UK Conference: Only Solution for Egypt’s Democracy Crisis is MB Participation

UK Conference: Only Solution for Egypt’s Democracy Crisis is MB Participation

Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, UK, headed by Dr. Simon Gose, held conference entitled “Struggle for Egypt”s future” as part of its program “Islam and Democracy “on Wednesday, October, 24th, in the university building at Regent Straight st. London.
 
A big number of researchers, academics and political experts inside and outside the Unite Kingdom have participated in the Conference, including:
 
-Dr. Robert Spring, a professor at the college of eastern languages, University of London university .
-Dr. Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political sciences at Cairo University and secretary-general of the Arab forum in Jordan.
-Dr. Amr Al Shobki, a researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies
-Dr. Nader Al-Firgani, a professor at the American university, head of Al Mishkat Center in Cairo and the lead author of the Arab Human Development Report
-Dr. Moataz Abdul Fattah a professor at Cairo university and US Central Michigan University.
-Dr. Mostafa Kamel Al Sayed, a professor of political sciences at Cairo University
-Dr. Salwa Ismail in the UK university of Exeter .
-Dr. Saad Al Katatni, the secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc, Egypt.
-Dr. Amr Hamzawi, a senior researcher at the US Carnegie institute.
 
A big number of Arab and UK researchers, media figures and politicians, including officials in the British Foreign Office .
 
The conference works, researches and papers have tackled the following points:
-Egypt”s regional and international role, is it a source of stability or a factor of chaos and instability.
-The economic and political situation and the civil society crisis.
-The role of the Egyptian political opposition
 
The researches and discussions of the conferees concluded that ” The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group is a status quo in the Egyptian society and it has an effect on both local and international landscapes. They added that the MB shouldn”t be sidelined by the Egyptian regime. The participants, including European and US official and academic powers, concluded that democracy will not take effect in Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood group is sidelined. They also demanded the MB to work for end any misunderstanding or misconception in the Egyptian public opinion and international powers around its attitude towards democracy, political multiplicity and the principle of the circulation of power.
 
The most important conclusions reached by the participants, revolved around the following axes:
 
Regional and foreign policy role:
 
1- Lacking a vision in the foreign policy administration under president Mubarak. In this regard, some researchers said that there is a vision but it is working against Egyptian interests.
They noted also that the Egyptian presidency monopolizes the decision making process in most Egyptian foreign policy files and sidelining the role of the competent authorities.
2– Lacking a strategic vision and running Egyptian affairs- during president Mubarak”s era- on a daily basis aiming only to secure maintaining power as long as possible.
3- Egyptian politics clearly affected by foreign factors.
4 – The deterioration of the Egyptian military, political and geopolitical points of strength under president Mubarak and the deterioration of its regional role.
 
Mubarak”s Era, Type of Rule
 
5- The rule in president Mubarak”s era is based on what professor Robert Spring called “acquaintances” around the president.
6- The conferees focused on the latest developments that took place after the recent constitutional amendments and moving the harassments from the already narrow margin of freedoms to the constitution in order to block the last resort for defending freedoms in Egypt against Egyptian authorities” attacks against laws and measures restricting freedoms.
 
Economic and political situation, crisis of the civil society
 
7- The benefits of the improvement in the Egyptian economy aren’t reflected on the ordinary layman. There is actually an increasing deterioration in the living situations while the ruling elite and businessmen circles around this elite are the only ones benifitting from this improvement. Some described this situation as moving wealth to the upper class.
8 – The current “marriage” between power and wealth in Egypt and that businessmen assume many ministerial and government positions related to the field of their business in contravention to even the current articles of the constitution.
9- The growing protests and demonstrations due to the outrage in the Egyptian street despite the Egyptian regime”s policies of fragmenting  and distributing the waves of anger through carrying out a number of measures including:
-The unprecedented sharp deterioration is in the standard of living of ordinary citizens and the unprecedented increase in the poverty rates
 
-The prevalent corruption in many of sections of the society
-The growing repressive role of the security services in daily affairs.
-all this led to the broadening and mushrooming of these protests to included even state bodies which have been previously loyal to the regime, like the latest protests of the workers at the Registry Office.
 
-That the regime maintains the policy of harassing civil society institutions and the regime”s continuous attempts to curb the roles of these institutions in improving the Egyptian citizen”s standard of living which is already weak due to many factors related to the legal and legislative structure controlling the work of these institutions.
Some also noted that the interests of the civil society institutions are not tackling daily affairs of the ordinary citizen, contributing to weakening their role and effect in the national level.
 
Role of the Egyptian political opposition
 
-All researches confirmed that the Egyptian regime spreads a culture of intimidation and the government vetted media”s role in curbing the anti-regime street protests.
 
-Some researchers condemned that there is no space for a circulation power among political powers that have a popular weight. Power is only given to those picked by the regime.
 
The conference continued its works on the following day at Westminster university under the title “Islamists, Democracy and Political violence in the Arab world”, in which other researches participated, including:
Professor John Cain of Centre for the Study of Democracy in the university.
-Dr. Olaf Otovic from Oslo university, Norway.
-Abdul Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi Newspaper
-Radwan Masmoudi, chairman of the center of Islam democracy studies in Washington.
-Elstar Crock of the European Commission
And another number of European academicians and researchers.
 
 
The second and third day tackled the following points:



Democracy and the nonviolence legitimacy.
Methods of Imam Al Banna, Abou Al Aala Al Mawdudi… similarities and difference.
Jihad concepts and the vision of the main movements of political Islam.
Hamas movement experience
Another reading for writings of Sayed Qotb
Islamists and the concept of a peaceful political change.