Soliloquy of a Dictator: "Whenever I thought of relinquishing power?!"

This blog deals with something different.  It is a poem by the famous Syrian poet and songwriter, Nizar Qabbani.  The original is in Arabic, translated into English by this blogger.  It is intended to focus on the magic of folklore in the Arab Spring, and on why people revolt.

It shall be read by this blogger at an event in Toronto, Canada, which is co-sponsored by SUNSGLOW - Global Training in the Rule of Law and the Toronto University Club.  The date of this event is February 27; the topic is: "The Arab Spring and Human Rights."  The format is a panel to be chaired by William Horton, Esq., who heads SUNSGLOW's Regional Liaison Center in Toronto, the most recent addition to our ensemble of regional liaison centers around the world.

Now to the Nizar Qabbani poem:

WHENEVER I THOUGHT OF RELINQUISHING POWER?

Whenever I thought of relinquishing power

My conscience stood in the way

After I am gone

who will rule these good people?

After me

who will cure the limp

                      the leper

                      the blind?

who will raise the dead?

And from whose overcoat

will the light of the moon shine?

And who will bestow on

the people the gift of rain?

And who will whip them

ninety lashings?

And who will hang them

from the limbs of trees?

And who will force them

to live like herds of cows?

And perish as cows perish?

Whenever I think of

relinquishing power?

My eyes fill out with tears

as if they were a rain cloud.

So let my fate to rule stand, for it is

my destiny

And it shall be from now until

the end of time.

Poem about dictatorship and liberty
By Nizar Qabbani (in Arabic)


Translation into English
By Yassin El-Ayouty

The Muslim Brotherhood Versus The Salafis: Divided They Stand at the Helm of Power In Egypt

Together they won 70% of the seats in Parliament.  Though the Parliament (the lower chamber) has been dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court on a technicality, the forthcoming parliamentary elections promise the same results.  Through the highway of democracy, an era of Islamist rule has begun in Egypt .

What does this mean for Egypt?  Though nothing can be certain in any revolutionary setting anywhere in the world, there are a few road signs.

First: The Brotherhood and the Salafis say that they are friends, but they are not united.  The former are largely moderate, the latter are definitely extremist.  There respective political parties (the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and the Salafis' Al-Nour Party) are at loggerheads with one another.  Divided they both stand for the term "Islamists."  That division has so far not been bridged even by the fact that Morsi, with his roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, is now the popularly-elected president of Egypt.

Second: If healed, the division within the ranks of the Islamists could lead to a functional rapprochement with the secularists.  Without that, the Egyptian street could remain chaotic for a long period.  And with chaos, the new Egypt shall not be able to shake off its economic misery.  It is the economic decline that has been propelling the young and unemployed to the streets to cause destruction and mayhem.

Third: Thrown in the mix of the endless cycle of violence are two main factors.  The Egyptian police and the security forces, who are traditionally distrusted, are hated by the masses since the Mubarak days.  Their task in quelling mob action has been made more complicated by the recently-acquired capability of the demonstrators to fight tear gas with tear gas, and bird shots with home-made Molotov cocktails.  The other factor in that deadly mix is the understandable reluctance of the armed forces to get dragged in those street battles.

By staying above the fray, the armed forces have remained the darling of the masses, and the only cohesive force in the largest Arab country whose population has now surpassed 90 millions.

From the reality of political division within Egypt, to the ideological thinking which is now taking hold in the land of the pharaohs, we see the Arab Spring's inability to fulfill its promise: dignity, democracy, and development. 

The Brotherhood espouses the mantra of "Islam is the solution," while the Salafis adhere to the necessity for "the return to the practices of early Islam." (Salaf means ancestor, in this case in the spiritual sense).  On the surface, the two ideological principles may look the same.  In reality, they are not.  For the Brotherhood, Islamism accommodates evolution in interpretation; for the Salafis, literalism of the text defines Islamism.  Thus one can visualize the Muslim Brotherhood as standing for evolution, and the Salafis as the party for creationism.  In governance, the gulf becomes even larger as it impacts on the daily life of a cosmopolitan country like Egypt.

At least for now, the Brotherhood and the Salafis look more like the most durable political forces in Egypt. Both groups have emerged from the street and have remained the closest of the entire political spectrum in Egypt to the street.  They, especially the Muslim Brotherhood since its inception in 1928, have known what makes the street tick, what basic services does it need, what language does it understand.  Al-Azhar, for the last 1040 years, has always been the fount of Islamic learning and the Mecca of interfaith, especially in regard to the great Coptic church.  But Al-Azhar has always remained an educational institution and a lightening rod for patriotism, but not a vehicle for street organization.

Thus, the Egyptian revolutionary experience in the post-Mubarak era, may eventually parallel the Turkish experience: Islamist rule which tolerates diversity, with the armed forces keeping watch over internal and external security.

Within this framework, the call for a dialogue between the various political forces in Egypt, whose only organized element is the Islamist, remains elusive.  The secularists are calling for the return to square one of the Egyptian Revolution.  This in effect means the delegitimation of the previous popular votes including the referendum on the new Constitution.  The Islamist, comfortable at the helm of legislative and executive power, are calling for respect of the popular will, the status quo.

Neither the Islamists nor the secularists shall be able to make the daily demonstrations go away.  In the meantime, the Egyptian street, though weary of the split within the ranks of the Islamists, is more weary of the altercation amongst the seventy political parties and movements.  But progressively, the voice of the secularists is losing its resonance with the millions who are hungry for stability, and a better life.

The only strong thread which is holding the ship of the Egyptian State Egypt, together, regardless of affiliations is the slogans."WE ALL LOVE EGYPT"

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION, AHMADINEJAD OF IRAN CALLS FOR PAN-ISLAMISM

International conferences serve also bilateral ends.  So is with the 12th Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which took place in Cairo on February 5 and 6.  Nearly 50% of the membership of 57 States attended.  But the only Head of State whose presence eclipsed all others was Ahmadinejad of Iran.

This is significant in the context of the Egyptian Revolution.  No Iranian Head of Sate had set foot in the largest Arab State, Egypt, since the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979.  That treaty caused Tehran to sever its diplomatic relations with Cairo.  And when President Sadat, who had taken that bold step, was assassinated in 1981, a main thoroughfare in Tehran was renamed after the killer (Al-Islambolly).  Mubarak, who succeeded Sadat, never forgave the mullahs in Iran for those transgressions.

With Mubarak now in jail, and Morsi, who came from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Presidential palace, the new Egypt felt it was necessary to break with the past.  Egyptian diplomacy in the post January 25, 2011 revolution lost no opportunity to assert Egypt's divorce from the era of military dictatorship.  Thus Iran was one of those priority areas where Cairo could declare from the top of its hundreds of mingrets its independence from the old quiet alliances.

There is another layer to the cultural archeology of Egypt.  Though largely a Sunni State, Egypt remains warm to the Shiis.  Cairo was established in the 10th century by a great Shii regime, the Fatimides. (Their name came from Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad; the wife of Aly, Muhammad's cousin and protege; and the mother of two of the shining lights of Shiism, Hassan and Al-Hussein).

The historic mosque and university, Al-Azhar, was also built by the Fatimides in Cairo about the same time. (It teaches the Shii main school of thought side by side with the four main Sunni schools.  It is no accident that Al-Azhar and the great mosque of Al-Hussein, where Egyptian tradition holds that Al-Hussein's head is buried there, stand next to one another.  Millions of Sunni Egyptians flock to that magnificent shrine to pray and invoke the glorified name of Muhammad's grandson who was martyred in Iraq.  Next to those great edifices, one finds a section of old Cairo called "Fatimide Cairo."

Now back to Ahmadinejad in Cairo.  After being welcomed on February 5 by President Morsi, his first two steps were, predictably, to pray at Al-Hussein shrine, meet with Dr. Ahmed Al-Taiyeb, the Al-Azhar Rector, and hold a press conference to extol the historic relationships between Iran and Egypt.

It was Al-Azhar's Rector, El-Taiyeb, a graduate of the Sorbonne, who articulated a framework for a new relationship between Cairo and Tehran.  Though Ahmadinejad flashed the V sign to the media prior to the Taiyeb-Ahmadinejad mini-summit, Al-Azhar called upon Iran to act on the following issues:

• to respect the Sunni veneration of the three Caliphs who preceded Imam Aly (Shii means Partisans of Aly) in leading he then emerging Muslim nation after the passing of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam;
• to accord equal rights to the Sunnis in Al-Ahwaz, the Iranian western province populated largely by Arabs and overlooking the Gulf;
• to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the Gulf States, especially the State of Bahrain, a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council of six States; and
• to fully cooperate in stopping the blood bath in Syria where the present civil war has left more than 60,000 Syrians dead and 2.5 million refugees displaced either internally or externally.

For his part, the Iranian President declared at a press conference that "I came to Al-Azhar to advocate unity between Sunnis and Shiis.  We want to fix together what divides us.  This is our solemn duty at present.  Like riders in a bus, they can differ in their views, but the bus is moving towards one destination."

Meanwhile, Egypt's Foreign Minister, Muhammad Kamel Amr, hurried to calm down the nerves of the Gulf States.  The new Egypt, in its external relationships, he declared, shall not act at the expense of the security of other States.  Then pointedly he added, "For Egypt, the security of the Gulf States is a red line.  Their security is integral to the security of Egypt."

Accentuating that call for keeping the Gulf States safe from Iranian interference, the Egyptian Salafis (Sunni extremists) declared that Egypt, the largest Sunni state, has the duty and obligation to protect "the Arab Gulf" from any undue influence from outside, being it political, cultural, or military.

Beyond all those declarations lies a factual certainty: The relationship between Iran and Egypt are inching ever closer to one another.  Morsi of Egypt began the process of warming up to that relationship.  He was the first Egyptian Head of State to visit Iran since the Khemeini Islamic revolution of 1979.  That took place when he attended the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Tehran in August, 2012.

With Iran now being the object of severe western sanctions because of its present nuclear program, Tehran needed to show its public and the world that its foreign affairs outside that wall of sanctions were not impaired.

Reflecting that dynamic was a significant interview granted by Ahmadinejad in Tehran, prior to his Cairo visit, to Al-Ahram newspaper which speaks for the Egyptian Government.  In that interview, he made the following declarations in order to frame his global outlook:

• Iran has now become a nuclear power.  And soon it shall be a State with advanced outer space capabilities;
• Sanctions have "affected somewhat our economy."  But through Iranian productivity, Iran shall make up for any deficit;
• Egypt and Iran, the two States with civilizational depth, should unite their effects to ensure regional and world peace;
• Islam is "our path to unity"

The State of the Egyptian State: Collapse, Never; Change of Regime, Not Unthinkable

Chaos, chaos, everywhere!!  Official reports are the equivalent of the writing on the wall.  Just compare the statistics of 2012 to those of 2011: Homicide: up by 130%; armed burglary up by 350%.  Crime, overall was at a record of 5814 in 2012, compared to 2778 in 2011; felonies doubled to 40,220; kidnapping accounted for 258; rape for 109; arson: 632; burglaries: 9284; car theft: 20,375.  Those ominous statistics were culled from all provinces.  This is not to mention 20,000 recorded criminals who took advantage of this security collapse and fled from jail.

The managing editor of Al-Ahram newspaper, the official newspaper of the regime, Ahdel-Nasser Salameh, headlined on January 25, 2013: "Our Revolution is in the Balance!!"  That was the date of the Revolution's second anniversary.  Collaboration turned into a day of mourning, especially at the major cities of the Suez Canal (Port Said, Ismailia and Suez).  Mr. Salameh summed up Egypt's dilemma in few sub-headings: "We are confronting a huge disappointment.  The Revolution failed to be convincing to large sectors of our population.  The people are now asking whether January 25 ushered in a revolution.  History may shame us all.  The ruling authorities cannot govern alone by themselves."

From a beautiful dream to an ugly nightmare.  And on January 26, 2013, President Morsi declared a state of emergency from 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM in the Suez Canal area.  Then when the public defied the curfew hours, the president blinked.  He left the management and the duration of the curfew to the local authorities in the Suez Canal area.  Wild and uncontrollable demonstrations had erupted in Port Said and Suez.  The chaos in Egypt took various forms: thousands of protesters were against sentencing those accused of killing soccer fans a year ago in Port Said; celebrating the second anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution by major riots in support of the Morsi regime and in rebellion against it; denunciation of the Muslim Brotherhood by the secularists and counter-denunciation of the secularists by the Islamists; continuation of the conflict between the judiciary and the executive authorities; and the economic collapse of the largest Arab country, namely Egypt.

Where did the beautiful dream of a transition to democracy in Egypt go?  The country of 90 millions was thought to be preparing for parliamentary elections shortly under its new Constitution.  The upper chamber, the Shura Council, is now reconstituted and is wielding legislative powers pending the results of those elections.  President Morsi is thought to have had wrestled power from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and the military position in the power structure of the new Egypt is now defined by the Constitution.  So has been the judicial authority whose independence was detailed in that Constitution.

Events on the ground is proving that sovereign power cannot be solely guaranteed on paper.  Not even on the parchment of the new Constitution.  Nobody seems to be happy with their share of power.  Morsi is accused of being subservient to the Islamists; the National Salvation Front (NSF), representing the opposition and coordinated by Dr. El-Baradei, is hopelessly fragmented; the security on the Egyptian street remains unattainable; the infrastructure is in dire straits; the young remain unemployed; and the Copts are doubtful about their future security and their freedom of practice in the new Egypt.

How about a dialogue amongst the antagonistic factions?  President Morsi has been calling for such a dialogue.  The NSF had rejected these calls declaring that they were intended to buy time for a regime they abhor.

Then came a dire warning on January 29. 2013, issued by General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Egypt's Minister of defense.  In a speech at the Cairo Military Academy (Egypt's equivalent of West Point in the U.S.) he said, "The political, economic, social and security challenges which face Egypt today represent a veritable threat to its security and cohesiveness.  The persistence of conflict among the various political forces and their disagreement regarding administering the country may lead to Egypt's collapse."

Then in pointed remarks to the basic mission of the Egyptian armed forces, the General said: "The Egyptian army will remain the solid and cohesive rock and the strong pillar on which Egypt rests.  It is the army of all Egyptians, regardless of their group affiliations."

One does not have to be a mind reader to decipher what El-Sisi was hinting at: The possibility of a military intervention which would suspend Egypt's march toward democratic rule.  Now it was the turn of the opposition to blink.  The National Salvation Front agreed to sit with the Islamists and the other forces to sort out their differences in order to save Egypt's transition to democracy.

Summing up the state of the Egyptian State, one has to conclude that with regard to Egypt of 10,000 years:
COLLAPSE NEVER!! CHANGE OF REGIME NOT UNTHINKABLE!!