"The revolution continues" in Egypt

CAIRO. These days this is the most widespread and common slogan of revolutionaries from every segment in Egypt: "Al-thawra mustamirra" (The revolution continues).

A few university students with bundles of leaflets in their hands entered a restaurant near Tahrir Square where we had gone to eat koshari. After placing their food orders, they sat down with the other customers, and in no time a debate that began right after greetings turned into a lively discussion that drew in all the other customers in the restaurant.

These days Egypt, young and old, students and tradesmen, all segments, is in a mood of trying to enjoy having discovered politics. "Don't mind this heat; we have so long yearned to debate with relish, to talk about politics, that any subject is enough to inflame us," says one who saw that we were watching with interest and knew we had come from Turkey.

In this incident, which took place at midnight before the Friday declared the "Friday of Persistence," the youth want unity for the revolution to reach completion, and argue that for this a constitution must be made as soon as possible. One of the groups of customers in the restaurant, however, argued that it is not possible to make a constitution before the elections, since there is no criterion at all as to who would be authorized to make the constitution and how. This group, made up partly of Brotherhood members and partly of the former Jihad movement (now of the Freedom and Development Party), accuse those demanding "constitution first" of being secular-liberals and of trying to push through a constitution as they wish by presenting a fait accompli without going to elections. The youth, however, say they find this generalization unfair and that, for example, although they themselves are "neither liberal nor secular," they give priority to the constitution. According to the others, those who insist on "constitution first" have no hope of the elections, and because they know they would do very poorly in the elections, they do not want to leave the task of making the constitution to a committee or assembly authorized by elections. Yet they have nothing to propose as to what other way a body that would make a constitution could have than the authorization of the people.

Frankly, everyone is sure that the Brotherhood and the other Islamist groups will emerge from the elections with a great victory and they are looking for ways not to let them write the constitution. The Brotherhood members, for their part, criticize them with the very same arguments directed at the CHP in Turkey: despite all their democracy discourse, what they like least is elections. So much so that a phrase that has now got stuck on their tongues shows it: "the people's vote is not everything."

The biggest storm breaks out when they want the articles already in the Egyptian constitution, ordering that the official religion be Islam and that the most important source of legislation be the Qur'an and Sunnah, to be removed. This means removing Egypt from being Islam in identity and thereby, in fact, from its claim to being a regional power. Turning it into a country wrestling only with its own internal problems is regarded as a foreign conspiracy. For in this way Egypt would be left as a country minding its own business, without in the least disrupting the plan that Israel and the US have set for the region, and this demand of the secular-liberals is directly linked to this aim.

This great dispute among the revolutionary forces becomes one that must be resolved, as the reform timetable, which has been left to the mercy of the soldiers and to their auspicious hours, increasingly begins to exhaust people's patience. It had been announced that the Brotherhood and the other Islamist parties would not participate in the rally that the secular-liberal wing of the revolution wanted to organize to demand the acceleration of the trial of the symbolic names of the old regime along with Mubarak, as well as the establishment of security and the release of those arrested during the revolution. It was seen that this decision alone caused, curiously, great demoralization among the revolutionary forces.

The image of fragmentation among the revolutionary forces creates demoralization in society, because the revolution has not yet been brought to completion. Nothing has been done other than Mubarak's having been sent away. It is by no means a small possibility that a revolution left in this state will soon leave all the strings to a military regime that will take Mubarak's place.

Perhaps for this reason, the Brotherhood's last-minute decision to abandon its decision and take part in the rally created tremendous morale and excitement among the demonstrators. Even so, this does not prevent the Egyptians, in these Mubarak-less days that have now passed half a year, from increasingly revealing all their political differences and splitting. The Egyptians are literally experiencing what Prof. Ibrahim al-Bayyoumi calls "the return of politics." The Egyptians, having discovered politics rather late, are living it to the marrow. Dozens of parties have already been founded.

I ask a Salafi from the former Jihad movement, who attended our conference at Cairo University as a listener and is now distinguishing himself in political party activities: "Normally you were against democracy and politics, what is happening now?" His answer is quite interesting: "Where there is dictatorship, the path of politics is closed anyway, and no way remains for us other than jihad directly. But in an environment where tyranny has ended and people believe they can change things, violence is not permissible. In this environment we will also work together with others, by debating and negotiating, to create a more just, more dignified society. From the standpoint of our religion we see no objection to this at all."

The return of politics produces a politically extremely lively picture of Egypt, accompanied by a series of splits, factions, parties and all kinds of coalitions, alliances and the pursuit of counter-alliances. It means we will keep watching.