptian Rodney King, you ask?

A harmless, middle-aged Egyptian man named Hamada Saber, who was stripped of his clothes and supposedly beaten on live television by CSF officers near the Presidential Palace, also known as Ittahadiya (Watch the video, here).

It can be strenuous at times to write a column about a country that is undergoing a revolution. In the time span that I write this piece and publish it, many new things could have happened in Egypt, so I will try to keep this as up-to-date as possible.

What I Saw

Last Friday was the second annual anniversary of the January 25th Revolution. The day started out rather calm, with Egyptians participating in marches from various parts of the Cairo and Giza governorates, with the aim of ending up in Tahrir Square. The port city of Alexandria seemed to have already gotten fired up as protesters clashed with police.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on hiatus for about four months now. I was in Washington, D.C. doing some work and now I’m back in Cairo. A lot of things happened while I was away. President Mohamed Morsi declared himself the new dictator of Egypt, only to be threatened by the army; a controversial constitution was voted in a referendum — one that still lacks strong aspects of human rights protections and contains elements of Sharia law; Tahrir is no longer the sole place for protest but has expanded to the Presidential Palace known as Ithadeyya, where at times, the thugs of the Muslim Brotherhood beat people with rocks and resorted to firing shots on the crowds.

The anti-Islam film, “Innocents of Muslims” sparked several days of protests at (and around) the American Embassy in Cairo. What initially were clashes over the film, became a clash with police due to a history of bad blood amongst other things. On Thursday and Friday night I spent a short time observing what was happening on the ground.

Maybe I overlooked something these past couple of weeks, but somehow the Internet has been abuzz about sexual harassment in Egypt -- and I like it. I think it has to do with a controversial article published by BBC News, which was popularly circulated online: “Egypt's sexual harassment of women 'epidemic'”. The article did not address anything new, but there was one part that caught my eye:

The highlight of Iran’s Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran came from two individuals: The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi. Both managed to criticize their hosts in various manners, although I will focus on the latter.

There has been a lot of speculation on whether relations between Iran and Egypt would recommence once the Muslim Brotherhood came into the picture with the election of president Mohamed Morsi. And, it seems that the Shia Islamic regime has been attempting to reach out to the Sunni Islamists. One clear episode of that was when Iran sent Vice President Hamid Baghai to Egypt last month to invite Morsi to the Non-Alliance Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran. The summit is taking place this week.