It is impossible to tell what the “political” situation will be like in Egypt at the time this article goes to print. It is currently 1 December and the “religious” forces are about to display their numbers at Cairo University Square. They will be parading beneath the banner of “legitimacy and Sharia law”. Note the blend of the civil and the religious here. Note, too, the intent to imply that those who will be gathering in Tahrir Square today and joining those who have been continuing their sit-in from yesterday do not support legitimacy (because they do not support President Morsi's constitutional declaration) or Islamic law. When framed this way, what we have is a huge fissure in Egyptian society between the “civil” and the “religious” forces, in spite of the fact that both sides approve of Article 2 of the constitution which states that “Islam is the religion of the state and that the principles of Islamic Sharia are the primary source of legislation.” In an article in Al-Shorouk, professor Fahmy Howeidy, who is closely connected to political Islam groups in general, argued that the rift is being generated by the Salafis whose pressures are pushing the Muslim Brothers towards more hardline stances than they would ordinarily have taken on the nature and identity of the state and the relationship between the religious and the civil in government. Evidence of this dynamic is to be found in the Salafis' success in securing the insertion of Article 219 into the draft constitution. Intended to qualify Article 2, it states, “the principles of Islamic Sharia comprise its general corpus of legal proofs, its methodological and jurisprudential rules, and its sources that are regarded [as authoritative] by the schools of Sunni Islam and the [Sunni] community.” This article flies in the face of all Egyptian constitutional traditions. In fact, it runs counter to the general convention that the interpretation of constitutional texts is the preserve of the Supreme Constitutional Court which, in previous rulings, had determined that “principles” means the incontrovertible judgements that are explicitly derived from the Quran and the Sunna (prophetic hadith) and that any jurisprudential “proofs” and “sources” beyond this are the product of the judgements and argumentations of human beings whose thinking was determined by the attitudes and dictates of their times and, therefore, may be consulted but should not prevent current generations of legal scholars from examining texts in light of the current conditions in today's world. But such rulings meant nothing to the Salafis in the Constituent Assembly, five of whom refused to stand when the national anthem was played, blatantly signalling their contempt for the Egyptian state and the spirit of Egyptian patriotism. Such Salafis are not only propelling the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists in general toward ideological extremes, they are also propelling them towards exclusionist attitudes towards large segments of Egyptian society. We see their influence in Article 232 of the draft constitution that prohibits leaders of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP) from engaging in political activity and running for legislative and presidential elections for a period of 10 years as of the date the constitution goes into effect. By NDP “leaders” they are referring to anyone who served in that party's “general secretariat, policies committee and political bureau, or as an NDP representative in the People's Assembly or Shura Council during the two legislative terms that preceded the 25 January Revolution.” Effectively this article issues a blanket sentence of political banishment on the basis of no specified crime or accusation. A similarly worded text that Salafis tried to implant in the Tunisian constitution stirred harsh criticism among many international organisations. The problem is not just with the principle, which contradicts the provisions and values that are set out in other articles of the constitution. It also contradicts the actual reality that former NDP members, whether they were ordinary members or members in the NDP's policy bodies or its secretariat councils, had been invited to participate in successive governments that followed the revolution, including the cabinet of prime minister Essam Sharaf. Clearly, those who drafted the text know next to nothing about the NDP and the way it was organised. In fact, there was no “policies committee,” which is the term used in the draft constitution, but rather a “policies secretariat” which was only one of 13 secretariats which were equally influential in drawing up NDP policies. The policy secretariat, itself, consisted of a Higher Council for Policies whose size varied between 114 and 129 members over the years. Below that council was a range of committees devoted to various areas of concern, such as Egypt and the world, women, transportation, energy and so on. The number of members of these committees put together came to around 700. Is it right to incorporate into a constitutional document a political ban on a person for no crime that he committed? Is it right to arbitrarily target the head of a certain secretariat, or some or all of the members of this secretariat? What is the point? Does the Constituent Assembly really want to bar Essam Sharaf, Hisham Kandil, Amr Hamzawy, Wahid Abdel-Meguid and others like them from political participation solely on the grounds that they had participated in the policies secretariat or its branches at one time or another? The polarisation is growing more intense as a result of the roars of the Salafis in front of Cairo University. But it is also a result of some hardline groups in Tahrir who are escalating their demands in what appears to be an attempt to work up protesters to a state similar to that which had existed following 25 January 2011 when the protesting crowds notched up their calls from a set of rights demands to the demand for the downfall of the president. But the situation that applied then does not apply today. Our current president is a democratically elected one. From the practical standpoint, this presidency is the only institution that has a sound basis of legitimacy, especially given the question marks that hang over the legitimacy of the Shura Council and the Constituent Assembly. Overthrowing the president, which would be next to impossible to achieve, would only usher in a major conflict, anarchy and the collapse of the nation. As I have said before, there can only be one solution to the current impasse. This is a political declaration that sets out a roadmap for the transitional phase that is signed by all political forces that seek the safety and security of our nation.
