Manal El Tibi, one of the few women partaking in the Constituent Assembly, the assembly tasked with writing the Egyptian Constitution, resigned on September 24. She created a stir within the assembly and amongst Egyptians. The reasons behind her resignation were clear; she sees no hope in playing any role amidst a radically Islamic assembly that cannot “contradict the precepts of Islamic law” leaving absolutely no room for fair negotiations.
This is one of hundreds of events that have taken place in the last few months exhibiting the friction existing between the two factions in Egypt today: the moderates and the Islamists.
On the one side, moderate Egyptians find the discourse in the assembly and elsewhere degrading. The disputes are on topics not remotely close to the real challenges confronting Egypt. To moderates, bizarre notions, such as the age to marry or women rights in an Islamic society, have stooped Egypt to an unprecedented low. On the other hand, Islamists remain ruthless in their pursuit of what they consider Islamic and “holy.” The end result is that Egypt is now defined via two starkly different lenses: the Islamist and the moderate.
With the ousting of Mubarak, then the yay referendum vote, the Islamists began to hold their head high and gain ground. Then Morsi became president, and he removed Field Marshal Tantawy and his assistant Anaan transcending any fears amongst the Islamists. Now Islamists speak confidently and boldly regardless of how insane their propositions are.
Those airing their Islamic doctrine and guidelines are in abundance: Islamic party members, Sheikhs, fatwa deliverers, religious channel spokespersons, and social media followers.
Simultaneously the moderates, unable to fathom the change, remain stumped in total bewilderment, flailing haphazardly at what they, and most logical human beings, would call hallucination and utter nonsense. They neither have the ability to intervene nor the capacity to change the tidal wave battering Islamic Egypt.
The gap in the Egyptian divide is so huge that clearly there is no room for reconciliation. No, Islamists and moderate Egyptians are so far apart that a compromise cannot exist. A bombshell is the best synonym to describe this realization.
So where does Egypt go from here? The impending future much to my dismay is treacherous, indeed a slippery slope.
The first scenario leads Egypt into a dark Islamic path. This path entails an Egypt under the dominance of Islamists who will continue to usurp every little ounce of freedom, intelligence, and modernity out of existence. The moderates in this case will either flee, if they can, or succumb to the new rules and escape into their newly activated cocoons: living in gated compounds and hiding in their underground havens. They will smuggle their booze in and watch cable tv that takes them beyond Egypt. That is if they are lucky. In the meantime, the rest of Egypt will continue to rot. These moderates will recognize the truth: they are a minority and minorities have no say in dogmatic authoritarian societies.
The second scenario will be even bleaker. In this one, the moderates will not let go that easily; they will keep fighting the Islamic rule, and the more they lose ground, the more they will fight back till the bitter end. In this scenario, Egypt will be on the verge of a civil war, if not a full-fledged one, something no one can fathom because Egyptians are not blood thirsty by nature. I’ll leave you to project who the winner would be.
The third scenario is the most feasible, still grim, nontheless: a forever-embattled and never-at-peace Egypt. Moderates here don’t win but don’t despair. They keep panting and gasping furiously behind the Islamists waiting for a change or an acceptance to no avail. They’ll fight forever, maybe losing ground and motivation, but not giving up. In this projection, the poor will remain poor, the uneducated will remain uneducated, and the whole society will skirt around chaos and poverty.
The three scenarios are bitter and heartbreaking. However, the truth is often so: Egypt may never go back to where it was before the revolution. Quite the contrary, Hosny Mubarak’s days, with their bad, and, much to my chagrin, good, is a forgotten past that most Egyptians see as a mirage now. The penalties of freedom of speech and democracy are clear. Before Egyptians were to gain these noble privileges, they should have gained the basics: awareness, understanding, tolerance, respect, and mindfulness.
I would love to be proven wrong, but I honestly don’t see the light.
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