The Battle over Egypt's Secular and Muslim Character

One of the major objectives of the Egyptian revolution is to create a system that allows Egyptians to influence decision-making by democratic institutions. Since the 1920's, secular parties and the Muslim Brotherhood have fought over the degree to which the country's Constitution, laws, regulations, and programs reflect a separation or integration of religion and state. From 1923-1980, secularism was the dominant feature of Egyptian Constitutions. However, in 1980, to reduce pressure on the regime from the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic political groups, President Sadat initiated an amendment to Article 2 of the Constitution, which now states, "Principles of Islamic Law (Sharia) are the principal source of legislation."  Egypt, which has a civil law system inspired by France, was subsequently required to verify that laws or draft laws are consistent with Islamic law. In practice, this requirement applied only to personal status laws, dealing with such issues as marriage, divorce, child support and inheritance. Criminal laws, as contained in the Penal Code, have not been reviewed from a perspective of Sharia.

The Constitution contains other references to the Muslim character of the state. Article 2 contains, "Islam is the religion of the state..." Article 19 reads, "Religious education shall be a principal subject in the courses of general education."

These provisions are balanced by statements promoting freedom of religion and opposing discrimination. Article 46 affirms, "The state shall guarantee the freedom of belief and the freedom of practice of religious rites." Article 40 declares, "All citizens are equal before the law. They have equal public rights and duties without discrimination between them due to race, ethnic origin, language, religion or creed."

After the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), fielding candidates running as independents in 2005, won 20% of the seats of the the People's Assembly, President Mubarak in 2007 pushed through an Amendment of Article 5, which forbids using religion in political campaigns. It reads, "Citizens have the right to organize political parties according to the law, and no political activity shall be exercised nor political parties established on the basis of religion or discrimination due to gender or race."  This amendment, reflecting a secular outlook, effectively prohibits the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups from competing in elections.

One of the novelties of the mass movement that unseated Mubarak was that it brought together secularists with Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters.  The unstated implication was that everyone supported removal of the religious restrictions of Article 5, so that the Muslim Brotherhood could participate in elections. Whether the Constitution is amended or replaced, the new language will establish no restrictions on electoral participation by the MB.

The Constitution is the basic law of Egypt, but many of its provisions were inapplicable during the full thirty years of the Mubarak regime, since the country was under a state of emergency. Throughout this time, Mubarak manipulated laws, government, justice institutions and the media to divide Christians and Muslims, discriminate against minorities such as Baha'is, Shias, atheists and homosexuals, and persecute leaders and members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Coptic Christians, who constitute about 10% of the population, were prevented from building and repairing churches, restricted from certain professions and inadequately protected from occasional attacks by thugs. Many Egyptians accuse State Security of organizing attacks on churches and stores owned by Copts.

One set of issues targeted by Egyptian human rights advocates, including the anti-Mubarak group Kifaya, are the obstacles faced by Baha'is, atheists and members of other unofficially recognized religions in gaining identification papers.  ID cards, whether in paper or electronic version, are required for employment, education, banking, owning property, health care, traveling, birth, death, marriage, divorce, and vaccination of children.  The Ministry of Interior required citizens to indicate their religion on the cards, but they were given only three choices: Islam; Christianity; and Judaism.  Unless the 2,000 Baha'is were prepared to lie about their religion, they had difficulty gaining access to these cards. In 2006, the Ministry of Interior asked USAID for assistance in completing distribution of ID cards to several million citizens.  It refused USAID's offer to provide assistance from the US organization IFES to insure that all citizens, including Baha'is, could receive their cards.  Several court cases tested the Government's position on this issue, and Cairo's Court of Administrative Justice ruled in favor of the Baha'is in January 2008. The Ministry of Interior changed its policy to issue the first ID cards, without any religion noted, to two Baha'i teenagers in August 2009.

In February 2011, a constitutional review committee was mandated by the military to draft revisions to several articles. Its mandate does not include articles that define the secular or Muslim character of the state or the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in elections. In defining the tasks of the committee, the military assumed that an elected government would be in a better position to deal with these issues, either through constitutional amendments or by putting in place a new constitution.

Both secular groups and the Muslim Brotherhood are preparing for the inevitable battle over the secular or religious character of the Egyptian state. Secular groups are focusing on these general principles:
1. All Egyptians are born free and equal in dignity and rights
2. All Egyptians have the right of free thought and religion.
3. All Egyptians are equal before the law.
4. Any Egyptian is entitled to all rights and freedoms without distinction such as race, gender, religion or origin.
5. An Egyptian secular (civil) state is the only way to achieve these objectives.

The Muslim Brotherhood released a draft platform in 2007 that attempted to lay out its approach to governance. It included the formation of a council of religious scholars, elected by religious leaders. This council would advise the legislative and executive branches on religious law. Parliamentarians would determine which Islamic teachings are authoritative. The Supreme Constitutional Court would be the final arbiter. Women and non-Muslims would be excluded from holding senior governmental positions. The platform is unclear on several issues, including equality of political rights, legal areas that are improperly aligned with Islamic law and the necessity of maintaining a democratic system. Several MB leaders publicly questioned the need for a council of religious scholars and restrictions on women and non-Muslims, indicating that these issues are under debate. The MB apparently has not finalized the platform. In the post-revolutionary period, the MB has played a constructive role, focusing on putting in place the basic requirements for a competitive electoral system. Its leaders have indicated that it will neither field candidates for the presidential election nor seek a majority of parliamentary seats.

Egypt is enjoying a rare period of consensus between secular and Islamist groups. Egyptian military leaders, political actors, civil society groups and religious leaders should use this time to assure that the future debate on the secular or religious nature of the state takes place with maximum citizen participation and with accepted, legitimate rules on decision-making.  The international donor community may be useful in sharing lessons learned from other countries that have gone through similar transitions.

Rick Gold

Cross-posted in Secular Perspectives

Common Interests and Natural Divisions within Civil Society

Civil society groups familiar to international donors are a small percentage of those fighting for political reform and a post-revolutionary Egypt.  Egypt has a tremendous diversity of non-governmental actors, including service-oriented community groups, non-governmental organizations, private sector associations, religious organizations, labor movements, media and political parties.  While the vast majority of these organizations never took a position regarding political reform, all of them were forced to deal with State Security and other governmental bodies to assure their survival. They therefore had a certain degree of political awareness and an understanding of the efforts of the Mubarak regime to control all aspects of society.  Some analysts have called this phenomenon "black hole government," in which governments let no aspect of social or political life escape their control.

In reality, the Mubarak regime only exercised control over civil society groups sporadically, when it wished to make a political statement. Most of the time, it chose not to use constitutional and legal tools of repression. Consequently, many groups took advantage of the periods when the government was not paying attention to them. For example, the anti-Mubarak group Kifaya (Enough), or the Egyptian Movement for Change, formed in 2004 during a period when the Mubarak regime was using "window-dressing" to make the Bush Administration believe it was truly committed to political reform. Under the banner of opposition to Mubarak, Kifaya brought together groups with conflicting ideologies and visions, such as secularists and Islamists.  Kifaya organized many demonstrations calling for lifting the emergency laws in place since 1981, removing restrictions on forming political parties and newspapers, and  releasing thousands of political prisoners. From 2004-2007, other professional and demographic groups organized resistance against Mubarak, including teachers, students, women, lawyers, journalists and even judges. They were joined in the last three years by wildcat strikers, who refused to abide by government control of their labor unions and syndicates.  Journalists and editors were arrested or fined for writing articles that were judged too critical of Mubarak.

These broad coalitions were able to identify the lowest common denominator among the interests of their members, such as moving toward free elections, reforming the constitution, lifting emergency laws and freeing political prisoners. They recognized that these objectives were more urgent than advancing such goals as strengthening a secular form of governance, moving the legal system toward Sharia or extending civil liberties to Coptic Christians.  Secular groups and the Muslim Brotherhood found common cause in opposing Mubarak, similar to the center, left and communist parties who formed popular fronts in Europe and the US in the 1930's.

Such alliances will be hard to maintain after the fall of Mubarak.  With effort, their constituent groups will maintain enough cohesion to push through the Constitutional and legal changes required to create the democratic institutions needed to mediate their conflicting interests. Unless the Presidential elections scheduled for September 2011 are postponed, however, these alliances have a strong chance of being short-lived.

Rick Gold