Atlantic Council

Useful Links

 

Parliamentary Elections

  • Preparing for Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections: A Guide (English)
  • Electoral Law (Arabic)
  • Electoral Law Amendments (Arabic)

Legal Framework

  • President Mohamed Morsi's Constitutional Decree - December 9, 2012 (Arabic) (English)
  • Final Draft of Constitution, published November 29, 2012 (Arabic) (English) (Audio)
  • President Mohamed Morsi's Constitutional Decree - November 22, 2012 (Arabic) (English)
  • Draft of the Constitution, published October 24, 2012) (Arabic)
  • Draft of the Constitution, published October 16, 2012 (Arabic) (English)
  • President Mohamed Morsi's Decree Pardoning January 25 Prisoners - October 8 (English) (Arabic) 
  • President Mohamed Morsi's Constitutional Declaration - August 12 (English) (Arabic)
  • President Mohamed Morsi’s Decree reinstating the dissolved parliament – July 8 (English) (Arabic)
  • Renaissance (Nahda) Project (English) 
  • Morsi Meter (English) (Arabic)
  • SCAF Amendments to Interim Constitution - June 17, 2012 (English) (Arabic)
  • Interim Constitution (full text, English and Arabic), ratified by popular referendum on March 23, 2011)
  • Law on the Presidential Election, No. 174, 2005 (Arabic)
  • Electoral laws for the People’s Assembly and Shura Council (full text, Arabic, amended July 19, 2011)
  • Law on Non-Governmental Organizations, No. 84/2002 (English) 
  • Law on the People’s Assembly, amended October 2011 (PDF, Arabic)
  • Supra-Constitutional Principles (English) (Arabic)
  • The Final Draft Wording of the Articles on Defense and National Security in the New Constitution (English) (Arabic)
  • Leaked Articles of the Draft Constitution (English)

 

Egyptian Government Resources

  • Official Facebook page of President Mohamed Morsi (Arabic)
  • Official Facebook page of Prime Minister Hesham Qandil (Arabic)
  • Official Facebook page of Presidential Spokesman Yasser Ali (Arabic)
  • Official Facebook page of the Supreme Council of the Armed forces (Arabic)
  • Official website of the Cabinet (English) (Arabic)
  • Ministry of Interior (English) (Arabic)
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs (English) (Arabic)
  • Ministry of Finance (English) (Arabic)
  • Ministry of International Cooperation (Arabic)
  • Ministry of Social Solidarity (Arabic)
  • Ministry of Information (Arabic)
  • Ministry of Industry & Foreign Trade (English) (Arabic)
 

Economy

 

Egyptian Media

Think Tanks and NGOs:

 

EgyptSource
Printer-friendly version
Subscribe via RSS

Should We Support the Brotherhood or the Military?

Alaa Al Aswany | August 02, 2012
Morsi and Tantawi July 17

Across the West, parties have been set up that promote racist ideas, incite hatred, and embrace ideologies that may not recognize democracy in the first place. So why don't Western governments abolish them? Because democratic principles guarantee people the right to express their opinions, as long as they don't break the law. Old democracies have learned that preventing extremists from expressing themselves politically will not eradicate their ideas but rather add to their influence. 

The only remedy for extremism is to strengthen the democratic system. Imagine that a European army seized power, abolished democracy and told the people: "The military is going to take power because if we held elections the far right parties would win." I have no doubt that if that happened in any Western country: everyone would unite to put an end to military rule and restore democracy. 
 
This wretched choice between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military has been imposed on us in Egypt for thirty years and was former president Hosni Mubarak's constant pretext for his own despotic rule. I often heard officials in the Mubarak regime say: "We have to rig the elections, otherwise the Brotherhood would win." In this way many Egyptians were content with despotism as an alternative to extremism. While the Egyptian revolution was able to depose Mubarak, it failed to get rid of his regime, which continues to rule Egypt under the auspices of the military council. 
 
We are now faced with two choices. One option is to recognize an elected president who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which many consider a dangerous extremist organization because of its secretive nature. (We don't know who finances the Brotherhood, what its budget is or whether it really has an armed wing). All these misgivings about the Brotherhood are legitimate and make many cautious about dealing with President Morsi. The other option is to support the military council remaining in power to protect us from the Brotherhood, in which case we would be actively undoing the revolution. If we retain military rule for fear of the Brotherhood, then why did we take part in the revolution in the first place? In that case we would have to apologize to Hosni Mubarak and thank him for controlling the Brotherhood through repression and arrests. 
 
Democracy cannot be protected from extremism by handing over power to the military, but it can protect itself through public scrutiny and respect for election results however unwelcome we may find them. Egypt now has a president who has been elected by the will of the people. The Mubarak regime has launched a vicious campaign against the president, exploiting an existing fear of the Brotherhood, but the purpose of this campaign is not to protect Egypt from extremism but rather to perpetuate military rule. All the demands of the revolution are now being portrayed in the media as Brotherhood demands. When the president called for the dismissal of the Interior Ministry generals who were close to former minister Habib el-Adly and were responsible for killing demonstrators and for the breakdown in law and order, the media portrayed that as a Brotherhood attempt to take over the Interior Ministry. If anyone calls for Ahmed Shafik to be questioned about 35 corruption complaints submitted against him over a year ago, the media portrays the complaints as part of a Brotherhood plot against Shafik. 
 
Those who disagree with the Brotherhood politically, including myself, have two ways to remove the Brotherhood from power: either by backing the military council to control the Brotherhood, in which case we would be helping to undermine both the revolution and democracy, or by removing the military itself from power and supporting a democratic system. 
 
Alaa Al Aswany, the Arab world's bestselling novelist, is the author of The Yacoubian Building, Chicago, and Friendly Fire. His work is published in thirty-one languages worldwide. Al Aswany's articles have been published widely, in such publications as The Independent (UK), The Guardian (UK), and The New York Times (US), and in French, German, Italian and Spanish publications.
 
Photo Credit: AP
 
This article is an abridged version of an Arabic article published in Al Masry Al Youm

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.acus.org/trackback/70873

About EgyptSource

 

EgyptSource, a project of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, follows Egypt’s transition and provides a platform for Egyptian perspectives on the major issues – economic, political, legal, religious and human rights – that are at stake in the post-Mubarak era.

If you are interested in submitting an article for publication on EgyptSource, please send an inquiry via email with a short outline of your idea. 

The views expressed in EgyptSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

 

Follow us on Twitter: @EgyptSource

 

EgyptSource Team

 

Michele Dunne
Director, Rafik Hariri Center 
mdunne@acus.org
Follow on Twitter

 

Nancy Messieh
Editor, EgyptSource, MENASource
nmessieh@acus.org 
Follow on Twitter

 

Tarek Radwan
Resident Contributor, EgyptSource; Editor, MENASource
tradwan@acus.org
Follow on Twitter

 

EgyptSource Newsletter

 

Click here to sign up for the weekly EgyptSource newsletter. 

Faces of Egypt 

 

Journalist and videographer Abanoub Emad explains the drive behind his work: “I want to cover the truth..If it was just a job for me I wouldn't risk my life, but this is what I want to do…and this is what differentiates the quality of work. You can tell who's doing it for the sake of doing it, and who's doing it because it's what they love to do” 

At twenty-two, Amr El Salanekly has won the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative fellowship, co-founded a social incubator and an educational platform for underprivileged kids, turned down a job with Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, and raised hundreds of thousands of Egyptian pounds for community projects in Egypt.

Check out the rest of the Faces of the New Egypt series here. 

 

About the Contributors

 

Alaa Al Aswany, the Arab world's bestselling novelist, is the author of The Yacoubian Building, Chicago, and Friendly Fire. His work is published in thirty-one languages worldwide.  Read his EgyptSource posts here. 

 

Yussef Auf is an Egyptian judge and 2012 Humphrey Fellow at American University’s Washington College of Law. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Constitutional Law and Political Systems at Cairo University. Read his EgyptSource posts here.

 

 

Nadine Abdalla is a PhD Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin and a writer for Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm. Read her EgyptSource posts here. 

Amr Hamzawy joined the Department of Public Policy and Administration at the American University in Cairo in 2011, where he continues to serve today. He is a former member of parliament and a member of the National Salvation Front. Read his EgyptSource posts here. 

Jayson Casper is a writer with Arab West Report, Christianity Today, and Lapido Media. He blogs on Egyptian politics, religion, and culture at A Sense of Belonging. Read his EgyptSource posts here.

Wael Eskandar is a blogger and a writer for Egypt's Ahram Online. He has written for publications like Daily News Egypt and Community Times. Read his EgyptSource posts here.

  

Soraya Morayef is a journalist and writer based in Cairo. She blogs under suzeeinthecity.wordpress.com. Read her EgyptSource posts here.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a UAE based political commentator. He tweets as @SultanAlQassemi. Read his EgyptSource posts here.

 

Magdy Samaan is a freelance journalist and a 2011 MENA Democracy Fellow at the World Affairs Institute. Read his EgyptSource posts here.

 

Haitham Tabei is a special correspondent for the Washington Post and Asharq Saudi newspaper in Cairo.

Read his EgyptSource posts here.

Featured Videos