Over the past few weeks the debate over police officers having beards has shot into the spotlight in Egypt. On one side, there are the officers' themselves and their push to allow facial hair on the job. For many of them, it is a way to show their faith, that growing Islamist sentiment in the country, visually for all to see. In the United States, only a mustache is allowed, so it would seem that Egypt is attempting, at one level to maintain their international police status. And NGOs and activists alike are calling on the government and the security forces to maintain this separation between church and state. While it may not be a direct church and state issue, at the heart of the matter is the secular state, or what remains of it in Egypt. Dozens staged protests on Friday in front of Abdeen Palace in downtown Cairo to demand allowing bearded police officers back to work. A number of Salafist political parties joined the protests dubbed “No to exclusion.” It was the largest such showing in favor of beards for officers in the country. According to the Facebook page, ‘I am a bearded police officer', Secretary General of the Police Officers Association Ashraf Banna announced his support for the right of officers to grow their beards. Cairo's High Administrative Court has issued a verdict allowing the officers to grow their beard, rejecting a request by the Interior Ministry to suspend the officers who do so. The Interior Ministry then argued that growing beards is not consistent with the “discipline of policemen.” Salafi Sheikh Yasser Brohami issued a fatwa (religious ruling) that obliges the president to reinstate the bearded police officers in their work, saying that the Interior Ministry's regulation barring bearded police officers is against Shariah (Islamic teachings). But we shouldn't really listen to Brohami and his virulent anti-anything not “Islamic.” He's a hardened cleric who is among many threatening to continue to throw Egypt in a direction the majority should not want to head. At the end of the day, the issue really shouldn't be on beards. The security forces in Egypt are abhorrently bad. They are the ones who have killed, maimed and used excessive violence against a protester. Will a beard change that? Absolutely not. In fact, and this is where it becomes dangerous, it could heighten the violence against thosepeskyprotesters they are continuing to do battle against on a seemingly daily basis. If the beard issue would lead to a change in the entire security apparatus, top to bottom, bottom to top, I'm all for it. But until the police show any semblance of reform, the growing of beards will only do one thing: confound an already tense situation. Egypt is running scared right now. The country is as divided as it has ever been, between Islamist tendencies and those of the secularists who want to give all Egyptians the right to live their lives in their own choosing. A bearded police officer will continue the virulent nature of Islam in the country that is threatening the very way of life that Egyptians have had and are aspiring to. This is a serious issue and one that would put an outward stamp on the future of the country towards a Saudi-styled theocracy that nobody wants. BN
