We deceive ourselves—or participate in deceiving ourselves—when we suppose that our disagreement with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Political Islam groups is about particular issues where views could be diverse, even contradictory, and yet could be ultimately resolved through consensus, maybe contended by a few—but still there would be room for dialogue and space for amity.
We deceive ourselves if we believe that the gist of our disagreement with such groups is the exact meaning of “principles of Islamic Sharia,” which they want to endorse as the sole source of legislation, or the provisos they want to impose on freedom of thought and freedom of expression, or their participation in the constituent assembly tasked with drafting Egypt’s new constitution.
These are all minutiae subject to discussion and would not thwart dialogue or reaching consensus if there is common ground—as limited as it might be—that Political Islam groups share with other political powers. These details will not matter if we all share common principles that we endeavor to achieve—through disparate methods—sometimes agreeing, other times disagreeing.
The truth of the matter is we disagree with Political Islam groups over the basic principles and not about ways and methods of achieving and implementing them.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis are adamantly insisting that Islamic Sharia be the sole source of legislation, that Islam is the religion of the state and its sole code of reference.
In a nutshell, they persistently want to transform Egypt into a theocratic state, to take it back to the way it lived in the Middle Ages. All the while, they cunningly conceal the truth and deceitfully claim that they seek “a civil state.”
This is utter deceit and manipulation of appellations exactly as the early Arabs used euphemisms like calling a black man “Moon,” a black concubine “Morning,” and the blind “Sighted.”
We ask the Muslim Brotherhood: How can it be such a strictly Islamic state and yet you call it a “civil state”? And they answer: because the rulers won’t be clergymen like in the Vatican. Islam does not have clergymen or religious authority. The rulers will be either physicians like Abdel Monem Abdul Fotouh, or shrewd tradesmen like Khairat El-Shater.
Their answer does not deceive us. Actually, they unconsciously deceive themselves. We know that the law of the land—and not the people who apply the law—is what determines whether a state is civil or theocratic, democratic or autocratic.
Tyrants have always bestowed upon their regimes appellations and descriptions that contradict reality. Leaders of military coups across the world have traded their khaki uniforms for civvies; nevertheless, they remained military rulers in civilian clothes.
Conversely, Bishop Makarius, the first president of the Republic of Cyprus, was a clergyman. He led the independence movement and became the country’s first president elect. He spent his term in office wearing the bishops’ cassock but never attempted to establish a theocratic state in Cyprus.
Meanwhile, there is theocratic rule in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Gaza and Iran—despite the fact that “there are no clergymen in Islam.”
It would be more accurate to say that Islam is a religion that involves no church, where man’s relationship to God is established without a mediator. However, this never stopped religious authorities, such as Caliphs and Sultans, from emerging in Islam as autocratic powers mustering in their hands all religious and political reins, proving to be the worst despotic and tyrannical rulers.
In brief, Political Islam groups, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, endeavor to establish a theocratic state to take us back to the despotic dark ages we barely escaped two centuries back. In fact, we have not totally shrugged off the culture of those dark ages still adhered to and adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hence, our dispute is not over peripheral issues but over major principles and precepts. The Muslim Brotherhood and other political Islam groups reject progress and modern development. They object to the civil (secular) state, democracy, lax de terre, international laws and human rights, as much as they object to freedom of belief and expression. They also reject what we were all brought up to uphold: a sense of belonging and loyalty to our homeland.
In fact, loyalty and belonging to the homeland is the basis for a productive, innovative, open and creative co-existence which guarantees the people’s right to freedom and justice. However, we don’t agree with Political Islam groups regarding the notion of the “homeland” as we know it now, and not as they see it, in the same manner people perceived it in the Middle Ages.
In the Middle Ages, people used to live in small groups and their loyalty was principally directed to their families, tribes, vocation and villages. Their enterprises were directly linked and tied to their places of birth. Their tools and instruments were inadequate and limited, restraining their ability to move out of their constrained circles.
“Belonging” in the wider sense of the word meant one’s religious affiliation, which came before and above belonging to the homeland.
Religion was the source of people’s culture, knowledge, ideals and a means to correlate with the world and the afterworld, while the “homeland” was nothing but a dwelling place which could be easily deserted for another one.
Then, communities evolved, cultures and human values developed and progressed enough to defend freedom of belief and combat extremism and fanaticism. Citizenship became the ground basis for modern states, regardless of religious affiliation—considered an infinitely personal matter between man and his Creator. Each of us is free to believe and worship the way he prefers, but loyalty to the homeland is a common factor that binds people of different faiths together. Distinguishing between religious affiliation and home belonging urged Egyptians to coin their immortal slogan: “Religion is only to God and the homeland is for all.”
Although separating between religion and state is the norm in all modern states, it is still rejected by all Political Islam groups which still live in the dark ages. They still weigh between religious and national affiliation as if they have to surrender one to maintain the other. They obviously opt for upholding religion, transforming it into the anti-homeland, or at best mix them together so that the homeland becomes the land of religion or the home of Islam and not the homeland of all people who share this land.
Hence, the Muslim Brotherhood, since its inception eighty years ago, contended with the national movement. All Egyptians and Egyptian parties were struggling to achieve independence and proclaiming the constitution, while the Muslim Brothers were advocating the caliphate.
The Brotherhood’s former supreme guide openly relayed their stance on national belonging when he disparaged and booed Egypt’s name in the course of an inquiry about the importance of Egypt’s independence vis-à-vis reestablishing Islamic Caliphate.
The Brotherhood’s present Supreme Guide reiterated the hope to revive the Caliphate—as if they want to revive the dead!
We have also witnessed Salafis hoisting the Saudi flag instead of Egypt’s flag in Tahrir Square and, moreover, we have seen them refuse to take the oath of allegiance to Egypt’s constitution at the parliament.
We clearly stand at extreme opposite ends with Political Islam groups.
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Source: Al Ahram: April 4, 2012 – translated by CS. Mr Hegazy is one of a few prominent secularist writers in Egypt.