{"id":5987,"date":"2011-04-13T13:03:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T09:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=5987"},"modified":"2011-04-13T14:11:26","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T10:11:26","slug":"beyond-yes-and-no-agreeing-on-a-plurality-of-views-in-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/beyond-yes-and-no-agreeing-on-a-plurality-of-views-in-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Beyond ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The \u201dyes\u201d camp in the recent Egyptian referendum for constitutional reform, which was supposed to bring forward early parliamentary elections, got 77 per cent of the vote. The \u201dno\u201d vote got the rest. And now people are trying to figure out what this means.<\/p>\n

There are several things both the \u201dyes\u201d voters and the \u201dno\u201d voters should now consider, as Egypt heads towards September parliamentary elections, and the first constitution of a post-Mubarak Egypt. Much of it has to do with religion, extremism and politics in this country \u2013a set of affairs that most Egyptians, after having experienced such a closely controlled country under former President Hosni Mubarak, frankly have little experience with. But there are some things that are clear from the outset.<\/p>\n

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is, whether people like it or not, a significant force in Egypt. There are two corollaries to that. The first is that the MB needs to be brought into the political mainstream, which is still being constructed. The second is that it must be capable of accepting and responding to public criticism \u2013 and it should seek to address the mistrust that many, particularly religious minorities in Egypt, have of it. So far, it has not managed to do so \u2013 the Christians still fear it, and many liberal secularists are worried that the MB will turn Egypt into a Sunni Iran. Perhaps all these fears are unfounded \u2013 but they still need to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Those that advocated the \u201cno\u201d vote have to be honest with themselves about why they lost. Many were tempted after the vote to blame it on the MB, and particularly on the conservative, orthodox-style Salafi preachers that had persuaded their supporters that a \u201dyes\u201d vote was for Islam and a \u201dno\u201d vote was against Islam.<\/p>\n

The reality is that the \u201dno\u201d crowd lost, by and large due to the lack of engagement it has had with the overwhelming majority of the population. They concentrated their efforts more on their support bases within Cairo, and to a lesser extent in Alexandria \u2013 and barely engaged with the overwhelming majority of Egyptians who do not live in those cities, and who have security as well as economic issues foremost on their minds. That, more than anything else, is what led to their defeat in the referendum, which was easily cast as a choice between security and insecurity.<\/p>\n

The \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d camps now have a vested interest in a common goal: a new Egypt that is far freer and more plural than that which came before it in the public arena. For the sake of national unity, they should try to come to a common platform, which at the very least includes some basic ingredients and fundamentally has to abjure deeply divisive partisan politics.<\/p>\n

As the main Islamic political party in the country, the MB, for example, has the ability to reduce the religious sectarianism that is at risk of increasing in Egypt. Likewise, the \u201cno\u201d camp should openly accept that while they might be more partial to a secular outlook, Egyptian secularism will likely have to be quite open to religion if it is to be accepted.<\/p>\n

That common platform must also look at the two camps as an incredibly diverse group. The MB is made up of many trends \u2013 not all of which feel the same way about various issues, and some of which are more liberal than others.<\/p>\n

The same goes for the \u201cno\u201d camp, which is made up of much of Egypt\u2019s intelligentsia, leftists, secularists, liberals and others, including many people of faith who have been responsible for a great deal of constructive religious revival in this country.<\/p>\n

There is much to be gained from a constructive engagement between the two camps in a spirit of national unity \u2013 far more than what is to be lost.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s for that reason that initiatives like Tahrir Squared (www.tahrirsquared.net) \u2013 an enterprise whose goal is to amplify the impact of recent events in Tahrir Square \u2013 are being launched, and others are already in operation, so that all parts of civil society can have a platform where they can discuss, debate and inform. And they all need to remember that neither \u201dyes\u201d nor \u201cno\u201d voters have a monopoly over public opinion or the revolution.<\/p>\n

Just as the people of Egypt overthrew the last regime, they can \u2013 and will \u2013 come out again, hundreds of thousands of them, if they think any type of tyranny is upon them. This is the new Egypt \u2013 its people should not be underestimated.<\/p>\n

Dr. H.A. Hellyer (www.hahellyer.com) is a Fellow of the University of Warwick, and currently writing a book on the Arab spring from Cairo.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DR H.A. HELLYER, CGNEWS: The recent constitutional referendum delivered a resounding victory for the ‘Yes’ camp. Both sides, however, have a vested interest in protecting the freer, more plural Egypt that has emerged. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":5988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,60],"tags":[253,378,1696,125,18300,6037,2323,4525,389,1808,399,6035,6033],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}