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35 years ago today, Ukraine proclaimed its independence. As has become tradition, a ceremonial flag‑raising was held in front of the Estonian MFA. Independence is not a date on the calendar, it is a daily choice Ukrainians make: to defend their sovereignty, their borders, and https://t.co/5BTajjt7Ex #UkraineIndependence #Sovereignty #Estonia #UA #EE

A Crown Instead of the Barracks: An Idea From Outside the Box Could Egypt’s exiled opposition use constitutional monarchy to dismantle the legitimacy of the 1952 coup? By Adham Hasanin Egyptian journalist and political writer, based in the Netherlands To understand what follows, a reader unfamiliar with Egypt needs one basic fact: since 1952, Egypt has never been governed by anyone who did not first wear a military uniform. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, and today Abdel Fattah el-Sisi four men, four eras, one common origin. All rose through the armed forces. All inherited a state built by a coup that year, when a group of officers calling themselves the "Free Officers" overthrew King Farouk I and, within a year, abolished the monarchy altogether and declared a republic. For seventy-three years, the underlying equation has not changed: the army rules, power passes from one officer to the next, and legitimacy is drawn from the barrel of a gun rather than the ballot box. Every conceivable form of opposition has been tried legal parties and banned ones, Islamist movements, liberal and leftist coalitions, the 2011 popular uprising, and the 2013 elections whose result was overturned by force within a year. All of them hit the same wall: a military institution that reproduces itself under different names, while the core of the system remains untouched. So what if the problem, all along, has not simply been who rules, but the constitutional framework that makes military rule possible in the first place? And what if the answer lies not in swapping one president for another, but in dismantling the underlying equation itself, through a framework Egyptian opposition movements have never seriously tried: a purely ceremonial constitutional monarchy, on the model of Belgium, the Netherlands, or Spain where the head of state becomes a symbol above the political fray, while the army is permanently expelled from politics and returned to its barracks. This is not a call to revive a particular family, nor nostalgia for a golden age that never quite existed. It is a proposal for a political and strategic tool that has not yet been used in the intellectual arsenal of Egypt’s opposition in exile a tool that deserves serious discussion, regardless of whether it is ever literally realised or simply serves to expand the boundaries of what is politically thinkable. I. Why 1952, Not 2013 or 2011, Is the Root The strategic error made by most Egyptian opposition movements from the Muslim Brotherhood to the April 6 Youth Movement to the various civil opposition parties has been treating each political crisis as an isolated case: Mubarak was corrupt and had to be toppled; Sisi staged a coup that must be condemned; the interim military council was a transitional phase to be endured. This piecemeal approach treats the symptoms while leaving the original illness untouched. That original illness is the very structure of legitimacy established by the coup of 23 July 1952. The Egyptian republican system, from Nasser to today, has never built its legitimacy on a genuine democratic social contract. Instead, it has rested on a fixed trinity: the rhetoric of "revolution against feudalism and colonialism," charismatic individual leadership, and military protection of the regime framed as the guarantor of stability. This trinity has repeated itself from Nasser to Sadat to Mubarak to Sisi, with only cosmetic variations. Each new president was never a break from the system he was its continuation. When the opposition says "let us return to the constitutional framework that preceded the coup," it is not criticising a particular policy. It is declaring that the legal foundation of everything that came after 1952 was illegitimate from the start. Here lies the rhetorical power of "returning to the pre-1952 order": it does not merely demand swapping one ruler for another. It withdraws historical legitimacy from the entire republican military system including today’s regime, which draws its own declared legitimacy from that same "1952 legacy." II. Why a "Ceremonial Crown," Not "the Return of a Ruling Family" Here is the most important distinction anyone advocating this idea seriously must grasp: the project does not rest on restoring any particular individual from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, nor on nostalgia for King Farouk or his ancestors. The real power of the idea lies in the constitutional form, not in the person who happens to sit on the throne. Three successful European democracies illustrate the model clearly. Belgium, where King Philippe is a purely constitutional symbol with no real executive power, while the state is run through an elected parliament and a complex coalition government reflecting the country’s linguistic and political diversity. The Netherlands, where King Willem-Alexander formally opens the parliamentary year and signs laws, but where actual decision-making rests with the prime minister and the elected parliament. And Spain, where the king represents symbolic continuity of the state above party politics, while the military and security services answer entirely to civilian authority a transition achieved after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, when King Juan Carlos I voluntarily relinquished the extensive executive powers he had inherited and backed free elections, most dramatically in February 1981, when he personally ordered the armed forces to remain loyal to the constitution during an attempted military coup, causing it to collapse within hours. The common thread across these three models is not "the presence of an ancient royal family." It is the principle of separating symbol from power. The monarch in these countries does not rule; he represents. He issues no political decisions; he provides the continuity and symbolic stability that allows party political competition to revolve beneath him, without every transfer of power becoming an existential crisis of legitimacy. This is precisely what Egypt’s military republican system lacks: a neutral mechanism for guaranteeing state continuity that does not depend on the person of the ruler or his security apparatus. When Egypt’s military-republican president is absent, it is always the army that fills the vacuum, because it is the only institution built to be the "guarantor of stability." Under a ceremonial monarchical model, by contrast, it is the king not the army who represents that symbolic guarantee, genuinely opening the door to removing the military institution from the political equation altogether. III. Egypt’s Standing Under the Monarchy: An Honest Reckoning, Not Blind Nostalgia For a Western reader with little prior knowledge of Egypt’s monarchical period (1922–1952), it helps to know this: Egypt was nominally independent under its own king from 1922, but Britain retained enormous informal control over the country’s foreign policy, military bases, and the Suez Canal throughout the period a reality that shaped everything that follows. Any honest invocation of "Egypt’s standing under the monarchy" must avoid the trap of mythologised nostalgia that many advocates of this idea fall into. Egypt in that era was no lost paradise, and any honest article must say so plainly. The Egyptian pound, for instance, often invoked as a symbol of "national currency strength" in that period, was not strong because of independent Egyptian monetary policy. It was pegged to the British pound sterling as part of Egypt’s complete colonial financial dependency until 1947, with Egypt exercising no independent oversight of its own currency whatsoever. The pound’s strength, in other words, was not a sovereign Egyptian achievement it was a reflection of British imperial power ruling Egypt from behind the throne. But this does not mean Egypt lacked a genuine regional standing worth studying. Cairo, in the 1930s and 1940s, was the undisputed cultural capital of the entire Arab world: the Egyptian film industry produced more than half of all Arabic-language cinema; its theatre scene, led by figures like Youssef Wahbi and Naguib al-Rihani, and its music, with Umm Kulthum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab, set the standard across the region; Cairo University was the first modern university in the Arab world; and the Egyptian press was the reference point for Arab public opinion from the Atlantic to the Gulf. Cairo was, quite simply, to the Arab world what Paris was to Francophone Europe: an unrivalled centre of cultural and intellectual gravity. This standing was not necessarily a product of monarchy itself, so much as a product of a relative space of political and press pluralism that allowed Egyptian civil society to flourish, despite all the flaws of the political system and the interference of both palace and occupier. The lesson here is not "bring back the king and the standing will return." It is: when even a limited margin of civic freedom exists, Egypt flourishes culturally and intellectually almost by its own nature. And that margin is precisely what has been entirely absent across the past seven decades of unchallenged military rule. IV. What Reform Would Actually Require Not Repeating the Old Mistakes Any serious advocacy of this model must include, even briefly, a clear vision for avoiding the flaws of the old monarchical system itself otherwise the proposal collapses into simply replacing one form of authoritarianism with another wearing a different crown. First, the armed forces would need to be placed fully under a civilian ministry of defence, with its budget subject to transparent parliamentary oversight the exact opposite of its current status as a state-within-a-state, and equally opposed to its role under the monarchy, when it often served as an instrument of British influence. Second, a judiciary fully independent of both palace and government alike, unlike the old model, which saw direct royal interference in political life as when King Fuad I dismissed the elected government of Prime Minister Saad Zaghloul’s successor, Mustafa al-Nahhas, in 1928, in one of the clearest "constitutional coups" in modern Egyptian history. Third, a parliament that genuinely represents the people rather than landowners and the aristocracy, as was the case before 1952, when membership in the Senate was effectively conditional on the ability to pay land taxes meaning political representation was, by law, restricted to the wealthy. Fourth, genuine economic sovereignty, with a truly independent national currency rather than one pegged to a foreign power’s currency, unlike the historical dependency of the Egyptian pound on sterling. These four principles are enough to clarify that the project on offer is not a literal "return to the past," but a borrowing of the constitutional form (symbolic monarchy) combined with an explicit rejection of its old substance (colonial dependency, palace interference, parliamentary feudalism). V. The Role of Egyptian Movements in Exile: Between Goal and Instrument This raises the most practical question of all: how might Egypt’s opposition abroad actually adopt this idea, and in what capacity? The honest answer is that the power of this proposal does not necessarily lie in its literal fulfilment, but in its dual strategic function. On one hand, it can be advanced as a genuine political goal adopted by broad coalitions of Egyptian movements coalitions that might include Islamists, liberals, leftists, and traditional monarchists, united around a single shared premise: rejecting the legitimacy of the 1952 order and everything that followed from it, even if they later disagree over the precise final shape of the state. On the other hand and this matters more in practice the idea can be deployed as a rhetorical instrument of pressure to widen a Egyptian political debate currently trapped between two false choices: "continued military rule" or "no alternative, chaos awaits." When the opposition puts forward a clearly defined third model a European-style constitutional monarchy it breaks this false binary and opens new intellectual space in Egyptian public discourse, even if the project is never realised in its literal form. This kind of "leverage idea" is common in the history of political movements worldwide: it is not necessarily proposed to be fulfilled immediately in full, but to redraw the boundaries of the politically possible, and to force the existing regime to defend its legitimacy rather than simply assume it. Conclusion: An Invitation to Debate, Not a Ready-Made Prescription This article does not claim that restoring a monarchical form would magically resolve Egypt’s chronic crisis of legitimacy, nor does it ignore the immense difficulties facing any transformative project under a military institution as economically and securitywise entrenched as Egypt’s is today. But it raises a question that deserves serious debate among Egypt’s opposition in exile, rather than automatic dismissal simply for being unfamiliar: Has the Egyptian opposition exhausted every available tool for dismantling the legitimacy of 1952, or has it remained trapped in the same old binary swapping one ruler for another while the framework that makes military rule possible remains untouched? The idea is on the table now, not as a finished solution, but as an overdue invitation to think outside the box.

UK: chłop kupił kij do bejsbola i zaraz po wyjściu ze sklepu został zaatakowany przez policję, potraktowany gazem, dociśnięty do gleby i zaobrączkowany. Ten kraj to jakiś dysutopijny, makabryczny żart. Raszidki biegają sobie po ulicach z ceremonialnymi nożami przy pasie, a ciebie za posiadanie multitoola czy kija do gry traktują jak kryminalistę z listy most wanted. Tymczasem w Polsce można w pełni legalnie kupić kije do bejsbola i jest to powszechnie dostępny sprzęt sportowy. Tak samo wszystkie noże, duże, średnie i małe, a do tego maczety, sztylety, miecze i broń palną czarnoprochową. Policja z UK zesrałaby się ze strachu, gdyby tu przyjechała. #UK #police #dystopia

Ankara vs Formule 1... Všimli jste si, jak se kritici Petra Pavla během 14 dnů zdiskreditovali a usvědčili sami sebe, že ho nenávidí jen z podstaty? Summit v Ankaře - "proč by tam měl Pavel jezdit, má jen ceremoniální funkci, nás zastupuje vláda, on nic nerozhoduje, on má být jen ozdoba, OSTUDA!" Formule 1 - "co tam dělá, vždyť je to politik, proč prezident někde něco fotí, takhle nás nereprezentuje!, má pracovat pro lidi, on je tam za ozdobu, OSTUDA!" Aha? 😂😂😂 Úplně nejvíc miluju argument, že se tam prezident nacpal a přitom to není ŽÁDNÝ profesionální fotograf. LOL vy retardi, on je to prezident, jestli jste si nevšimli, to není Lojza z Kolbenky.😅 Kdyby tam přiletěl Trump, tak bude sedět nenápadně ve třicátý řadě na tribuně Jih? Asi hovno, co? Jejich kritika definitivně ztratila váhu. #Ankara #PetraPavla #Formule1

Při oslavách španělského vítězství na mistrovství světa 2026 se pozornost nejen zaměřila na hráče s trofejí, ale také na královskou rodinu a nostalgické srovnání fotografií princezen Leonor a Sofíi, které při obou titulech pózovaly s pohárem, zatímco se atmosféra kolem Donalda Trumpa na ceremoniálu zdála být napjatá. #Španělsko #Fotbal #MistrovstvíSvětaz

Tak jsem včera shlédl aspoň první půlí finále MS ve fotbale. Když odhlédnu od úplně tupého a kýčovitého zahajovacího ceremoniálu, jehož vrcholem byly rádobydojemné kecy Toma Cruise, tak samotný zápas byla čirá a mimořádně odporná argentinská řezničina, které s fotbalem neměla nic společného. Ráno jsem s uspokojením vyhledal výsledek zápasu a zjistil, že fotbalový Bůh ještě existuje. A ta argentinská šaráda po skončení byla jen potvrzením, že ve finále neměli co dělat. A Messi? Fotbalově je to Bůh, ale lidsky je to namyšlená špína, která s takovým Ronaldem nesnese srovnání. PS: ale znáte mě, úsudek já mám slabej... #MSfotbal #fotbal #Messi

Ve slavnostním ceremoniálu Premios Princesa de Girona 2026, kde se přítomní dočkali překvapení v podobě nového vedení od princezny Leonor, král Felipe VI vyjádřil podporu španělské fotbalové reprezentaci před jejím zápasem proti Francii a zdůraznil důležitost ochrany a podpory mladého talentu. #PremiosPrincesadeGirona #PrincesaLeonor #TalentoJoven

Por la presente se fijan los criterios de ceremonial ante los himnos nacionales de países extranjeros donde participen equipos argentinos: 1) No se silba nunca el himno de Inglaterra, no se lo aplaude pero no se lo silba. 2) Mañana en Atlanta nos mantenemos en silencio cuando se cante God Save the King. 3) Idéntico criterio respecto del himno de Chile, porque ellos traicionaron a la Argentina en la Guerra de las Malvinas ayudando al enemigo inglés. No lo silbamos, no aplaudimos, silencio e indiferencia. 4) Por ahora aplaudimos a los himnos de México y Uruguay, llamando a la reflexión a ambos países para que cesen de una vez su agresión en contra de la Confederación Argentina. 5) Se aplauden todos los himnos del resto de los países del mundo y siempre de pie. 6) Cuando jugamos contra Perú, los aplaudimos como si fuese el mismísimo himno argentino, porque ellos nos ayudaron en las Malvinas y porque rinden honores al General San Martín en la letra de himno nacional. Y si podemos, también lo cantamos. * Téngase Presente. #Himnos #Deporte #Cultura

V dramatickém českém finále Wimbledonu se Linda Nosková stala šampionkou poté, co porazila Karolínu Muchovou, přičemž obě tenistky během emotivního ceremoniálu vyjádřily vděčnost a vzpomínky na blízké, což dojalo nejen je, ale i všechny přítomné v publiku. #Wimbledon #LindaNosková #KarolínaMuchová #dobrezpravy

Conor McGregor joue avec ses enfants juste avant la pesée cérémoniale. 🥹❤️ #UFC329 https://t.co/mLlgz7HPjc #ConorMcGregor #UFC #FamilyTime

😂😂😂 Deník N dnes zveřejnil uniklý dopis prezidenta Pavla Donaldu Trumpovi. Vážený pane prezidente Trumpe, jako prezident České republiky a dlouholetý příslušník Severoatlantické aliance se na Vás obracím s vážnou a principiální záležitostí. Jakožto prezident České republiky a bývalý generál NATO jsem se zúčastnil summitu v Ankaře, avšak na závěrečném společném focení jsem bohužel chyběl. Tento stav považuji za nesprávný a neslučitelný s mým ústavním postavením jakožto hlavy státu, který zastupuje Českou republiku navenek. Proto Vás žádám o opakování závěrečného ceremoniálu, včetně společného focení. Konkrétně očekávám, že mi podáte ruku jako prvnímu a to minimálně o tři sekundy déle, než jste učinil v případě předsedy vlády pana Babiše. Věřím, že jako muž, který věří ve spravedlnost a je schopen silného gesta tento požadavek pochopíte. Samozřejmě si uvědomuji, že jsem kdysi veřejně prohlásil, že jste odpudivá lidská bytost, a že bych Vám nikdy ruku nepodal. Ovšem podle renomovaného experta na etiketu Ladislava Špačka se toto prohlášení netýká situace, kdy Vy jako první projevíte vstřícnost podáním ruky. Etiketa v tomto směru hovoří jasně v můj prospěch. V případě, že by nedošlo k nápravě tohoto stavu, jsem připraven zvážit všechny dostupné ústavní prostředky, včetně kompetenční žaloby k Ústavnímu soudu České republiky, s cílem zajistit dodržování ústavních principů a rovného postavení České republiky. Chápu, že svolání všech účastníků summitu zpět může být logisticky náročné. Věřím však, že Vy, jako silný a rozhodný lídr, jste jediný, kdo je schopen tuto situaci vyřešit spravedlivě a v souladu s principy transatlantické spolupráce. S úctou a očekáváním Vaší konstruktivní reakce Petr Pavel Prezident České republiky a Generál ve výslužbě #ČeskáRepublika #politika #Trump

On me répond que le Parlement européen met des chauffeurs à disposition de tous les députés. Très bien, mais ce n’est pas vraiment le sujet. Je comprends qu’on leur rembourse leurs frais de transport, le train, le métro. Je comprends aussi qu’ils soient bien payés, afin de travailler à plein temps et d’éviter que la politique soit réservée aux rentiers ou aux cloches. Mais tout le reste ? Pourquoi des berlines de luxe type Audi A8 ? Pourquoi ce cérémonial de chauffeurs, de valises portées, de plaques officielles ? Pourquoi des trajets remboursés en classe affaires ou en première classe, des indemnités journalières, près de 5 000 € par mois de frais généraux, en plus d’un salaire déjà très confortable ? Le problème n’est pas qu’un élu ait les moyens de travailler. Le problème, c’est ce train de vie de caste, financé par des citoyens qui, eux, prennent le métro, le TER, le bus.... Tout cela coupe les élus et la nomenklatura des réalités ordinaires. Et c’est aussi une oasis de confort qui les pousse, évidemment, à ne rien changer. #Politique #ParlementEuropéen #Transparence