Is it possible that the results and implications of practising democracy become a deterrent or penalty for people, so that they scrutinise their choices later? Does political choice mean that authority is eternal, even if it deviates from the right track or is inclined towards dictatorship? Is it necessary for the people to bow to all means of repression applied by an authority merely because it was chosen democratically? Are the terms prescribed for rulers by various constitutions considered heavenly that cannot be compromised in any way? Is holding fast to power a deliberate wastage of a people's rights? And how has the Arab Spring breeze turned to a lump in the throats of the people, following troubled and deteriorating conditions? Is the entire Arab region to be exposed to fierce attack, planned by the evil hand of extremism under the slogans of sectarianism and ethnic nationalism? Or are we witness to the first scenes and applications of the creative chaos theory that America exported to the Arab world nearly two decades ago? How can we pick up our Arab world from the claws of impending strife while minds have become empty except for thoughts of conspiracy, enmity and genocide? Perhaps the answer to these inquiries will be less heated than portraying the contemporary Egyptian status, which is dominated by a two-factor equation: namely religion and blood and what lies in between them — feelings of division, antagonism, enmity, ambiguity, confusion, absurdity and ignorance. Religion here, of course, is not used in its actual meaning and historic purpose; it is that religion that its user manipulated, that motivates the grip on power and satisfies the desires of a group that imagines itself holding religious custody over Egyptian society. The shed blood is sacred, and a record of guilty fingerprints, as well as a defender of religion in an innate and innocent way, free of suspicion and selfish purposes, and rebellious in honour of the country and its history. The source of alienation that invaded the Egyptian mind in these moments is the fight of the regime in defence of its political and constitutional legitimacy and survival, and the coming out of other cries denouncing the regime, which will be voided if it continues in power. Numerous allegations and claims have arisen, but what is acceptable to logic and reality remains something else. What gave this authority legality and legitimacy is the rebellious, aspirant popular will that hung hopes on a new regime expected to be different from the one it toppled in its nature, ideology, dealings, strategy and politics. But when there's an exact match and systematic inspiration of the old regime, plus an added religious tint to shield it from criticism, it becomes a disaster that ought to be removed. This is so because the people's will — despite its adherence to constitutional constants — adheres to a different logic called the “legitimacy of achievement”. It means the ability to act and change decisively reality. Authority's legitimacy cannot be complete except by communicating with the base that brought this authority to power and that possesses the power to sweep it away as long as this authority insists on ignoring it. This base is constantly monitoring positive indicators, but gets frustrated and torn when the current regime it hoped would spread social justice and bring security and stability, restoring the status of Egypt, is found to be a terrible mirage. It is obliged to reject any claim to political legitimacy on the part of a regime that ignored its interests and squandered its rights and is in the process of destroying the country. The regime is ignoring the relation between legitimacy and performance, relieved of its duties in directing the base to struggle around identity, whereas its existence is assured only by good and correct action, without which authority becomes vacuous. The people of Egypt have rights acquired by time and necessity, the first of which to recover stolen dignity, to culminate the revolutionary march majestically in social justice — or justice in all its various meanings — speeding towards the democratic path and freedom, and scrambling in the path of contemporary human civilisation to wipe layers of dust from Egypt's face. The Egyptian people are suffering innumerable and enormous economic, social, political and daily living crises, stemming from the disastrous performance of the political system that is effective only in intensifying crises and tabling proposals characterised by a closed political and intellectual horizon for a society that has endured horrors for three decades. The logic of reality overcomes and exceeds the logic of ballot boxes, as electoral results should be supported by parallel change and economic, political, social and cultural recovery. When all of these are absent, the ballot box stands isolated and lacks legitimacy because it provided no means to address the needs of the people who voted. The writer is a political commentator.
