Outside of day-to-day decisions, there are fundamental questions to ask of the character of the political forces at the helm in Egypt today, writes Tarek Heggy A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the spread in that society of a culture of acceptance of the Other, one that respects -- and indeed cherishes -- diversity as one of life's most important attributes. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the spread in that society of a culture of objective and complete acceptance of the Other regardless of the shape "otherness" takes. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the spread in that society of a culture that can recognise the relative (as opposed to the absolute) merits of all opinions, theories, views and ideas. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the emphasis it places on the rights of women and its recognition that they represent far more than their numerical value as making up half of society. Women raise all the members of society, and it is to the advantage of any society to ensure that they enjoy full equality with men. This entails discarding the primitive mediaeval perception of women as capable only of being wives and mothers. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is its adoption of an educational philosophy based on innovation and creativity rather than on rote learning and memory tests. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is how highly its culture and educational philosophy rates the role of the human mind and its recognition that critical thinking is one of the most important -- if not the most important -- engines of progress. This approach is the antithesis of the culture of blind obedience, submission and conformism that has permeated Muslim societies under rulers and sheikhs who have toed the line laid down by the proponents of orthodoxy and tradition following their victory over the proponents of deductive reasoning in the battle of ideas that raged nine centuries ago. Since then, Ibn Taymeyah, not Ibn Rushd, has become the "sheikh of Islam". Do the members of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today believe in the supremacy of the human mind, in encouraging critical thinking and in curtailing the role and influence of the prevailing culture of blind obedience, submission and conformism? Can their mentality and behaviour be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is its adoption of the values of cultural and religious tolerance. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is its adherence to the notion of citizenship, in the sense of ensuring complete equality between its members, regardless of religion, creed, beliefs, opinions, race or gender. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to conform to this ideal? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is its recognition of the universality of knowledge and science. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the spread in that society of a general cultural climate that respects and protects general freedoms, the most important being freedom of belief and the freedom to criticise anything, within the law. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is its renunciation of the practice of prosecuting any person for his or her ideas, writings or works of art, of banning book -- in other words, its raising of the ceiling of freedom of thought, expression and creative imagination. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to qualify in this regard? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the value it places on human life, its utter and unqualified denunciation of any aggression against civilians under any pretext whatsoever. Unfortunately, some simpleminded members of our society rejoice at suicide attacks and criminal operations like the ones that targeted innocent civilians on the Indonesian island of Bali and the events of 9/11 in the United States. Can the mentality and behaviour of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today be said to stand unequivocally opposed to the culture of death and to uphold the sanctity of human life? A measure of a society's ranking on the scale of human civilisation and progress is the ability to distinguish between "religious truths" and "scientific truths". With all due respect to both, advanced societies have succeeded in keeping the two truths apart, careful to never allow them to overlap. Given the ideological formation of the majority in the Egyptian parliament today, are they capable of making the required distinction between "religious truths" and "scientific truths"? I will conclude this article with an axiom that has come down to us from the glorious civilisation of Ancient Greece, the Greece of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, one that every student of philosophy is familiar with: "Questions are all-seeing, answers are blind." I can only hope that the page of questions is about to be closed in our society and that it will be replaced by an open page of definitive answers. The writer is a political analyst.
