What signal is the restoration of emergency law in Egypt supposed to send, asks Azmi Ashour After 11 February, Egypt's political scene opened up to all sorts of political currents, some less appetising than others. Dominating the scene are the men running the country, both in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the government of Essam Sharaf. Then you get the revolutionaries and the families of the martyrs, who are mainly interested in keeping the flames of the revolution alive, through protests and million man marches. The Islamists of various leanings have also sprung into action, especially the young who have been at the revolution's forefront from the start. Unfortunately, the Islamists are not handling their newfound freedom with grace. Over optimistic about their own future, they have developed a tunnel vision that alienated many in the country. Analysts are both puzzled and slightly disturbed by the multiplicity of views on the domestic scene, but this is not a bad thing. It is actually a relief to finally know what political currents are around and what they stand for. As for the transitional phase leaders, whether in the SCAF or the government, their performance so far has been quite mixed. On the one hand, they made an attempt to meet the revolution's demands, including the call to put Mubarak and his associates on trial. But then there has been a lot of backtracking, or shall I say a counterrevolutionary streak, in their policies. Take, for example, the Interior Ministry, which doesn't seem to get anything right. Saddled with a pre-revolutionary mentality, it seems to be longing for a past in which the police had all the power. It is as if the men running the ministry are unaware that one of the main causes for the revolution was the excesses of the police. Remember "We Are All Khaled Said"? The reason for the success of this campaign is that everyone in the country has either been personally abused by the police or knows someone who has. So far, the Interior Ministry has been woefully repeating the mistakes of the past. And its men seem to be flexing their muscles at every turn. This happened in the incident at the Balloon Theatre, then again in Cairo Stadium, where policemen beat up spectators. This happened in a televised event, as if the Interior Ministry was telling us all that we must start behaving or else. The spectators who scuffled with the police at the Cairo Stadium were the football fans known as the Ultras. For those of you who may not know, the Ultras were also present in force during the protests of Friday, 9 September. We don't need a police force that keeps provoking the youth. We need one that enforces the law in our streets and gets tough only with those who commit crimes against ordinary citizens. So far, I don't see this happening. In fact, I feel that those in charge of the country are telling us to forget about the revolution. Attempts are underway to sully the image of the revolution by creating situations that make the revolutionaries look bad. Remember how the revolutionaries were branded as people who were funded from abroad? And more recently, the whole Israeli embassy affair seems just too odd. First, the revolutionaries were accused of receiving funding from abroad. Then they were lured into situations that can be easily misconstrued. The Israeli embassy affair is a case in point. First, a wall was built in clear provocation of public sentiment. Then the police was pulled out of an area that is usually fortified beyond belief. Then demonstrators were allowed to knock down the wall, a feat that lasted quite a long time, before finally the police and army arrived in force and a major clash ensued. The scene to which we've been treated on 9 September was like that from an action film, and perhaps as well scripted. The same tactic was followed earlier, during the march on SCAF headquarters, when thugs were hired to pose as Abbasiya inhabitants and start pelting protesters with stones and bottles. What happened in front of the Israeli embassy makes one wonder about the whole point of the interim period: Is it an attempt to bring out democracy or reinstate despotism? Then, we were suddenly thrown back into the nightmare of the past with a resuscitation of emergency laws. What is that all about? Don't we know that the revolution mainly started not to overthrow the regime as much as to repeal the emergency laws? So what exactly is the message here? Are we being told to give up? Are we being told that the revolution was all about nothing? Are we being told that the country's security personnel are once again above the law? We've all heard people calling for the restoration of the "clout" of the state. But this cannot happen through extraordinary measures. People cannot have respect for a state that is run by emergency laws. They have brought up one just for this reason, and they cannot tolerate another. Those who believe that the measures of tyranny once used by the old regime would restore the "clout" of the state are wrong. Egyptians want law and order, not extraordinary laws. The writer is managing editor of the quarterly journal Al-Dimoqrateya published by Al-Ahram.
