Regarding the Number of Protesters in Egypt

(Cairo, Egypt)

Much commentary and reporting on Egypt's evolving crisis depicts these events as a relatively balanced conflict between protestors and supporters of toppled President Mohamed Mursi.

According to Ahmed Amer, there is no balance in the numbers of protesters and President Mursi supporters. Mursi's numbers are not even close in comparison.

The disparity was evident. Comparing this contrived demonstration with the millions of people who flooded squares in all 27 Egyptian governorates on June 30 is ludicrous. The fervor of Mursi's supporters is clearly real, but these numbers are not.

Yet the national Al-Ahram newspaper, which had a Muslim Brotherhood supporter as editor in chief, featured a headline the next day suggesting the protests as equal in size. Essam El-Haddad, Mursi's foreign policy adviser and a Muslim Brotherhood member, claimed the Rabaa protest was larger.

The Rabaa rally and these continuing pro-Mursi rallies assert the opposition is out to destroy Islam in Egypt. The protestors who brought down Mursi, however, are a diverse group, secular and Islamist, middle class and poor, pitted against Mursi intimidators who tried to sow sectarian hatred and condemned their opponents as violent traitors and "infidels."

This struggle is not between two halves of a community. It is between a massive portion of a nation trying to be heard by demonstrating their sheer numbers and an organization trying its best to turn a peaceful demonstration of discontent into a clash.

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