Egypt on the Brink

Imagine a man is going home one evening and suddenly, as he’s going up the stairs to his apartment, he sees a criminal trying to rape a woman. The girl calls for help and tries to escape but she can’t and the attacker rips her clothes off. The man’s reaction to the crime taking place before his eyes would be one of the following:

1. The man rushes to save the woman from being raped, even at the risk of his own life. In this case he would be a brave man, chivalrous and honourable.

2. The man refrains from helping the woman but rushes up to his apartment and calls the police. In this case he would be an ordinary man who is not exceptionally brave but at least feels a responsibility to try to prevent the crime.

3. The man goes up to his apartment, resumes his life, completely forgets about the crime, and leaves the woman to her fate. This man would be a coward with no conscience.

Can humans survive without food and drink? Of course not. These are fundamental needs and humans die when they are denied. Can humans survive without dignity? Unfortunately the answer is yes. For thirty years, millions of Egyptians lived without dignity under the rule of Hosni Mubarak. They put up with humiliations and flattered the person in power to win his favor. They grew accustomed to having their dignity ignored, because they feared punishment or coveted material gains. They put up with arrogant police officers and called them “pasha.” They put up with detention camps, torture, and sexual abuse, turning a blind eye as long as the abuses happened to someone else. They told their children to walk close to the wall and to neither demonstrate nor object to the ruler, however much he abused, plundered, and humiliated them.

The fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is being acted out in Egypt: The ministers who are frightened of the emperor’s power or who covet his gifts pretend they can see the imaginary suit and disregard the glaring reality that the emperor is naked, whereas the innocent child who does not want anything and is not afraid of anything tells the truth. There was a great revolution that deposed Hosni Mubarak, and the military council took power for a transitional period. Through a set of decisions the military council managed to wear Egyptians down and sow discord among the revolutionary forces. The military council was also able to win over politicians and parties who feared its power or desired to please it so that they could come to power. The only ones who remained loyal to the revolution were the young people who called for revolution in the first place and paid the price for freedom with their blood. These real revolutionaries are like the brave child who confronted the naked emperor with the truth.

Imagine you’re a student living with some colleagues in a furnished apartment. You live together and share the rent but you are different. Each one of you has his own characteristics and his needs. For example, one of you studies all night, while another wakes up early and goes to bed early, and a third studies while listening to loud music. You must also share communal duties: Who cooks and who washes the dishes? How do you divide the electricity bill? You have to arrive at a system that reconciles your rights and your duties so that you all stick to it. Would it make sense for one of you to draw up a roster unilaterally and impose it on the others? Of course not. The only right way to set up the system is for everyone to sit down, agree on a system, and promise to put it into practice. This simple example illustrates the meaning and value of a national constitution. As individual members of society, just like the students renting the apartment, we have to sit down together to write the constitution ourselves. Dustour, the Arabic word for constitution, is a word of Persian origin meaning foundation.

First Man: By the way, I’m upset with you.

Second Man: Why’s that? I hope it’s not too serious.

First Man: You haven’t spoken for two days.

Second Man: I’m sorry. I swear that only the direst necessity would keep me away from you. I’m quite exhausted, working day and night. The whole world’s on my shoulders.

First Man: I know it’s a heavy burden, but I do wish you would stay in touch with me because I need to talk to you.

Second Man: I’m your disciple, and I can never forget what you’ve done for me.

First Man: Thank you. Do you have any news? I heard a kid died in prison.

Second Man: Sir, the police officers are under heavy pressure.

First Man: The police officers are fine, upright men. I’ll never forget the stand they took in January when they defended legitimacy. I can’t believe we’re putting them on trial for carrying out orders.

Second Man: Unfortunately there was a particular time when we had to put them on trial, to contain people’s anger. But don’t worry about them.

My friend Yusri Foda is the host of the Egyptian talk show, The Last Word. Yusri invited me to take part in his show to comment on a program that featured Generals Assar and Hegazy of the military council. Despite my full respect for the generals, what they said in the program was disappointing because they confined themselves to praising the decisions of the military council. The next day, Yusri called me to tell me that the show had been cancelled. When I asked him what had happened, he said, “There were pressures that led to cancelling the program, so I’ve decided to suspend the show. In my work, I obey only my conscience and I can never agree to take orders from any other party.”

A question: before the 1980s, were Egyptians less Muslim than they are today? On the contrary, most of them performed their religious obligations as Muslims and as far as possible behaved in a god-fearing manner. So Egyptians were Muslims before Wahabi propaganda reached Egypt. What’s the difference between the moderate Islam of Egyptians and the Islam of the Wahabi sheikhs? The difference is that all Egyptians thought that the essence of Islam lay in the great humanitarian values that Islam promotes: justice, freedom, and equality. But they never thought of using Islam as a political program for coming to power. All Egyptians, except the Muslim Brotherhood, treated Islam as a great religion, not as a political program. From the late 1970s, political Islam began to spread in Egypt with support from Gulf oil money (the price of oil increased several fold after the 1973 war).

What would you do if you were an officer in State Security and you were still in your job? Before the revolution you tortured hundreds of Egyptians and you know that the coming elections will bring in a civilian government that will definitely fire you and may even put you on trial. Would you maintain law and order, or would you do everything you could to spread chaos in Egypt, in order to save yourself? If you were the chairman of a bank, appointed to the job by Gamal Mubarak, what would you have done after the revolution? Would you have helped revive the economy until a new government comes and dismisses you and investigates your activities, or would you use your experience to create an economic crisis that might defer your inevitable fate?

Do you consider yourself primarily a Muslim, a Christian, or a human being? Is your primary allegiance to your religion, or does being part of humanity take precedence over any other allegiance? How you answer this question will define your view of the world and how you treat others. If you see yourself as human before any other consideration, then you will certainly respect the rights of others regardless of their religion. A proper understanding of religion necessarily makes you more attached to humankind, because religion in essence means defending human values: justice, freedom, and equality. But if you think your religious affiliation takes precedence over being a part of humankind, you have started down a dangerous path that will generally end in bigotry and violence.