A Novel Right To Myth-Information Carved Out By Many Egyptian Press "Opinion-Makers"

In Post-Mubarak Egypt, press freedom is translated by many Egyptian press "opinion-makers" as the right to propagate myth-information.  Not only is most of the material very thin on facts and devoid of analysis and logic.  It is a hodgepodge of fantasy, non-supported conclusions, name calling, and anecdotes of suspect origin.  One may call it press chaos instead of press freedom.

It is a tragic phenomenon exhibited by so-called "opinion-makers" within a broad spectrum of political and ideological affiliations.  It is a form of de-education through the Egyptian press.  Examples abound, and events vary, but "the bla bla bla bla" is its main feature.  Here follows are telling examples:

• On the issue of whether El-Sisi intends to become a presidential candidate

Al-Ahram, the government official newspaper, supports that possibility.  No problem.  But one of its editorialists, Hamdy Hassan Abul-Ainain addresses an open letter which warns one of El-Sisi's possible competitors, Field Marshal Ahmed Shafik, not to throw his hat in the ring.  Why?  Here is Abul-Ainain's non-content advice to Shafik, who had received 49.50% of the popular vote for president in 2012 against 50.50% for Morsi:

"You have known Field Marshal El-Sisi for a long time... have determined that he was the most capable to lead this nation... Everyone knows that your decision to compete in the last presidential elections led to Morsi becoming Egypt's President.  We need new faces and a new climate for a free and an enlightened choice."

Here the writer contradicts himself.  He calls for a free and an enlightened choice, yet discourages competition which the essence of free choice.  He reaches several faulty conclusions and makes unsupported assumptions.  How could Shafik's running for the presidential office in June 2012 have aided Morsi's ascendancy to the highest office in Egypt?

• On the issue of shutting down the Muslim Brotherhood and the remnants of the Mubarak regime:

Muhammad Shuman, another in Al-Ahram calls for the inclusion in the now Egyptian constitution of a strange provision.  Here is his de-educational advocacy:

"That constitutional provision should ban those two groups (named above) from political work for 10 years.  The law should also correct the meaning of leadership in all these groups... It is my conviction that the leadership of both the Muslim Brotherhood and the remnants of the Mubarak regime are appendages of the Mubarak regime.  They both have contributed to the corruption of political action whereby elections became a trade in which votes are bought and sold... The main object is to attain social justice and to guarantee the process of transiting to democracy."

It is apparent that the writer ignores the historic fact that the Muslim Brotherhood was banned under the Mubarak regime.  It is startling that this "opinion-maker" confused between the role of a constitution and the role of a subservient law.  The present ban of the Brotherhood under the presidency of Justice Adly Mansour is by a mere law underpinned by political and security considerations.  It does not extend to other groups or parties, especially "the remnants of the Mubarak regime," which, under the lofty principle of transitional justice, are being integrated within the broad spectrum of political inclusiveness.

• On the issue of Saudi Arabia's position on the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda:

In the daily liberal Al-Massri Al-Yom, an editorialist by the name of Abr Nadeen Al-Budair, in her attacks against the Muslim Brotherhood, invents the following imaginary conclusions: (a) In search for a rebirth, the Brotherhood, once more, finds it in Saudi Arabia; (b) The Saudi regime is responsible for the creation of the military wing of the Brotherhood -Al Qaeda; and (c) the Brotherhood has sabotaged Saudi education and public information through making these institutions outlets for the Brotherhood.

The writer's ignorance is patently manifest.  In her hallucinatory efforts to get the Saudi government to combat the Brotherhood, she is ignorant of, or chooses to ignore, the following facts: (i) It was the Founder of Saudi Arabia, the late King Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud, who denied the Brotherhood an institutional base in his country; (ii) Saudi Arabia, during the reign of King Fahd, forced Bin Laden to flee the Kingdom; and (iii) Saudi Arabia is leading the Gulf's financial surge to help the post-Morsi government overcome Egypt's present economic distress.

• On the issue of the split in Egypt between the Islamists and the Secularists

Imad Gad asserts in the newspaper Al-Tahrir that the removal of Morsi from the Egyptian presidency has "contributed to the increased hate" between the two camps.  Fair enough.  But then he lurches away from that fact to the inventing of statistics, as he says: "Those who belong to the camp of political Islam do not exceed 15% to 20% of the total demographics of Egypt."  The editorialist prepares us for that discovery by saying: "The split within Egyptian society has reached a degree indicative of the existence of two peoples in Egypt whereby it is ascertainable that the split is sharp and divisive.  It has reached the point where it could be said that today there are two Egypts in one country."

The sad fact about Egypt and nearly all other Arab countries is that qualified social science research does not exist.  The great source on Arab statistics on Arab development, published by the UN Family of Organizations was based on representative samples.  I know of no census in Egypt which includes questions of party or religious affiliations.  In fact there is no official census regarding the percentage of the Coptic community as regards the total population of Egypt.  Mr. Imad Gad has clearly used his fertile imagination in two ways:

(i) the percentage of the membership of the Brotherhood within the total population of Egypt.  The Brotherhood does not provide figures on anything, especially on membership and budget; and (ii) the conflict within Egypt is one of identity (secular v. Islamic), not of two Egypts, inhabiting the same territory.  That opinion-maker should know that even in the case of a civil war, which is not the case of present-day Egypt, the warring factions cling tenaciously to the fact that they all belong to the same country.

• On the issue of calling Dr. El-Baradei, a traitor

Several commentators have been waging a savage campaign of name-calling against that Nobel Prize Laureate, who was Director-General of the UN-related International Atomic Energy Agency.  His attackers have called for his dismissal from the Egyptian Bar; one of those anti-El-Baradei campaigners, a law professor, even went to the ridiculous length of suing him.  For what?  For "injuring the national trust!!"

After the removal of Morsi from the presidency on July 3, 2013, Dr. El-Baradei assumed the post of Vice-President in charge of International Relations.  He was one of the pillars in Morsi's removal from power.  But he watched in horror, together with 35 million other Egyptians, the systemic brotherhoodization of Egypt.  Yet he felt compelled to resign his high office as he believed that the forceful removal of the Brotherhood's six-week sit-ins on August 14, resulting in a thousand or more fatalities, was a mistake.

But calling him a traitor by the present secularists commentators is just as bad as the name-calling by the Islamists of their secularist adversaries as "apostates," and "enemies of God."  Criminalizing "the other opinion" is a slippery slope toward fascism.

• On the issue of Nasser and starving scientists and maintaining illiteracy

Dr. Thabet Eid, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood affirms in one full page of the Brotherhood's daily "Freedom and Justice" that Nasser (Egypt's President from 1954 to 1970) committed the above-mentioned public sins.  That voice of the Muslim Brotherhood condemns the Nasser program of "free education for all" as a plot causing the decline of public education.  He accuses all those military presidents who ruled the most populous country in the Arab world of deliberately giving more importance to the number of students so educated than to the quality of their education.

That commentator ignores the historic fact that access to the freedom of education at no cost and at all levels was inaugurated by the great iconic philosopher and educator, Dr. Taha Hussein.  Though blind, that philosopher and reformer was invited by the popular Wafd government of Nahas Pasha in 1951 to be the Minister of Education.  His seminal book in Arabic, entitled "The Future of Education in Egypt" published in the late 1930s, which I have read twice, remains relevant to today's Egypt.

The military governments of Egypt, from 1953 (President Naguib) to 2011 (President Mubarak) maintained that system.  The system was not a casualty of its openness, but of inadequate resources, both financial and teachers training.  The Brotherhood editorialist directs his flashlight on the historic enmity between the Brotherhood and secular governments.  As he does that, he unwittingly also shines a light on how biased commentators deceive their public through the propagation of falsehoods.

Conclusion: The Egyptian press freedom of today is practised mostly as press chaos:

Myth-information by many Egyptian press commentators has become a daily fare in the new Egypt.  There exists a code of press ethics in Egypt, but it sadly lacks enforcement.  Invented statistics, false accusations, and mean name-calling, non-substantiated assumptions are real hurdles in the path of Egypt towards its present goal of democratization.

The Right to Information Day was celebrated last month (September 23-28) by no less than 40 countries.  That right is predicated upon several criteria.  These include the right to whistle-blowing, but not the assumed right of leaking of State secrets.  Nowhere in these criteria do I find the right to propagate invented facts.  This is a black art.  It belongs to the world of Halloween (to pretend to be what you really are not).  Its only casualty is truth in reporting.  Honesty in public information is the basis of an enlightened public opinion -one of the main pillars of democracy.

All freedoms are regulated in order to avoid abuse. It is a rare coin on one side of which is written "Freedom"; on the other "Responsibilities."