Egypt: Between Counter-terrorism & Reintegration

By Ahmed Abou Taleb

On the 23^rd of September, after the socialist party Al Tagamo’a filed a case, a Cairo court ordered the Egyptian interim government to ban all Muslim Brotherhood (MB) activities and the organizations derived from it. As this is not the first ban of the Islamist organization in its 85-year history, the decision raised many questions on the impact, as well as the efficacy, of the verdict. While some argue that such decisions are a return to the old regime’s oppression, others assert that the ban is not enough to ensure the country’s stability.

The verdict, which included the seizure of the group’s funds and assets, seems similar to previous decisions by former governments. Yet, it differs from its precedents. In the 1940s, Prime Minister Mahmoud Fahmy Al Nokrashy decided to dismantle the organization only to be assassinated by the Brotherhood’s militia 20 days later. A few years later, Gamal Abdel Nasser decided to dismantle the group after a failed attempt to assassinate him. None of these previous decisions banned the organization’s activities, nor were they issued by a court after a lawsuit.

The court’s decision is controversial for several reasons. It comes after blood was shed during the authorities’ attempts to end some of the organization’s demonstrations and sit-ins, as well as the detention of some of the MB leaders, who allegedly incited and financed violent activities. This prompted the MB to run a huge media campaign in different Arab and Western countries, portraying the MB as a victim of oppression and prejudice practiced by security forces. The campaign succeeded to a great extent in distancing the organization from the attacks against churches, security forces in Sinai and police stations in several cities—as well the presence and use of arms during sit-ins and demonstrations.

Furthermore, some of the youth revolutionary groups, who have stood against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) since the January 2011 revolution, suspect that the army still has intentions to stay in power. Even though the army and its leader General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi do enjoy massive support at the moment—due to the campaign against terrorism and successful domestic public relations techniques—questions regarding the military’s intentions remain prevalent in public discourse. Hence, some interpret certain decisions.....READ THE ARTICLE

Special Report: The real force behind Egypt's 'revolution of the state'

(Reuters) - In Hosni Mubarak's final days in office in 2011, the world's gaze focused on Cairo, where hundreds of thousands of protesters demanded the resignation of one of the Arab world's longest serving autocrats.
Little attention was paid when a group of Muslim Brotherhood leaders broke free from their cells in a prison in the far off Wadi el-Natroun desert. But the incident, which triggered a series of prison breaks by members of the Islamist group around the country, caused panic among police officers fast losing their grip on Egypt.
One officer pleaded with his comrades for help as his police station was torched. "I am faced with more than 2,000 people and I am dealing with them alone in Dar al Salam, please hurry," the policeman radioed to colleagues as trouble spread. "Now they have machine guns, the youth are firing machine guns at me, send me reinforcements."

In all, 200 policemen and security officers were killed that day, Jan 28, called the Friday of Rage by anti-Mubarak demonstrators. Some had their throats slit. One of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders to escape was Mohamed Mursi, who would become president the following year.
Egypt's Interior Ministry, which controls all of the country's police forces including state security and riot police, never forgot the chaos. In particular the Wadi el-Natroun prison break became a powerful symbol inside the security apparatus of its lost power. Officers swore revenge on the Brotherhood and Mursi, according to security officials.

When army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared on television in July this year to announce the end of Mursi's presidency and plans for elections, it was widely assumed that Egypt's military leaders were the prime movers behind the country's counter revolution. But dozens of interviews with officials from the army, state security and police, as well as diplomats and politicians, show the Interior Ministry was the key force behind removing Egypt's first democratically elected president.
Senior officials in Egypt's General Intelligence Service (GIS) identified young activists unhappy with Mursi's rule, according to four Interior Ministry sources, who like most people interviewed for this story, asked to remain anonymous. The intelligence officials met with the activists, who told them they thought the army and Interior Ministry were "handing the country to the Brotherhood."
The intelligence officials advised the activists to take to the streets and challenge Mursi, who many felt had given himself sweeping powers and was mismanaging the economy, allegations he has denied. Six weeks later, a youth movement called Tamarud - "rebellion" in Arabic - began a petition calling for Mursi to step down.

Though that group's leaders were not among the youth who met the intelligence officials, they enjoyed the support of the Interior Ministry, according to the Interior Ministry sources. Ministry officials and police officers helped collect signatures for the petition, helped distribute the petitions, signed the petition themselves, and joined the protests.
"They are Egyptians like us and we were all upset by the Brotherhood and their horrible rule," said a 23-year-old woman in the Tamarud movement who asked not to be named.

For the Interior Ministry, Tamarud offered a chance to avenge Wadi el-Natroun; the reversal of fortunes has been remarkable. The state security force, both feared and despised during Mubarak's 30-year rule, has not only regained control of the country two and half years after losing power, but has won broad public support by staging one of the fiercest crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood in years.
The interior minister openly speaks of restoring the kind of security seen under Mubarak. A renewed confidence permeates the police force, whose reputation for brutality helped fuel the 2011 uprising. Egyptians now lionize the police. Television stations praise the Interior Ministry and the army, depicting them as heroes and saviors of the country.

The Interior Ministry's most dreaded unit, the Political Security Unit, has been revived to deal with the Brotherhood. Under Mubarak, officers in that department were notorious for treating citizens with a heavy hand and intruding into their lives. When activists broke into the agency's premises shortly after Mubarak was forced to quit on February 11, 2011, they found and posted online documents, videos and pictures of what they described as a torture chamber with a blood-stained floor and equipped with chains.
The Interior Ministry has apologized for "violations" in the past and has said they will not be repeated.
Key to the turnaround has been the Interior Ministry's ability to forge much closer ties to the army, the most powerful and respected institution in Egypt. It was a tactic that began almost as soon as Mubarak stepped down.

FUMING SILENTLY
Weeks after Mubarak was overthrown, the Interior Ministry called a meeting at the police academy in Cairo. The gathering, headed by the interior minister and senior security officials, was the first in a series that discussed how to handle the Brotherhood, according to two policemen who attended some of the gatherings.

Thousands of mid- and lower-ranking officers were angry and said they could not serve under a president they regarded as a terrorist. Senior officers tried to calm them, arguing that the men needed to wait for the right moment to move against Mursi. "We tried to reassure them but the message did not get through," said a senior police official. "They just fumed silently."

The senior state security officer told Reuters there were no explicit orders to disobey Mursi but that a large number of officers decided they would not be "tools" for the Brotherhood.
"I worked during Mursi's time. I never failed to show up at any mission. This included securing his convoys. Yet I never felt I was doing it from the heart," said one major in state security.
"It was hard to feel that you are doing a national job for your country while what you are really doing was securing a terrorist."

Resentment grew when Mursi pardoned 17 Islamist militants held since the 1990s for attacks on soldiers and policemen. One of the militants had killed dozens of policemen in an attack in the Sinai. None of them publicly denied the charges or even commented on them.
Mursi's decision last November to grant himself sweeping powers triggered a wave of public protest. On December 5, protesters rallied in front of the Ittihadiya, the main presidential palace in Cairo. As the crowd grew, Mursi ordered security forces to disperse them. They refused. A senior security officer said there was no explicit order to disobey Mursi but they all acted "according to their conscience."

The Muslim Brotherhood brought in its own forces to try and quell the unrest and Brotherhood supporters tried to hand some protesters to police to be arrested. But the police refused, Brotherhood officials said at the time.
"Do they think the police forgot? Our colleagues are in jail because of the Brotherhood," said a state security officer.

Ten people were killed in the ensuing clashes, most of them Brotherhood supporters. Liberal activists accused Brotherhood members of beating and torturing anti-Mursi protesters.
Mursi miscalculated further by calling off a meeting sought by the army to discuss how to calm the storm, according to two army sources.
"It was a veiled message to stay out of politics, and we got it, as we understood that Mursi was an elected leader and (it) would be hard to defy that," said an army colonel. "But it was clear by then where his rule was driving the state."

"CONSTANT FIGHTS"
In January 2013, Mursi fired Ahmed Gamal, former senior state security officer, as interior minister and replaced him with Mohamed Ibrahim who was the senior-most official with the least exposure to the anti-Brotherhood factions inside the ministry, security sources said. Ibrahim was seen as weaker and more malleable than Gamal, who was blamed by the Brotherhood for not acting harshly enough against anti-Mursi protests.

But appointing Ibrahim, who was previously an assistant to the interior minister for prison affairs, proved to be a costly mistake. He moved to get close to the army, attending events to establish direct contact with army chief Sisi and regularly complimenting the general on his management techniques, said the police major.
Sisi had served as head of military intelligence under Mubarak. He was known to be religious and had the charisma to inspire younger army officers. Mursi believed those younger officers posed less of a threat than the old generals who had served under Mubarak and whom he fired in August 2012, two months after he took office.
But the country's police chiefs had one message for the military: The Brotherhood is bad news.
"We are in constant fights on the streets. This made us tougher than the army and ruthless," said the police major. "We don't understand the language of negotiating with terrorists. We wanted to handle them from day one."

Ibrahim rejected requests by Reuters for an interview and would not answer questions sent by email. Sisi could not be reached for comment.
By early 2013, army officers and Interior Ministry officials had begun meeting in the military's lavish social and sports clubs, some of which overlook the Nile. Over lunch or steak dinners, officials would discuss the Brotherhood and Egypt's future, according to senior state security officers and army officers who took part in the meetings.

The Interior Ministry argued that the Brotherhood was a threat to national security and had to go, according to one senior security officer. In the 1990s, during the Interior Ministry's battle with the Muslim Brotherhood, the ministry had referred to all Islamists as terrorists. It urged the army to adopt the same terminology.
"I have gone to some of those meetings with the army and we spoke a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood. We had more experience with them then the army. We shared those experiences and the army became more and more convinced that those people have to go and are bad for Egypt," the senior security officer said.
"The army like many people who have not dealt directly with the Brotherhood and seen their dirtiness wanted to believe that they have something to offer to Egypt. But for us it was a waste of time."

Officials in the Interior Ministry warned the military that Mursi's maneuverings were merely a way to shore up his power. The Muslim Brotherhood, they told their army colleagues, was more interested in creating an Islamic caliphate across the region than serving Egypt.
"The Brotherhood have a problem with the Egyptian state," said the state security officer. "I am certain that Mursi came to implement the plan of the Brotherhood ... They don't believe in the nation of Egypt to begin with."

Over time, middle-ranking Interior Ministry officers became more vocal with the military. The message got through at the highest level. Early this year, army chief Sisi warned Mursi that his government would not last.
"I told Mursi in February you failed and your project is finished," Sisi was quoted as saying in an interview published this month in the newspaper al-Masry al-Youm.
Interior Ministry officials believed that the Brotherhood planned to restructure the ministry, one state security officer said. Concerned officials discussed the issue in a private meeting in the parliament.
One option was the cancellation of the police academy. Many saw that as a threat to their institution and careers.
"The news became known to young officers. This action is against the interest of the officers. He was fighting their future," said the state security officer.

Muslim Brotherhood officials have denied plotting against the Interior Ministry and say there were no plans to dismantle the police academy. They have previously accused Interior Ministry officials of working to undermine the government, refusing to protect Brotherhood leaders, and trying to turn the public against the group's rule.

"We cooperated with the Interior Ministry all along. We never had plans to undermine it or the police academy. It was the Interior Ministry that refused to work with us," said Brotherhood official Kamal Fahim. "All along they resisted us and tried to turn Egyptians against us."

"DOWN, DOWN"
Pressure from the Interior Ministry on Sisi and the military grew, helped by the emergence in May of the Tamarud.

At first the group was not taken seriously. But as it gathered signatures, Egyptians who had lost faith in Mursi took notice, including Interior Ministry officials. Some of those officials and police officers helped collect signatures and joined the protests.
"Of course we joined and helped the movement, as we are Egyptians like them and everyone else. Everyone saw that the whole Mursi phenomena is not working for Egypt and everyone from his place did what they can to remove this man and group," said a security official.

"The only difference was that the police and state security saw the end right from the start but the rest of the Egyptians did not and had to experience one year of their failed rule to agree with us."

On June 15, the Interior Ministry held a meeting of 3,000 officers, including generals and lieutenants, at its social club in the Medinat Nasr district of Cairo to discuss the death of a police officer killed by militants in Sinai. Islamist militancy in Sinai, mainly targeting police and army officers, had risen sharply after Mursi's election.
Some at the meeting blamed "terrorist elements ... released by Mohamed Mursi," said the state security officer.

Police officers started chanting "Down, down with the rule of the General Guide," a reference to Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie, now in jail on charges of inciting violence during the Ittihadiya protests.

On June 30 - the anniversary of Mursi's first year in office - angry Interior Ministry officers joined Tamarud members and millions of other Egyptians to demand the president's resignation. Four days later, Sisi appeared on television and announced what amounted to a military takeover. Some security officials called the move "the revolution of the state."

TEARGAS, BULLETS AND BULLDOZERS

For weeks after Mursi's overthrow, Western officials tried to persuade Sisi to refrain from using force to break up Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo. But the hardline Interior Ministry, which had quickly regained its old swagger, pressed for a crackdown. Police officials argued that Brotherhood members had weapons.

"For us, negotiations were a waste of time," said the state security major. "We know what was coming: terrorism. And now after this horrible experience I think everyone learned a lesson and appreciates us and that we were right about those people."

Early on the morning of August 14 policemen in black uniforms and hoods stormed the Rabaa al-Adawiya camp, one of two main vigils of Brotherhood supporters in Cairo.
The police ignored a plan by the army-backed cabinet to issue warnings and use water cannons to disperse protesters, instead using teargas, bullets and bulldozers. Hundreds died there and many more died in clashes that erupted across the country after the raid.

Army officers later asked the police why the death toll was so high, according to a military source.
The interior minister said his forces were fired on first.

"It is one thing for decisions to be taken by officials in suits and sitting in air-conditioned rooms," said a state security officer in charge of some top Brotherhood cases. "But we as troops on the ground knew that this decision can never be implemented when dealing with anything related to this terrorist organization. Force had to be used and that can never be avoided with those people."
Despite the use of force and the deaths, liberal Egyptians who had risen up against Mubarak seemed sanguine.

The liberal National Salvation Front (NSF) alliance praised the actions of security forces. "Today Egypt raised its head up high," said the NSF in a statement after the raid. "The National Salvation Front salutes the police and army forces."
Two years after the Wadi el-Natroun prison break, the Interior Ministry had power again. It announced it would use live ammunition when dealing with protesters it accused of "scaring citizens." Trucks used by the once-dreaded anti-riot security forces now have signs on them which read "The People's Police."

The government has jailed the Brotherhood's top leaders in a bid to crush Egypt's oldest Islamist movement. Muslim Brotherhood officials now face trial in connection with the Ittihadiya protests.
Senior security officers say their suspicions about the Brotherhood were confirmed in documents they found when they raided the group's headquarters. The documents suggested that Mursi planned to dismantle the army under the guise of restructuring, they said. One of the documents, which a state security officer showed to Reuters, calls for the building of an Islamic state "in any eligible spot."
Muslim Brotherhood leaders could not be reached to comment on this document because most of them are either in jail or hiding.

Police officials say they no longer abuse Egyptians and have learned from their mistakes under Mubarak. But not everyone is buying that line.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Murad Ali, who was recently imprisoned, wrote in a letter smuggled out of prison and seen by Reuters that he was put in a foul-smelling, darkened cell on death row and forced to sleep on a concrete floor. Lawyers for other Brotherhood members say prisoners are crammed into small cells and face psychological abuse. One elderly Brotherhood prisoner said guards shaved his head and brought vicious dogs around to scare him, inmates near his cell told Reuters.
There were no complaints of the type of whipping or electrocution seen in Mubarak's days. But Brotherhood members say the current crackdown is more intense. "The pressure never subsides. None of my Brotherhood colleagues sleep at the same place for too long and neither do I," said Waleed Ali, a lawyer who acts for the Brotherhood.


(This story is refiled to clarify in seventh paragraph that GIS is not part of Interior Ministry)
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Edited by Richard Woods and Simon Robinson)
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/10/us-egypt-interior-specialreport-idUSBRE99908D20131010#!

تسليم كتب المجمع العلمي لوزارة الثقافة

محاولة انقاذ كتب المجمعSaving Egypt's historic books

محاولة انقاذ كتب المجمع العلمي بعد احتراقه Trying to save Egypt's historic books

TEDxCairo - Fatma Said - The Day When The People Changed !

Remembering the original revolution

WANTED: Dear Protestor, Dear Soldier: FUCK YOU BOTH

The Good, the Fierce & the Politician : A new documentary about Tahrir

Now in Cinemas

Explainer: Why Egypt matters

With all the shit taking place in Egypt, with all the Egyptian blood spelled, with all the conflicts in which brothers and sisters became involved, and while watching Tahrir square and thinking why and how did objectives and methods dramatically change, I thought I would publish this article. I publish it with two main clear reasons in head. The first reason is to show those who aren't much concerned with Egypt, why the internal affairs of this country pop up from time to time intensively on his TV screen. The second and most important reason is to remind Egyptians currently trenched in hate, irrationality and drowning in fury  that they got a great country to build , take care of and a historical & natural burden to proudly bear. God Bless Egypt

The following article is by Roxanne Horesh & Sam Bollier

For much of its modern history, strategically located Egypt has been a pivotal force in the Middle East.
Since winning independence from the British in 1922, the country once known as "The Mother of the World" has been governed by kings and dictators. Many Egyptians grew to distrust politics and steered clear of elections.

Such apathy ended in January, when Egyptians rose up in mass protest and toppled Hosni Mubarak, a president who held power since 1981. Now, ten months after the uprising, Egyptians will go the polls on November 28 to select a new parliament.
Al Jazeera spoke to a range of influential experts about why the world should be watching as Egypt votes.

 

Derek Plumbly

Plumbly is a British diplomat who has served as ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Egypt is uniquely significant in the Arab world by weight of its population, its history, the role it played in modernising the Arab world, and the influence it had in the second half of the 20th century in furthering Arab nationalism. It made itself then very much the epicenter of the Arab world.

However, in the last couple of decades, the cautious policies adopted by the Mubarak regime reduced that influence significantly. But I think all the underlying factors are there, and the revolution has brought them back into play in a new way. Although the original inspiration came from Tunisians, it was really the shock of the January events in Egypt which sent vibrations throughout the rest of the Arab world. How the Egyptian revolution plays out is crucial for governance across the Arab world.
Elections are central to this. They will be conducted on the basis of a very convoluted electoral system, which I think anybody would find very difficult to understand. With only two weeks to go to the first round, decisions are still being taken with regard to important issues like the eligibility of candidates and overseas voting. The powers of the new assembly, once elected, are not yet clearly defined. And with all the discussion of process, one feels that political parties must have had difficulty helping voters to understand where they stand on key issues, including economic ones and issues of social justice.
Nonetheless, people I know are excited to have the opportunity to vote for the first time in genuine elections. Since the revolution, the message sent by events in Egypt has been confusing. The clarity of January's focus on freedom hasn't been there. The electoral process will be long and drawn-out, but hopefully it will be free and fair and thus bring new clarity, and a new legitimacy. Tunisia's elections went well. If those in Egypt, with its regional weight, also go well, it will give enormous encouragement to democrats across the region.

 

Khaled Fahmy

Fahmy is an associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies and history at the American University of Cairo. He is the author most recently of Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt.
[These] elections are important for a number of reasons: It is the first free elections in modern memory since 1952. For the overwhelming majority of Egyptians, this is the first time they will go and vote in a free election. This is the election for a parliament that will form a constitutional assembly that will then write the constitution.

I don't think that the election will be a clear reflection of the different political factions on the ground, because the political landscape is still in the process of formation and is being reformed and reshaped from day to day. No election will be able to capture that rapidly changing system. In that sense, it is not the upcoming election that will give us an indication of who is where and the relative strength of the different forces in Egypt, but rather the following election. That doesn't belittle in any form or shape the significance of the election itself.
The biggest obstacle is the army, and the conflicting and confusing electoral laws that have been sent out by the army. It is effectively the army that is ruling the county. The military is trying to find a formula whereby it can guarantee its position in the post-election Egypt, so it has been trying different tactics. Earlier in the summer, it tried to have some type of an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, and that failed. Then it tried the liberal parties and again that failed.
In terms of actual concrete programmes of different candidates and parties, we haven't seen any real debate about the questions that led to the uprising in January. We don't have clear alternatives, except for the ideological ones - most seriously between secularists and Islamists. I think this is what the election will end up being about. This was not a revolution about or by Islamists, but the elections effectively ended up being an election about the role of Islam in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Historically, Islamists are the largest force whether we like it or not. Islamists have been hounded, oppressed, imprisoned, and have not been represented for the past 60 years. Even though it was not the Islamists that started [the uprising in] January, they stood to benefit most from it. It was the genie in the bottle and it is out now.
If you are asking me in a general sense I am very critical of Islamists, but I think this can only be a healthy thing for the region and for the world. September 11, 2001, was a very direct result of the lack of democracy in a place like Egypt and like Saudi Arabia, where very serious grievances have not been given the chance to be aired domestically. Allowing Islamists a role in the official political plane can only be a healthy thing, and we will see how they will perform in parliament.

 

Carrie Wickham

Wickham is an associate professor of political science at Emory University in the US state of Georgia. Her research focuses on the rise of Islamic activism in Egypt and other Arab states. Her latest book, Islamist Movement Change in the Arab World, will soon be published.
There are several aspects of the upcoming phase that will be crucial in determining whether or not a true and genuine transition to democracy is achieved.

The elections themselves will serve as a barometer of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) commitment to a truly transparent and fair electoral process. Among the things we need to be looking at are: Is the process fully supervised by judges? Is the process free of security intervention? Are independent election monitors going to be given the opportunity to observe the voting process?
There is also the issue of voter turnout, because the size of the turnout will indicate Egyptian citizens' faith in the democratic process. I would expect turnout to be very high.
I think that there are tradeoffs involved in holding elections sooner rather than later. Holding elections later would give newer parties more time to build an organisational presence at the grassroots level and reach out to voters. At the same time, though, it would also perpetuate the military's control over the political system and delay the transfer of power to elected civilian representatives of the people. I favour holding elections now, with the understanding that newer parties are going to be at a significant institutional disadvantage.
We have to remember the Muslim Brotherhood has itself committed to run for not more than 50 per cent of the seats. They have made a very explicit commitment from the outset to "participate, not dominate". I expect them to follow through with that for a wide range of reasons, including their own self-interest: They're fully aware that a Brotherhood-dominated parliament would create anxiety and apprehension among powerful actors, including the military and western governments.
I see even before the election there are signs of an embryonic national consensus. The Islamist and secular parties have made ideological concessions to each other. For example, secular parties, including the Wafd, have agreed to retain Article 2 of the constitution, which states that the principles of Sharia are the primary source of legislation, a point very important to the Brotherhood.
For their part, the Brotherhood has committed itself to the principles of party pluralism, peaceful alternation of power, participation not domination.  I think those concerned that the Brotherhood is going to use the electoral process to “seize power and impose its agenda on a reluctant citizenry” is truly overblown. Yet it remains to be seen to what extent the Brotherhood will exercise pragmatic self-restraint in the future.
For the aspirations of the revolutionaries to truly be fulfilled, it's not just a matter of holding elections. It's also a question of moving toward a deeper structural transformation of the authoritarian state system. I see the parliamentary elections as very important, but only a first step in a broader transition process that will need to incorporate other elements to fulfill all the potential of the Arab Spring.

 

Nabil Fahmy

Fahmy was the Egyptian ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2008. He is now Dean of the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Cairo.
I think the parliamentary election matters even more than the presidential election. And the reason is the parliamentary elections are occurring first. Based on that election, the parliament will have an important role in defining the composition of the constitutional assembly, which will then write up the new Egypt constitution. [The elections' significance is] twofold: It's the first parliament after the revolution, and secondly, this will have a very important role in writing up the constitution.

I personally would have preferred to have the constitution written up first, and then held the elections for president and parliament in that sequence. That would have been the better approach to doing it, and there would have been therefore less political and more nation-building.
If we hold the elections peacefully, and the results come out representative of the public, this should be a very strong indication to the Arab world and everybody else as well that Egyptians again are pioneering the thought process, the nation-building process in our region.
I think you have to look at the Mubarak era carefully. I don't characterise it as being subservient to the US or Israel, I just see it as losing its energy, its initiative towards that last decade. When you lose your initiative regionally, somebody in the region will fill that void - a role which we normally played. I think they [the US] should continue to try to play a complementing role. The regions should be led by regional players with the global players supporting, but not necessarily defining the role.
Egypt's leadership role has traditionally been in its intellectual value added, not in its material support for one project or the other. This will bring us back to where we were in years past, leading the region intellectually.
I think the mere fact of holding the elections with all these competing parties responds to one of the issues [raised in the January uprising], which is people wanting to be stakeholders and participants in defining the politics of the region. [The election] doesn't respond to the larger questions: what is the role of religion in society, how do we balance the powers of the executive with the other organs of the state, the role of the military, the economic system.

 

Islam Lotfy

Lotfy is a lawyer and activist who was expelled from the Muslim Brotherhood when he founded the Egyptian Current Party. He writes the blog "al-Kawakby".
I think [the election] is very important, because it will show us if there is a real willingness to finish this transition period, or a willingness [to] vote for a new dictatorship in Egypt.

[An election] is the best choice at this moment because the alternative is nil. We know well it will contain a lot problems and fights and blood. Maybe we will have a lot of bloodshed. But I think we have no choice.
This is a time when all people [should] lift up their narrow affiliations, their ideologies, and target some national goals and cooperate together to do it. I believe that Egypt needs something like this during the next five years.
Religion plays a great and huge role in the life of the Egyptian person. The statistics show that 98 per cent of Egyptians believe that religion has an effective role in their life. The state is not allowed to use the religion to control the people, but if the people agree to self-monitor their conscience on their deeds and behaviors, [and] the agent of this is religion - this is the ideal case.
SCAF doesn't have the experience [on] how to be a dictatorship. So they are controlling the freedom of speech more than what Mubarak was doing. Once we switch the power to civilians, the freedom of speech will be better again.
They [the people] should have the chance to choose, and if we build a strong country and a good country which has a rule of law and is based on institutions, not persons, I will not care if the president is a Muslim, or Coptic, or a monkey. I don't care.


http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/11/201111181155455132.html?utm_content=features&utm_campaign=features&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=rss&utm_medium=tweet

The Egyptian Flag high in the sky العلم المصري عالي في السماء