[NYTr] Egypt; a country in crisis

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

sent by Steven L. Robinson (activ-l)

The Guardian - Jul 19, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/egypt/story/0,,2129630,00.html

Egypt; a country in crisis as 
fearful government cracks down on Islamist opposition

Mubarak's obsession with Muslim Brotherhood deals blow to multiparty
politics

by Ian Black in Cairo

It was 3am when armed security agents hammered on the door of Khairat
al-Shater's flat in Nasser City; his daughter Zahra could only watch and
comfort her distraught children while her father and husband, Ayman,
were detained as Hosni Mubarak's latest crackdown on the Muslim
Brotherhood got under way.

"The Brotherhood are good people," insisted Zahra, in a hijab of the
kind increasingly seen on the streets of Cairo. "We believe in peaceful
change and the regime is crushing us. Ordinary criminals are freed
quickly and are treated better than political prisoners in Egypt."
Seven months on, the two men were up before a military court again this
week on charges of money-laundering and membership of a proscribed
organisation. Mr Shater, a wealthy businessman, is No 3 in the
Brotherhood hierarchy. Some 450 activists remain locked up under
emergency laws.

In one sense, November's "dawn visitors" to Nasser City were rounding
up the usual suspects in a decades-long cat-and-mouse game between the
Egyptian state and the world's oldest Islamist organisation. But the
confrontation is deepening - alarming for the 79 million people of the
most populous Arab country and for anyone who hopes for democratic
change in the Middle East and North Africa.

Egyptians laugh wryly when they recall the US secretary of state
Condoleezza Rice's bold talk two years ago of a post-Saddam "forward
strategy of freedom" for promoting democracy instead of bolstering the
authoritarian status quo. In the blowback from Iraq, America's
watchword today is "stability". Reform, especially anything involving
Islamists, is off the agenda.

None of this seems to have affected morale at the Brotherhood's HQ, a
shabby flat decorated with posters saying: "Allah is our goal, the
Messenger is our leader, the Qur'an is our constitution, Jihad is our
path and death in the service of Allah our highest hope."

"The Americans are allowing Mubarak to oppress us in return for him
doing what they want over Palestine, Iraq, Sudan and Lebanon," said Dr
Mohammed Habib, the deputy leader, a geologist. "The government is
using security to further suppress the people. It is getting dangerous."

Mr Mubarak is said to be obsessed by the Brotherhood. It is easy to see
why: without vote-rigging it would have won even more than the 88 seats
(20% of the total) it took in the 2005 parliamentary elections - its
candidates running as independents to evade the constitutional ban on
religion-based parties. The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections
shortly afterwards confirmed that Islamists were on a winning streak.

That was the trigger for the current wave of repression, including
constitutional amendments billed as reforms but largely intended to
stop the Brotherhood advancing any further.

But its popularity is based on a reputation for not being corrupt and
extensive charity work in clinics, nurseries and after-school tutoring.
Its volunteers fill the gaps left by a state system that has seen
illiteracy rise and services fail as liberal economic reforms enrich
businesses close to the regime.

Protests over water supplies and industrial strikes have sharpened the
sense of a country in crisis. "Egypt is on the edge of a volcano," said
the editor of al-Usbua, an opposition magazine.

Even government loyalists agree with much of the criticism. "It is true
there is corruption in this country, and that there is a link between
wealth and power," said Mustafa al-Feki, of the ruling National
Democratic party. "But the link between politics and religion is more
dangerous."

The government plays on long-standing suspicions that the Brotherhood
gets financial support from abroad. It is troubled too by its hardline
views on Israel, and Egypt's 10 million Coptic Christians worry about
safeguarding their minority status under Islamist rule.

Nor, charge critics, does the Brotherhood have a political programme
beyond its simplistic slogan that "Islam is the solution". "They talk
about the hijab, and not wanting women judges, but not about the
economy or privatisation and issues that matter to millions of ordinary
people," said George Ishaq of the grassroots Kifaya movement, which
came from nowhere in 2004 to campaign against another presidential term
for Mr Mubarak. "I think they have a hidden agenda. They don't say what
they want exactly."

Members of Kifaya and other opposition secularists, such as Gassar
Abdel-Razzak from the Egyptian Association of Human Rights, worry about
the Brotherhood's views but insist it must have the right to take part
in a viable democratic system. Yet the only way to do it would be by
becoming a normal party - the subject of scepticism within the
Brotherhood. "Even if we did decide to become a party they wouldn't let
us," said Zahra al-Shater. "It's not a matter of being religious - it's
being against Hosni Mubarak."

And genuine multiparty politics is exactly what the 79-year-old
president is resisting. "In theory they do want a stronger party
system," said a senior western diplomat. "But in practice the knee-jerk
reaction is to diminish anyone who looks strong."

"I wonder if the regime wants to give the impression that the choice is
between the status quo or the unacceptable alternative - the Islamists,"
said Munir Abdel-Nour, deputy leader of the Wafd party.

"The secular parties are prevented from doing any real political work -
they are groups of demagogues besieged in their headquarters by
thuggery and harassment," is the brutal summary of Hisham Qassem, a
former newspaper editor. "The Brotherhood can function because they
operate out of mosques and the government can't close the mosques. If
this continues into the next elections - unless there is a massacre -
the Brotherhood will win a majority. At the moment there is no other
alternative to it."