Egypt has come out of a long era of oppression and military rule. Military rule began in 1952 after the revolution of the Army, and continued up until 2011 until the people revolted on the 25th of January, 2001, and succeeded to bring down the ruling regime (or at least that is what it seems). During those nearly 59 years, Egypt went through two major wars, lost and then regained part of its land (Sinai), formed a transient confederation with Syria, and had two constitutions (1956 and 1971) withe several amendments of both. This turmoil that was going on in the country both on the interior and the exterior is far from being over.
Oppression of Egyptians and restriction of free speech has been a major criterion over those years. True democracy almost never found its way to the Egyptian people. Political education was an ignored issue in the country, and so became elementary education as well after a certain point. The result was an illiteracy rate of about 30%, not to mention widespread and deep lack of knowledge of civic systems and political terms, even amongst the educated people. When the basic needs of the human being (like food, clothing and shelter) became difficult to satisfy, hardly no one thought anymore of other human rights like equality and freedom of speech. With the continuation of that gloomy and oppressive environment, and with the brutality of the police state that Egypt was, many Egyptians established in their minds a distorted concept of democracy.
Being ruled by a tyrant for the past thirty years, Egyptians had a whole generation of citizens who were affected by this deformed image of ‘leadership.’ They hated Mubarak for his tyranny, but they also wished deep inside they’d take control of their country ‘just like that guy.’ Now that they have taken control (or about to), many of them want to apply their distorted concepts of democracy to all Egyptians. The real problem is not in the distortion of the concept of democracy in their minds, but is the resistance to discuss what real democracy is and what human rights are. These people are by no means bad. They are Egyptian citizens who love their country and have good intentions, but also have things mixed up in their mind.
I was having a long discussion with some of my friends (and others who are not really my friends) about the second article in the latest Egyptian constitution. This article states that "Islam is the religion of the country, Arabic is its official language, and the principles of Islamic Sharia are the principal source of legislation." The discussion was related to a note that basically stated that Egyptians would never allow this article to be erased or changed, that this article was *the* guarantee to the rights of non-Muslim minorities, and that it was definitely acceptable to define a state religion and religious reference of the legislation, since some European countries define a state religion in their constitutions and they are all developed countries. The note mainly wanted to point out that defining a state religion or even restricting certain positions in the state to followers of a certain religion or even a certain denomination of that religion does not constitute a breech to human rights or, if they do, then it was acceptable to do the same in Egypt.
The discussion started smoothly when I provided information about secular countries versus those with a state religion, and I asked the readers to compare themselves how many of the secular countries were developed ones and how many of the countries with a state religion were so. I also reviewed quickly the history of the second article in the Egyptian constitution, which hadn’t always been phrased as mentioned above. My point was that the second article in the Egyptian constitution does not have a direct relationship with the Islamic identity of Egypt, which people were defending fiercely due to unjustified fear of having it erased from Egypt. Then one my colleagues came to defend Islamic Sharia and ensured that applying Sharia will have lots of benefits and preserve the rights of all non-Muslims. Of course, we are primarily talking about Coptic Christians, since these constitute almost entirely the remainder of non-Muslim population in Egypt.
I raised several important points that indicated clearly that Sharia wouldn’t be able in itself to preserve the rights of non-Muslims. One of these points was about adoption, which is prohibited in Sharia and, consequently, in the Egyptian Law. Following is the link to a PDF file that has the text of the Civil State Law (in Arabic), which mentions nothing about adoption.
As a matter of fact, a Coptic Christian lawyer had a proposal for an adoption law, and it was presented to the Church, Al-Azhar (biggest Islamic university in Egypt and the Middle East), and National Council for Maternity and Childhood (Article in Arabic):
But the proposal was rejected by many Azhari scholars, for they thought it didn’t agree with Sharia (Article in Arabic):
And when the Coptic Orthodox Pope was approving a proposal for a new Civil State Law for the Coptic Christians, he removed the section about adoption, probably to avoid obstacles in the proposal that may result in its rejection by any other authority on the basis of its contradiction to the Islamic Sharia (Article in Arabic):
The second point was marriage of people with different religions. Sharia allows a Muslim man to marry a Christian woman, but not the Muslim woman to marry a Christian man. In the Orthodox belief, marriage of any Christian to any non-Christian is not approved and is considered (from a religious point of view) adultery. So, why would the Egyptian Law allow Muslim men to marry Christian women, but prohibits Christian men from marrying Muslim women. If it is about respect of the religious beliefs, then those of Christians prohibit both. If it is about liberty and equality, then why not allow both?
The third point was about changing religion. There was a recent lawsuit that ruled against a man who wanted to change his ‘religion’ section in his ID (yes, the Egyptian ID has a religion section) from Muslim to Christian. Due to several legislative shortcomings, the court ruled against it. The legislative shortcomings indeed do not allow any Muslim to officially change their religion to Christianity (Article in Arabic):
The fourth point was the right of the Christian Egyptian citizen to run for the presidential elections. Listening to and reading many opinions from several Islamic currents, I came up with the firm conclusion that there is a great controversy amongst them on whether or not a Christian can be the president of an Islamic country like Egypt. There was nothing in the previous constitution that prevented Christians from running for presidency, but the Sharia legislative reference can be used as a legal basis (according to the particular opinion) to prevent them. The other counter-point I heard regarding this particular point is: "Do you think, if a Christian runs for presidency, he will ever win?"
Custody problems also arise when one of the parents changes their religion. There seems to be variability in the age of maternal custody according to which courts rule. The most common, to the best of my knowledge, is 15 years; i.e. children remain with their mother till they are 15 years old. In one lawsuit, custody of two girls (12 years and 8 years) was given to the father, who had changed his religion to Islam (Article in Arabic):
This happened despite that the father had a criminal record and was convicted before of forgery (Article in Arabic):
In another incident, the father of twin brothers Andrew and Mario (15 years) converted to Islam and had this children ‘legally’ automatically converted to Islam to follow his religion, despite the frank and persistent refusal of the children who wanted to remain Christian (Article in Arabic):
All these issues were raised by me in that discussion, and I honestly expected some decent response. I was frustrated by what I got, since only two persons discussed the actual points I raised, while the others either ‘assured’ me that Sharia protects the rights of non-Muslim minorities without actually discussing those incidents and conflicts, and some others threatened to use ‘democracy’ to vote on the application of Islamic Sharia, and they said "Of course, you know what the result will be." I desperately tried to argue to convince them that democracy does not mean that genuine human rights can be taken away, or that equality of citizens can be disregarded, but my efforts were wasted, for they only wanted to listen to themselves applying democracy.
Furthermore, I was accused of wanting a form of ‘tailored’ democracy that serves minorities in the country. My words about democracy being a civic system, about the necessity of the preservation of genuine human rights, and about dictatorship of the majority disguising itself as democracy fell on deaf ears. Some also wondered about how I wanted ‘double legislation’ for Christians and Muslims, and wondered if this was the system in any country in the world. When I replied that it was indeed the system that had been in use in Egypt for decades, I got no response.
I asked a simple question as an example: "If in Denmark they decided to vote on a legislation that would force Muslims to shave their heads and dress all in black, the majority agreed and the law was passed, would you consider this ‘democracy’ or would you cry out for the injustice that Muslims get in Denmark?" Following their distorted concept of democracy, this should be so much acceptable in a country with a majority of non-Muslims. But again, no one paid any attention to my question or my example and they persisted on calling their dictatorship a democracy.
Two questions remain unanswered. Does Islamic Sharia really protect non-Muslim minorities? Will this generation of ‘democratic’ dictators ever learn what democracy is and what human rights and equality are?
