So Egypt’s Gen. Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi managed to come in first in Time magazine’s online “person of the year” poll, his minions having evidently done a better job of spamming votes than the No. 2 finisher, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both men can take some consolation in having beaten a 21-year-old girl, the misbehaving singer Miley Cyrus.
If only all Sisi’s ambitions were so harmless.
In the name of countering the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sisi-headed Egyptian military, which ousted the Brotherhood-backed president, Mohammad Morsi, in July, has drafted a new constitution.
Oddly, the draft is even more “Islamic” than the three constitutions approved and then canceled since the fall of then-president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
It was ostensibly in response to mass demonstrations against Morsi that the military, led by Gen. Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, staged its coup. Yet the draft imposes a virtual ban on “unauthorized” public gatherings. (Last week, a group of women were sentenced to long prison terms for participation in a small “unauthorized” demonstration.)
The draft also declares Islam to be the official religion of the Egyptian state, thus dashing hopes of having Christian Egyptians, some 15 percent of the population, treated as equal citizens. It also states the Islamic shariah is “the principal source of legislation,” rather than “a source,” as in previous drafts.
And the draft revives the Ottoman system of millat, which grants non-Muslims the right to manage their personal affairs in accordance with the rules of their respective religions. So non-Muslim Egyptians could consume alcohol, give their daughters an equal share in inheritance and adopt children. Denied those “privileges,” Muslim men would enjoy the right to take four legal wives.
With its 244 articles, the military’s text may be the longest constitution in the world. It covers a wide range of issues, from special rights for the military to “supervise” the affairs of the nation to state protection for Egyptian fishermen in the Mediterranean.
More important, the draft tries to perpetuate the structures of the dictatorship of 1952- 2011, with the military maintaining its position as a state within the state and the top brass enjoying exceptional economic and social privileges.
Apart from those craving for democracy, the biggest losers would be women and Egyptian Christians. Yet there will also be losers on the Islamist front.
Ever since it emerged as a major trend in Egypt in the 19th century, political Islam there has featured different ideological groups competing against one another. Even within the two main camps, the Brotherhood and the Salafists, various factions have been at odds, thus preventing the imposition of a monolithic version of political Islam.
But the new draft tries to end that diversity by promoting a single Islamist brand in alliance with the military.
Will Egyptians agree to such a big step backward? Will they not wonder how their mass movement, proudly dubbed “our revolution,” ended with so fusty an agenda?
So far, none of the parties and groups that staged the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square has endorsed the draft. The only endorsement has come from the an-Nour (Light) Party, a Salafist outfit.
Still, Sisi plans to fast-track his draft in a referendum dominated by the military and its allies. The media, now again under state control, offer little opportunity for critics to make their case.
Sisi has also opted to fast-forward to presidential election, presumably with himself as the favorite. Despite official denials, groups to “draft” Sissi for president are mushrooming across Egypt.
Sisi’s supporters say he wants to adopt the “Turkish model,” wherein Islam is controlled by the state that is itself controlled by the military. Oddly, the Turkish leader Erdogan is trying to ditch that model by shaking off state control of religious institutions in Turkey.
Both men are making the same mistake from two different directions. Each refuses to understand that what Egyptians and Turks want is a clear demarcation between the political and religious spaces in societies that aspire after democracy.
Sisi may have “won” a Man of the Year poll, but for most Egyptians the year which he is man of is not 2013, but 1952, when the generals seized power.