Imagine you have an excellent job with a salary most people could only dream of, but your boss is arrogant and spends the whole day putting you down. You have two options: either you act with dignity and refuse to be humiliated, in which case you’ll lose your job and be out on the street, or else you try to live with the humiliation and put up with the abuse, while keeping your comfortable lifestyle. Taking the first option—acting with dignity and refusing to be humiliated regardless of the consequences—is what makes you a revolutionary. Revolution means valuing an abstraction preference over personal interest and putting principle before personal advantage. Revolution means rejecting anything that constrains your humanity. This is exactly what happened in the Egyptian revolution. The millions of Egyptians who went out on the streets at the risk of their lives did so for the sake of dignity and freedom. Every one of them was ready to die so that in the future their children could live with dignity and respect.
Given the high price Egyptians paid during the revolution, they have a right to reap the rewards in full. If the revolution is to be successful, there can no discussion of compromises or reform. Reform would preserve the old system while tackling its flaws: but revolution would sweep away the old corrupt system and build a sound new system in its place. The Egyptian revolution has proved it is extraordinary for several reasons: firstly because it was able to overthrow one of the most repressive regimes in the world through peaceful demonstrations; secondly because those who made the revolution came out to clean the streets themselves—very civilized behavior; thirdly because the revolution triumphed and did not take power but instead entrusted power to a caretaker authority in the form of the Egyptian army and, however much we might disagree with it, we should not forget that by taking power it saved Egypt from chaos, assassinations, and the acts of violence that always follow revolutions. Nor should we forget that the army command refused to open fire on the demonstrators and took the side of the revolution before Mubarak stepped down, and this was a courageous decision that would have paid a heavy price if Mubarak had managed to stay in power. So the army’s role in protecting the revolution is well-known and appreciated by all. But now Egyptians feel anxious and apprehensive about the future. And they expect the military council to take specific actions that they see as essential to its duty to protect the country and the revolution.
Armed forces throughout the world are disciplined institutions noted for their efficiency and precision, but at the same time they are conservative non-revolutionary institutions based on order, obedience, and carrying out commands. With the armed forces acting as head of state in the transitional period, the decisions issued by the military council appear to be military commands approved and implemented without recourse to the citizenry. In fact, the decisions have been taken first, and then dialogue sessions have been held to discuss them—an arrangement that indicates that the decisionmakers are not bound by the results of the dialogue, which strips the dialogue of any value and reduces it to mere chitchat. Some people have of course aired criticisms of the military council’s political performance. Unfortunately this natural and legitimate criticism has not been met with understanding on the part of some officials in the military council. On several occasions they have hinted at their displeasure with this criticism and they then started referring anyone who criticized them to the military prosecutor’s office. The list of people referred in this way has grown longer and longer: talk show host Reem Maged and journalists Rasha Azab, Nabil Sharafeddin, and Adel Hamouda. Even Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the great intellectual, has not been spared. When he expressed a point of view that minimized the role of the Egyptian air force in the 1973 war, the pilots who took part in the war took offense and filed a report to the public prosecutor accusing him of slandering them. Up till then the dispute was natural enough and might have taken place in any democratic country, but now to our surprise we hear that Heikal has been referred to the military prosecutor’s office. The message here is clear: from now on, any criticism of the military council’s performance will carry a cost and lead to a court martial. Referring intellectuals and opinion-makers to military prosecution, just like referring civilians to military courts, is a violation of human rights and freedom of expression and is unacceptable and unjustifiable conduct. We expect the military council to reconsider such practices so that Egyptian respect for the military remains full and untarnished.
After the revolution triumphed and Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down, the constitutional lawyers were unanimous in saying that the old constitution had lapsed with the downfall of the regime and called for elections to a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, but the military council revived Mubarak’s proposal to amend certain articles of the old constitution. It set up a committee of legal experts with only a single constitutional specialist and with several members who belonged to, or were sympathetic to, the Muslim Brotherhood. A referendum was held and Egyptians turned out to vote in vast numbers, reflecting their commitment to democracy. In fact the referendum was free and fair but some irregular practices did take place before the referendum and undoubtedly affected the result. Mosques and churches were used for electoral propaganda, a serious violation of election law in any democratic country. Some Islamists portrayed a “yes” vote as a religious duty; they tricked people by saying that the referendum would establish Egypt’s Islamic identity and distributed tens of thousands of leaflets to that effect, misleading simple people in the countryside. In the end the referendum result was in favor of the constitutional amendments by a large majority.
Then something surprising happened: the military council went beyond the referendum result, announcing a 63-article constitution (the referendum covered only nine articles). People split into two groups. One group held that declaring an interim constitution negated and annulled the result of the referendum, and this group called for the postponement of elections until after a new constitution is written, because they are worried the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists, and the remnants of the old ruling party would win a majority in the next parliament, which would then write the constitution, and that this would lead to a biased constitution that does not speak for all sectors of Egyptian society. The second group is committed to holding elections on time and advocates respecting the referendum result regardless of all other considerations. In fact I opposed the constitutional amendments in the referendum but I thought that ignoring the referendum result would be a flagrant and unacceptable infringement on the wishes of 14 million Egyptians who voted in their favor, and supported a particular concept of how the transition should take place. On the other hand, allowing a constituent committee chosen by appointment to write the constitution before the elections would be fraught with dangers and could, in the end, give us a constitution that would not reflect the will of the Egyptian people. The solution I propose is that the parliamentary elections take place on time and a hundred members of parliament are elected to write the constitution, as the interim constitution prescribes, provided that another 100 committee members from outside parliament are chosen to help them write the constitution. That way we would be respecting the referendum result and at the same time ensuring that the next constitution reflects the will of the Egyptian people as a whole. We expect the military council to listen to all opinions and take steps to ensure that one particular political group does not control the next constitution.
While the revolution did get rid of Mubarak and his gang, the military council has preferred to leave many old regime officials in their jobs—university presidents appointed by State Security, media officials who pandered to Mubarak and misled the Egyptian people for decades, and most of the top Interior Ministry officials who were Mubarak’s instruments in his repression of Egyptians. All these are still in their old positions, and the new provincial governors look as if they were appointed by Hosni Mubarak himself, because all of them belong to the old regime, including former State Security officers who, instead of being tried for torturing and humiliating Egyptians, are being honored by receiving governorships. Even the local councils and the trade union federations, which emerged from rigged elections and contained leaders who participated in the old regime’s crimes, have been left untouched by the military council, which has refused to issue a decree dissolving them.
All this makes the scene even murkier, and leads Egyptians to wonder what use the revolution was if Mubarak’s followers are still in the same positions. Retaining the supporters of the old regime also gives such loyalists a golden opportunity to conspire against the revolution and abort any changes. We expect the military council to firstly take urgent measures to purge the civil service of the old Mubarak followers and, secondly, promote to positions of responsibility the young people who really made the revolution, and without whose courage and vision Egypt would not have changed.
Egypt is now going through a decisive phase that will determine the future for coming generations. Now the battle in Egypt is not between Islamists and secularists, as some claim, but between democratic forces and fascist forces (the term “fascist” applies to a group of people who do not recognize the people’s right to rule themselves and who think that they alone possess the truth and that they have the right to impose their ideas on the people by force). The democratic camp includes enlightened Islamists, leftists, and liberals, as well as the throngs of Egyptians who made the revolution so that the people could be sovereign and the community could be the source of authority. The fascist camp includes supporters of the old regime, who think the people are not qualified to exercise democracy, and who are therefore unable to grasp the logic of the revolution or sympathize with its legitimate demands, and religious extremists who do not recognize the people’s right to govern themselves in the first place and who consider themselves representatives of God Almighty, free to enforce their understanding of His rules as they wish. These people give themselves the right to set fire to churches, demolish the tombs of holy men, destroy statues, and denounce anyone who disagrees with them as hostile to Islam and as infidels. They can never understand or respect democracy. We expect the military council to take the side of the democratic forces and take the necessary measures to protect the civil state for which the revolution was made. Only then will the future begin in Egypt.
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