EGYPT: INPUT ON DISCUSSIONS OF THE COMPLEMENTARY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 002798

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

G FOR FERRAO, AND S/P FOR VOLKER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/12/2027
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM KISL EG
SUBJECT: EGYPT: INPUT ON DISCUSSIONS OF THE COMPLEMENTARY
NATURE OF ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY

REF: SECSTATE 116583

Classified By: DCM Stuart E. Jones, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Per reftel request regarding Egypt's planned
participation in the mid-November Community of Democracies
ministerial in Mali, on September 16 the staff of Ambassador
Raouf Saad, the MFA's BMENA coordinator (who also handles CD
matters),told poloff that the MFA "had just received
notification" of the Mali meeting within the last few days,
and had not yet made a decision about attendance.


2. (C) In response to reftel's other action requests, we have
compiled the below list of Egyptian "public intellectuals"
who have spoken publicly in support of democracy and/or on
the complementary nature of Islam and democracy.

- Saad Eddin Ibrahim (noted Egyptian democracy activist and
head of the Ibn Khaldun Center, a prominent Egyptian civil
society organization). Ibrahim is a provocative figure in
Egypt, who has recently been the target of a vigorous smear
campaign largely in the government-backed media, and is
currently outside of the country, due to concerns about his
possible arrest. His advocacy tends to focus on democracy
itself, rather than the compatibility of Islam and democracy.
But he has frequently advocated for a more tolerant state
approach to political Islam in the context of promoting
democratic reform. He has also argued in publications that
the West's distrust of political Islam is unfounded. But
Ibrahim's approach also leads him to apologize for Hizbollah
and Hamas, both of whose leadership he has visited recently.

- Gamal Al Banna (independent Islamic reformer and brother of
MB founder Hassan Al Banna, although Gamal is not a member of
the MB). Al Banna has spoken publicly of the need to
"re-orient the ongoing public discourse on Islam towards the
goal of promoting compatibility and concordance in the modern
world," noting that he views the main points of convergence
between Islam and democracy as intellectual freedom and
economic justice. Al Banna argues that "if democracy is a
mechanism to strengthen freedom and uphold justice, it agrees
with Islam. Where the two diverge, however, is that Islam's
basic law is the Koran, whereas democracy is guided by human
reason." Al Banna is an independent reformer and
sometime-media commentator; it is difficult to gauge the
scope of his influence.

- Fahmy Howeidy (leading moderate Islamist columnist, writing
in the national daily Al Ahram and syndicated to seven other
Arab publications). A supporter of democracy, Howeidy argues
that, "in an Islamic state, God is the source of law (through
Shari'a),but the nation is the source of authority, holding
its rulers accountable to it .... The final judge must be the
ballot box .... The Islamic state is a democracy where faith
becomes a basic frame of reference." Howeidy is sometimes
accused of being an apologist for terrorist groups, as he has
not explicitly denounced violence, arguing rather that, "When
you talk of the militancy of extremist groups, why not also
talk of the violence of the state versus these groups, and of
the vicious circle that is creating them?" It is difficult
to gauge the scope of Howeidy's influence, but he is one of
Egypt's most prominent Islamist commentators, and his
articles reach a wide audience.

- Osama Al Ghazali Harb (editor-in-chief of "International
Relations," the Egyptian equivalent to "Foreign Affairs," and
secretary-general of the newly-formed Democratic Front Party,

SIPDIS
a liberal opposition party). A vocal secular democracy
advocate, Harb is influential largely within a narrow section
of Cairo's elite, not with the broader Egyptian population.

- Hala Mustafa (editor-in-chief of "Democracy Review
Political Quarterly" and member of the ruling National
Democratic Party's influential Policies Committee). Mustafa,
similar to Harb, focuses on the value of secular democracy
rather than the compatibility of Islam and democracy. She
does not appear to have much resonance with Egyptians writ
large, but rather, has some influence within academic and
elite circles in Egypt.

- Bahieydeen Hassan (director of the Cairo Institute for
Human Rights Studies). One of Egypt's most outspoken human
rights defenders, Hassan is also a forceful advocate for
secular democracy, who uses his NGO and regular newspaper
commentaries to make the case for political reform in Egypt.
Hassan does not have a significant popular following.

- The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB),a moderate Islamist
organization that is officially banned in Egypt but in

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reality is uneasily tolerated by the government (although
this toleration is punctuated by periodic GOE crackdowns
against the group),has long embraced, both in theory and
practice, the compatibility of Islam and democracy. In the
past two decades, the MB has actively contested a variety of
Egypt's various electoral races, and the MB currently holds
20 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament. Senior
members of the group, including the MB's highest official,
Mohamed Mehdy Akef, and his deputy, Mohamed Habib, have
spoken out repeatedly in support of democracy, as have other
influential members of the group, such as Guidance Council
member Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and leading MB moderate
Essam El Erian. For almost three decades, the group has
explicitly renounced violence, "condemning it whether it
comes from individuals, groups, or states, or governments,"
and emphasizing the need for "peaceful, non-violent political
reform." However, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, this condemnation becomes notably less clear-cut,
bogged down in definitions of "legitimate national
resistance" versus "terrorism." Notably, Al Qaeda's Ayman
Zawahiri publicly criticized the MB for participating in the
2005 Egyptian parliamentary elections, to which the MB's
leadership publicly replied that "change and reform can only
happen by peaceful means and through legal and constitutional
channels. Resorting to force will open the doors wide for
evil and create total chaos." The MB is unquestionably an
influential force in Egypt. While the precise extent of the
MB's weight in Egyptian society is difficult to measure, it
is the most dynamic political opposition movement in Egypt,
and MB candidates garnered the largest number of votes of any
opposition party in the 2005 parliamentary elections.
Critics suggest that the MB's embrace of democracy is
opportunistic and that it would quickly abandon democratic
principles if it was ever allowed to rise to power. Indeed,
the MB is a diverse group, and numerous viewpoints appear to
be represented within it.


3. (C) In terms of senior government officials, President
Hosni Mubarak's 2005 election platform clearly laid out a
conception of Egypt as a "democratic nation." However, his
electoral promises regarding political reform have remained
largely unrealized.


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