The Tahrir Refrain

News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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"Hold Up Your Head High - You Are an Egyptian!!"  It is the joyful cry of retrieved dignity and national pride.  The flags of Egypt were held high, some emblazoned with the inscription "I Love Egypt."  After 60 years of dictatorship, of which the last 32 years were under Mubarak, Egypt woke up to a new dawn of liberty.  The long search for reviving democracy has begun.

How do these feelings of "don't step on Egypt's dignity" manifest themselves in this 8-month old revolution, internally and externally?

Internally, 38 political parties were created.  The spectrum stretches from the liberal secular to the parties which sprang from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis.  They were all licensed except for groups which espoused archaic precepts of Islam.

How about the now-dissolved National Democratic Party, the Mubarak party, whose imposing Headquarters overlooking the Nile with a sign reading "We Are for You," was torched by the Tahrir demonstrators at the start of the Revolution in January, 2011?  Its members were suspected of coming back to the halls of Parliament through the elections of November 2011 as "independents."  The new elections law allowed for one-third of the seats to be allocated to non-party affiliated independents; Two-thirds for voting on party lists.

The fear and suspicion of that group were palpable.  Thus the Supreme Military Council, the interim Government of Egypt, pending the full return to civilian rule, had to be pressured through the Tahrir demonstrators to amend that offending article (Article 5).  The military gave in to the national will.

The right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate has become enshrined by both law and practice of the new Egypt.  Tahrir has proved this principle of civil rights.  That right cannot possibly be abridged by a fatwa (a religious decree), as in the case of Saleh of Yemen, declaring that it was sinful to protest against the State.  That impossibility comes not only from Egypt's legislated laws; but also from Islamic jurisprudence under which an unjust ruler should be toppled by his subjects, when circumstances permit.

Thus the Friday of September 30 called "the Friday of Retrieval of the Revolution," meaning demonstrations to pressure the Egyptian military to amend the Elections Law, as noted above, and to end the so-called Emergency Laws was both possible and productive regarding the Elections Law.  Now proportional representation on the basis of voting for party lists is the means to become an Egyptian legislator once the November elections are held.

But again "Hold Up Your Head High - You Are an Egyptian" was at work externally.  The calls from abroad for elections supervisors from outside Egypt were rebuffed.  "Observers," yes; "supervisors," no.  After all, Egypt, since 1923, has been in the business of democratic elections - a tradition which was aborted by the onslaught of military dictatorship which began with Nasser, in 1952, and ended with Mubarak, in 2011. Egypt would thus accept observers, for example, from the Carter Foundation.

Within the same trajectory of pride in the new Egypt, the conditions which are now attached by the US Senate Appropriations Committee to U.S. aid to Egypt are objected to beforehand.  This objection applies to both economic as well as military aid.

That objection was announced by Egypt's new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Muhammad Kamel Amr, after meetings with US officials in Washington D.C.  The conditionality applied, among other things, to increasing border security in Sinai, and to having the Egyptian army commit to observing Egypt's obligations under the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.  The new Egypt, while not expressing its present objections as rejection of U.S. aid, said in effect, through its Foreign Minister, "Before the Revolution, no conditions were placed on that aid.  So why now?"

The issue here for the new Egypt was sovereignty from which national dignity flows.  The Egyptians, in whom sovereignty resides, have become, with their relevant institutions, co-makers of foreign policy.  This, at times, poses difficulty in dealing with foreign powers, as in this case, the U.S.

However, to be allied with the people of Egypt is a more durable alliance than with their former dictators. A writer by the name of Baher Shaarawi chose this apt title for his recent article on people's power, "People are more durable than their rulers."

Wael Ghoneim, is the young Egyptian and Google Executive who ignited the Egyptian street by the means of social media.  It was fitting to honor him in Boston in June 2011 by bestowing upon him the annual John F. Kennedy prize for courage.