On the State of Egypt (2 page)

Hosni Mubarak and his interior minister, Habib al-Adli, committed every possible crime in order to stop the revolution. The riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters, and then orders went out to kill them. I was in the midst of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators when the snipers started firing. They were standing on the roof of the Interior Ministry, their rifles equipped with laser sights. The shots aimed at the protesters’ heads would kill them instantly. Two young men fell close to me within one half an hour. The amazing thing is that the protesters did not retreat. As far as I could I urged the young men to move away from the Interior Ministry so that the snipers would not kill them. But no one cared any longer for their life or safety. It seemed that millions of people had melded into one giant human throng fighting for freedom regardless of the difficulties and the sacrifices. When all these crimes failed to stop the revolution, the regime carried out its emergency plan: police officers received orders to withdraw so that not a single policeman would be left in all Egypt. Then the prisons were opened and thousands of dangerous criminals were set free, armed, and sent out to attack houses and start fires. The aim was to frighten Egyptians into giving up the protests and staying at home to protect their houses from attack. But this vile scheme only made the people more determined than ever to continue the revolution. In every street in Egypt they set up neighborhood watch groups to protect against criminals and thugs. Day after day the revolution made progress, and the regime tottered. On the eighteenth day I was standing near Tahrir Square having a discussion with some protesters when I heard a sharp cry, followed by loud shouts of “He’s stepped down!” Millions of Egyptians then launched into a riotous celebration that continued throughout the night, overjoyed that Mubarak had resigned and the dictatorship had fallen.

The Egyptian revolution took the world by surprise and forced western interests to reconsider the superficial and flawed political analysis of Egypt that had long prevailed. From the first day broad international solidarity with the revolution was evident. Across the west people declared their support for the demands of the Egyptian people, while some western governments hesitated until the last moment between supporting the revolution and backing Mubarak, their dictatorial ally. In the end the most important question remains: Why did Egypt finally revolt? What were the problems and contradictions in Egyptian society that made the unexpected revolution inevitable? This book may contain many of the answers.

February 2011

THE PRESIDENCY AND SUCCESSION

The Egyptian Campaign against the Succession

T
hose who work in the theater know the moment when one scene ends, the stage goes dark, and the stage hands move in at speed to remove the set from the previous scene and replace it with the set for the next scene. This process, known as changing the set, calls for training and skill but first of all precise knowledge of what the next scene requires. Like all Egyptians I watched the latest conference of the National Democratic Party and was surprised at the extraordinary ability of the senior officials to fabricate and lie. They speak about achievements that exist only in their reports and their imaginations while millions of Egyptians live in complete misery. But I also felt that Egypt is now undergoing a ‘changing the set’ moment that was meant to take place quickly but has dragged on and faltered, and there are many reasons for that.

First, President Mubarak has been ruling Egypt for thirty years and is now more than eighty years old. Although I have full respect for him, by virtue of age and the law of nature he cannot continue in his position forever. A few days ago Mr. Emad Adib suddenly confronted public opinion with a most unusual remark: he said he hoped the president would give up his office and suggested presidents should be able to leave power safely, in the sense that they should not be held to account, politically or legally, for their deeds while in office. It’s hard to imagine that a veteran commentator who is close to the presidency, such as Emad Adib, would venture such a precise and serious suggestion unless he had permission or instructions to do so. These signs add to the confusion on the political stage in our country, because we don’t know whether the president will step down or stay in office. It often seems as though there are two wills at work at the summit of power: one in favor of the president remaining and the other in favor of him stepping down.

Second, for years the Egyptian regime has worked hard to prepare Mr. Gamal Mubarak to inherit the government of Egypt from his father. This effort has not been confined to Egypt but has extended abroad as well, and the main aim of Egyptian foreign policy is now, I’m sorry to say, to muster the support of western countries for Mr. Gamal Mubarak. The price for this western consent is the interests, the money, and the dignity of Egyptians. The Egyptian regime has understood that the key to the West’s heart is in Israel’s hands. If Israel is content, then all the western countries will immediately be content. For the sake of the succession the Egyptian regime has fallen over itself to offer services to Israel. From 2005 until today Israel has obtained from Egypt things it had not obtained since Camp David in 1978: the return of the Egyptian ambassador, gas, oil, and cement agreements, and, more important than all that, Egypt’s attempts to persuade or force the Palestinians to do everything Israel demands. This went as far as closing the Rafah border crossing and taking part in the blockade of the Palestinians, and punishing Hamas so that it submits to Israel’s will.

In return for these services the Egyptian regime has been able to obtain implicit international support on the succession question. We may recall the Sharm al-Sheikh conference that took place after the Gaza massacre, how western leaders feted President Mubarak and thanked him officially for what they called “his efforts for peace.” We may also recall how President Obama, whom the American people elected to defend human rights and democracy through the world, himself heaped praise on President Mubarak as a wise leader taking steps toward democracy. This double standard has always marked the attitudes of western governments. Any allegation of electoral fraud in Iran (Israel’s prime enemy) is immediately met with an intense and relentless campaign by western media and officials in defense of democracy, whereas the emergency law, detentions, torture, constitutional amendments to enable the succession, and the abolition of judicial supervision in Egypt, all that does not at all arouse the indignation of westerners, because the Egyptian regime is an important and loyal ally to Israel and the United States.

Third, the succession campaign may have succeeded internationally but inside Egypt it has been an abject failure, because Egyptians have never accepted the idea that Egypt should become a monarchical republic in which the son inherits his father’s throne. Add to that the fact that Gamal Mubarak himself, while I fully respect his person, may be a successful expert on banks and business management but he does not have any political talent or experience of any kind. Dozens of meetings and seminars have been held at which Gamal Mubarak has made speeches hailed by hypocritical members of the National Democratic Party and government writers, and Mr. Gamal Mubarak has been to villages and poor neighborhoods on numerous visits where some wretched people are chosen by State Security to have their pictures taken as they clap and cheer for him. None of these campaigns has convinced Egyptians that succession is a good idea. On the contrary, they have made Egyptians reject, condemn, and sometimes joke about the succession.

Fourth, conditions in Egypt have reached rock bottom in the full sense: poverty, disease, oppression, corruption, unemployment, lack of healthcare, and deteriorating education. Would anyone have imagined that Egyptians would end up drinking sewage water? The number of people who have died on the ferry that sank, on burning trains, and in collapsed buildings is more than the number who died in all the wars Egypt has fought. That’s why protests and strikes have proliferated in a way that Egypt has not seen since the revolution of 1952. The regime’s apologists say these protests do not reflect a real desire for radical reform but are aimed at achieving narrow professional demands. It escapes those people that most revolutions in history started out with protest movements that did not fundamentally seek revolution, because revolution is not a slogan or a prior objective but a stage a society goes through at a certain moment, when everything becomes liable to ignite. We are definitely at such a stage. All Egyptians know that the old status quo is no longer tenable or acceptable, and that change is inevitably on its way. Our national duty is to try to ensure peaceful democratic change, or else Egypt will face the danger of overwhelming chaos, which no one wants because it would set everything ablaze.

Perhaps it is this feeling of danger that drove the great writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal to go public with his transitional project for democratic change. Although we might not agree with some of the details of Heikal’s project, it remains an excellent and objective starting point for real reform. On top of that, Egyptians have started to air the names of major figures whom they would like to see win the presidency, such as Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Amr Moussa, and Dr. Ahmed Zewail, all of them much more eligible than Gamal Mubarak to take on the presidency.

Lastly, a few days ago an Egyptian Campaign against Succession began, and as soon as it was announced, dozens of public figures, associations, and political parties joined it. I attended the opening meeting of this campaign and I felt optimistic at the enthusiasm and sincerity of those present. Hassan Nafaa was chosen as campaign coordinator—a respectable figure who brings great credibility to what we are doing. The members of this campaign are from diverse political trends, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood, to socialists and Nasserists such as Abdel Halim Kandil, to liberals such as Ayman Nour and Osama al-Ghazali Harb. Despite our political and ideological differences, we have come together to perform our national duty. Our objectives are clear and legitimate: to prevent great Egypt from being passed from father to son as though it were a piece of land or a poultry farm, to restore the natural right of Egyptians to choose who rules them, and to bring about justice and freedom for Egyptians. Egypt has the potential to be a great state but this potential is thwarted by despotism. If democracy came about, Egypt would flourish within years through the work of its own people.

Dear reader, I invite you to join the Egyptian Campaign against Succession if you oppose injustice and despotism and look forward to the dignified life you and your children deserve. Come and join us. God willing, we will shape Egypt’s future without waiting for them to shape it their way to serve their own interests. The time has come for us to leave our seats in the auditorium and create the next scene ourselves.

Democracy is the solution.

November 1, 2009

Three Fallacious Arguments for Supporting Gamal Mubarak

L
ast week I wrote about the creation of the Egyptian Campaign against Succession, which aims to prevent President Mubarak from passing our country on to his son, Gamal, because Egypt is not a private estate or a poultry farm owned by someone, whatever his rank or position. Patriotic intellectuals, political parties, and organizations of various political and intellectual tendencies took part in setting up the campaign and all of them decided to do their best to ensure Egyptians regain their natural right to elect the next president of the republic through respectable elections.

As soon as the article appeared, dozens of messages flooded in to me from readers inside Egypt and abroad, all of them declaring their support for the campaign and asking how they can join it. I thank the readers, I appreciate their magnanimous enthusiasm, and I assure them that within a few days the campaign’s founding statement will come out and the procedures for joining will be announced. We expect this campaign to enjoy complete success, God willing, but we also understand that the path will not be easy, because the Egyptian regime has formed its own special organization to promote the succession, with journalists, politicians, media people, and law professors whose sole task is to prepare the Egyptian people to accept the idea of succession. No one respects these advocates of succession because they are hypocrites who have betrayed their professional and patriotic duties, preferring to serve their personal interests over the interests of the nation. Gamal Mubarak’s propagandists have only three fallacious arguments they repeat again and again. In brief, they run like this:

First, they say Mr. Gamal Mubarak is an urbane, well-educated young man and irreplaceable as the presidential candidate at this time. They also say that he will be the first civilian president of Egypt since the revolution of 1952, and that this is a step toward democracy. So why don’t we all agree on him, with the provision that he promises to serve only two presidential terms? We agree with them that Gamal Mubarak is indeed urbane, has had a fair amount of education, and speaks English fluently, but we don’t understand what all that has to do with the presidency. In Egypt there are hundreds of thousands of urbane people with advanced academic degrees who have good English and French. Are they all fit to be president? As for the idea that Gamal Mubarak is the only option, this is not true. Egypt has enough talent and intellectual power to serve ten countries together. As the pace of the succession process speeds up, Egyptians have started to think of major figures who would be suitable as president: Ahmed Zewail, Mohamed ElBaradei, Amr Moussa, Hesham al-Bastawisi, Zakaria Abdel Aziz, and many others. All of these are far preferable to Gamal Mubarak as president.

The argument that Gamal Mubarak will be a civilian president for Egypt is also based on a fallacy, because what defines the nature of a regime is not the profession of the president but the way in which he assumes power. There are autocratic military regimes that have put a civilian into the presidency, as happened in Syria with Bashar al-Asad, and alternatively there are democratic systems in which military men have left military service and stood for election and won, or have taken on ministerial or presidential jobs, like Colin Powell in the United States and Charles de Gaulle in France. If Gamal Mubarak gains the presidency of Egypt, this will not put an end to military rule but merely add to it another disaster. Autocracy will be combined with a hereditary system, and after that what will there be to stop Gamal Mubarak from granting the presidency to his son or nephew? Those who say that Gamal Mubarak will restrict himself to two presidential terms are trying to deceive the public and do not respect people’s intelligence. What will oblige Gamal Mubarak to give up power voluntarily? At the beginning of his time in office President Hosni Mubarak also promised to restrict himself to two terms but then he went back on his promise and has stayed in power for thirty straight years.