A couple of days ago I was asked about the chances of liberal forces in
Egypt after the referendum results. My response was in the negative. The
young activists that are often described in the Western media as liberal,
democrat, or secular stand no chance in the next parliamentary elections
scheduled for next September. My judgment is not only based on the existence
or lack thereof of those forces or their strength, but also on the nature of
the elections system in Egypt and the way the districts are drawn. The
overrepresentation of the countryside and the two candidate district design
means that the “liberal” forces only stand a chance in competing in 21
districts out of 222. Even if they win all of those seats, they will
represent less than 10% of the members of parliament. Of course some
traditional opposition politicians will win elsewhere, but they will totally
depend on their family connections in those districts and will run as
traditional patriarchal candidates.
The next question was naturally so what can they do? Initially my response
was again in the negative. There are historical and institutional reasons
for why liberalism has failed in Egypt in the past and will continue to fail
in the future. For the past couple of days I have been thinking about that
question. Do we really stand no chance and how can we overcome those
overwhelming odds?
Let us begin with the historical crisis.
The Crisis of Egyptian Liberalism is a long and sad story. It is the story
of intellectuals that emerged not from an independent middle class similar
to the European bourgeoisie but from the state bureaucracy. Their utmost
dream a self contradictory program of a State sponsored modernization forced
on the rest of the population. It is a story of a complex love-hate
relationship with the West as a representative of Modernity, never fully
embracing it and never rejecting it, but always with a sense of betrayal. It
is also a story of a failure to understand modernity, failing to distinguish
between it and the Enlightenment and forever doomed in a lack of ability to
deal with religion. The current crisis in Egyptian Liberalism is not a new
one. It is rather the latest manifestation of a crisis that Nadav Safran
dealt with 50 years ago in his book “Egypt in search of Political
Community”.
Egyptian Liberalism’s goal was always a State sponsored project of
modernization. With this goal in mind, Egyptian Liberals were always writing
and talking to the one actor that could enforce their project; the State or
more precisely the ruler. If the ruler held all the chips and if he alone
could enforce the dream, why bother with talking to someone else? Why bother
addressing the Egyptian population? The natural outcome was a tendency to
ignore the Egyptian population and with it was built all the tendencies of
an elite that is detached from the rest of the population, a tendency to
ignore, a tendency to ridicule, and a tendency to disrespect. When it was
forced to address the rest of the population, nationalism was the chosen
mechanism.
Egypt’s intellectuals could never overcome their love-hate relationship with
the West. Since the day that Napoleon landed in Alexandria and introduced
modernity to Egypt, the inescapable question was that of Bernard Lewis “What
Went wrong?” The initial answer was to copy the advanced technology of the
West. Science and technology were viewed as a collection of findings with no
acknowledgment of the underlying philosophical spirit. When that failed the
answer was one of unity. Gamal El Din El Afghani struck the initial note
with his insistence that the West was a unified entity and that the East had
to do the same if it hoped to stand a chance. Nationalism in the Middle East
might have been as Elie Kedourie had argued an idea imported from the West,
but it was also a mechanism of standing in front of the West. In the process
and following the spirit of the age in the 30’s it was inevitable that
nationalism would lose whatever liberal discourse it initially held and
become an anti liberal discourse taking the various totalitarian ideologies
of the day, initially fascism, later on Arab Nationalism, and inevitably
Islamism.
The Egyptian Liberal project was one modeled on France. It was there that
the student missions were sent and from which the ideas were imported.
France, as the world power of the time standing against Egypt’s occupier was
the greatest source of inspiration. It should thus come as no surprise that
the French understanding of the world would be the shaper of the Egyptian
intellectuals. The French Enlightenment became the benchmark and as a result
its form of secularism the model. While the Egyptian intellectuals could
never follow Ataturk’s footsteps, their ideas were not that different from
his. They could never accept or understand religion or the role it plays in
the public sphere. In a nutshell they read Voltaire and Rousseau but never
for a second Burke.
This is the historical crisis and this is also the current challenge.
Egyptian liberalism has never been able to find a coherent voice that
addresses the rest of the population. It has further suffered from the
adaptation of various totalitarian ideas that crept into its discourse. It
is thus no surprise when you find self prescribed liberals adopting Anti
Semitism or anti Western slogans in their rhetoric and suggested policies.
While it is impossible to change this historical problem in one day or a
year, there are certain steps that might change Liberalism’s chances in the
next elections. So without further delay, here is the action plan:
1. Split
Oh yes you read that correctly, those various groups need to split and they
need to split ideologically. Let me start with a simple question. What does
a free market liberal academic, a socialist movie director and an
unidentified religious group numbering 300,000 have in common? Anywhere in
the world this is probably the beginning of a joke, but in Egypt they do
have something in common. They form a political party. You seem confused,
why would people that have no ideological common ground form a party? The
answer is the obsession of unity and the lack of an ideology. With every
blow that “liberals” have faced in Egypt their natural response was, we need
to unite. Here exactly is their problem. Because diverse people who share no
ideology unite together, they fail to have any coherent program. Try
imagining for a second what the above mentioned people will have as a
program for their party? Democracy? Sure, but what else? Nothing! Some
catchy slogans on freedom and democracy, a bit of social justice and nothing
else. The very obsession with unity prohibits the ability to form coherent
programs based on clear ideological views. If Liberals are to stand a chance
in any elections, they need to start forming parties based on clear ideas
and thus able to offer clear programs. People will not elect a party that
has nothing to offer them but some slogans that are meaningless in their
daily lives. It is an insult to the Egyptian people to suggest otherwise.
2. Choose where to run
It is a joke for any emerging party with no grassroots organization to
decide to compete in every district in the country. That would be a total
waste of resources and quite frankly would render any emerging party again
valueless in its content due to its insistence on offering policies that
suit the whole country. The Law of Comparative Advantage is supreme here.
Calculate where you stand a better chance and focus there. Let me cite an
example. I am a Free Market political party, should I run in Helwan where
the district votes are mostly labor votes? Of course not. Calculate which
districts would be more acceptable to your ideas. It would also be pure
insanity to run in any of the desert districts. There the vote is purely
tribal and you stand no chance.
3. Tailor programs based on the district
The obsession with unity and the similar obsession with offering a
nationwide program have made any program offered content free. People in the
various districts might be interested in what your overall plan for Egypt
is, but what they mostly care about is how you can address their specific
problems in their particular district. Let me again cite an example. I am
economically a Libertarian. I would like to limit the State’s interference
in people’s lives and its role in the economy. Every single expert would
tell you that I stand no chance in any district in Egypt. I am willing to
bet that with my ideas, I can run and win in any rural district in Egypt.
Let me explain how.
First as a believer in private property and the withdrawal of the State from
the economy I will demand that the peasants be allowed to build on their
agricultural land. You see the Egyptian elite in its obsession with keeping
the agricultural land in Egypt intact and its similar obsession with making
Egypt agriculturally self sufficient has banned people from building on
their agricultural land that they own. I will run against this. My slogan is
“The land is Yours. Build on it”. If you want to build on a piece of land
that you own, no Cairo bureaucrat should tell you not to. Secondly, no
government should tell you what to plant in your land. The government should
not be allowed to decide that a certain percentage of Egypt’s land is
allocated to wheat growing. My slogan is “Yours the land. Yours the
decision”. Thirdly as a believer that taxes should only be on income and not
on property, I will demand the cancellation of all forms of fixed taxation
on agricultural land. I can go on forever with such suggestions and policies
that address the rural district that I am running in. It is important to
notice that I did not give up on my ideas thinking no one would accept them.
I just tailored them to suit the specific district that I am running in.
4. Respect the Egyptian people
For so long you have dealt with the Egyptian people as ignorant and
uneducated. You have cried for many hours on your sad destiny of being in
such a country. That has been your weakness. You never respected your
countrymen and they in turn naturally never respected you. They have
realized from intuition and experience that all you have for them is empty
slogans and thus they have chosen to ignore you. Talk to the Egyptians.
Offer them coherent ideas and trust in man’s natural seeking of self
interest. The Egyptians are not from Mars. Like all other people in the
world they seek self interest. Your job is not a snobbish elitist obsession
with educating them. Your job is to use your ideas in creating programs to
further their self interest.
5. Reframe the debate
If you follow the previous suggestions then this is the natural result.
Because liberals have been obsessed with unity that lacks any meaningful
ideological content the debate has been framed by the only common thing
between them. Let us take a look at those liberals. What do they really have
in common? They don’t share an economic outlook for sure. They differ on
social policies. They also differ on foreign policy. The only thing they
have in common is what they are not. They are not Islamists. By grouping
them all together by this common denominator you have perhaps without
noticing framed the debate into one between Islamists and all the rest. If
this is the debate you will lose. You will lose not because Egyptians are
ignorant religious people who obey their religious leaders, but because if
the choice that is offered is between an elite that has no values or
coherent content and a coherent Islamist message, people will choose the
later.
By creating a battle between ideological camps that differ economically you
are reframing the debate at hand. You are forcing the Islamists to play in
your field and in your field they hold no advantage. Imagine for a second
that the battle in each district is driven by a clash of economic ideas.
Candidates are fighting over which economic policies would better people’s
lives, what does the Islamist candidate have to offer? What economic policy
does he have? The Islamists have no economic program. They never needed to.
Now you are forcing them to take a position. You are forcing them to try to
come up not just with empty slogans but with real policies. In this scenario
a real split within the Islamists ranks is possible.
6. Overcome your hatred of Islam
Religion and tradition are not evil forces in the world. Unlike what your
French secular books might have told you, religion is able to offer a
positive role. In fact religion and public morality are essential for
sustaining a truly free society. Your tendency has been furthered by your
inability to distinguish between Islam and Islamism as a modern ideological
construction. You need to overcome your hatred of religion and obsession
with Ataturk and the French model. There are other models out there. The
United States offers such a model. Egypt’s model might be slightly
different, but you need to work on finding a formula that allows religion to
play a role in the public sphere without controlling it.
This is the action plan. Does it ensure victory? No. But it gives you
something you never had before; a fighting chance. On the long run however
you face enormous challenges. Your historical crisis has to be addressed. A
society that swims in a huge vacuum of ideas will not turn into a Liberal
Democracy overnight. A Liberal Democracy is not a ballot box and it is not
the current obsession with free and fair elections. A Liberal Democracy is a
free society, where dissent is tolerated, private property vigorously
defended, the rule of law upheld, religious freedom protected, and
individual liberties understood as the real guarantee of freedom. To build a
Liberal Democracy you need two things; Liberal Democrats and Democratic
Institutions. Both of these require ideas. People do not read Jefferson and
suddenly become Liberal Democrats overnight, but it is impossible to build a
country without those very ideas that have shaped modernity as we know it.
Ideas matter, and you’d better start realizing that.
