Dialogues of Naguib Mahfouz: Political anticipation in 2006 By Mohamed Salmawy Salmawy: What are your wishes for the new year? Mahfouz: I wish 2006 to be the year of change, and I mean change in everything. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) needs to change and the Muslim Brotherhood -- now the largest opposition group in parliament -- should change as well. The same goes for the rest of our parties. We have 20 parties of which we know little and hear even less. Salmawy: What exactly do you wish the NDP to do? Mahfouz: The recent elections show that many of the NDP's methods are outdated. The NDP has raised the slogan of democracy without educating its members on the culture of democracy. Even some of its leaders don't seem interested in the matter. This is why the NDP acted during the elections as if we were still in the one-party era. Salmawy: You're practically asking for a new party. Mahfouz: Not necessarily. What matters to me is not the name but the method. The government had in the past changed its party for another, but the new party turned out to be the same old party, with the old members, or most of them. This is not the kind of change I wish to see. So I am not necessarily calling for a new party, but for a mechanism that involves a change in the political attitude of the NDP. We need a party that tolerates political dissent and knows how to deal with it. We need a party that is concerned about the problems of the people and is not absorbed in political manoeuvres and conflicts within its own ranks or in relation to other parties. I imagine that this mechanism may surface through the implementation of President Hosni Mubarak's political programme. The president has promised to amend the constitution, abolish freedom-restricting laws -- including the emergency laws -- resolve the problem of unemployment, and address other economic problems. Should the NDP try to implement these promises, it would have to do things differently, and that would create a new dynamic. The amendment of the constitution, for example, would accord the opposition a new legitimacy on all levels of political work. This legitimacy would force the ruling party to deal with dissident views in a manner that differs from the crude security tactics that the NDP has used on occasion. The abolishment of the emergency laws would greatly impede security excesses that impinge on human rights. Also, if the NDP were to see its main mission as resolving the problems of the people -- joblessness for example -- it would have to act differently. It would shift its action from the corridors of the party to the streets, which is what others have already done, and won seats in parliament as a result.
