Whistle Blowing By Great Egyptians on Corruption and Terrorism

From the scene, they are gone.  But from our historical memory, they cannot be forgotten.  Makram Obeid on corruption, and Ahmed Fathi Soroor, on terrorism.  In present day culture, it is not common to celebrate thinkers and doers of the past.  But the focus on the New Egypt should also take into account the whistle blowers of yesterday.

Yes, they are gone either from life (Makram Obeid), or from power (Ahmed Fathi Soroor).  A nation that lives on celebrating only its present, is a nation which is bereft of nurturing its young on the model of those who loyally cared for its causes.

Let us begin with Makram Obeid Pasha on corruption.  It is the national malaise which contributed to the eruption of the Arab Spring.  That great Coptic whistle blower, having split from The Wafd Party of Al-Nahas Pasha, addressed a petition to King Farouk.

His petition on behalf of "Al-Kutlah Al-Wafdiya Al-Mustaqillah" was not in one or two pages.  Under the title of "The Black Book In the Black Era," it was a book of 268 pages.  Printed at night to escape the sanctions imposed upon him by the Wafd government of the post-Second World War.

Its super-high level of classic Arabic is music to my ears -a person who looks upon his native tongue as his primary anchor in the concept of Arabism as a culture.  Before we get to the substance, let us examine his last paragraph on page 268 as he beseeches King Farouk to make right what Makram Pasha perceived as wrong.  Lost in this translation, Makram, a Coptic icon who had learnt the Quran by heart, is the cadence of his summation.  He says:

"Your Majesty: Your throne is the refuge of this good nation.  We pray that Allah strengthen your hands so that they may pull us up from this abyss.  So that you may unburden it from its daily struggle for life's needs.  So that you may right what is wrong.  So that you may restore rightful entitlements to those who truly possess them.  So that the Egyptians may again remember what this government caused them to forget: justice in governance; freedom of expression; integrity in word and deed; the true meaning of national and personal dignity."

As if Makram Obeid Pasha, in 1946, was anticipating the signs raised in Tahrir on January 25, 2011.  Those signs read: "Livelihood; Freedom; Social Justice."  As a student at the Cairo Teachers' Institute, Makram Pasha invited me to his house where I was hypnotized by his love of the motherland.

How did he, by his book, raise the alarm with regard to corruption as infesting the governance of Egypt?

He posited that the heart of corruption is putting personal gain ahead of public gain.  As a Minister of Supply and Trade, he strictly applied the laws restricting exports needed for home consumption.  "Charity-Starts at Home."  Subverting this judicious rule, namely, equality before the law, Prime Minister Nahas Pasha would intervene, without the knowledge of Makram Pasha, to enable his wife's relatives to secure for them sugar, rice and other provisions for export and the black market.

Makram Pasha summed all up as follows: "The Prime Minister even tried to stop me from bringing before a military court (Egypt, following World War Two was still under martial law) his relatives.  The Public Prosecutor had charged them with illegally trying to export textiles needed to clothe the marginalized Egyptians.

His assessment was: "This is a scandal.  And it is one of many like it.  Nepotism, illegal commitments, the prevalence of making governance a personal game for profit.  These, Your Majesty, are all forms of corrupt behavior tending to exploit the Government only for the benefit of the ruling class.  It makes ruling a game whose goal is to corrupt the trust between those who govern, and those who are governed."

What more do you need for the clearest definition of corruption in any age, at any time, and in any country?  God Bless your memory, Makram Pasha Obeid.  You were truly ahead of your time.  You resigned, not once, but three times.  Because you put Egypt ahead of your position, your personal gain, the illusory glow of being the Deputy Leader of a great national party.  Your portrait still adorns the walls of the Wafd headquarters in Cairo.  The main gate is adorned by the symbol of historical Egypt:  A Crescent Hugging a Cross!!  A great image for all of us.  Except for the Muslim Brotherhood, on which several "Black Books" shall be written!!

Now we turn to Dr. Ahmed Fathi Soroor, Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament for many years under former President Hosni Mubarak.  This scholar of criminal law produced in 2007 in Cairo one of the most definitive papers produced anywhere in Arabic on the issue of terrorism.  His removal from office, his incarceration at Tura as one of the top leaders of the defunct National Party, and the charges levelled against him for alleged corruption are not reasonable justification for not benefiting form his unique legal expertise.

In its search for inclusiveness, the New Egypt is called upon to abandon what I call "The Hatshepsut Syndrome." If you lose power or die, all your achievements should be erased.  This is especially dangerous in countries like Egypt which needs every iota of knowledge in order to keep its caravan of progress moving forward.

At my request in his office as Speaker, Dr. Soroor who was previously Dean of the Cairo University School of Law, where I continue to be adjunct professor, gifted me with a copy of his paper.  Within 150 pages, it is a veritable gem.

Judicious analysis; multi-faceted research in Arabic, English and French; clarity of thought; superb organization of every aspect of terrorism; and a lawyer's approach to a highly controversial issue.  Let the New Egypt be not afraid from one of its great scholars as it battles terrorism in Sinai, on the Libyan border, and within its interior.  When you are sick in bed, calling for the help of a competent physician, you don't query that physician's personal history.  You need to be cured.

Under the title of "The Rule of Law Confronting Terrorism," here are the highlights of Professor Soroor's paper:

• In its Introduction, he confronts head on the spurious attempts to link between terrorism and Islam;
• He highlights one of the central facts about terrorism: lack of an internationally-acceptable definition of that term;
• He focuses our attention on other challenges: security challenges affecting public law and order, and concern for having those security challenges overwhelm the need to safeguard human rights and civil liberties;  
• On this crucial point he suggests a balance anchored in constitutional law, namely: espousal of the exigencies of necessity, together with the proportionality of response;
• He calls on the State to be a State of laws which observes the need for democratization, combined with safeguarding human rights;
• He focuses our attention on the globalization of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic values.  Astutely, Dr. Soroor puts that mix within one container which he describes as "the values of the international community;"
• He links between the legal challenges facing the struggle against terrorism both internally and externally.  On the external front of these challenges, he reaches out for the precepts of the international human rights law, as well as of the international criminal law;
• In dealing with the dilemma of defining terrorism, the author brilliantly separates between three types of terrorism: acts perpetrated by individuals, acts inflicted by groups or organizations, and State terrorism;
• He separates between terrorism and the struggle of oppressed populations for liberty; condemns disproportionate use of military means, and abhors "extra-judicial killing;"
• Soroor reminds us of Egypt's penal code as amended in 1992.  That is several years before the promulgation by the League of Arab States of its Convention on Terrorism (1998), and of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation of a similar Convention (1999).
• In the context of the above, Professor Soroor reiterates Egypt's attempt to define terrorism.  As provided in Article 86 of Penal Law No. 97 (1992), it states that terrorism is:

"Any use of force, violence, threat or intimidation, by a suspect in the pursuit of a criminal scheme, either individually of by a group, with the intention of adversely affecting public order or endangering society's peace and security.  

This includes causing bodily harm or affecting communal freedoms, or damaging the environment or communications or transportation means, or funds, or buildings of either public or private property, or their occupation or sequestration, or impeding the exercise by public authorities of their duties, or affecting the functioning of places of worship, of educational institutions, or hindering the application of the Constitution or the laws and regulations which are in force."

• This is the broadest ever definition of "terrorism," in both law and procedure which in effect underpins the comprehensive efforts of the New Egypt in combating jihadism in 2015.  That was nearly a quarter of a century since the promulgation of that law in 1992 in Egypt.  Professor Soroor aptly calls it "The National Program on Terrorism."  And this many years before the UN acted on this global issue, by the General Assembly in 1999, by the US after 9/11, and by the UN Security Council in 2004.

The "Egyptian National Project" as expounded by Dr. Ahmed Fathi Soroor, former Dean of our Faculty of Law, of Cairo University, also deals with the Geneva Convention of 1949.  He provides a broad construction of the theory of "the Right to Protect." His legal construction should be applied by Cairo in its attacks on terrorism in both Sinai, in the Center, and over the Libyan borders.

So let us not shy away from bringing back to life the work of our luminaries, regardless of the allegations, trials and tribulations of the two Egyptian Revolutions of January 25, and June 30.  Let us abide by the British adage: "Use whatever instrument you have at hand."  

Better still, let us abide, but in a different context, by the great poem by Ahmed Shawqi who admonished:

"These are our monuments.  Gaze on them after we are gone."

Our thought monuments on corruption and terrorism have been selflessly bequeathed to us by Makram Obeid Pasha, and Professor Ahmed Fathi Soroor.

Would someone volunteer to convey this blog posting to Professor Ahmed Fathi Soroor? 

For I know that when I stand before my students at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, lecturing on the terrorism plaguing the New Egypt, I feel his presence as a scholar who was amongst the first whistle blowers of the late 20th century on the dangers approaching Egypt.

The lessons which we should learn from that unique Egyptian scholar need to be re-learnt at this critical juncture.