by Robin Wright
Habib was particularly bitter about what happened after Hamas’s election in 2006. “The United States and Western countries are known for their double standards in evaluating democracy,” he said. “Domestically, they practice true democracy. But abroad, they practice it only to the extent that it serves their interests. That’s why they are doing their best to undermine Hamas’s victory. These countries will continue to support corrupt regimes as long as their interests are served.”
He was even more scathing about America’s intervention in Iraq. In a 2004 interview with the television station run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Habib had said suicide bombings “redeem self-confidence and hope, because a nation that does not excel at the industry of death does not deserve life.”21
When he spoke to me, an American journalist, in 2006, he was more restrained, but just as angry.
“The United States has violated international laws and returned the world to the laws of the jungle,” he said, jabbing his finger in the air as two deep scowl lines creased his forehead.
“We know that the United States is not a charity organization. It has its interests, but instead of attempting to truly spread democracy, look what it did to Iraq!” he said, getting angrier. “What happened at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay is a mark of shame.”
In a view widely shared in Egypt, Habib reflected, “The United States after 9/11 has adopted a new strategy to establish an empire. It wants to control the Middle East. It’s working on redrawing the Middle East map.”
I asked Habib about the Brotherhood’s own strategy for the future. The movement’s literature lists six broad objectives, each one building on the previous step. Leaders deny that they want to convert Egypt into a theocracy led by clerics. Yet its platform is ambitiously theocratic.
The Brotherhood’s first goal is to build the Muslim individual—“the brother or sister with a strong body, high manners, cultured thought, ability to earn, strong faith, correct worship, conscious of time, of benefit to others.”
The second is to foster practicing Muslim families.
The third is to create an Islamic society.
The fourth is to build an Islamic state.
The fifth is to create a caliphate, “basically a shape of unity between Islamic states.”
The last one is “mastering the world with Islam.”
In the twenty-first century, the Brotherhood appears to be about halfway down its list.
I asked Habib what a twenty-first century caliphate, or a government representing God’s will on earth, would eventually look like. Ironically, on this issue, the United States is something of a model.
“We hope that one day there are states like the United States. Each will have its own laws and leaders and army and everything,” he responded. “But there should be a common constitution and character and border. A federal government like the United States is a very nice example, or what the European Union wants to achieve, where its member countries have their own parliaments and laws but with binding overall policies.”
I asked him what the United States of the Islamic world would include and how big it would be. He took off his glasses and put them on his desk.
“Look,” he said, “The world is moving toward large bodies. It’s like the United States trying to create a larger body in a transatlantic alliance. There’s the G-8 group of industrialized nations. There are the Asian tigers.
“So why shouldn’t there be another big body created here, too, to complement the others?” he said.
“Of course, the Arab world is one phase,” he added. “The Islamic world is a bigger and more comprehensive phase. We know this project will take time.”
Among the three “crats,” the democrats are the weakest—and at the greatest disadvantage. Unlike the theocrats and the autocrats, they are having to build from scratch.
On International Students Day, February 21, 2006, I took a taxi to Cairo University to watch a demonstration organized by Kefaya, the new democracy movement whose name means “Enough.” I could hear it blocks away, and when I arrived, the scene outside the campus entrance had combustible potential.
A tight ring of shoulder-to-shoulder riot police with body shields, face masks, and batons encircled the unarmed protesters. There were at least ten police for every demonstrator. Two dozen large armored vans with little grill-covered windows were positioned nearby, in case of mass arrests. Plainclothed security officials, some with conspicuous cameras, were on the perimeter.
To the rhythm of a pulsating drum, the Kefaya protesters shouted one provocative chant after another, in unison, under the direction of white-haired Kamal Khalil. He and his battery-operated loudspeaker had become fixtures at many rallies.
“Down, down with Hosni Mubarak,” they yelled.
“State Security, you’re the dogs of the state,” they shouted. “Why the security? Are we in prison?”
To the police, they turned and taunted, “What are you afraid of? Come join us.”
“Open up. Open up. Freedom of thought, freedom for the nation!” they cried.
Inside the tall iron campus gates, a second demonstration was underway, creating a clashing cacophony of chants.
Three weeks earlier, an aging and packed Egyptian ferry had sunk in the Red Sea. More than 1,000 Egyptians had drowned with it. It was the worst maritime disaster in the country’s history. Many of the victims were poor laborers coming home from jobs in Saudi Arabia. The government was still scrambling to explain what happened, why its reaction was slow and the rescue slower, why responsibility had not been assigned, and why bodies had not been found, death certificates not issued, and compensation not distributed. Meanwhile, the owner of the ferry company, who also happened to be a member of parliament’s upper house, had gone abroad—amid press speculation that he was trying to dodge investigation or recriminations.
The students had plenty of gripes, but the tragedy was a recurrent theme of their protest.
“Officials travel in limousines and airplanes, but the people take buses and die on ferries,” the students shouted.
“Why put students in prison? Put the ferry’s killers on trial!” they yelled.
“Oh Egypt, oh Egypt, we won’t get scared,” the protesters cried.
“And we won’t back down.”
“Hor-i-yya.…Hor-i-yya.…Hor-i-yya,” they chanted, in accented syllables.
“Free-dom…. Free-dom…. Free-dom.”
Since the first Kefaya rally in 2004, Egypt’s democrats had clearly found their voice. Illegal street protests became a common feature in Cairo. Kefaya’s democrats were the pioneers for a new type of movement, adding energy to stale Egyptian politics and spurring others into action too.
But by 2006, the new democrats had still not found their political mass. Hundreds had dared to show up for the two rallies in blatant violation of emergency law—but not the tens or hundreds of thousands needed to nudge, prod, pressure, or politically force the government’s hand on major reforms.
As the dramas unfolded inside and outside Cairo University’s front gate, I talked to two young women in their mid-twenties. There were at least as many Egyptians watching as participating. Both women wore modest but colorful hejab scarves; one scarf was striped and the other was a spring floral pattern.
“If these people would do something, I’d be with them all the way,” said Rebab, who wore the striped scarf. She asked that I not use her last name; as a university employee, she received a government paycheck.
“But this is all they do,” she said. “I’m divorced, and I have a six-year-old son. More than three years ago, I applied for an apartment, and still I don’t have one. I sleep on the sofa with my son in a one-bedroom apartment with my grandparents. Now, the price of sugar is going up, and our chicken is diseased,” she added, referring to the spate of avian flu chicken deaths in Egypt. “We don’t know what to eat. We can’t afford meat. It’s now forty pounds (about seven dollars) a kilo.
“I know people with apa
rtments who applied years after I did. They have connections with the NDP,” she continued angrily, referring to the ruling party. “That’s how things get done in this country. All these people are doing,” she said pointing to the noisy protest, “is demonstrating.”
The day after the rally, I visited George Ishak, the head of Kefaya, to discuss Egypt’s new democratic movements. Ishak is a retired high school history teacher and a Coptic Christian who has snowy white hair and wire-rimmed glasses that rest on a wide nose.
Kefaya’s headquarters is a two-room office on a scruffy hall with what looked like large black skid marks along the wall. The entrance door said “Center for Egyptian Studies,” which is a cover name, because Kefaya had not been able to register as a legal group. One room had inexpensive meeting chairs that were still covered with plastic and piled on top of each other; the second room contained Ishak’s well-used desk, a single old computer, and a fax machine covered with many fingerprints. The door in between the two rooms had half of a broken pane of glass, the remaining section shaped in a menacingly sharp pointed peak.
Kefaya’s full name is the Popular Campaign for Change. It emerged, Ishak explained, in 2003 when friends with disparate political views met over a holiday meal to discuss the future and then agreed to continue talking.
“Marxists, Nasserites, liberals, Islamists—they were all in these meetings,” Ishak added. “We agreed that our country is in miserable condition and that the regime is despotic. But, after that, we had some very difficult discussions because we are not all on the same wavelength. Every week, we tried to come up with part of a statement that was acceptable to all of us. Those first seven months were very hard.”
In the end, the Kefaya “declaration to the nation” was sparse, just over one page. It was signed by 300 prominent Egyptians, including a senior Muslim Brotherhood official who had twice served in parliament.
To address its disparate membership, the manifesto had two parts. One section lambasted the “odious assault” on Iraq, the “Zionist devastation” of the Palestinians, and American designs “to recast the fate of the Arab region.” It called for mass political efforts “to ward off this peril to the survival of the Arab peoples.”22
The second section addressed the route to democracy for Egypt. It called for the rule of law. It demanded an end to the political monopoly by the president’s party. It urged a two-term limit on the presidency. And it appealed for separation of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches.
The twelve-person leadership then decided Kefaya was ready to take its campaign to the streets in defiance of martial law.
“Before, talking about change was like talking to a comatose person, because the Egyptian people were basically dead,” Ishak told me, sitting behind an old desk with nothing on it. “They hadn’t talked about political issues, real issues, in more than fifty years, since the days before the republic. All they cared about was how to feed their babies and stay with their families in a safe way.
“So, we had to start a political revival—on the streets,” he said, smiling broadly. “I loved this idea. I needed to go to the streets. We all needed to go to the streets.”
The first demonstration, on December 12, 2004, was held in total silence. Over their mouths, Egyptian protesters taped yellow stickers with Kefaya, or “Enough,” written in red.
Over the next year, Kefaya’s protests expanded the political boundaries wider than at any time since the 1952 revolution. Its demonstration on May 25, 2005, to coincide with the referendum, spawned new waves of participation and new activists. Even the Muslim Brotherhood scrambled to keep up with what initially looked like a popular movement that might rival or even surpass it. For the first time, the Brotherhood also began mobilizing followers for its own demonstrations.
“We opened the doors,” Ishak said. “The barrier of fear no longer seemed so high anymore.”
Egypt’s leading blogger, Baheyya, credited Kefaya as a catalyst.
It jolted the Ikhwan behemoth out of its satisfied complacency as the prime opposition force. It infuriated police chiefs and their superiors and threatened the gerontocracy running the ‘opposition parties.’…Like the Judges Club, Kefaya confounded all its interlocutors while compelling them to radically reorder their plans.
Yet unlike the Brotherhood, Kefaya did not come up with a concrete program of action or candidates for either the presidential or parliamentary elections. Internal divisions were too deep. The movement instead urged supporters to boycott both elections in 2005—a decision that backfired.
Kefaya was unable to take the critical step from a protest movement to a political alternative or even a strong lobbying group, whether legal or not.
The movement inspired a host of offshoots: Youth for Change. Journalists for Change. Teachers for Change. Doctors for Change. Artists for Change. Lawyers for Change. And several others for change. But Kefaya itself remained something of a shell and a loose umbrella.
Kefaya reflected the core problem for nascent democratic movements throughout the region. It did not have a professional political elite. Its members were well intentioned but untrained. It had limited infrastructure—no office manager, no communications chief or equipment, no real staff. Ishak took all calls on his own cell phone. Funding depended on scanty donations. Protests relied on people who could afford—or dared—to get off work or go to jail, which was why the demonstrations usually involved the same group of people meeting up at diverse venues. And many of its most enthusiastic members were the idealistic young, who had limited clout.
“You call the Muslim Brotherhood at seven A.M., and someone answers the phone,” Ishak admitted. “You talk to the younger generation in our organization, and they don’t answer the telephone until one in the afternoon because they don’t go to sleep until after the first prayers of the day. They talk to the girls all night.”
Wael Khalil, a forty-year-old information technology specialist with short curly hair and big round eyes, was among the early Kefaya activists. He went to its first protest. I met up with him at the annual conference of Egyptian socialists, where he was an organizer. He was wearing jeans and a deep-red polo shirt.
Khalil was candid about Kefaya’s impact. “The movement is still an infant,” he told me. “We have to be patient.”
But he conceded that Kefaya was stuck. “The success of that first year is gone. Kefaya has to reinvent itself. It has to be able to say, ‘OK, Mubarak won reelection and is still in power. What role can this network of forces play now?’ If someone wants to join Kefaya, the movement has to be able to tell him what he can do.
“The problem,” Khalil said, pulling his hand through his curls,
“is that Kefaya doesn’t have an answer. Kefaya hasn’t had more success because people who are unemployed don’t see it as their beacon.”
During parliamentary elections, Khalil ended up voting for a Muslim Brotherhood candidate—partly as a protest but also because Egyptian politics offered limited alternatives.
Most of the region’s traditional opposition groups are spent forces or are losing constituents.
Egypt’s oldest opposition group is the Wafd Party. But it, too, had begun to implode politically. Its presidential candidate, Noman Gomaa, received less than three percent of the vote when he ran against Mubarak in 2005. And Wafd won only six seats in parliament.
Wafd means “delegation.” The party emerged in 1919 among liberal activists who challenged both British colonial rule and Egypt’s monarchy. It was widely popular until it was forced to disband, along with other parties, after the 1952 revolution. The New Wafd was revived in the late 1970s and, again, became the main legal opposition party. Its power brokers were merchants, middle-class professionals, landowners, and the bourgeoisie marginalized after the revolution. But it never regained its earlier standing.
In a political soap opera, the party dumped Gomaa after his humiliating defeat in the 2005 elections. Gomaa, a former dean of Cairo University’s Fa
culty of Law then in his seventies, refused to go quietly, however. Backed by some fifty well-armed thugs, he stormed the party headquarters in an elegant old Cairo villa to reassert his control in April 2006. The group welded the front gates shut and overwhelmed staff and journalists putting out the party newspaper. Gomaa locked himself in his old office.
For the next ten hours, the two wings of Wafd had it out. The new leadership mobilized some 500 party faithful to confront Gomaa and retake the building. His thugs responded with gunfire and Molotov cocktails, according to local press accounts. In the end, Gomaa and his accomplices surrendered. They were charged with attempted murder, possession of firearms, instigating a riot, and a host of minor offenses.23
Wafd had never sunk so low.
One new democrat did emerge from Cairo’s turbulent elections in 2005, however. Ayman Nour is a baby-faced lawyer with a full head of dark hair and oversize glasses. He first made a name as a student activist in the 1980s. He won a seat in parliament in 1995, as the youngest member in the opposition, and again in 2000, both times for the Wafd Party.
Nour had a reputation as a feisty politician with a flair for showmanship. A champion of political prisoners, he often harangued the government about their treatment and demanded their release. During one of Egypt’s periodic bread shortages, he challenged the prime minister publicly to sample the rock-hard bread doled out to the poor.24 He regularly lambasted Mubarak as an old man, isolated from voters, and ineffective in office.
But after a falling-out with Gomaa, Nour broke away and founded al Ghad, or the Tomorrow Party. After a three-year battle, Tomorrow was finally allowed to register as a legal party in 2004. Nour then began a meteoric rise as the most prominent liberal democrat in Egypt.
I did not get to see him, however. He was in prison when I was in Cairo. It was his second stint in jail. He was first picked up in January 2005 and charged with forging names on petitions required to register a political party. He recounted what happened in a column he wrote for Newsweek entitled “Letter from Prison: Did I Take Democracy Too Seriously?”