CAIRO - The referendum held in Egypt on March 19, ended in a big ‘Yes' vote, with more than 14.1 million voters, or 77.2 per cent, approving the constitutional amendments, and 4 million, or 22.8 per cent, voting against them. In the light of the referendum, the Muslim Brotherhood and six other Islamist groups, including the ultraconservative Salafist school of Islam, have emerged claiming that the approval reflected religious sentiments. This is not true, though. All the same, many people fear the fundamental changes that the extremists might introduce. These changes would affect Egypt socially, economically, politically, culturally and intellectually. The revolution was built on the principles of social justice, freedom of expression and democracy, and many people are worried that the country will undergo the ‘Iranian experiment', which some Islamist groups view as a model of good governance. Filmmaker Sayyed Saeed says that the Iranian experiment is a real menace to both intellectuals and artists. "I fear we won't have any democracy one day," he warns, explaining that the same thing happened in Algeria when the majority, through democracy, voted for the Islamist who practised a dictatorship. He believes that the liberal political parties should be stronger and broaden their networks and groups with strong, convincing programmes, so that they create some sort of a political balance. "The young revolutionaries would be shocked if the new regime were even worse than Mubarak's, so they must work on creating a balance among the political powers," Saeed stresses. According to him, there will be no freedom of expression under the umbrella of a radical Islamism, "which will use the religious instinct in people to kill freedom". "Cinematic expression and artistic projects are heavily censored, but, under the rule of extremists, we will never see any sort of art, unless it is their own radical and fanatical sort. One day they might criminalise films and prevent great writers and creative artists from working." Saeed says that politicians and enlightened media should propagate the ideology of democracy and freedom of expression from now on, so that we won't be prey to a radical regime. Mohamed Kamel el-Qaliubi, another filmmaker, agrees. "It would be difficult for Egypt to be a religious state or to apply the Iranian experiment here. The population is 85 million, 10 million of whom are Copts, who have the right to live in this country and practise their religion," he told the independent newspaper Al-Shorouq. "No-one can ignore these people. If we want freedom and democracy, Copts cannot be marginalised,” he added. "Religion and politics should be kept separate. How can the Minister of Religious Endowments allow mosques to be used for political speeches as happened during the referendum? People should object to such opportunism," he says. El-Qaliubi believes that the Iranian experience was originally applied before the information technology revolution. "We are not alone in this world. Gagging people and preventing artistic freedom is something old-fashioned. We can't let this happen in Egypt. After all, this isn't Afghanistan terrorised by the Taliban. If something like this did happen, we'd just have more huge demonstrations in Al Tahrir Square." Film critic Moustafa Darwish believes it would be impossible to implement the Iranian experiment here. "All I fear is an increase in the number of religious extremists, whether Muslims or Copts, as this would lead to more restrictions on creativity, just like for 30 years under the old regime," he comments. Forty years ago, Italian cinema witnessed ‘popular censorship', as is currently happening in Egypt, Darwish explains. He is afraid of the preventive policies of religious extremists and believes the media should have a role in dealing with this problem. Meanwhile, director Magdi Ahmed believes that none of the religious groups that have suddenly emerged is able to thwart the revolution, even if they considered that the ‘Yes' in the constitutional referendum has been a victory for them. "Terrorising people is easy and extremists and radicals are well aware of this. They are already doing this in the present political vacuum, but they'll never be able to bring us back to an era of injustice, corruption and ignorance," he stresses. According to him, the Muslim Brotherhood participated in the later stages of the revolution, but they cannot control it, because the Egyptian people are fully aware of what this revolution has brought to them and that they mustn't throw away what they have achieved. "Although many people are pessimistic, I don't believe we'll be forced to follow any experiment. We won't allow any radical current to destroy what our young people have achieved," he said.
