Events

NED Events >> Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim Discusses Prospects for Civil Society in Egypt

Read the transcript of Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s remarks.
Q&A with Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Barbara Ibrahim.

In June of 2000, not long after undertaking projects to expose and curb fraud in Egypt’s electoral process, a renowned Egyptian scholar and defender of human rights was arrested by Egypt’s State Security forces along with 27 of his colleagues from the Ibn Khaldun Center. The seven-year prison sentence subsequently handed down to Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who also teaches sociology at the American University in Cairo, was punishment for state allegations that he had tarnished Egypt’s image, accepted foreign money without approval from the government, and embezzled funds. On May 15, 2003, nearly three years after being convicted, Ibrahim addressed a standing-room-only audience at NED. A free and vindicated man as of March, he was characteristically eager to talk about civil society in Egypt and about the hope he maintains despite—and, in some regards, because of—his recent experience with the Egyptian judicial system.

Ibrahim fleshed out a picture of two very different judiciary powers in Egypt: the much politicized State Security court, which condemned him to prison, and the country’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, which set him free. Clearly impressed by the high court’s judges, Ibrahim said they pressed hard on both the prosecution and defense for facts, appearing to have studied the case more closely than even his own attorney. In the end, the nine judges issued a 35-page statement of acquittal that Ibrahim called a masterpiece. “Not only because I was acquitted and vindicated,” he explained, “but because my agenda itself has been vindicated.”

Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim Discusses Prospects for Civil Society in Egypt

(Left to right) NED President Carl Gershman, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, and Saad's wife Barbara Ibrahim

Indeed, the Court of Cassation’s statement sets forth important principles of law, protecting the right of researchers to investigate and report on social problems in Egypt, the right of citizens to freedom of expression, and the right of lawful organizations to accept funding from non-Egyptian sources. “The fact that I was acquitted by the high court shows that there is a margin of freedom in which you can fight,” he said, “and we are determined to use that margin and expand it.”

Ibrahim is confident that although civil society in Egypt remains weak, its prospects and the prospects for democracy are strong. “People will probably marshal evidence to show that it is difficult or impossible to institute open society and democracy in the Middle East, in the Arab world, in the Muslim world,” he said. But Ibrahim remains unflappable, pointing to the mistaken legions who once doubted that democracy could penetrate Germany, Japan, and Slavic and Catholic societies. “People honestly believed that there was something in the Catholic culture or in the Slavic culture or the Japanese culture or the German culture that was so antithetic to democracy and democratic values,” he said. “I’m not oblivious to the difficulties, but I know all the difficulties can be overcome.”

Ibrahim also knows that a one-size-fits-all approach to democratic reform does not exist, but pressed by an audience member for a basic roadmap in Egypt’s case, he was clear on a few basics: do away with emergency laws, establish full freedom of the media, and effect constitutional reforms before attempting to hold free elections. “It’s the responsibility of people in mature democracies to help us,” Ibrahim added, “not with arrogance, not with imposition—but to reach out, engage us, dialogue with us, give us a hand if they can, and let our message be known here in the West so our culture will not be condemned, our religion will not be condemned as antithetical to freedom and democracy, because it is not.”

To illustrate that point, Ibrahim reminded the audience of a robust “liberal age” that preceded Gamal Nasser’s 1952 coup in Egypt. The late 1800s and early 1900s were distinguished by the likes of Naguib Mahfouz, perhaps the best-known and most studied Arab novelist in the English-speaking world, and Taha Hussein, the bold political thinker and writer who strove to sustain Islamic and Arab culture and language while espousing a western mode of thought. Some ways in which Ibrahim sees Egypt reclaiming its liberal legacy include a pending proposal from the reformist wing of the ruling party that the State Security courts be disbanded, the appointment in January 2003 of the first female judge to Egypt’s highest court, and the Egyptian government’s December 2002 decision to formally recognize a Coptic Christian holiday, Christmas, as a national holiday.

Detailing ways in which the U.S. can foster democratization in the Middle East, Ibrahim suggested America’s policy be consistent from country to country, sustainable, and buttressed with timetables. He added that one way to encourage governments to seriously pursue transition is to make aid at least partially contingent on their timetables. “‘If you want 100 years, then we will not give you aid until 100 years.’ That is a way to get around it,” he said. “Now is the time to use this conditionality with trade and foreign aid for the good of the people and of the country, of the enlightened self-interest of the West, because, after all, it isn’t just us that will benefit from it as a society, but also Western powers.”

During Ibrahim’s imprisonment, the Bush administration froze a supplemental aid package to Egypt while making it clear that the action was a sign of displeasure at the verdict against Ibrahim. Tying Egypt’s human rights record to its eligibility to receive foreign assistance was a significant change in U.S. policy toward the Middle East. The U.S. action also drew important international attention to Ibrahim’s fight and the issues that had put him on the wrong side of the State Security court.

“Among many of the definitions we have adopted in Ibn Khaldoun is that civil society is a space of freedom for people to meet, to work together, to express themselves, to organize, to pursue their interests,” Ibrahim said. “They do not always have space to do it, and sometimes they find that the only space allowed for them is in a two-by-two prison cell. Nevertheless, even in that prison cell, I felt freer than my captors. I felt freer than my oppressors, and that is a challenge, and that is what gave me strength for three years.”

Transcript of 5/15 NED Luncheon with Saad and Barbara Ibrahim

Thank you all for taking the time to come and share this opportunity with me and with Barbara, who has been my real support. This is like a homecoming for me. At times I thought this moment would never come, that I would never see again America. But it has come. The moment has come. I’m here. I’m free. I’m delighted. I’m happy. I’m gratified. And not only because I was acquitted and vindicated, but because my agenda—the agenda that Carl and NED has supported me consistently in—has itself been vindicated. And the agenda is now shared by the community of democracies the world over. Everybody has recognized that democracy, peace, and development are interlocked and could not be dealt with separately. And that is what Ibn Khaldoun has been saying for the last fifteen years. We said it consistently. We were criticized at times, defamed at times, but that is a message that Ibn Khaldoun has upheld, and will continue to do in the years to come if our health permits it. But likely it is the second and third generations of freedom fighters in Egypt, in the Arab world, in the Middle East, in the Muslim World, who are now coming out to speak and to say the same thing that they were afraid to say only five or ten years ago.

Our region has gone through a very hard time. There is a feeling of malaise right now among the populace—a feeling of defeat, of humiliation—after the Iraq War. But part of that malaise, part of that feeling of humiliation, is due to lack of fair debate, lack of fair and honest information, lack of fair and honest media to tell our people the truth about the world, the truth about their own rulers, the truth about the problems they have been living through.

There is always a double-take in the political discourse in the Middle East, and part of the problem for Ibn Khaldoun was determination to speak out and to give opportunity for diverse opinions and points of view to be heard. Granted we have very, very limited channels to say it, but we said it. And even though limited, even though peaceful, yet it was not tolerated by the powers. And that is what civil society is all about.

I was asked to speak about civil society in Egypt. Well, civil society there. It is weak. It got a severe beating on June 30, 2000. It was muzzled for a while. It was intimidated for a while, but thanks to the persistence of very courageous people at my center and a very few courageous people in Egypt, a lot of courageous people outside of Egypt, the worldwide support that we got—thanks to all of them, including, of course, people in this room, including NED, we were able to come out of it triumphantly. And, as I said, that triumph is not just a personal triumph or even an institutional triumph for Ibn Khaldoun, but it was a triumph of the agenda, a triumph of what the world now has discovered is the only alternative to the Saddam Husseins, to Bin Laden, [which] is democracy. Democracy is the way to go forward. Democracy is the way to avert taking that region of the world to the brink of war every few years.

I counted in a recent article that appeared in the Washington Post—I don’t know how many of you have read it—the number of times that the West or the U.S. or Western coalitions had to use military force to avert a problem or to solve a problem, and it is on the average of once every seven years since the 1958 Lebanon war and until Iraq in the year 2003. And God knows when the next time will be, and I am saying let us not make light of this. There are one thousand and one difficulties facing us to institute democracy in the Middle East and in the Arab world, but we have no choice but to try once, twice—to keep trying until that democracy is there, because it is our only protection against continual not only terrorism but [also] crises that force other Western powers to come and use military force in our part of the world.

Now what are the prospects for democracy? Well, I feel they’re very good, and somebody I’m sure can argue, no they are not that good. And people will probably marshal evidence to show that it is difficult or impossible to institute open society and democracy in the Middle East, in the Arab world, in the Muslim world. I take note of all of this. I am not oblivious to the difficulties, but I know that the difficulties can be all overcome. I am reminded that in the 1920s, in the 1930s, arguments like that were used to dismiss the prospect for democratizing Germany, for democracy in Japan, for even democracy in the Slavic societies, in the Catholic societies. There were arguments that if you read them today, you’d laugh. How could people make that up? But people honestly believed that there was something in the Catholic culture or in the Slavic culture or the Japanese culture or the German culture that was so antithetic to democracy and democratic values.

We are challengers. We have been challenging at Ibn Khaldoun, and we will continue to challenge it. And I’m heartened by the fact that we have enough examples of success. Limited, yes. Modest, yes. But it’s there. Look at Morocco, Bahrain, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait. All of these countries have started the process, and there have been varying degrees of success. These countries, seven or eight countries, are moving ahead, and it gives me hope and makes me more determined—me and people like me, and there are many of them in our region, by the way. They may not all be known or have high profiles like myself or my center, but they are there, and we have to reach out to them. We have to engage them. We have to make them partners—cross-Atlantic partners for democracy and for freedom.

Yes, civil society we have defined in our literature in Ibn Khaldoun, in our newsletter. Luckily, I found a copy, and luckily, it has the word free on it, and from 1995. We define—among many of the definitions we have adopted in Ibn Khaldoun is that civil society is a space of freedom for people to meet, to work together, to express themselves, to organize, to pursue their interests. So long as it’s done openly, transparently, and peacefully, that is civil society. And that is what we’re trying to do. And that is what many people like myself and like my colleagues at Ibn Khaldoun are trying to do nowadays. They do not always have space for themselves to do it, and sometimes they find that the only space allowed for them is in a two-by-two prison cell. But nevertheless, even in that prison cell, I felt freer than my captors. I felt freer than my oppressors, and that is a challenge, and that is what gave me strength for three years.

And the people that I have seen in prison—there were many of them who have made similar or bigger sacrifices, and yet nobody recognizes them. And they were at great pain asking me why the world has made such a big fuss about you and not about us? And I really didn’t have a credible or convincing answer. I said, “Maybe because you have not made yourself known. Maybe because you were portrayed by others as if you are against all of these values for which I’m fighting, and, therefore, it is really your responsibility to make your voice heard.” And some said, “But when we made our voice heard, we ended up in prison.” But there are many thousands of [these] people not only in Egypt but all over the Middle East, in the Arab world. When I was in prison the last time I heard about this fellow Hashem Aghajari from Iran, another professor, another intellectual who was arrested, tried, and condemned to death because he criticized the clergy in Iran—a man I had never heard of before, a man whom I never read anything he wrote, but I felt an instant bond towards him.

In the Middle Ages there used to be something called the Silk Road. It was a trade route all the way from the Wall of China all the way to the shores of the Atlantic in Morocco. That Silk Road was very famous, very romantic in many ways, but when I read about this story of this fellow Iranian intellectual who was condemned to death for daring to criticize the clergy in Iran, I felt that bondage, instantly bonded. And then I read about other fellows in Tunisia who were also in the same boat, and I said, “You know, that romantic Silk Route has turned in our days into a despotic route.” All of these capitols that I could see and think of and recognize, under which there are people who have been fighting for the same things I was fighting for, and some of whom ending up in prison or condemned to death. I felt that battle is not just my battle. It is not just the Egyptian battle. It’s not just a Middle Eastern battle. It is not just an Arab battle. It is really a world battle. And it is the responsibility of people in mature democracies like yours to help us—not with arrogance, not with imposition—but to reach out, engage us, dialogue with us, give us a hand if they can, and let our message be known here in the West so our culture will not be condemned, our religion will not be condemned as antithetical to freedom and democracy, because it is not. They are not. People everywhere are striving for freedom and for democracy. They might not always articulate it in a lucid manner that would find a fair hearing here in the West, but they are there, believe me. And they just need an opportunity to organize and to come across and to do the work that needs to be done.

Civil society in Egypt, as I said, is there—has been there for the last 160 years. Our first modern NGO was established by Greek Egyptians back in 1840, and when they established that organization, a mushrooming of like or similar organizations sprung in Egypt. By the end of the 19th century, there were about 200-plus of these organizations. In the first half of the 20th century, that movement of NGOs, of civil society organizations, flourished and created a true liberal age, a liberal age that is often forgotten in the debate today when we talk about the Arab world. That is where Naguib Mahfouz, Taha Hussein—many of the names, big names, that some of you who have studied the Middle East, have read about the Middle East, or visited would know that these are landmarks. Those people grew up and became very fruitful, very productive, very influential in that liberal age. That extended from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

It was military regimes that came as a result of the Arab defeat in Palestine in 1948. These military regimes, feeling the brunt of defeat, established populist regimes that became autocratic over time, despotic over time. And one of the first and early victims of these regimes was civil society. What we tried to do in the 1980s, in the 1990s, was to revive that tradition. We’re not building from scratch; we had that in our collective memory—that legacy. And it did not just exist in Egypt. It exists in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran, in Morocco—everywhere. There was a liberal age that is often forgotten in the debate for the prospect of democracy in the Middle East. So, it’s just like anything that you can be selective about. You can forget that, if you want to argue that our people are not ready for democracy, but you can retrieve it, put it to the fore, build on it if you want to fight for democracy. So, the fight is there. We have good chances of winning that fight, and we are determined to do it, and I hope you will help us. Thank you for listening.