#ProblemswithEgypt

Twitter, known mostly for starting fights between useless celebrities and making #YOLO a thing, was the center of a diplomatic debacle last week.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the current democratically elected party in Egypt, received some well-deserved criticism concerning what we regard as a two-faced Twitter account.
 
What followed was proof that the new Egyptian government does not support freedom of speech as well as it should.

The situation began after the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was attacked. Individuals of the Islamic faith were angry about an American film depicting the prophet Muhammad as a child molester.

While the film is quite disgusting and poorly made, its creators had every right to make it.

After the attack, the Muslim Brotherhood’s English feed tweeted they were relieved that no one was hurt and hoped U.S. relations in Egypt would stabilize.

This would have been a sweet sentiment had it not been undermined by a tweet from their Arabic feed.

The tweet in question translated to “Egyptians revolt for the Prophet’s victory in front of U.S. Embassy.”

Unlike the English tweet, this one shows the Muslim Brotherhood hinting the attackers had some sort of victory against statements opposing Muhammad.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo fired back with the snarky tweet, “Thanks, by the way, have you checked out your own Arabic feeds? I hope you know we read those too.”

It’s sad, really, that foreign diplomacy is now handled on the same forum as middle school breakups.

Regardless, this exchange tells us that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood wants to display to the Western World a deceptive view regarding its opinion on free speech.

This tweet alone doesn’t exactly put the Egyptian government on the side of America’s enemies, something that has been reflected in statements by President Barack Obama.

Apparently feeling that Spanish was left out in this mess of language, the president said in an unrelated statement to Telemundo that while Egypt isn’t currently being viewed as an enemy, they aren’t being viewed as an ally, either.

The tweet the Muslim Brotherhood sent certainly wasn’t a declaration of war.

What it does represent, though, is that America needs to keep a watchful eye on the repression of free speech in the region, regardless of whether the oppressed are American or Egyptian.

The United States gives the post-Hosni Mubarak regime $1.5 billion annually and at least has the right to examine the budding Egyptian democracy.

Responding with the same scorn shown by a wronged teenage girl with her first iPhone, as the U.S. Embassy did, may not have been the best way to deal with this situation.

But America has to stand up for freedom of speech of all peoples.

The U.S. must take the stance that violent attacks on free speech, regardless of the speaker, will not be tolerated and that a government that does anything but reject such attacks will not be left in America’s good graces.