Social Studies and History on Egypt
1. The Road to Democracy?
By Amalie Rosenbaum, Anna Gaul, Eva Devantier, Leise Sandeman and Therese Willers
The 22nd of November 2012 Morsi published a constitutional declaration with immediate effect. The declaration is valid until the official constitution has been settled, which the constitution assembly has been given another 2 months to elaborate, pursuant to the temporary declaration. The laws and articles within Morsi’s declaration cannot be appealed against or annulled. The declaration is according to Morsi built upon the principle of protecting the Egyptian people and their rights, and furthermore to “promote principles of freedom, justice and democracy”[1].
The declaration implies that president Morsi himself will elect the state prosecutor for a period of four years. Additionally it states that the investigations of the murders of demonstrators and violence against civilians will be reopened and trials against accused will be reconsidered. The legal authority cannot dissolve the constitution assembly or the Shura Council[2], and furthermore the president has the authority to take necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution.
When looking at the developing democracy in Egypt the separation of powers is an indication of how the democracy is taking form. One of the main pillars in the western democracy is the separation of powers. The theory by Montesquieu describes how the state responsibilities and powers are divided between a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. In theory the three branches should be separate and independent but no countries have a complete separation of powers.[3]
In several important respects the 22nd of November 2012 declaration contradicts with Morsi’s statement of promoting the principles of democracy seeing that the articles negates the separation of powers. In article 2 of the declaration it is stated how the People’s Assembly has not yet been elected. Therefore there currently is an inconsistency with the separation of powers, given the fact that the legislative power is incomplete.
Earlier on the prosecutor general was removed from his office by president Morsi, because of his participation in the old regime. In the declaration Morsi states how he now has the full power to appoint the new prosecutor general from among the members of the judiciary for a period of four years, stated in article 3. This means that the Executive, being Morsi, is taking part in the judicial power.
In the 5th article it is decided that no judicial body can dissolve the Shura Council or the constitution assembly. This is contrary to the separation of powers, being that Morsi gets to elect 33% of the Shura Council himself, and hereby becomes an indirect part of the legislative power. In the penultimate article of the declaration, article 6, Morsi gives himself the full power “to take necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution”. Enclosed he gives himself absolute power and at the same time he cannot be proceeded against, giving him the state to enjoy immunity. This is a clear contradiction to the separation of powers.
To verify his declaration Morsi argues that it is necessary to restrict the power of those still loyal to the previous regime. This includes among others the general prosecutor, stated in article 3. Morsi states that a Mubarak supportive constitutional court has resulted in acquittals of former high officials accused of murders against protesters.
The declaration is one of Morsi’s means to put an end to the corruption, which infiltrates the judicial power and prevents the success of the revolution. Morsi states that it is necessary to deprive the judiciary its authority in order to avoid abuse of power. This will at the same time let Egypt evolve towards a modern democracy. Morsi is popularly elected and therefore he represents the voice of the people more than the constitutional court chosen by the old regime.
On the other hand critics of president Morsi claim that nothing is less democratic than unifying two branches and ignoring the separation of power as it happens in Egypt, where the executive and the judiciary powers are united and assigned to the president. They state that the declaration is a step backwards for a democratic Egypt and that Morsi is abusing his powers and his mandate given by the people.
In the declaration Morsi gives the constitution assembly another two months to compose the official constitution and he alleges that it will benefit the democratic process. The reason for this is as Morsi argues that the democratic process must not be hastened if the destination should be a functioning democracy. The liberals and the Copts, who are not represented in the constitutional assembly though they where voted into the parliament at the election in January 2012, are stating that the result will never be democratic since the constitutional assembly does not represent the composition of the population.
In the light of these arguments we are able to draw the conclusion that the declaration does not lead to a western democracy cf. Montesquieu’s separation of powers. In the de-claration we see a clear centralization of the power, which goes against Montesquieu’s theory. Though Morsi claims that the centralization will promote the democracy by preventing corruption a centralization of power will never be democratic in a western view. The end does not justify the means, and in this case Morsi takes on more power than given by the Egyptian people. Morsi’s greatest problem is that he takes on the judiciary power himself while the legislative power is still incomplete. The declaration can therefore be seen as a step backwards when their vision is to create a democracy.
[1]http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/58947/Egypt/Politics-/English-text-of-Morsis-Constitutional-Declaration-.aspx
[2] Upper house of parliament
[3] Cristiansen, Peter Munk og Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard; Demokrati, magt og politik i Danmark, 1.udgave 2008 s.12
By Amalie Rosenbaum, Anna Gaul, Eva Devantier, Leise Sandeman and Therese Willers
The 22nd of November 2012 Morsi published a constitutional declaration with immediate effect. The declaration is valid until the official constitution has been settled, which the constitution assembly has been given another 2 months to elaborate, pursuant to the temporary declaration. The laws and articles within Morsi’s declaration cannot be appealed against or annulled. The declaration is according to Morsi built upon the principle of protecting the Egyptian people and their rights, and furthermore to “promote principles of freedom, justice and democracy”[1].
The declaration implies that president Morsi himself will elect the state prosecutor for a period of four years. Additionally it states that the investigations of the murders of demonstrators and violence against civilians will be reopened and trials against accused will be reconsidered. The legal authority cannot dissolve the constitution assembly or the Shura Council[2], and furthermore the president has the authority to take necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution.
When looking at the developing democracy in Egypt the separation of powers is an indication of how the democracy is taking form. One of the main pillars in the western democracy is the separation of powers. The theory by Montesquieu describes how the state responsibilities and powers are divided between a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. In theory the three branches should be separate and independent but no countries have a complete separation of powers.[3]
In several important respects the 22nd of November 2012 declaration contradicts with Morsi’s statement of promoting the principles of democracy seeing that the articles negates the separation of powers. In article 2 of the declaration it is stated how the People’s Assembly has not yet been elected. Therefore there currently is an inconsistency with the separation of powers, given the fact that the legislative power is incomplete.
Earlier on the prosecutor general was removed from his office by president Morsi, because of his participation in the old regime. In the declaration Morsi states how he now has the full power to appoint the new prosecutor general from among the members of the judiciary for a period of four years, stated in article 3. This means that the Executive, being Morsi, is taking part in the judicial power.
In the 5th article it is decided that no judicial body can dissolve the Shura Council or the constitution assembly. This is contrary to the separation of powers, being that Morsi gets to elect 33% of the Shura Council himself, and hereby becomes an indirect part of the legislative power. In the penultimate article of the declaration, article 6, Morsi gives himself the full power “to take necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution”. Enclosed he gives himself absolute power and at the same time he cannot be proceeded against, giving him the state to enjoy immunity. This is a clear contradiction to the separation of powers.
To verify his declaration Morsi argues that it is necessary to restrict the power of those still loyal to the previous regime. This includes among others the general prosecutor, stated in article 3. Morsi states that a Mubarak supportive constitutional court has resulted in acquittals of former high officials accused of murders against protesters.
The declaration is one of Morsi’s means to put an end to the corruption, which infiltrates the judicial power and prevents the success of the revolution. Morsi states that it is necessary to deprive the judiciary its authority in order to avoid abuse of power. This will at the same time let Egypt evolve towards a modern democracy. Morsi is popularly elected and therefore he represents the voice of the people more than the constitutional court chosen by the old regime.
On the other hand critics of president Morsi claim that nothing is less democratic than unifying two branches and ignoring the separation of power as it happens in Egypt, where the executive and the judiciary powers are united and assigned to the president. They state that the declaration is a step backwards for a democratic Egypt and that Morsi is abusing his powers and his mandate given by the people.
In the declaration Morsi gives the constitution assembly another two months to compose the official constitution and he alleges that it will benefit the democratic process. The reason for this is as Morsi argues that the democratic process must not be hastened if the destination should be a functioning democracy. The liberals and the Copts, who are not represented in the constitutional assembly though they where voted into the parliament at the election in January 2012, are stating that the result will never be democratic since the constitutional assembly does not represent the composition of the population.
In the light of these arguments we are able to draw the conclusion that the declaration does not lead to a western democracy cf. Montesquieu’s separation of powers. In the de-claration we see a clear centralization of the power, which goes against Montesquieu’s theory. Though Morsi claims that the centralization will promote the democracy by preventing corruption a centralization of power will never be democratic in a western view. The end does not justify the means, and in this case Morsi takes on more power than given by the Egyptian people. Morsi’s greatest problem is that he takes on the judiciary power himself while the legislative power is still incomplete. The declaration can therefore be seen as a step backwards when their vision is to create a democracy.
[1]http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/58947/Egypt/Politics-/English-text-of-Morsis-Constitutional-Declaration-.aspx
[2] Upper house of parliament
[3] Cristiansen, Peter Munk og Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard; Demokrati, magt og politik i Danmark, 1.udgave 2008 s.12
2. Democracy in MENA-Countries
by Esther, Holger, Pernille, Ferhat
Introduction
The idea that democracy is the best way of state management has been commonly accepted in the Western world the last few centuries. But democracy is not valid and is not acknowledged in all parts of the world. The Middle East is full of autocracies, and there are a bunch of variables that can try to give an explanation to the fact that the Middle East lacks democracy. There are many factors that play a part in the democratic shortage, but we will here make a study and comparison of the lack or presence of democratic tendencies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, based on the rentier-economy and the media landscape. Although the greater part of the protesters’ wishes were about equality and democracy many did not know what these advantages would entail, nor did they actually know what they wanted, they just knew that they desired something new. Yet there are some denominators when speaking of democracy such as: Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, rights for women and weak figures and elections. These rights cannot be upheld with a corrupt and unstable state management, therefore it is of great importance that the popularly elected politicians are reliable.
Hopefully this comparison will give an insight of the possibilities for autocracies to develop into democracies, and show what it is that impedes the democratization progress.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt
The two Arab countries, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, bear very little resemblance. First of all Saudi Arabia’s economy is unilateral qua the high profits from the oil industry. It is the largest exporter of petroleum in the world, and Saudi Arabia possesses 18% of the world’s proven petroleum reserves. It is safe to say that the economy is oil-based as approximately half the state budget revenues come from the petroleum sector. Where Saudi Arabia is the epitome of a rentier-state Egypt derives a great amount of capital from tourism, the Suez Canal, tele-communication and construction which gives a broader and more diverse economical sector. Saudi Arabia has an immensely huge non-national workforce. About 4,5 million of the 7,8 million active labour force are people from the Asian subcontinent, the Philippines and Egypt. Often they work in unskilled jobs that are shunned by the Saudis, a clear sign of a stabile and capital surfeited economy. Egypt, on the other hand, has a diaspora of 6,5 million people mainly due to the lack of job opportunities and low wages in their native country. These are two tremendously obvious contrasts. Egyptians desperately cling to the unskilled and lowest paid jobs outside their boarders, while Saudis are so comfortable, that they actually prioritize and filter through jobs.
Causes for success/failure of uprisings
When The Arab Spring protests developed, King Abdullah knew that his rule could be at stake. For that reason he took measurements to help the autocracies surrounding Saudi Arabia. He sent 2.000 soldiers out of Saudi Arabia and into Bahrain to help the Bahraini King, Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa.
This was to make sure that the protests would not develop further and to reduce the risk of the Arab Spring to spread to Saudi Arabia.
King Abdullah was exceedingly efficient with the resources of his land, and when the protests started in Saudi Arabia he did whatever possible to crush them, but not only through forceful measures. King Abdullah had great resources available and bribed the population with a huge jobs and housing package. He used billions of dollars to appease the Saudis who were inspired by the uprisings in other Arab countries. He announced the creation of 60.000 new jobs and the making of 500.000 new low-income apartments at a cost of more than $66 billions. Furthermore he raised the minimum wage and promised millions in capital to the government’s loan fund, and he promised to fight corruption and spend more money on the Saudi Arabian hospitals. This he did on top of the already heavily subsidized population, ever since the reforms of 1979, funded by the petrodollar. Although Mubarak lacked the petrodollar, this has not been the root to the 15 million Egyptians living on less than 1 dollar a day.
Now, obviously, there are some sociological causes, which the government cannot be blamed for, of which the most dominant one is the high fertility rate, which simply creates more chaos in an already disturbed economy. But as with Saudi Arabia, Egypt has attempted to subsidize those in dire need of help with 270 million loafs of bread a day. Still, 83 % of food subsidy, 87% of petroleum subsidy and 76% of the social safety net subsidy went to the noon-poor instead of the poor. This is because of the nepotistic and inefficient administration of Mubarak. The “Social Solidarity” initiative was established, but not governed correctly. Thus Mubarak did not succeed in both providing the working class with satisfactory results, and creating a client-patron relationship with the biggest demographic and socioeconomic segment, unlike Saudi Arabia, where the king has made the middle class dependent on state jobs and imported the working class.
The Saudi initiatives were only possible because of the state’s great capital. The fact that it was possible for Saudi Arabia to make lots of jobs and construct new living facilities in times of trouble meant that the residents would not gain as much from the possible revolution. When the state provides the population with jobs and places to live, and when roughly 80% of the indigenous workforce is employed in the public sector, it is very difficult to rise in rebellion against the regime. The inhabitants have everything to loose, when the state is the provider and supporter of the majority of the population. Consequently the revolution failed in Saudi-Arabia. For now.
Media Landscape
The press in Egypt dates back to the mid 20th century, and was dominant all over the Middle East. By 1960, however the Arab socialist state of president Nasser nationalized the major publishers of newspapers and magazines, and these remain state owned till this day. Since the 1960s Egypt has had its own state owned TV-channels. Egyptian television has always been regarded as the voice of the Egyptian government and the ruling political party, NDP. Both the ERTU (the Egyptian Radio and Television Union) and dominant persons in the television sector are appointed by the Ministry of Information. Private channels started showing up on the Egyptian TV market in the 2000s. Private channels have a considerable freedom but with some limits. For example, according to a study by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIRS), during presidential elections both state-owned television channels and independent channels devoted more time to cover Mubarak's campaign than any other of the nine candidates in 2005.
The media in Saudi Arabia are highly affected by the royal family, who owns the majority of TV-channels and newspapers. TV-channels that are also based in other Gulf-countries due to Saudi Arabia's multilateral patron-client relationships in the Gulf. The press is loyal to the government and any criticism of Islam or the royal family is strictly prohibited.
In Saudi Arabia the press is of an earlier date than in Egypt, the first small newspapers were established around World War 1 and the major newspapers only appeared around the 1950's, these dominent news papers such as Ukas, are owned by well established families with ties of loyalty to the royal family. The few TV-channels that are not owned by the royal family are often owned by relatives or close friends to the royal family, meaning that they have implicitly pledged their allegiance to the regent. A new law in Saudi Arabia forbids any internet newspapers, blogs and other forums on the internet to exist without being registered at the Ministry of Culture and Information. The massive supervision of the mass media impedes the capacity of the opposition. Contradicting as it is, the people of Saudi Arabia still have access to American animated sitcoms such as 'American Dad!' and 'The Simpsons', though slightly moderated.
The two press systems reflect important traits in the political setup of the two states. In Egypt the major newspapers were nationalized in order to serve the ambitious modernizing goals of the state. During Nasser's era Egypt embarked on a visionary path, aiming to introduce socialism, the welfare state, and general literacy and education to the population. The Media was considered an important tool in this project, over the years however successive Egyptian governments have had to abandon these ambitions and the nationalized press was mainly used to uphold an official truth, that is the regime’s version of events. Hence the state run media has evolved into a pillar of the authoritarian political system. Saudi Arabia on the other hand never embraced socialism, but was a strong defender of capitalism and private property. The Saudi state had fewer ambitions as to the modernization of society and its citizens. It was therefore content to maintain a private press owned by families who were loyal to the royal family and effectively its clients. One of the main differences between the Egyptian and the Saudi Arabian medias is the ammount of freedom to express one’s feelings and opinions on a given subject. This freedom has been a lot bigger in Egypt than in Saudi Arabia, and has the possibility to have made a huge difference in the rise of a democracy. If you have in mind how important the social medias have been during the Egyptian Spring, this freedom to express is a likely cause to the incipient democracy in Egypt and the lack of political rebellion in Saudi Arabia.
Conclusion
Although Hazem Beblawi in his book The Rentier State, 1987 described the autocratic regimes of the rentier states as autocratic regimes with an inefficient and bloated bureaucracy, where the government is the largest employer – this does not go quite well for our two cases. In fact, Egypt our non-rentier state saw its president ousted and was thrown into, what seemingly looks like, a political transformation. This was due to the lack of jobs, poor infrastructure, high fertility rates and a diseased and corrupted bureaucracy. In Saudi Arabia however, King Abdullah not only reacted quickly and efficiently to the uprisings but had already taken preventive measures, that would secure his rule, by clienting the middle-class, importing the working class and letting post-73’ emerging tribes in on a share of the cake, in return of their loyalty. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia remained the ultimate head of the state. Strikingly different was it however in the now post-Gaddafi Libya. In the Corruption Perceptions Index Libya ranked more corrupt than Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and Basher al-Assad’s Syria. Gaddafi too had created a patron-client relationship, but it was focused on the political elite and tribes, rather than the broader population. By integrating loyal tribesmen and family members in vital military and governmental positions he sought to marginalize and quell the opposition and masterfully created a stabile political and economic development. Some half-hearted initiatives were made, but none that did not originate from Gaddafi’s demagogic tactical ulterior motives. An overall feeling of dissatisfaction spread across the country like a wild fire and soon Gaddafi had become the symbol of their dissatisfaction eventually leading to the crumbling of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Gaddafi’s death. Arab Spring was an uprising by the people. Thus, the uprisings have hit hardest where corruption, lack of employment, violations of human rights and poverty is at its highest. In most of the cases the countries were not rentier-states, but Libya has proven that being a rentier-state does not serve as a guarantor for the persistency of a given autocrat. As self-evident as it may sound: the regimes that have subdued to Arab Spring have been corrupt and incompetent bureaucratic regimes.
Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/18/saudi-arabia-job-housing-package
http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/Article/tabid/191/ArticleType/ArticleView/ArticleID/22009/language/en-US/Default.aspx
http://hpronline.org/covers/revolution/oil-and-revolution/
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/leverett160411.html
http://www.mei.edu/content/rentier-social-contract-saudi-political-economy-1979
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/921/op13.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/05/egypt-media-revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Egypt
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14702705
http://www.arabmediasociety.com/countries/index.php?country=36
by Esther, Holger, Pernille, Ferhat
Introduction
The idea that democracy is the best way of state management has been commonly accepted in the Western world the last few centuries. But democracy is not valid and is not acknowledged in all parts of the world. The Middle East is full of autocracies, and there are a bunch of variables that can try to give an explanation to the fact that the Middle East lacks democracy. There are many factors that play a part in the democratic shortage, but we will here make a study and comparison of the lack or presence of democratic tendencies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, based on the rentier-economy and the media landscape. Although the greater part of the protesters’ wishes were about equality and democracy many did not know what these advantages would entail, nor did they actually know what they wanted, they just knew that they desired something new. Yet there are some denominators when speaking of democracy such as: Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, rights for women and weak figures and elections. These rights cannot be upheld with a corrupt and unstable state management, therefore it is of great importance that the popularly elected politicians are reliable.
Hopefully this comparison will give an insight of the possibilities for autocracies to develop into democracies, and show what it is that impedes the democratization progress.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt
The two Arab countries, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, bear very little resemblance. First of all Saudi Arabia’s economy is unilateral qua the high profits from the oil industry. It is the largest exporter of petroleum in the world, and Saudi Arabia possesses 18% of the world’s proven petroleum reserves. It is safe to say that the economy is oil-based as approximately half the state budget revenues come from the petroleum sector. Where Saudi Arabia is the epitome of a rentier-state Egypt derives a great amount of capital from tourism, the Suez Canal, tele-communication and construction which gives a broader and more diverse economical sector. Saudi Arabia has an immensely huge non-national workforce. About 4,5 million of the 7,8 million active labour force are people from the Asian subcontinent, the Philippines and Egypt. Often they work in unskilled jobs that are shunned by the Saudis, a clear sign of a stabile and capital surfeited economy. Egypt, on the other hand, has a diaspora of 6,5 million people mainly due to the lack of job opportunities and low wages in their native country. These are two tremendously obvious contrasts. Egyptians desperately cling to the unskilled and lowest paid jobs outside their boarders, while Saudis are so comfortable, that they actually prioritize and filter through jobs.
Causes for success/failure of uprisings
When The Arab Spring protests developed, King Abdullah knew that his rule could be at stake. For that reason he took measurements to help the autocracies surrounding Saudi Arabia. He sent 2.000 soldiers out of Saudi Arabia and into Bahrain to help the Bahraini King, Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa.
This was to make sure that the protests would not develop further and to reduce the risk of the Arab Spring to spread to Saudi Arabia.
King Abdullah was exceedingly efficient with the resources of his land, and when the protests started in Saudi Arabia he did whatever possible to crush them, but not only through forceful measures. King Abdullah had great resources available and bribed the population with a huge jobs and housing package. He used billions of dollars to appease the Saudis who were inspired by the uprisings in other Arab countries. He announced the creation of 60.000 new jobs and the making of 500.000 new low-income apartments at a cost of more than $66 billions. Furthermore he raised the minimum wage and promised millions in capital to the government’s loan fund, and he promised to fight corruption and spend more money on the Saudi Arabian hospitals. This he did on top of the already heavily subsidized population, ever since the reforms of 1979, funded by the petrodollar. Although Mubarak lacked the petrodollar, this has not been the root to the 15 million Egyptians living on less than 1 dollar a day.
Now, obviously, there are some sociological causes, which the government cannot be blamed for, of which the most dominant one is the high fertility rate, which simply creates more chaos in an already disturbed economy. But as with Saudi Arabia, Egypt has attempted to subsidize those in dire need of help with 270 million loafs of bread a day. Still, 83 % of food subsidy, 87% of petroleum subsidy and 76% of the social safety net subsidy went to the noon-poor instead of the poor. This is because of the nepotistic and inefficient administration of Mubarak. The “Social Solidarity” initiative was established, but not governed correctly. Thus Mubarak did not succeed in both providing the working class with satisfactory results, and creating a client-patron relationship with the biggest demographic and socioeconomic segment, unlike Saudi Arabia, where the king has made the middle class dependent on state jobs and imported the working class.
The Saudi initiatives were only possible because of the state’s great capital. The fact that it was possible for Saudi Arabia to make lots of jobs and construct new living facilities in times of trouble meant that the residents would not gain as much from the possible revolution. When the state provides the population with jobs and places to live, and when roughly 80% of the indigenous workforce is employed in the public sector, it is very difficult to rise in rebellion against the regime. The inhabitants have everything to loose, when the state is the provider and supporter of the majority of the population. Consequently the revolution failed in Saudi-Arabia. For now.
Media Landscape
The press in Egypt dates back to the mid 20th century, and was dominant all over the Middle East. By 1960, however the Arab socialist state of president Nasser nationalized the major publishers of newspapers and magazines, and these remain state owned till this day. Since the 1960s Egypt has had its own state owned TV-channels. Egyptian television has always been regarded as the voice of the Egyptian government and the ruling political party, NDP. Both the ERTU (the Egyptian Radio and Television Union) and dominant persons in the television sector are appointed by the Ministry of Information. Private channels started showing up on the Egyptian TV market in the 2000s. Private channels have a considerable freedom but with some limits. For example, according to a study by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIRS), during presidential elections both state-owned television channels and independent channels devoted more time to cover Mubarak's campaign than any other of the nine candidates in 2005.
The media in Saudi Arabia are highly affected by the royal family, who owns the majority of TV-channels and newspapers. TV-channels that are also based in other Gulf-countries due to Saudi Arabia's multilateral patron-client relationships in the Gulf. The press is loyal to the government and any criticism of Islam or the royal family is strictly prohibited.
In Saudi Arabia the press is of an earlier date than in Egypt, the first small newspapers were established around World War 1 and the major newspapers only appeared around the 1950's, these dominent news papers such as Ukas, are owned by well established families with ties of loyalty to the royal family. The few TV-channels that are not owned by the royal family are often owned by relatives or close friends to the royal family, meaning that they have implicitly pledged their allegiance to the regent. A new law in Saudi Arabia forbids any internet newspapers, blogs and other forums on the internet to exist without being registered at the Ministry of Culture and Information. The massive supervision of the mass media impedes the capacity of the opposition. Contradicting as it is, the people of Saudi Arabia still have access to American animated sitcoms such as 'American Dad!' and 'The Simpsons', though slightly moderated.
The two press systems reflect important traits in the political setup of the two states. In Egypt the major newspapers were nationalized in order to serve the ambitious modernizing goals of the state. During Nasser's era Egypt embarked on a visionary path, aiming to introduce socialism, the welfare state, and general literacy and education to the population. The Media was considered an important tool in this project, over the years however successive Egyptian governments have had to abandon these ambitions and the nationalized press was mainly used to uphold an official truth, that is the regime’s version of events. Hence the state run media has evolved into a pillar of the authoritarian political system. Saudi Arabia on the other hand never embraced socialism, but was a strong defender of capitalism and private property. The Saudi state had fewer ambitions as to the modernization of society and its citizens. It was therefore content to maintain a private press owned by families who were loyal to the royal family and effectively its clients. One of the main differences between the Egyptian and the Saudi Arabian medias is the ammount of freedom to express one’s feelings and opinions on a given subject. This freedom has been a lot bigger in Egypt than in Saudi Arabia, and has the possibility to have made a huge difference in the rise of a democracy. If you have in mind how important the social medias have been during the Egyptian Spring, this freedom to express is a likely cause to the incipient democracy in Egypt and the lack of political rebellion in Saudi Arabia.
Conclusion
Although Hazem Beblawi in his book The Rentier State, 1987 described the autocratic regimes of the rentier states as autocratic regimes with an inefficient and bloated bureaucracy, where the government is the largest employer – this does not go quite well for our two cases. In fact, Egypt our non-rentier state saw its president ousted and was thrown into, what seemingly looks like, a political transformation. This was due to the lack of jobs, poor infrastructure, high fertility rates and a diseased and corrupted bureaucracy. In Saudi Arabia however, King Abdullah not only reacted quickly and efficiently to the uprisings but had already taken preventive measures, that would secure his rule, by clienting the middle-class, importing the working class and letting post-73’ emerging tribes in on a share of the cake, in return of their loyalty. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia remained the ultimate head of the state. Strikingly different was it however in the now post-Gaddafi Libya. In the Corruption Perceptions Index Libya ranked more corrupt than Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and Basher al-Assad’s Syria. Gaddafi too had created a patron-client relationship, but it was focused on the political elite and tribes, rather than the broader population. By integrating loyal tribesmen and family members in vital military and governmental positions he sought to marginalize and quell the opposition and masterfully created a stabile political and economic development. Some half-hearted initiatives were made, but none that did not originate from Gaddafi’s demagogic tactical ulterior motives. An overall feeling of dissatisfaction spread across the country like a wild fire and soon Gaddafi had become the symbol of their dissatisfaction eventually leading to the crumbling of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Gaddafi’s death. Arab Spring was an uprising by the people. Thus, the uprisings have hit hardest where corruption, lack of employment, violations of human rights and poverty is at its highest. In most of the cases the countries were not rentier-states, but Libya has proven that being a rentier-state does not serve as a guarantor for the persistency of a given autocrat. As self-evident as it may sound: the regimes that have subdued to Arab Spring have been corrupt and incompetent bureaucratic regimes.
Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/18/saudi-arabia-job-housing-package
http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/Article/tabid/191/ArticleType/ArticleView/ArticleID/22009/language/en-US/Default.aspx
http://hpronline.org/covers/revolution/oil-and-revolution/
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/leverett160411.html
http://www.mei.edu/content/rentier-social-contract-saudi-political-economy-1979
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/921/op13.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/05/egypt-media-revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Egypt
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14702705
http://www.arabmediasociety.com/countries/index.php?country=36
3. Analysis of the Election Program of the Freedom and Justice Party
by Frode, Mathias, Karl, Fanny
“If the Freedom and Justice Party succeeds in achieving half of the goals set forth in its election program, it has to be considered the best political party in the world, ever.” This statement was made by a member of our group during the work on this project, and it actually sums up the whole issue quite fittingly. When you look at the election program of the FJP, you get overwhelmed by the amount of changes the party wishes to make and initiatives it wants to take in order to rid the country of every trace of the corrupted Mubarak regime. But what alternative model of society does the party truly envision? And considering the enormous amount of ambitious promises and visions, what problems may lay ahead in achieving this given society? In order to determine this, we have performed an analysis of the FJP election program, focusing on the three major political ideologies, liberalism, socialism and conservatism, along with the role of religion and Sharia in the visions of the FJP.
Liberalism:
The ground elements of liberalism are freedom and equality, and these elements are also what most democracies are built upon. The Egyptian country has till now been a dictatorship, and has therefore had limited freedom. The term freedom is used repeatedly throughout the program.
Freedom is a well-known term in every part of the world, but the word has different meanings. In Denmark we associate freedom with liberalism, which is why we hear “every man is the architect of his own fortune”, “minimal state” and all sorts of liberal stands, when we see the term freedom while reading the FJP program. But in Egypt the word has a completely different meaning. Freedom is what the Egyptians agree on after the revolution. In the program, many aspects of freedom are presented. Both freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of religion are important.
However, the FJP seems to interpret freedom differently than the Western world in some cases. On page 24 the party expresses frustration about the fact that Egypt is part of a convention that supports homosexuality. They claim that the Egyptians should be able to deny such conventions in the name of freedom. From a Western point of view, this statement is rather undemocratic. In a Western democracy sexuality is a basic human right. This difference might show that the Arabic revolutions can result in a new category of democracy, where respect of religion is with a higher priority than what is by the Western world considered to be human rights.
Socialism:
With their overwhelming election program the FJP strives to create a new Egypt with a state strong on socialistic values and justice. With promises like:“the elimination of poverty and unemployment, providing basic public services such as education, health care, transportation and other services and facilities,” the party tries to convince the electors of a coming utopia-like society with rights, freedom and balance for all groups of society. These new regulations and changes aim to prevent corruption and therefore the state has the power to regulate market prices at any given time. Women's rights are a well enlightened subject in the program. "The party aims for society to benefit from women's capabilities and resources, and realize that their giving is more." (Page 24, sentence: 15-16). This is an astonishing change for a society used to living under the laws of religion and religious parties. For an Egyptian who has been witness to the revolution this would be some well met and requested changes that are & have been needed for a long time.
Conservatism:
Given the fact that conservatism bases itself on a principle of natural evolution being the only sustainable way for a society to exist, one would suspect that the FJP, trying to appeal to a people that had just been through a revolution, would steer clear of conservatism in its election program. And even though this is the case most of the time, as the party continuously describes the revolution as being “great” and “blessed”, it is, however, possible to find examples of basic conservatism. The most prominent of these would be the focus on the importance of families as institutions, as seen when the FJP claims that the issue of street children is a direct result of divorces and disintegrated families. The party takes concrete measures to address the issue, “Integration of traditional family values in education curricula” and “Programs for the training, education and rehabilitation of young people approaching marriage” being just two of these, and it is clear that the stabilization of family life is a key element in the party’s plan of rebuilding a well-functioning Egypt.
Religion:
"Hence this program is founded on four fundamental principles, which represent the great purposes of Sharia (Islamic law), namely: Freedom ... Justice ... Development ... Leadership". The FJP has "adopted" the values and principles of Sharia from the very beginning. The Islamic law "nurtures aspects of faith, worship and morality, and also regulates various aspects of life for Muslims and their non-Muslim partners in the homeland" according to the FJP. They do want to establish equal opportunities without discrimination because of religion. Religion is not a compulsion according to the FJP. Sharia just "grants humans all forms of freedom, especially freedom of belief, with which a human is to take responsibility for his choices", though Allah loves those who act justly. More specific and concrete religious aspects from the program are, that they want to replace "usurious institutions and transactions with Islamic ones". But besides that, it is difficult to find any concrete religious goals to construct a democratic society.
In conclusion, the FJP wants to build a, somewhat liberal, democratic state on a foundation of Islamic values and principles. The highly ambitious plans regarding social development throughout all social classes of the Egyptian people draw comparisons to the welfare state model that can be seen, for example, in northern Europe. All in all, the FJP is seemingly attempting to establish a society based on the European model of a welfare state in a liberal democracy. This type of society has proven its worth in large parts of the Western world, but the question is: what obstacles may appear, when this model is implemented in a recently democratized society based on Islamic principles?
When the program is split up into different sections, with a headline each there is not much to be critical of. More religious Egyptians will be satisfied by the promise of building the new society upon Islamic principles while people of lower social status will be pleased because of the coming social reforms. More so, the emphasis on the fight against corruption and the importance of freedom from tyranny will not only appeal to the participants of the revolution itself, but to all Egyptians fed up with the old regime. In this perspective, the program looks solid, but if you look at it critically, you cannot avoid noticing that some of these promises possibly will have difficulties co-existing. To exemplify, the promise of freedom of press and speech will undoubtedly come with restrictions that prevent criticism of religion, in order to keep the promise of maintaining Sharia as the foundation of the Egyptian society.
Contradictions like these are not only found across the different aspects of the program, but also within the same categories. It is for example stated that no one should be able to interpret the Koran in any ways beneficial in the legislation process, but earlier on in the program it is mentioned that the government should have the right to interpret Sharia the way that it suits Egypt and its people the best.
Apart from the multiple contradictory statements throughout the program, one cannot help but be somewhat alarmed by the promises that are made on social development. Many of these promises seem great, but for a party to carry through all these massive changes would require never before seen skills in politics, along with unrealistic funds, and would, realistically seen, be impossible to do in any society, especially considering the recent events and revolution Egypt has been through. The FJP is striving to build a society upon the classic socialist principle of distribution of funds, but the scale that they are headed towards, according to their election program, would probably be impossible to obtain.
To sum up, the main problem of the FJP election program is probably, that it is going to be impossible to live up to all the expectations that are built up among the people of Egypt, and that this quite probably will result in disappointment and distrust towards the party.
by Frode, Mathias, Karl, Fanny
“If the Freedom and Justice Party succeeds in achieving half of the goals set forth in its election program, it has to be considered the best political party in the world, ever.” This statement was made by a member of our group during the work on this project, and it actually sums up the whole issue quite fittingly. When you look at the election program of the FJP, you get overwhelmed by the amount of changes the party wishes to make and initiatives it wants to take in order to rid the country of every trace of the corrupted Mubarak regime. But what alternative model of society does the party truly envision? And considering the enormous amount of ambitious promises and visions, what problems may lay ahead in achieving this given society? In order to determine this, we have performed an analysis of the FJP election program, focusing on the three major political ideologies, liberalism, socialism and conservatism, along with the role of religion and Sharia in the visions of the FJP.
Liberalism:
The ground elements of liberalism are freedom and equality, and these elements are also what most democracies are built upon. The Egyptian country has till now been a dictatorship, and has therefore had limited freedom. The term freedom is used repeatedly throughout the program.
Freedom is a well-known term in every part of the world, but the word has different meanings. In Denmark we associate freedom with liberalism, which is why we hear “every man is the architect of his own fortune”, “minimal state” and all sorts of liberal stands, when we see the term freedom while reading the FJP program. But in Egypt the word has a completely different meaning. Freedom is what the Egyptians agree on after the revolution. In the program, many aspects of freedom are presented. Both freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of religion are important.
However, the FJP seems to interpret freedom differently than the Western world in some cases. On page 24 the party expresses frustration about the fact that Egypt is part of a convention that supports homosexuality. They claim that the Egyptians should be able to deny such conventions in the name of freedom. From a Western point of view, this statement is rather undemocratic. In a Western democracy sexuality is a basic human right. This difference might show that the Arabic revolutions can result in a new category of democracy, where respect of religion is with a higher priority than what is by the Western world considered to be human rights.
Socialism:
With their overwhelming election program the FJP strives to create a new Egypt with a state strong on socialistic values and justice. With promises like:“the elimination of poverty and unemployment, providing basic public services such as education, health care, transportation and other services and facilities,” the party tries to convince the electors of a coming utopia-like society with rights, freedom and balance for all groups of society. These new regulations and changes aim to prevent corruption and therefore the state has the power to regulate market prices at any given time. Women's rights are a well enlightened subject in the program. "The party aims for society to benefit from women's capabilities and resources, and realize that their giving is more." (Page 24, sentence: 15-16). This is an astonishing change for a society used to living under the laws of religion and religious parties. For an Egyptian who has been witness to the revolution this would be some well met and requested changes that are & have been needed for a long time.
Conservatism:
Given the fact that conservatism bases itself on a principle of natural evolution being the only sustainable way for a society to exist, one would suspect that the FJP, trying to appeal to a people that had just been through a revolution, would steer clear of conservatism in its election program. And even though this is the case most of the time, as the party continuously describes the revolution as being “great” and “blessed”, it is, however, possible to find examples of basic conservatism. The most prominent of these would be the focus on the importance of families as institutions, as seen when the FJP claims that the issue of street children is a direct result of divorces and disintegrated families. The party takes concrete measures to address the issue, “Integration of traditional family values in education curricula” and “Programs for the training, education and rehabilitation of young people approaching marriage” being just two of these, and it is clear that the stabilization of family life is a key element in the party’s plan of rebuilding a well-functioning Egypt.
Religion:
"Hence this program is founded on four fundamental principles, which represent the great purposes of Sharia (Islamic law), namely: Freedom ... Justice ... Development ... Leadership". The FJP has "adopted" the values and principles of Sharia from the very beginning. The Islamic law "nurtures aspects of faith, worship and morality, and also regulates various aspects of life for Muslims and their non-Muslim partners in the homeland" according to the FJP. They do want to establish equal opportunities without discrimination because of religion. Religion is not a compulsion according to the FJP. Sharia just "grants humans all forms of freedom, especially freedom of belief, with which a human is to take responsibility for his choices", though Allah loves those who act justly. More specific and concrete religious aspects from the program are, that they want to replace "usurious institutions and transactions with Islamic ones". But besides that, it is difficult to find any concrete religious goals to construct a democratic society.
In conclusion, the FJP wants to build a, somewhat liberal, democratic state on a foundation of Islamic values and principles. The highly ambitious plans regarding social development throughout all social classes of the Egyptian people draw comparisons to the welfare state model that can be seen, for example, in northern Europe. All in all, the FJP is seemingly attempting to establish a society based on the European model of a welfare state in a liberal democracy. This type of society has proven its worth in large parts of the Western world, but the question is: what obstacles may appear, when this model is implemented in a recently democratized society based on Islamic principles?
When the program is split up into different sections, with a headline each there is not much to be critical of. More religious Egyptians will be satisfied by the promise of building the new society upon Islamic principles while people of lower social status will be pleased because of the coming social reforms. More so, the emphasis on the fight against corruption and the importance of freedom from tyranny will not only appeal to the participants of the revolution itself, but to all Egyptians fed up with the old regime. In this perspective, the program looks solid, but if you look at it critically, you cannot avoid noticing that some of these promises possibly will have difficulties co-existing. To exemplify, the promise of freedom of press and speech will undoubtedly come with restrictions that prevent criticism of religion, in order to keep the promise of maintaining Sharia as the foundation of the Egyptian society.
Contradictions like these are not only found across the different aspects of the program, but also within the same categories. It is for example stated that no one should be able to interpret the Koran in any ways beneficial in the legislation process, but earlier on in the program it is mentioned that the government should have the right to interpret Sharia the way that it suits Egypt and its people the best.
Apart from the multiple contradictory statements throughout the program, one cannot help but be somewhat alarmed by the promises that are made on social development. Many of these promises seem great, but for a party to carry through all these massive changes would require never before seen skills in politics, along with unrealistic funds, and would, realistically seen, be impossible to do in any society, especially considering the recent events and revolution Egypt has been through. The FJP is striving to build a society upon the classic socialist principle of distribution of funds, but the scale that they are headed towards, according to their election program, would probably be impossible to obtain.
To sum up, the main problem of the FJP election program is probably, that it is going to be impossible to live up to all the expectations that are built up among the people of Egypt, and that this quite probably will result in disappointment and distrust towards the party.
4. The Chance for Democracy in Egypt
by Emil, Adrian and Ulrik
Research Question
We reflect on Egypt’s chances of becoming a democracy by comparing the historic, religious and cultural contexts of the country with factors that influenced the rise of various Western, liberal democracies.
Introduction
By end January 2011, Egypt had been struck by the Arab Spring. Demands of liberty and democracy spread like wildfire, and President Mubarak’s regime was overthrown. Only one question remains: Where is Egypt headed? As a casual, Western observer, one hopes for democracy, but the chances of this occurring are not as good as said observer would like. A thorough analysis of this question could fill an extensive scientific report, but we intend to come closer to an answer by comparing the factors that contributed to Western democracy and compare them to an Egyptian context. This will end in a conclusion based on the presented arguments.
Arguments against the Chances of Democracy in Egypt
1. The Muslim countries have not been through an Age of Enlightenment
In the European Age of Enlightenment, absolutism was criticized: the foundation of the authorities turned fragile and the possessors of the power of a country were put to the test. The idea of a secular state, the possibility of criticism of the authorities and the view of human nature oriented towards the individual specifically never reached the Muslim countries. On that account Egypt does not have the mentality to establish a Western liberal democracy.
2. Morsi’s decrees the 22nd of November
Morsi issued a number of decrees that increase his own power significantly and foreshadowed a new period of oppression in Egypt. The decrees are very undemocratic and have catalyzed a broadside against Morsi and his party, The Muslim Brotherhood. The opposition is of the opinion that the decrees are an attempt to monopolize the power and inaugurate an Islamic constitution, while the economical and social problems are being ignored.
Arguments for the chances of democracy in Egypt
1. Egypt is still only getting used to democracies
Democracies are not forged in a day. Egypt has only known autocratic regimes, and therefore, the population of the country has to go through an adjustment phase in order to assume a democratic mentality. In Denmark, 52 years passed since the constitution was enacted in 1849 before the country got a more modern, well-functioning democracy, i.e. the rise of Cabinet Responsibility in 1901. In this period of time, great parts of Denmark were lost to Prussia in 1864, and the country went through the Provisional Years when the king and prime minister, Estrup, ruled the land through dictatorial, temporary laws.
In France, a terror regime rose after the constitution of the country was written in 1793. 17,000 people were executed in the span of a year. Thereafter, a number of decrees and temporary laws were enacted, similar to what Denmark experienced almost a century later.
These are but two examples that it is commonplace to go through an adjustment phase in which the country and its population slowly get used to the new, democratic system. During this phase, obstacles can occur, for example in the shape of decrees like the ones Morsi has recently ordered.
2. The Arab countries were the maintainers of the future democracies
The democracy commonly associated with the Western World has roots in the Antique in which modern ideals sprouted and flourished before the Dark Middle Ages overtook Europe. It is easy to forget how these ideals endured, but how they did is remarkable all the same. It certainly was not sustained by the various European countries. Conversely, the Arab countries were the keepers of this cultural treasure for centuries before it was rediscovered by the Europeans who, amongst other things, used it to lay the foundations of the liberal democracy. In other words, the same democratic foundation lies within the Arab countries. By extension, the various Arab countries have plentiful possibilities for achieving a democracy of their own.
3. Francis Fukuyama: The End of History
In 1992, Francis Fukuyama published the book The End of History and the Last Man in which he theorised that the entire world would convert to liberalism sooner or later, seeing as this one ideology had proven capable of defeating all of its major competitors, namely fascism and communism. If one follows this line of thought, it becomes clear that Egypt is moving towards a liberal democracy. The Egyptians have already shown their dissatisfaction once, and the dissatisfaction will grow until the country has established the one supreme ideology once and for all.
From the above arguments it can be concluded, that Egypt in time will have a personal regulated democratic form of government. The democratic roots can be found in the Egyptian history and culture, but a missing age of Enlightenment removes the conditions for a classic, liberal and Western democracy. Yet, Morsis latest actions and the mentality of the patriarchal people appear as an obstacle for democracy in the country. The accomplishments of the Arabian Spring are not necessarily fruitless, but there is still a long way to an effective democracy
by Emil, Adrian and Ulrik
Research Question
We reflect on Egypt’s chances of becoming a democracy by comparing the historic, religious and cultural contexts of the country with factors that influenced the rise of various Western, liberal democracies.
Introduction
By end January 2011, Egypt had been struck by the Arab Spring. Demands of liberty and democracy spread like wildfire, and President Mubarak’s regime was overthrown. Only one question remains: Where is Egypt headed? As a casual, Western observer, one hopes for democracy, but the chances of this occurring are not as good as said observer would like. A thorough analysis of this question could fill an extensive scientific report, but we intend to come closer to an answer by comparing the factors that contributed to Western democracy and compare them to an Egyptian context. This will end in a conclusion based on the presented arguments.
Arguments against the Chances of Democracy in Egypt
1. The Muslim countries have not been through an Age of Enlightenment
In the European Age of Enlightenment, absolutism was criticized: the foundation of the authorities turned fragile and the possessors of the power of a country were put to the test. The idea of a secular state, the possibility of criticism of the authorities and the view of human nature oriented towards the individual specifically never reached the Muslim countries. On that account Egypt does not have the mentality to establish a Western liberal democracy.
2. Morsi’s decrees the 22nd of November
Morsi issued a number of decrees that increase his own power significantly and foreshadowed a new period of oppression in Egypt. The decrees are very undemocratic and have catalyzed a broadside against Morsi and his party, The Muslim Brotherhood. The opposition is of the opinion that the decrees are an attempt to monopolize the power and inaugurate an Islamic constitution, while the economical and social problems are being ignored.
Arguments for the chances of democracy in Egypt
1. Egypt is still only getting used to democracies
Democracies are not forged in a day. Egypt has only known autocratic regimes, and therefore, the population of the country has to go through an adjustment phase in order to assume a democratic mentality. In Denmark, 52 years passed since the constitution was enacted in 1849 before the country got a more modern, well-functioning democracy, i.e. the rise of Cabinet Responsibility in 1901. In this period of time, great parts of Denmark were lost to Prussia in 1864, and the country went through the Provisional Years when the king and prime minister, Estrup, ruled the land through dictatorial, temporary laws.
In France, a terror regime rose after the constitution of the country was written in 1793. 17,000 people were executed in the span of a year. Thereafter, a number of decrees and temporary laws were enacted, similar to what Denmark experienced almost a century later.
These are but two examples that it is commonplace to go through an adjustment phase in which the country and its population slowly get used to the new, democratic system. During this phase, obstacles can occur, for example in the shape of decrees like the ones Morsi has recently ordered.
2. The Arab countries were the maintainers of the future democracies
The democracy commonly associated with the Western World has roots in the Antique in which modern ideals sprouted and flourished before the Dark Middle Ages overtook Europe. It is easy to forget how these ideals endured, but how they did is remarkable all the same. It certainly was not sustained by the various European countries. Conversely, the Arab countries were the keepers of this cultural treasure for centuries before it was rediscovered by the Europeans who, amongst other things, used it to lay the foundations of the liberal democracy. In other words, the same democratic foundation lies within the Arab countries. By extension, the various Arab countries have plentiful possibilities for achieving a democracy of their own.
3. Francis Fukuyama: The End of History
In 1992, Francis Fukuyama published the book The End of History and the Last Man in which he theorised that the entire world would convert to liberalism sooner or later, seeing as this one ideology had proven capable of defeating all of its major competitors, namely fascism and communism. If one follows this line of thought, it becomes clear that Egypt is moving towards a liberal democracy. The Egyptians have already shown their dissatisfaction once, and the dissatisfaction will grow until the country has established the one supreme ideology once and for all.
From the above arguments it can be concluded, that Egypt in time will have a personal regulated democratic form of government. The democratic roots can be found in the Egyptian history and culture, but a missing age of Enlightenment removes the conditions for a classic, liberal and Western democracy. Yet, Morsis latest actions and the mentality of the patriarchal people appear as an obstacle for democracy in the country. The accomplishments of the Arabian Spring are not necessarily fruitless, but there is still a long way to an effective democracy
5. The Powerful Revolution of the Arab Media
by Frederikke, Ida, Anna B
Have the media transformation and the technical development made an impact on society? In this article we will try to account for the “old” media, give a short overview of the revolution, and as a concluding discussion argue whether the media revolution can be seen as a precourser to the revolution.
The old Media
The media in Arab has been in a long historical progress, as it in the same speed as the rest of the world has followed the technological development. However it has been characteristic for leaders of Arab countries to restrict or prohibit personal, commercial media, only providing the people state controlled and censored media. In that way the head of state, in various Arab countries, have been able to control which information should be diffused to the people, holding back or distorting the information accessible for the people.
The citizens were only provided with state controlled TV, and forced to be content with the governmental media’ s exposure of international and local conflict. That made it possible for the Arab leaders to keep many people in ignorance, and avoid dissatisfaction among the people.
Likewise the state controlled media, that set limits for the freedom of speech, made it impossible for the opposition of the state to create debate and organize demonstrations against the once in power. The legitimatization of state control was substantiated with a security of the national safety.
By that means, media in Arab has been used as an implement for the politicians in power to maintain their absolute position in the society, contributing to preserve certain governances such as dictatorship.
State control has in decades been a facet for Arab media, but is now challenged by the new strong Revolution of the media in Arab.
The Revolt
In December 2010 a university-trained greengrocer lit himself on fire, because he was frustrated with the fact that he could not get a job that suited his education. This world known event was the straw and triggered the revolution in Northern Africa and the Arab peninsula.
The revolution leaded to demonstrations and protests against the different countries’ regimes. The citizens of the Arab countries demanded changes with the government, and therefore the revolution dispersed fast around in the Arab countries.
For example the demonstrators in Egypt demanded the overthrow of the Egyptian regime – the president Hosni Mubarak. In Egypt the people made non-violent demonstrations, where the citizens in Cairo gathered on the Tahrir Square. This square became the centre of the revolution in Egypt. Despite the non-violent demonstrations, the revolution also has had violent clashes between the security forces and the demonstrators. Many people were injured and killed in these battles where they fought against the regime for freedom.
The citizens in many Arab countries were fed up with corruption, lack of freedom and the absence of the freedom of expression. After the revolution the development in the countries have been really distinct, some of the countries have gotten new regimes whereas other countries still are dominated by dictators.
In Egypt the result of the demonstrators fight against the regime finally came February 2011. The president Hosni Mubarak ultimately stepped down as president on the 10 February 2011. The military here after ruled Egypt in six months until a free democratic election could be held. The election was held June 2012, and the Muslim brotherhood, with Hosni Mubarak in charge, now rules Egypt. The Government has also created a new draft text to the new Egyptian constitution. In Egypt the demonstrations have currenlty started again, due to the dissatisfaction with the current governance. [1]
The Media Revolution
Before all these political changes happened, the arab media had been through a serious transformation. The technical development in the Arab world expanded the opportunities for the satellite companies to transmit to a larger audience. Egypt was the first country to fully exploit the Arabsat’s opportunities for tv-transmission. The arrival of Al-Jazeera in 1996 changed the conditions in the Arab media world tremendously.
Al- Jazeera’s relative independency from the state’s control of what was mediated to the citizens, strengthened their editorial freedom. This opened for new agendas in the media world. New and previously prohibited subjects were open for discussion. A new more aggressive and critical approach was now used in multiple situations. This sudden and tremendous change of the journalistic style made it possible to illuminate events and figures of importance that in a long time had been hidden by the dictators. Al-Jazeera’s media coverage has led to tremendous criticism and discontent among other Arab countries, but today hundreds of critical Arab satellite channels have sprung up across the region, thereby the expression ’a media revolution’ is highly applicable.[2]
A Precursor to the Revolution?
Whether the revolution is a direct result of the radical changes of the media is hard to determine, though experts point to the fact that the media’s approach towards the Arab society structures, is very likely to be one of the crucial variable to the Arab spring/revolution.
The Arab satellite channels started discussing different political and ethical viewpoints more critically and aggressively, and the Arab people were witnessing this. These innovations gave civilians a better chance than earlier to develop opinions about different aspects of society and a generel overview of their state’s condition nationally and internationally. This may have caused a ‘cultural shift’ that lead to a cultural transfer of the sort that produces modernity in the civil society, or what might be called "the civil transformation."[3]
To argue this assumption the ’Habermasion theory’[4] with the public sphere could be used; The changes of the media have been a catalyst, a precursor to the revolution and ultimately a seed to the cult of the public sphere.
By Julie Arendal, Ida Klint, Frederikke Vittrup & Anna Butondo
2.c
Rysensteen Gymnasium
[1] ”The Arab Spring” Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
[2]”Arab media revolution spreading change” By Lawrence Pintak, Special to CNN http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-29/opinion/pintak.arab.media_1_arab-media-egyptians-arabic?_s=PM:OPINION
[3] ”Arab Media Revolution and means of Transforming the Arab civil Society” by Dr. Mustapha Qassim - Researcher of Educational Policies in the National Center for Educational and Development Research in Cairo
[4] Cf. Jürgen Habermas – The German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism
by Frederikke, Ida, Anna B
Have the media transformation and the technical development made an impact on society? In this article we will try to account for the “old” media, give a short overview of the revolution, and as a concluding discussion argue whether the media revolution can be seen as a precourser to the revolution.
The old Media
The media in Arab has been in a long historical progress, as it in the same speed as the rest of the world has followed the technological development. However it has been characteristic for leaders of Arab countries to restrict or prohibit personal, commercial media, only providing the people state controlled and censored media. In that way the head of state, in various Arab countries, have been able to control which information should be diffused to the people, holding back or distorting the information accessible for the people.
The citizens were only provided with state controlled TV, and forced to be content with the governmental media’ s exposure of international and local conflict. That made it possible for the Arab leaders to keep many people in ignorance, and avoid dissatisfaction among the people.
Likewise the state controlled media, that set limits for the freedom of speech, made it impossible for the opposition of the state to create debate and organize demonstrations against the once in power. The legitimatization of state control was substantiated with a security of the national safety.
By that means, media in Arab has been used as an implement for the politicians in power to maintain their absolute position in the society, contributing to preserve certain governances such as dictatorship.
State control has in decades been a facet for Arab media, but is now challenged by the new strong Revolution of the media in Arab.
The Revolt
In December 2010 a university-trained greengrocer lit himself on fire, because he was frustrated with the fact that he could not get a job that suited his education. This world known event was the straw and triggered the revolution in Northern Africa and the Arab peninsula.
The revolution leaded to demonstrations and protests against the different countries’ regimes. The citizens of the Arab countries demanded changes with the government, and therefore the revolution dispersed fast around in the Arab countries.
For example the demonstrators in Egypt demanded the overthrow of the Egyptian regime – the president Hosni Mubarak. In Egypt the people made non-violent demonstrations, where the citizens in Cairo gathered on the Tahrir Square. This square became the centre of the revolution in Egypt. Despite the non-violent demonstrations, the revolution also has had violent clashes between the security forces and the demonstrators. Many people were injured and killed in these battles where they fought against the regime for freedom.
The citizens in many Arab countries were fed up with corruption, lack of freedom and the absence of the freedom of expression. After the revolution the development in the countries have been really distinct, some of the countries have gotten new regimes whereas other countries still are dominated by dictators.
In Egypt the result of the demonstrators fight against the regime finally came February 2011. The president Hosni Mubarak ultimately stepped down as president on the 10 February 2011. The military here after ruled Egypt in six months until a free democratic election could be held. The election was held June 2012, and the Muslim brotherhood, with Hosni Mubarak in charge, now rules Egypt. The Government has also created a new draft text to the new Egyptian constitution. In Egypt the demonstrations have currenlty started again, due to the dissatisfaction with the current governance. [1]
The Media Revolution
Before all these political changes happened, the arab media had been through a serious transformation. The technical development in the Arab world expanded the opportunities for the satellite companies to transmit to a larger audience. Egypt was the first country to fully exploit the Arabsat’s opportunities for tv-transmission. The arrival of Al-Jazeera in 1996 changed the conditions in the Arab media world tremendously.
Al- Jazeera’s relative independency from the state’s control of what was mediated to the citizens, strengthened their editorial freedom. This opened for new agendas in the media world. New and previously prohibited subjects were open for discussion. A new more aggressive and critical approach was now used in multiple situations. This sudden and tremendous change of the journalistic style made it possible to illuminate events and figures of importance that in a long time had been hidden by the dictators. Al-Jazeera’s media coverage has led to tremendous criticism and discontent among other Arab countries, but today hundreds of critical Arab satellite channels have sprung up across the region, thereby the expression ’a media revolution’ is highly applicable.[2]
A Precursor to the Revolution?
Whether the revolution is a direct result of the radical changes of the media is hard to determine, though experts point to the fact that the media’s approach towards the Arab society structures, is very likely to be one of the crucial variable to the Arab spring/revolution.
The Arab satellite channels started discussing different political and ethical viewpoints more critically and aggressively, and the Arab people were witnessing this. These innovations gave civilians a better chance than earlier to develop opinions about different aspects of society and a generel overview of their state’s condition nationally and internationally. This may have caused a ‘cultural shift’ that lead to a cultural transfer of the sort that produces modernity in the civil society, or what might be called "the civil transformation."[3]
To argue this assumption the ’Habermasion theory’[4] with the public sphere could be used; The changes of the media have been a catalyst, a precursor to the revolution and ultimately a seed to the cult of the public sphere.
By Julie Arendal, Ida Klint, Frederikke Vittrup & Anna Butondo
2.c
Rysensteen Gymnasium
[1] ”The Arab Spring” Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
[2]”Arab media revolution spreading change” By Lawrence Pintak, Special to CNN http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-29/opinion/pintak.arab.media_1_arab-media-egyptians-arabic?_s=PM:OPINION
[3] ”Arab Media Revolution and means of Transforming the Arab civil Society” by Dr. Mustapha Qassim - Researcher of Educational Policies in the National Center for Educational and Development Research in Cairo
[4] Cf. Jürgen Habermas – The German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism
6. The Egyptian Revolutions
by Rasmus, Marie, Asta
Is Morsi going to be the new Nasser?
June 30th 2012 Mohammed Morsi took over the office as the newly elected Egyptian president. This was a big step towards democracy for Egypt. And Morsi will stand as a symbol of a successful revolution for the Egyptian people. Or will he? Many Egyptians still remember the 1952-revolution and the popular president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Will the revolution today be similar to the one in ’52 or will Egypt experience, yet another unpopular autocracy over time? Will Egypt be ruled by guns or by the people? Or will Morsi be the new Nasser?
As a way of answering the question to whether or not Morsi will become the “new” Nasser, it could be interesting to look into the two president opularity to compare their popularity. But as Egypt does not have a tradition for opinion polls; comparing Morsi’s and Nasser’s popularity among the Egyptian people is rather hard – if not impossible. Furthermore it is difficult for us today to get a full picture of the public opinion towards Nasser during his presidency, reasoned the years that has passed. Therefore we have decided to look into the background for Nasser’s revolution to see if there can be drawn any parallels to the revolution today. Furthermore we can look into their ‘statement programs’ and find the similarities between their official opinions.
During World War 2 Egypt was used as a British military base. After the war, Egypt was not pleased with England’s monarchist government ruling. It was corrupted and put Egypt in a difficult economic crisis. Furthermore, in 1948 England participated in the establishment of the state Israel in Palestine. Egypt and other Arabic countries fought the new ruler, but were defeated. This triggered several demonstrations against the British monarchy. Therefore a group of young people from the Egyptian military formed a nationalistic movement called ‘The Free Officers Movement’, which was led by general Mohamed Naguib and colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser he became the front of the revolution. In Denmark we saw it as ‘an illegal seizure of the government’, because in theory, that was what it was. It was not the people that fought for democracy it was a military group that fought for power. In theory. But they did fight for the people just not with the people. The majority of Egypt agreed with them and most likely everybody was fed up with the British monarchy and wanted a free Egypt. Therefore you could speak of it as a revolution, because it was a big change for Egypt for the good of the people.
July 23rd 1952, the group overthrew king Garuk and proclaimed one year later the rise of a republic. In 1956 Colonel Nasser became the second president after Naguib and stayed there until his death in 1970. He was a loved leader after he freed Egypt from England and gave them their independence. ‘The Free Officers Movement’ was created to fight imperialism and create social justice in Egypt. They wanted a steadier economy and they fought for the people and their independence as well. Nasser was a loved president despite his autocracy because he fought for the Egyptian people and he ruled that way as well. He was against alliances and wanted a strong, independent, national army for Egypt. When Nasser died in 1970, he was followed by Mohamed Anwar el Sadat who was also loved by the people; he won the Nobel-price after the seven-day-war. Furthermore, he worked very close with the American government and distanced the ruling of Egypt from the sharia laws and the Muslim Brotherhood. He was murdered in 1981 and was followed by the dictator Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was very strict in his ruling and became less popular in time until the revolution of 2011, also called ‘The Arabic Spring’, when the people in Egypt began protesting against the cruel dictatorship led by Mubarak.
He was overthrown and this was the possibility of a new democracy. Mohamed Morsi isa El-Ayyat became the fifth president of Egypt and the first elected president by the people. He is a member of ‘The Freedom and Justice Party’, which is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was also banned during the period of 1952-2011.
But now, people are afraid that Morsi is not what the Egyptians need after all. The two other branches in the government have begun to believe that he has too much power, and that he is not progressive enough. December 1st 2012, the judges boycotted the election of the constitution that is supposed to be published and voted for December 15th. They feel that the Islamist minded are dominating the election and that Morsi is gaining too much power through the constitution.
If we take a look at the election program 2011 from ‘The Freedom and Justice Party’, we can see that they want to be a powerful nation with a religious democracy. They want to have more control over the Internet and illegalize downloading and uploading of pornography. They also have a wish for social justice, meaning Government taking care of homeless children and social insurance like social security pensions and thus raise the taxes. Morsi fights against corruption and all the former politicians who were under Mubarak’s regime have been dismissed. Another issue that Morsi has to face is the financial crisis, this will make it harder for Morsi to present himself as a good leader.
Gamal Abdel Nasser wrote “The Charter”, (approx. ten years after he became the president) whose wishes for the future Egypt were written. He expresses the wish of an independent Egypt with a strong army and free from imperialism. Establishment of a social justice system is also an important part of The Charter, as Nasser wants a more socialistic Egypt free from the domination of the government by capitalism.
Morsi and Nasser can both be thought of as symbol of a new, free Egypt. In both cases we see a country and its citizens that have been oppressed throughout a number of years in the first case by England and in the second by a dictatorship. In that way we can draw parallels between the two presidencies as the point of the two revolutions were the same – freedom. But the results are very different in the two cases. The free Officers Movement did share a wish for democracy, but after the 1952-revolution Egypt became an autocracy, which distinguishes it from the revolution today where the people chose the leader of Egypt.
If we look at both presidents’ idea of an ideal future for Egypt, they share a wish for social justice and the idea of a dominating Arab country. But since Morsi’s election program is written before the election and Nasser’s in 1962 after the revolution, we must be aware of the fact that Morsi’s program represents his wishes and ideas for Egypt and has the purpose making Egyptian people vote for him. In the other case Nasser already has the power and The Charter represents his plan for Egypt. What essentially separates Nasser’s ideas from Morsi’s ideas is religion. Where Nasser distanced the government from religion and forbid the Muslim brotherhood; Morsi is a part of the Muslim brotherhood and wishes to establish a more religious Egypt.
Based on the two factors: the presidents’ ideas of the future Egypt and the background for the revolution, can we now draw parallels between the two presidents and thereby get an idea of how Morsi’s presidency will affect Egypt.
We find that the Egypt today has other needs than the Egypt in ’52, since before Nasser’s regime the Egyptians needed an independent government and needed someone to fight for them. Now they themselves want independence and thereby democracy. Even though democracy was mentioned in the Charter written by the Officers Movement, it was not their main goal and they kept the autocracy. The recent revolutions’ main goal was democracy and therefore the critics of Morsi mostly points at him having too much power. Which did not seem to be an issue during Nasser’s presidency. Therefore they differ more than they are alike and we will most likely not anticipate a new dictatorship.
Kildehenvisning:
http://politiken.dk/udland/ECE1830076/dommere-boykotter-egyptisk-folkeafstemning/
pdf filer:
Muslimske Broderskabs partiprogram 2011
‘The Charter’
Jørgen Bæk Simonsens foredrag november 2012, KU
by Rasmus, Marie, Asta
Is Morsi going to be the new Nasser?
June 30th 2012 Mohammed Morsi took over the office as the newly elected Egyptian president. This was a big step towards democracy for Egypt. And Morsi will stand as a symbol of a successful revolution for the Egyptian people. Or will he? Many Egyptians still remember the 1952-revolution and the popular president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Will the revolution today be similar to the one in ’52 or will Egypt experience, yet another unpopular autocracy over time? Will Egypt be ruled by guns or by the people? Or will Morsi be the new Nasser?
As a way of answering the question to whether or not Morsi will become the “new” Nasser, it could be interesting to look into the two president opularity to compare their popularity. But as Egypt does not have a tradition for opinion polls; comparing Morsi’s and Nasser’s popularity among the Egyptian people is rather hard – if not impossible. Furthermore it is difficult for us today to get a full picture of the public opinion towards Nasser during his presidency, reasoned the years that has passed. Therefore we have decided to look into the background for Nasser’s revolution to see if there can be drawn any parallels to the revolution today. Furthermore we can look into their ‘statement programs’ and find the similarities between their official opinions.
During World War 2 Egypt was used as a British military base. After the war, Egypt was not pleased with England’s monarchist government ruling. It was corrupted and put Egypt in a difficult economic crisis. Furthermore, in 1948 England participated in the establishment of the state Israel in Palestine. Egypt and other Arabic countries fought the new ruler, but were defeated. This triggered several demonstrations against the British monarchy. Therefore a group of young people from the Egyptian military formed a nationalistic movement called ‘The Free Officers Movement’, which was led by general Mohamed Naguib and colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser he became the front of the revolution. In Denmark we saw it as ‘an illegal seizure of the government’, because in theory, that was what it was. It was not the people that fought for democracy it was a military group that fought for power. In theory. But they did fight for the people just not with the people. The majority of Egypt agreed with them and most likely everybody was fed up with the British monarchy and wanted a free Egypt. Therefore you could speak of it as a revolution, because it was a big change for Egypt for the good of the people.
July 23rd 1952, the group overthrew king Garuk and proclaimed one year later the rise of a republic. In 1956 Colonel Nasser became the second president after Naguib and stayed there until his death in 1970. He was a loved leader after he freed Egypt from England and gave them their independence. ‘The Free Officers Movement’ was created to fight imperialism and create social justice in Egypt. They wanted a steadier economy and they fought for the people and their independence as well. Nasser was a loved president despite his autocracy because he fought for the Egyptian people and he ruled that way as well. He was against alliances and wanted a strong, independent, national army for Egypt. When Nasser died in 1970, he was followed by Mohamed Anwar el Sadat who was also loved by the people; he won the Nobel-price after the seven-day-war. Furthermore, he worked very close with the American government and distanced the ruling of Egypt from the sharia laws and the Muslim Brotherhood. He was murdered in 1981 and was followed by the dictator Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was very strict in his ruling and became less popular in time until the revolution of 2011, also called ‘The Arabic Spring’, when the people in Egypt began protesting against the cruel dictatorship led by Mubarak.
He was overthrown and this was the possibility of a new democracy. Mohamed Morsi isa El-Ayyat became the fifth president of Egypt and the first elected president by the people. He is a member of ‘The Freedom and Justice Party’, which is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was also banned during the period of 1952-2011.
But now, people are afraid that Morsi is not what the Egyptians need after all. The two other branches in the government have begun to believe that he has too much power, and that he is not progressive enough. December 1st 2012, the judges boycotted the election of the constitution that is supposed to be published and voted for December 15th. They feel that the Islamist minded are dominating the election and that Morsi is gaining too much power through the constitution.
If we take a look at the election program 2011 from ‘The Freedom and Justice Party’, we can see that they want to be a powerful nation with a religious democracy. They want to have more control over the Internet and illegalize downloading and uploading of pornography. They also have a wish for social justice, meaning Government taking care of homeless children and social insurance like social security pensions and thus raise the taxes. Morsi fights against corruption and all the former politicians who were under Mubarak’s regime have been dismissed. Another issue that Morsi has to face is the financial crisis, this will make it harder for Morsi to present himself as a good leader.
Gamal Abdel Nasser wrote “The Charter”, (approx. ten years after he became the president) whose wishes for the future Egypt were written. He expresses the wish of an independent Egypt with a strong army and free from imperialism. Establishment of a social justice system is also an important part of The Charter, as Nasser wants a more socialistic Egypt free from the domination of the government by capitalism.
Morsi and Nasser can both be thought of as symbol of a new, free Egypt. In both cases we see a country and its citizens that have been oppressed throughout a number of years in the first case by England and in the second by a dictatorship. In that way we can draw parallels between the two presidencies as the point of the two revolutions were the same – freedom. But the results are very different in the two cases. The free Officers Movement did share a wish for democracy, but after the 1952-revolution Egypt became an autocracy, which distinguishes it from the revolution today where the people chose the leader of Egypt.
If we look at both presidents’ idea of an ideal future for Egypt, they share a wish for social justice and the idea of a dominating Arab country. But since Morsi’s election program is written before the election and Nasser’s in 1962 after the revolution, we must be aware of the fact that Morsi’s program represents his wishes and ideas for Egypt and has the purpose making Egyptian people vote for him. In the other case Nasser already has the power and The Charter represents his plan for Egypt. What essentially separates Nasser’s ideas from Morsi’s ideas is religion. Where Nasser distanced the government from religion and forbid the Muslim brotherhood; Morsi is a part of the Muslim brotherhood and wishes to establish a more religious Egypt.
Based on the two factors: the presidents’ ideas of the future Egypt and the background for the revolution, can we now draw parallels between the two presidents and thereby get an idea of how Morsi’s presidency will affect Egypt.
We find that the Egypt today has other needs than the Egypt in ’52, since before Nasser’s regime the Egyptians needed an independent government and needed someone to fight for them. Now they themselves want independence and thereby democracy. Even though democracy was mentioned in the Charter written by the Officers Movement, it was not their main goal and they kept the autocracy. The recent revolutions’ main goal was democracy and therefore the critics of Morsi mostly points at him having too much power. Which did not seem to be an issue during Nasser’s presidency. Therefore they differ more than they are alike and we will most likely not anticipate a new dictatorship.
Kildehenvisning:
http://politiken.dk/udland/ECE1830076/dommere-boykotter-egyptisk-folkeafstemning/
pdf filer:
Muslimske Broderskabs partiprogram 2011
‘The Charter’
Jørgen Bæk Simonsens foredrag november 2012, KU
7. What Does it Mean for the Women’s Rights, that Egypt has Chosen a President from a Muslim party? Will Women be able to Accept the Muslim Brotherhood’s Views on Women in the Future?
by Silas, Carla and Simone
The Arab Spring has created huge changes in the Arab world and in particular in Egypt, where the people accomplished to remove the former president Hosni Mubarak.
In connection with the revolution the women gained a voice when they defied their men and went out on the streets. Roughly half of the people on the Tahrir-square were women and women have, through blogs and satellite-TV been politically active during and after the revolution.
The 21st of June Egypt’s new president Mohammed Morsi from the Freedom and Justice Party was elected as president, and has, both before and after voiced his ambition of ruling the country with the Islamic law and principles as a role model.
In these principles, amongst other things, you see a very traditional gender role pattern, where women first and foremost should fill out their roles as wives and mothers.
Right now there seems to be a long way from the traditional views of the Freedom and Justice party which were written in their party program from 2011, to the image of women in the streets and on the internet. Therefore it seems relevant to ask whether women will be able to submit to the views on women coming from Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, or if the changes in society that have come as a result of the revolution will forever change the women’s role in the Egyptian society.
Freedom and Justice Party about women and family:
“The basic principle of Islamic law is equality between women and men in rights and duties. Therefore, we stress the importance of social support to women to help them perform their roles in society…”
This is the opening line in the paragraph regarding women in the party program of the Freedom and Justice Party from 2011.
It underlines that men and women are equal in the light of the Islamic law, since it is the basic principle in Islam. Afterwards this introduction stresses the importance of helping women filling out their role in society.
“The FJP has the greatest respect, appreciation and support for women's role as wives, mothers and makers of men; and aims to better prepare them for this role.”
In this paragraph they stress the importance of women’s role in the home as the leader of the household as well as their roles as wives and mothers.
As the party itself underlines in the introductory lines, they put great value in the traditional roles of women in the society and mark the importance of women being well prepared for these roles. In this paragraph the traditional view on women’s role in society stands out.
In the following paragraph ”Family as the child’s first incubator” the Freedom and Justice Party criticizes organizations such as ”The National Council for Women” based on the argument that they supposedly are supported by foreigners and are a result of the corruption as presented under the previous reign.
The Freedom and Justice Party stresses the point that they as a party will work towards shutting down The National Council for Women and The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and afterwards make their own council with the goal of helping create stable and healthy families that regard the family’s security.
At the end the party expresses that it will take ”personal status laws” in consideration again and remove the elements that can be destructive for families as well as working to make these laws work according to Islamic law.
In conclusion, these two passages give the impression that the Freedom and Justice Party wants to keep women in their traditional gender roles as wives and mothers in the Egyptian society.
The Muslim Brotherhood
As for the Muslim Brotherhood’s views on women, they are largely influenced by the ideals of women in a patriarchal society.
One example of this is the premarital workshops, “Bride and Groom against Satan”, which the Muslim Brotherhood pays for through one of their charity organisations, “Family House”. Here women are taught how to be good wives according to Islamic law and how to find joy in filling out their roles as wives and mothers.
Morsi has supported the workshop of the Muslim Brotherhood, and encourages young men and women to go there.
Some of the political actions that Morsi has enacted in his time as president have shown to be largely against women’s rights.
During Hosni Mubarak’s reign a law was instated that gave women the right to file for divorce without their husband’s consent. Even though they gave up the right to financial support they still had the opportunity. Morsi is working against this law and is trying to remove.
Another law set a quota for the minimum amount of women that have to be in parliament, making sure that men didn’t get all the seats. This law has been disbanded.
The ideals for women presented by the Freedom and Justice Party and the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be very traditional and it is interesting to ask if these ideals are actually reflecting the women in the modern Egyptian society or if these ideals are going against these modern women.
Has the revolution betrayed the Egyptian women?
Today in Cairo, many women would claim that they step by step overcame parts of the traditional patriarchal society years ago. Therefore it is a paradox that the Egyptian revolution, which promised a new era of liberty and freedom, now seems to be taking back the women’s rights.
Some have suggested that Egypt has replaced a western-supported secular dictatorship with an Islamic version, but for others the true
headline figure was the paltry 12 seats for women out of a total of 498. And many people fear that the real danger for the women’s rights is that if the Islamist will control not only the parliament, but the executive and judiciary branch, the women’s rights will regress further. The former first lady, Suzanne Mubarak pushed for pro-women legislation, which included both the right of wives to file for divorce, and also a quota system that was in favor of female election candidates. Now the implementation of the second one is already taken of the agenda, and the first one is facing political resistance.
Almost 50 % of the demonstrators on the Thahir Square were women. The uprisings that spread across the country from late January were originally communicated by prolific female writers such as Nawara Negm, who used everything from internet blogs to appearances on Al Jazeera to spread information to the outside world.
In general, women have been involved in an explosion of bloggers in Egypt and gotten their voice heard that way.
When a country experiences a revolution, the gender roles and general family structure will be shaken to an extend where they are not likely to return to their former shapes.
That makes it interesting to ask if the hundreds of thousands of women who contributed so much to the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak will find themselves marginalized, if not ignored as a result of the Freedom and Justice Party’s political actions.
Mohammed Morsi was elected with a little over 50% of the Egyptian votes and apart from the fact that the Freedom and Justice Party was a very established party, one must assume that the population supports the ideals of the party and therefore it is not safe to say whether the emancipated women of Egypt will collide with these ideals.
On the other hand it is possible, that the women of post-revolutionary Egypt will see the chance to once again stand up against the regime to show that the social status for women in Egypt has changed for good. [i]
[i] Freedom and Justice Party Program
www.information.dk
www.bbc.co.uk
www.worldcrunch.com
http://www.egyptianwomen.info/
by Silas, Carla and Simone
The Arab Spring has created huge changes in the Arab world and in particular in Egypt, where the people accomplished to remove the former president Hosni Mubarak.
In connection with the revolution the women gained a voice when they defied their men and went out on the streets. Roughly half of the people on the Tahrir-square were women and women have, through blogs and satellite-TV been politically active during and after the revolution.
The 21st of June Egypt’s new president Mohammed Morsi from the Freedom and Justice Party was elected as president, and has, both before and after voiced his ambition of ruling the country with the Islamic law and principles as a role model.
In these principles, amongst other things, you see a very traditional gender role pattern, where women first and foremost should fill out their roles as wives and mothers.
Right now there seems to be a long way from the traditional views of the Freedom and Justice party which were written in their party program from 2011, to the image of women in the streets and on the internet. Therefore it seems relevant to ask whether women will be able to submit to the views on women coming from Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, or if the changes in society that have come as a result of the revolution will forever change the women’s role in the Egyptian society.
Freedom and Justice Party about women and family:
“The basic principle of Islamic law is equality between women and men in rights and duties. Therefore, we stress the importance of social support to women to help them perform their roles in society…”
This is the opening line in the paragraph regarding women in the party program of the Freedom and Justice Party from 2011.
It underlines that men and women are equal in the light of the Islamic law, since it is the basic principle in Islam. Afterwards this introduction stresses the importance of helping women filling out their role in society.
“The FJP has the greatest respect, appreciation and support for women's role as wives, mothers and makers of men; and aims to better prepare them for this role.”
In this paragraph they stress the importance of women’s role in the home as the leader of the household as well as their roles as wives and mothers.
As the party itself underlines in the introductory lines, they put great value in the traditional roles of women in the society and mark the importance of women being well prepared for these roles. In this paragraph the traditional view on women’s role in society stands out.
In the following paragraph ”Family as the child’s first incubator” the Freedom and Justice Party criticizes organizations such as ”The National Council for Women” based on the argument that they supposedly are supported by foreigners and are a result of the corruption as presented under the previous reign.
The Freedom and Justice Party stresses the point that they as a party will work towards shutting down The National Council for Women and The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and afterwards make their own council with the goal of helping create stable and healthy families that regard the family’s security.
At the end the party expresses that it will take ”personal status laws” in consideration again and remove the elements that can be destructive for families as well as working to make these laws work according to Islamic law.
In conclusion, these two passages give the impression that the Freedom and Justice Party wants to keep women in their traditional gender roles as wives and mothers in the Egyptian society.
The Muslim Brotherhood
As for the Muslim Brotherhood’s views on women, they are largely influenced by the ideals of women in a patriarchal society.
One example of this is the premarital workshops, “Bride and Groom against Satan”, which the Muslim Brotherhood pays for through one of their charity organisations, “Family House”. Here women are taught how to be good wives according to Islamic law and how to find joy in filling out their roles as wives and mothers.
Morsi has supported the workshop of the Muslim Brotherhood, and encourages young men and women to go there.
Some of the political actions that Morsi has enacted in his time as president have shown to be largely against women’s rights.
During Hosni Mubarak’s reign a law was instated that gave women the right to file for divorce without their husband’s consent. Even though they gave up the right to financial support they still had the opportunity. Morsi is working against this law and is trying to remove.
Another law set a quota for the minimum amount of women that have to be in parliament, making sure that men didn’t get all the seats. This law has been disbanded.
The ideals for women presented by the Freedom and Justice Party and the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be very traditional and it is interesting to ask if these ideals are actually reflecting the women in the modern Egyptian society or if these ideals are going against these modern women.
Has the revolution betrayed the Egyptian women?
Today in Cairo, many women would claim that they step by step overcame parts of the traditional patriarchal society years ago. Therefore it is a paradox that the Egyptian revolution, which promised a new era of liberty and freedom, now seems to be taking back the women’s rights.
Some have suggested that Egypt has replaced a western-supported secular dictatorship with an Islamic version, but for others the true
headline figure was the paltry 12 seats for women out of a total of 498. And many people fear that the real danger for the women’s rights is that if the Islamist will control not only the parliament, but the executive and judiciary branch, the women’s rights will regress further. The former first lady, Suzanne Mubarak pushed for pro-women legislation, which included both the right of wives to file for divorce, and also a quota system that was in favor of female election candidates. Now the implementation of the second one is already taken of the agenda, and the first one is facing political resistance.
Almost 50 % of the demonstrators on the Thahir Square were women. The uprisings that spread across the country from late January were originally communicated by prolific female writers such as Nawara Negm, who used everything from internet blogs to appearances on Al Jazeera to spread information to the outside world.
In general, women have been involved in an explosion of bloggers in Egypt and gotten their voice heard that way.
When a country experiences a revolution, the gender roles and general family structure will be shaken to an extend where they are not likely to return to their former shapes.
That makes it interesting to ask if the hundreds of thousands of women who contributed so much to the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak will find themselves marginalized, if not ignored as a result of the Freedom and Justice Party’s political actions.
Mohammed Morsi was elected with a little over 50% of the Egyptian votes and apart from the fact that the Freedom and Justice Party was a very established party, one must assume that the population supports the ideals of the party and therefore it is not safe to say whether the emancipated women of Egypt will collide with these ideals.
On the other hand it is possible, that the women of post-revolutionary Egypt will see the chance to once again stand up against the regime to show that the social status for women in Egypt has changed for good. [i]
[i] Freedom and Justice Party Program
www.information.dk
www.bbc.co.uk
www.worldcrunch.com
http://www.egyptianwomen.info/
A reference to the social medium, Facebook, where the Tunisian president Ben Ali is compared to president Mubarak and therefor should send him a friend request.
From: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/laugh-o-revolution-humor-in-the-egyptian-uprising/
8. Weapons: Not Allowed!by Frederikke Pi, Emma, Maria, Mathilde og Johanne
How would you verbalize the needs and state of minds of your country? Would you focus on the good or the bad in your country? We have found out how Egypt handled these questions. Egypt's heart, the Tahrir Square, has been the center of the revolution in 2011. The square has witnessed many different ways of spreading people’s message. We have looked at some of the methods, and through the use of discourse analysis of a popular song from the Tahrir Square and by looking at the popular ways of sharing a message, we have found out how the Egyptian people toppled Mubarak.
Humor has always been a universal language, which everybody can relate to no matter his or her color, religion or stand in the society. During the revolution, which started in 2011 in Egypt humor has been used more than ever - especially on banners and signs carried by the Egyptian people on the Tahrir Square. The square became a symbol of the revolution. The Egyptian people slept on the square, they were fighting on the square and they got together to sacrifice themselves and their blood on the square.
The message was clear - President Mubarak needed to go! There were used a lot of different ways to express the people’s points of views, and it was important that everyone understood - both young as well as old. Some used references to Facebook, Twitter and other social medias to catch the youngest crowd and to give the revolution a modern touch. The revolution was actually called “The Facebook revolution”.
Others used references to the ones who died fighting for the revolution and for freedom. The martyrs’ clothes were used as both banners and street art. It was really important for the Egyptian people to pay tribute to the citizens who died fighting for Egypt’s future. Common for all the fighting people in Egypt is how they all carried the flag and national colors in their hands or in their minds.
Street art became really popular during the revolution. It was used as a way to spread the words and to put focus on the people’s desires and needs. They used street art to image their peaceful fighting methods. Instead of weapons, they used their voices.
The song Sout Al Horeya is one of Egypt’s most popular revolution songs. It has been a part of the increasing social networking wave that rushed over Egypt and the rest of the Middle East during the revolution. The lyrics of the song are very powerful and focus on how the Egyptian people fought for their freedom with their bare hands and their spirit of fellowship. The spirit of fellowship is substantiated by the choice of words, which have a positive clang. Words that appeal to our innate fellow feeling. Words that make us want to fight for the revolution. Words like “freedom”, “dreams”, “rights” and “happiness”: “In every street of my country the sound of freedom is calling”.
Furthermore the lyrics contain a line of words that reflect unfavorably on the government that ruled Egypt at the time. Here we see words like murder, sadness and blood - exactly what the Egyptians were fighting to get away from. These contrasts underline how tired the Egyptian people are of the regime and how much they are in need of change.
The video shows both the old man and the young boy, a man hurt from the battle he fought and a woman demonstrating with a sign above her head. As well as the text the video makes the Egyptian people feel like one, it makes them join together in the fight against the regime. This is an important fact, because a whole nation together is better and more powerful than one man alone. Furthermore it is good for the nation to be joined as one owing to the fact that it is better for a leader to be afraid of his people than it is for his people to be afraid of him. When the video shows how it is not only one layer of the society fighting for the disengagement of their dictatorial leader it does not only unite the country itself but also the world around it. Besides that the video shows different parts of the Egyptian society. For instance when the camera focuses on a cross, which is a typical sign of Christianity, and subsequently focuses on a group of people conducting their prayers, which is a typical sign of Islam. Without directly saying it the video shows us how the Egyptian people are fighting for a country in which freedom of religion is with a high priority.
Through the ways of communicating the revolution ended up being the young part of the revolution of the society even though the video Sout Al Horeya shows something else. Due to the fact that the revolution was called “The Facebook revolution” it was easier for the younger people in the country to understand and be a part of it than the older. Therefor the video is misleading. Through the ways of spreading the words with the help of Facebook, Twitter and different songs the Egyptian people succeeded in getting their message through and to get Mubarak to resign. The peaceful ways of fighting definitely paid off. Many lives have been sacrificed, but in the end they can literally rest in peace.
[1]
1. Ehab Galal: ”Rum for nye stemmer”
2.http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/laugh-o-revolution-humor-in-the-egyptian-uprising/71530/
3.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8
How would you verbalize the needs and state of minds of your country? Would you focus on the good or the bad in your country? We have found out how Egypt handled these questions. Egypt's heart, the Tahrir Square, has been the center of the revolution in 2011. The square has witnessed many different ways of spreading people’s message. We have looked at some of the methods, and through the use of discourse analysis of a popular song from the Tahrir Square and by looking at the popular ways of sharing a message, we have found out how the Egyptian people toppled Mubarak.
Humor has always been a universal language, which everybody can relate to no matter his or her color, religion or stand in the society. During the revolution, which started in 2011 in Egypt humor has been used more than ever - especially on banners and signs carried by the Egyptian people on the Tahrir Square. The square became a symbol of the revolution. The Egyptian people slept on the square, they were fighting on the square and they got together to sacrifice themselves and their blood on the square.
The message was clear - President Mubarak needed to go! There were used a lot of different ways to express the people’s points of views, and it was important that everyone understood - both young as well as old. Some used references to Facebook, Twitter and other social medias to catch the youngest crowd and to give the revolution a modern touch. The revolution was actually called “The Facebook revolution”.
Others used references to the ones who died fighting for the revolution and for freedom. The martyrs’ clothes were used as both banners and street art. It was really important for the Egyptian people to pay tribute to the citizens who died fighting for Egypt’s future. Common for all the fighting people in Egypt is how they all carried the flag and national colors in their hands or in their minds.
Street art became really popular during the revolution. It was used as a way to spread the words and to put focus on the people’s desires and needs. They used street art to image their peaceful fighting methods. Instead of weapons, they used their voices.
The song Sout Al Horeya is one of Egypt’s most popular revolution songs. It has been a part of the increasing social networking wave that rushed over Egypt and the rest of the Middle East during the revolution. The lyrics of the song are very powerful and focus on how the Egyptian people fought for their freedom with their bare hands and their spirit of fellowship. The spirit of fellowship is substantiated by the choice of words, which have a positive clang. Words that appeal to our innate fellow feeling. Words that make us want to fight for the revolution. Words like “freedom”, “dreams”, “rights” and “happiness”: “In every street of my country the sound of freedom is calling”.
Furthermore the lyrics contain a line of words that reflect unfavorably on the government that ruled Egypt at the time. Here we see words like murder, sadness and blood - exactly what the Egyptians were fighting to get away from. These contrasts underline how tired the Egyptian people are of the regime and how much they are in need of change.
The video shows both the old man and the young boy, a man hurt from the battle he fought and a woman demonstrating with a sign above her head. As well as the text the video makes the Egyptian people feel like one, it makes them join together in the fight against the regime. This is an important fact, because a whole nation together is better and more powerful than one man alone. Furthermore it is good for the nation to be joined as one owing to the fact that it is better for a leader to be afraid of his people than it is for his people to be afraid of him. When the video shows how it is not only one layer of the society fighting for the disengagement of their dictatorial leader it does not only unite the country itself but also the world around it. Besides that the video shows different parts of the Egyptian society. For instance when the camera focuses on a cross, which is a typical sign of Christianity, and subsequently focuses on a group of people conducting their prayers, which is a typical sign of Islam. Without directly saying it the video shows us how the Egyptian people are fighting for a country in which freedom of religion is with a high priority.
Through the ways of communicating the revolution ended up being the young part of the revolution of the society even though the video Sout Al Horeya shows something else. Due to the fact that the revolution was called “The Facebook revolution” it was easier for the younger people in the country to understand and be a part of it than the older. Therefor the video is misleading. Through the ways of spreading the words with the help of Facebook, Twitter and different songs the Egyptian people succeeded in getting their message through and to get Mubarak to resign. The peaceful ways of fighting definitely paid off. Many lives have been sacrificed, but in the end they can literally rest in peace.
[1]
1. Ehab Galal: ”Rum for nye stemmer”
2.http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/laugh-o-revolution-humor-in-the-egyptian-uprising/71530/
3.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8
Views and News About the "You Know Who" By Shaden
A Young Mind's Thoughts on the New Egyptian Constitution
“A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed."
Even though the constitution should represent all classes of the people equally, yet it is believed that the Egypt new constitution is limited to only one class. Therefore, the new constitution doesn’t represent the revolution, but it represents the exact opposite which is killing the revolution.
One of the main causes for not fulfilling the demands of the 25th of January revolution is the political factors which may be seen in the lack of experience and in the new constitution. The 6th of April youth movement stated in an announcement that the new Government is not fulfilling the demands of the revolution due to their inexperience. "Kandil's government is concerned about building projects that are far away from the demands of revolution" (Adel, 2012). He then stated that this goes to the old mentality of this government and the lack of their experience and creativity to introduce a solution to the everyday problems of the civilians. Adel then continued by stating that Kandil's government will soon fail due to their adoption of the same tactics and strategies that Mubarak government used. Therefore, it is believed that the inexperience and lack of creativity of this government is one main reason behind the unfulfilling of the demands of the revolution. While some other believes that the new constitution is more important reason behind unfulfilling of the 25th of revolution demands.
Hamdeen Sabahy, the former presidential candidate, believes that the new constitution does not fulfill the demands of the revolution, “we reject the constitution draft that the constituent assembly published as for it does not fulfill the demands of the revolution “ (Sabahy, 2012) .
On the same point El-baradey stated that he accepts what Hamdeen said by rejecting the constitution draft due to that it does not meet and fulfill the social justice, which is one of the revolution demands, within the country. The national power also rejects the constitution as it is far away from fulfilling the demands of revolution.
The new constitution states that rights and freedoms shall be practiced as long as they do not contradict the nature of the Egyptian family, verbal insults are a crime, the right to practice religion and worship is limited to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and civilians may be tried by the armed forces in cases specified by the law. So the revolutionaries asked for freedom, and what they got is a constitution that doesn't protect their rights, doesn't allow neither freedom of expression nor freedom of religion, and allows military trials of citizens. Also, the article which states that men and women are equal in rights got removed.
Concluding, at the 25th of January millions rebelled against a tyrant and brought him down in order for a better future, a future that they deserve. A future they have always dreamed of, but this dream was stolen, manipulated and killed by the hands of the constitution assembly.
“A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed."
Even though the constitution should represent all classes of the people equally, yet it is believed that the Egypt new constitution is limited to only one class. Therefore, the new constitution doesn’t represent the revolution, but it represents the exact opposite which is killing the revolution.
One of the main causes for not fulfilling the demands of the 25th of January revolution is the political factors which may be seen in the lack of experience and in the new constitution. The 6th of April youth movement stated in an announcement that the new Government is not fulfilling the demands of the revolution due to their inexperience. "Kandil's government is concerned about building projects that are far away from the demands of revolution" (Adel, 2012). He then stated that this goes to the old mentality of this government and the lack of their experience and creativity to introduce a solution to the everyday problems of the civilians. Adel then continued by stating that Kandil's government will soon fail due to their adoption of the same tactics and strategies that Mubarak government used. Therefore, it is believed that the inexperience and lack of creativity of this government is one main reason behind the unfulfilling of the demands of the revolution. While some other believes that the new constitution is more important reason behind unfulfilling of the 25th of revolution demands.
Hamdeen Sabahy, the former presidential candidate, believes that the new constitution does not fulfill the demands of the revolution, “we reject the constitution draft that the constituent assembly published as for it does not fulfill the demands of the revolution “ (Sabahy, 2012) .
On the same point El-baradey stated that he accepts what Hamdeen said by rejecting the constitution draft due to that it does not meet and fulfill the social justice, which is one of the revolution demands, within the country. The national power also rejects the constitution as it is far away from fulfilling the demands of revolution.
The new constitution states that rights and freedoms shall be practiced as long as they do not contradict the nature of the Egyptian family, verbal insults are a crime, the right to practice religion and worship is limited to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and civilians may be tried by the armed forces in cases specified by the law. So the revolutionaries asked for freedom, and what they got is a constitution that doesn't protect their rights, doesn't allow neither freedom of expression nor freedom of religion, and allows military trials of citizens. Also, the article which states that men and women are equal in rights got removed.
Concluding, at the 25th of January millions rebelled against a tyrant and brought him down in order for a better future, a future that they deserve. A future they have always dreamed of, but this dream was stolen, manipulated and killed by the hands of the constitution assembly.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes By Lojin Gamal
That story, I believe, is one we're all familiar with; the little chimpanzee who possesses human-like intelligence and emotions rises up, starts getting a little wild, finds himself imprisoned in an ape sanctuary, breaks out along with his fellow apes and together they try to take over the planet. The planet is Egypt, the ape sanctuary is jail, and I don't have to say who the chimpanzee and the apes are.
Subsequent to the revolution, the president went to prison and the prisoner, supported by his vulpine and swindling clan, became president. The Muslim Brotherhood took over most of the parliament seats, but instead of delivering what they promised they delivered undesired gifts. Instead of the renaissance we longed for we were presented with a collapsing economy and a power-hungry, blood-thirsty organization.
But despite the constitutional declaration, the declining of our economy, and the Brotherhood leaders taking over the government there was hope. That hope was the new constitution which turned out to be rotten. And as if we're fools, a referendum was held. But really, if the entire Egyptian population had voted no and the Brotherhood wanted it to be yes, the result would've been yes and they would still call it democracy. But the real fool is the one that can see the world falling apart and does nothing about it, then comes out and spouts gibberish in his so-called speeches and claims that everything is alright.
The real fool is Mr. President for following the rules of the jungle and letting his "clan" kill the protestors, then dismissing the interior minister for not attacking the people and replacing him with someone who'd follow the jungle rules too. The real fool is Mr. President for talking about freedom of speech one day and filing cases against journalists the next. The real fool is Mr. President for beating up the hungry because they're complaining. The real fool is Mr. President for being a good boy and following his orders. And is a puppet any better that a tyrant anyway?
The Muslim Brotherhood does NOT represent Islam, and such extremists left no room for religious tolerant. There's a reason why the long –banned organization was banned. Growing a beard or shaving it off is unrelated to Sharia. Preaching is not the same thing as conquering. And after all, the greatest trick the Devil has ever pulled off is convincing people that he's a god.
Subsequent to the revolution, the president went to prison and the prisoner, supported by his vulpine and swindling clan, became president. The Muslim Brotherhood took over most of the parliament seats, but instead of delivering what they promised they delivered undesired gifts. Instead of the renaissance we longed for we were presented with a collapsing economy and a power-hungry, blood-thirsty organization.
But despite the constitutional declaration, the declining of our economy, and the Brotherhood leaders taking over the government there was hope. That hope was the new constitution which turned out to be rotten. And as if we're fools, a referendum was held. But really, if the entire Egyptian population had voted no and the Brotherhood wanted it to be yes, the result would've been yes and they would still call it democracy. But the real fool is the one that can see the world falling apart and does nothing about it, then comes out and spouts gibberish in his so-called speeches and claims that everything is alright.
The real fool is Mr. President for following the rules of the jungle and letting his "clan" kill the protestors, then dismissing the interior minister for not attacking the people and replacing him with someone who'd follow the jungle rules too. The real fool is Mr. President for talking about freedom of speech one day and filing cases against journalists the next. The real fool is Mr. President for beating up the hungry because they're complaining. The real fool is Mr. President for being a good boy and following his orders. And is a puppet any better that a tyrant anyway?
The Muslim Brotherhood does NOT represent Islam, and such extremists left no room for religious tolerant. There's a reason why the long –banned organization was banned. Growing a beard or shaving it off is unrelated to Sharia. Preaching is not the same thing as conquering. And after all, the greatest trick the Devil has ever pulled off is convincing people that he's a god.
I this Democracy? ByAmr
Is this Democracy?
Throughout its history, Egypt had been through so many corrupt governments and frankly we have gotten used to being ruled by corrupt systems. But now when there is a chance for democracy and the building of clean, honest political systems we are faced with the largest number of opponents fighting for power. Now that most Egyptians are aware and tasted freedom of dictatorship, it is very difficult for any government to continue the lies and deceits taken from the previous Well, the situation is so easy to describe and extremely hard to live in. The banned group or the Muslims brotherhood, whom I really feel sorry to call them Muslims, along with Mohamed Morsy, who is supposed to be Egypt's president, thought that this country is theirs and they're free to do whatever they want in it, but they forgot that Egypt is for all the Egyptians: Christians, Muslims, and Jews. They put a constitution that serves only their community, they replaced 10 ministries with Islamist ones and amplified their presence in the government, and they are really working hard to let their voice be the one and only. No matter how people object, Morsy still doesn't care; this was obvious when he let "his group of so called Muslims" to fight and beat up harmless demonstrators who were opposed to his so called constitutional reforms in Al Ethadiya with no mercy as if they animals. The brotherhood is now trying to eliminate anything or anyone who might expose them for what and who they are, thus harm them. They are now calling for "media cleansing" forgetting that they have their own private broadcast stations from which they broadcast their name calling against whoever opposes them, they call anyone who doesn't agree with them and infidel which is Islam is a crime punishable by death. A direct result of a terrible situation like this, is a collapsing economy, The country’s foreign currency reserves have dwindled to less than half their value before the 2011 uprising, and the Egyptian pound plummeted to the extent that 1 dollar became equal to 6.45 LE. Moreover, the thing that angers all of us as Egyptians is that with all those disasters, Morsy shows up on the TV saying that everything is good, nothing is happening, and so on as if we're a bunch of idiots and we'll believe him despite what we know and see going on.
Why is it that everyone thinks that people can be fooled and will buy their lies they tell them. I am asking the readers, how can we live in a country where the president goes on national TV and lies to apparently his people just to further his control over the country? How can we live in a country where religion is used to further someone's power? How can you live in a country where votes are bought from the poor and uneducated for only a meal and house supplies? How can you live in a country as old as time when her children are no longer proud of their heritage? How can you live in a country where Islam is being represented by a group of liars, killers, and thieves who call themselves "Brothers" notice the name.. Only males are allowed.
Throughout its history, Egypt had been through so many corrupt governments and frankly we have gotten used to being ruled by corrupt systems. But now when there is a chance for democracy and the building of clean, honest political systems we are faced with the largest number of opponents fighting for power. Now that most Egyptians are aware and tasted freedom of dictatorship, it is very difficult for any government to continue the lies and deceits taken from the previous Well, the situation is so easy to describe and extremely hard to live in. The banned group or the Muslims brotherhood, whom I really feel sorry to call them Muslims, along with Mohamed Morsy, who is supposed to be Egypt's president, thought that this country is theirs and they're free to do whatever they want in it, but they forgot that Egypt is for all the Egyptians: Christians, Muslims, and Jews. They put a constitution that serves only their community, they replaced 10 ministries with Islamist ones and amplified their presence in the government, and they are really working hard to let their voice be the one and only. No matter how people object, Morsy still doesn't care; this was obvious when he let "his group of so called Muslims" to fight and beat up harmless demonstrators who were opposed to his so called constitutional reforms in Al Ethadiya with no mercy as if they animals. The brotherhood is now trying to eliminate anything or anyone who might expose them for what and who they are, thus harm them. They are now calling for "media cleansing" forgetting that they have their own private broadcast stations from which they broadcast their name calling against whoever opposes them, they call anyone who doesn't agree with them and infidel which is Islam is a crime punishable by death. A direct result of a terrible situation like this, is a collapsing economy, The country’s foreign currency reserves have dwindled to less than half their value before the 2011 uprising, and the Egyptian pound plummeted to the extent that 1 dollar became equal to 6.45 LE. Moreover, the thing that angers all of us as Egyptians is that with all those disasters, Morsy shows up on the TV saying that everything is good, nothing is happening, and so on as if we're a bunch of idiots and we'll believe him despite what we know and see going on.
Why is it that everyone thinks that people can be fooled and will buy their lies they tell them. I am asking the readers, how can we live in a country where the president goes on national TV and lies to apparently his people just to further his control over the country? How can we live in a country where religion is used to further someone's power? How can you live in a country where votes are bought from the poor and uneducated for only a meal and house supplies? How can you live in a country as old as time when her children are no longer proud of their heritage? How can you live in a country where Islam is being represented by a group of liars, killers, and thieves who call themselves "Brothers" notice the name.. Only males are allowed.