Founder and former chairman of the Democratic Front Party Osama El-Ghazali Harb issued a timely initiative dubbed "Message from Tahrir to the World", also called the "Tahrir Document". " I no longer speak on behalf of the party, I must make that clear from the outset. I speak on behalf of the genuine activists I feel sparked the 25 January Revolution. I believe in universal democracy, and that Muslim societies cannot invent their own concept of democracy and human rights. India and Japan are not non-Western societies yet they have adopted Western-style pluralism," Harb told Al-Ahram Weekly. If disregarded, it would jeopardise Egypt's nascent multi-party pluralistic democracy as a post-revolution political project -- or at least set it back some years. If taken seriously Egypt will give the country the chance to make its values and interests be heard and appreciated internationally and in the new regional power set-up in Africa, the Arab and Muslim worlds. In short, stabilising Egypt politically is in the interest of the region and the world. But Egypt cannot play its part properly within the confines of a moral vacuum. The 25 January Revolution has been an inspiration to the international community. Egypt is among the countries of the Arab Spring that emerged as a convincing trailblazer. Even so, storm clouds are gathering on the horizon. When the regime of ex-president Hosni Mubarak collapsed a year ago, there was a premonition both in the West and in Egypt that the country will embrace Islamist values. This expectation took no account of diversity of the Islamist platform. Liberals shied away from openly espousing Western values, universal human rights principles, and, to be blunt, form part of the so-called "civilised world". Nonetheless, the results of the parliamentary elections only exacerbated the secularist-liberal predicament. Harb quit the former ruling National Democratic Party's policy committee in 2006. He did so at a time when the Mubarak regime started to lose legitimacy. Monetising privilege was one reason. Gross human rights abuses was another. Growing income disparities and social inequalities was yet another explanation. The flagrant disregard of basic citizenship rights was also an immediate trigger for the social crisis that led to the 25 January Revolution. That at least is one version of the legend. By and large Egypt's intellectuals, artists and academicians lobbied for broader personal freedoms. Harb was among them. But then it transpired at the polling stations that the new People's Assembly was to be composed in the main of "moderate Islamists". The Islamists -- Salafis, Muslim Brothers and others -- differed among themselves as to what exactly constituted political Islam. Parallels were drawn with the now idealised era of pristine Islam. Religiosity, coupled with anti-corruption campaigns and clean political posturing, has been among the Islamists' selling points. To the chagrin of secularists and liberals the anti-Islamist rhetoric conjured an equally vehement anti-liberal response. The preponderance of Islamists in the political arena is driven by the lack of credible alternatives rather than a common Islamist agenda. Nor is there a plausible secularist -- liberal, socialist and Nasserist -- vision for change. Even so, Egypt remains a hybrid as opposed to a homogeneous nation-state. Such a voice as Harb may be a minority, albeit an influential one -- but it is important to note that the clash between Egyptian secularists and Islamists is not a classical clash of civilisations. It is a sign that the process of dismantling the Mubarak regime, which started a year ago, is far from over. While Mubarak was unseated and his scheme of dynastic succession foiled the mechanism for sustaining political power and economic privilege remain intact. The secularist intelligentsia in Egypt was not the primary engine of the Mubarak regime's collapse. Indeed, some say that it was largely caught unaware and unprepared. In certain circles everything vaguely Islamist was the subject of ridicule. Later Islamists became a byword for backwardness, a Frankenstein to be feared. The election results do not necessarily mean that most contemporary Egyptians yearned to return to a real or imaginary pristine Islamic past. They long for social justice, law and order which they associated with the Islamists long excluded from politics and sidelined by years of state oppression by successive governments from Gamal Abdel-Nasser to Hosni Mubarak. In the aftermath of the 25 January Revolution, it quickly transpired that the country's secularist intelligentsia lacked the capacity to create new institutions. Secularist ideology appeared hollow, especially as far as the underdog was concerned. Among many in secularist circles the hope of a miracle to rid the country of the Islamist stranglehold was replaced after the parliamentary elections with disillusion and nostalgia for a bygone era -- a golden one that was secularist albeit authoritarian and repressive. The truth was that Egyptians were tired of the secularist ideology and few secularists were convincing enough to win the disadvantaged over. It is in this context that Harb conjured his latest initiative, the "Tahrir Document", which encompasses social movements as opposed to political parties, including the National Association for Change, affiliated to Mohamed El-Baradei, the National Council, 6 April, 9 March, Kifaya and Communists -- all of the aforementioned being active participants in the revolution. Harb acknowledges the pivotal importance of raising incomes. "This is not a socialist manifesto," he emphasises, "but I am for social justice." He stresses a sense of worth. His challenge was to underpin what is prerequisite for creating a viable Egyptian democracy. "All Egyptians are free citizens with equal rights without discrimination on the grounds of religious conviction, gender, regional affiliation, class or social status." Nor does he appear to relish the challenge, especially since the poor showing of secularist parties gives him little mandate. In sharp contrast to the Islamists, Harb and his ilk have failed to take their message to the streets. In fact, he is dismissed by his detractors as politically irrelevant. Sceptics suspect that Harb's recommendations have little chance of being implemented but that the post-revolution political establishment cannot rebuff them outright. The ease with which the Islamists swept the polls, garnering votes particularly in rural backwaters, but also in peripheral urban areas such as slums and shantytowns was testimony not to their political prowess but to Egypt's institutional weakness. The first pronouncements of the newly-elected speaker in the Islamist dominated post-revolution parliament is promising. The Freedom and Justice Party-affiliated speaker Mohamed Saad El-Katatni put it succinctly. "I stress that we respect freedom of opinion, opinions of the other. These are pillars of democracy," El-Katatni declared. Although compliance is not compulsory, Harb's recommendations are taken seriously as he was, after all, selected by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to lead the committee which drafted inviolable constitutional principles to be respected by the drafters of the new constitution. At the same time though, there are signs that frustration, impatience and discontent are growing. Grim economic figures foment trouble socially. Popular anger has been boiling over with high unemployment and inflation. So is this the proper time to underscore individual human liberties? Harb is unequivocal. "The dignity of the Egyptian citizen is inviolable and sacrament" and "Egypt is a civil democracy," he extrapolates. "Freedom of expression, religious belief, and peaceful association," must be enshrined in the constitution as an inviolate right.
