When Will They Stop Insulting Us?

 

When Will They Stop Insulting Us?

 

 

 

by Alaa El Aswany

 

A few weeks ago the German public discovered that the president, Christian Wulff, had failed to declare a large private loan from a businessman friend while prime minister of Lower Saxony.  When prosecutors asked parliament to lift Wulff's immunity as president to investigate the possibility that he had granted or accepted favours, Wulff resigned. In another scandal several weeks earlier, British Energy Minister Chris Huhne had to resign after he was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by persuading his former wife to take penalty points he would have acquired through a speeding offence. The British public saw the minister's alleged conduct as unethical, which forced him to resign from his post. Such incidents happen all the time in democratic countries because the established principle there is that all government officials must be truthful and honest, and that if they get involved in any deceit or illegal activity then they are not worthy of their office. I remembered that as I was following the scandal over the sudden departure of the foreign defendants in the NGO funding case, which is still pending before the Egyptian courts. It was the military council that brought up the issue in the first place under mysterious circumstances, when it chose certain civil society organizations and sent the people in charge of them to trial on charges of receiving foreign funding. The strange thing was that these organizations had been working for a whole year in front of the eyes of the military council, which did not object to them. It is even stranger that the organizations had repeatedly applied to the authorities to register but the Egyptian government dragged its feet on issuing them with licences. I don't agree with foreign financing in principle and I hope legislation is passed to ban it outright, but it's odd that the military council's anger should be directed only at civil society organizations, while ignoring the religious associations and parties that according to government reports have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Gulf states. As usual the military council has applied a double standard, exempting its friends the Muslim Brotherhood and the salafis from any oversight while launching a sweeping attack on civil society organizations and accusing them of creating chaos and planning to divide Egypt into five small states. The trial had become a big media show in which the the military council tried to portray itself as an ultra-patriotic body that would never submit to Western pressures. Then, suddenly, the scandal broke: the judges in the case recused themselves from the case in protest at the pressures exerted by Judge Abdel Muizz (prompted by the military council) to lift the travel ban on the defendants. At that point Judge Abdel Muizz hurriedly transferred the case to another circuit  headed by a judge who is a former State Security officer, who did the necessary and lifted the travel ban. An American plane landed at Cairo airport and flew them out of the country in violation of the most basic legal principles. All Egyptians then felt insulted to see their national sovereignty and the laws of their country openly flouted. The same humiliation they felt when they saw Egyptian women dragged along the ground and molested or when they saw young men run over by armoured vehicles or blinded by shotgun pellets or shot dead with live ammunition fired by Egyptian troops. The contrast between the U.S. government, which fights to defend its citizens even if they are on trial, and the military council, which has offended the dignity of Egyptians again and again, must lead us to ask: why do Western governments defend their citizens' rights while the authorities in Egypt constantly humiliate their compatriots? I attribute this to three factors:

 

First, the nature of the system of government. The way a ruler comes to power defines his conduct in power. A president who comes to power though free elections is always subject to the will and oversight of the people. He cannot turn into a despot and ignore people's rights. The military council is now ruling Egypt by the same methods as Mubarak and it holds office because it has the power needed to stay in office. So naturally it doesn't recognize the rights of Egyptians because they didn't choose the council and they do not have the means to change it if they wanted to. The military council, like all despots, takes no account of the people. This contempt for the people usually spreads from the ruler to his ministers because they know that no one can hold them to account. They never resign, and they ingratiate themselves with the ruler and flatter him because they know that as long as the ruler is happy with them he will retain them, however much they insult, plunder and lie to the people.

 

Second, the level of judicial independence. The judiciary in democratic countries is completely independent and no one, not even the head of state, can intervene in its decisions. The most senior official knows that the most junior prosecutor can summon him, indict him and order him detained. Being prosecuted is a real nightmare that haunts any official in a democratic system, so they are careful to respect the law. In contrast, the judicial system in Egypt is not independent, but in practice subject to the authority of the head of state, because the judicial inspectorate, which controls incentives and penalties for the judiciary, is subordinate to the minister of justice, who is in turn appointed by the president of the republic (or the military council). In the end the minister of justice fully controls the fate of judges. On top of that, it is the president who appoints the public prosecutor, who has the authority to investigate and indict. There is also the system of internal secondment, which allows some judges to work as consultants for large fees in certain ministries at the same time as they are ruling in cases, fundamentally undermining the principle of judicial neutrality. To be fair, although the judicial system is not independent, most Egyptian judges are independent as a matter of conscience, for which they pay a high price in terms of income and peace of mind. The excellent position taken by the Cairo criminal court chaired by judge Mohamed Mahmoud Shukri, when he rejected the military council's pressures, is just one honourable example of what thousands of Egyptian judges do in cases that are not famous and about which we do not hear. In 2005 more than  two thirds of Egypt's judges fought a fine campaign to achieve independence for the judicial system, and history will recall that these honest judges refused to bear false witness to rigged elections. They are still fighting, not for the sake of privileges or gain, but in defence of justice, although a small number of judges have been implicated in cooperating with the despotic regime, and the most obvious example of that is the judges who took part in election rigging, as confirmed by rulings in the court of cassation. In the wake of the revolution many people called for the judiciary to be purged of the judges who supervised the rigged elections but the military council retained them because it needs their services. The supreme judicial council even prepared a comprehensive law enshrining complete judicial independence but the military council blocked it because it would have deprived the council of control of the judiciary. Egyptians cannot regain their dignity and their rights without an independent judicial system.

 

Third, the prevalent concept of religion. In democratic countries no officials speak about their religion or their religious observances, but it is morals alone that are the criteria for judging people. You have the right to be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or embrace any religion , and it's up to you. Freedom of belief and worship are guaranteed to all. But your religion is your own affair, whereas your performance at work,  your honesty, your diligence and the way you deal with others are the real criteria for judging you in public or at law. The head of state only has to lie once and his political future is over, he's dismissed from office and loses people's trust. In democratic states morals are the measure of piety, and the superficial manifestations of piety alone are not proof of morals. This concept forms the essence of true Islam. Justice, freedom and equality are the fundamental principles which Islam was revealed to defend, and everything else is less important. But many people's understanding of Islam has become superficial and limited. The Muslim Brotherhood and the salafists won the majority of seats in parliament in elections that may not have been rigged but were not fair or democratic. Nonetheless I have written here to advocate supporting this parliament because in the end it is the only elected body that can achieve the objectives of the revolution. But we now believe that many members of parliament have a limited and superficial concept of piety. Belief is detached from behaviour. Appearances and rituals are more important than what one does. These members of parliament are trying to pass a resolution requiring schools to suspend classes for the noon prayer, while they have done nothing to avenge those killed in the revolution and they are incapable of criticizing the military council, which is responsible for massacres in which dozens of young Egyptians have been killed. In the case of the Port Said massacre they made do with condemning the interior ministry and did not dare utter a single word about the military council's responsibility. Many members of parliament have long beards and prayer marks on their foreheads but they have no qualms about applying double standards in order to please the military council. When member of parliament Ziad el-Eleimy made a mistaken remark that insulted Field Marshal Tantawi, the pious members of parliament rose up to punish Eleimy, even though he made his remark outside parliament. Yet when a member makes disgraceful accusations inside parliament against a major national figure such as Mohamed ElBaradei, they refuse to reprimand the offender, and instead applaud and congratulate him. While now they applaud someone who accuses ElBaradei of treason, this is the same ElBaradei in support of whom the Muslim Brotherhood collected 600,000 signatures, but that happened before the revolution when the Brotherhood needed ElBaradei's support, whereas now they need the military council's support. Their positions always change according to their interests. This political inconsistency is incompatible with morality, and everything that is incompatible with morality is of necessity incompatible with religion. Yet history teaches us  that if we confine religion to formalities and ritual we may end up behaving immorally with a completely clear conscience. Egypt will change only if our concept of religion changes.

    As much as it is an insult to our national dignity, the scandal over the sudden departure of the foreign defendants in the NGO case also makes us face up to an important fact: Hosni Mubarak has fallen but the system he set up is still governing Egypt. The military council is an extension of Mubarak in ideology and in practice. It insults Egyptians exactly as Mubarak used to insult them. They will not stop insulting us until we achieve the objectives of revolution and set up a just and free state.                   

    Democracy is the solution.                                    

 

 

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