About the article titled (The Principles of the Minimum Requirements of the Aims of Introducing Change in Egypt) written by the Egyptian Thinker Mr. Amin Al-Mahdi

Published in December 20, 2019

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Firstly: about the request we received:

 We admire very much the Egyptian leftist thinker Mr. Amin Al-Mahdi and his writings against the military rule in Egypt; he lives in Egypt and never compromised his principles; he has published in the Marxist website Modern Discussion an article titled (The Principles of the Minimum Requirements of the Aims of Introducing Change in Egypt), which can be found in Arabic on the following link: (http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=657639&nm=1), and he requested from our person that we copy his article on our Qurnaism website so that his article would reach out to wider readership. We read his article and sensed that his reform ideas and political ideas and ours match despite his being a leftist thinker whereas we are a Quranist Muslim thinker. This matching of ideas and details will be known to those who have read our own previous political articles. We publish the entirety of his article here followed by a brief comment. We hope many readers will read this article of Mr. Al-Mahdi with interest and write their own comments.

Secondly: the article of Mr. Al-Mahdi:

   (The Title: The Principles of the Minimum Requirements of the Aims of Introducing Change in Egypt

Firstly:

 During the Jan. 2011 revolt in Egypt, no one among the citizens raised any religious, racist, or anti-peace mottoes or banners; the whole world hailed the Jan. 2011 revolt in Egypt against military dictatorship; yet, despite the fact that this Jan. 2011 revolt had not any intellectual horizons, it was a courageous, impromptu act of the citizens. Sadly, sooner than expected, the Jan 2011 revolt was controlled by the deep-state men who raised the vile, untrue motto (The nation and the military are hand in hand!). This drove the world to lose its respect and support for the Jan. 2011 revolt which turned into a masquerade though no one attacked houses of worship, embassies, etc. for 45 days despite the lack of security forces and police forces at the time. Sadly, the tentacles of the military deep-state men infiltrated the Jan. 2011 revolt by the regressive, racist 'constitutional declaration' of March 2011, gathering the Salafist/Wahabi masses in Tahrir Square in Cairo to announce their desire for theocracy/caliphate, urging the mob to attack the Israeli embassy and to siege the American embassy while carrying copies of the Quran, and releasing out of prisons 11000 jihadists & 850 terrorists plus importing 3500 jihadist/terrorists from abroad. The aim was to tarnish the reputation of the Jan. 2011 revolt and to make it swerve away from its route and its objectives. This was the prelude to terrorize the nation by the MB organization and to hasten the Parliamentary Elections so as to hand over power and authority to the MB members under the auspices of the military deep-state men who actually never ceded any power or authority as they ruled behind curtains. The last step of reintroducing the military rule was to remove the MB organization from power, based on the demands of the Egyptian citizens, in 2013 after eliminating the influence of Jan. 2011 revolt.

Secondly:

 There are many proofs showing that the corrupt military regime is the archenemy of freedom and progress of the Egyptians and the root of all corruption, humiliation, backwardness, and impoverishment of Egyptians within the last 7 decades. In order to maintain its power, the military regime in Egypt ceded stretches of Egyptian land and natural sources so that the regional and international power would turn a deaf ear to the war crimes, terrorist crimes against civilians, and the human-rights violations committed by the Al-Sisi regime; Al-Sisi is supported by the Israeli rightwing whose dream is Greater Israel and who never cares about securing the peace of Israeli citizens. Yet, mosques, media, and schools of Egypt increase the anti-Semitism sentiments and hostility towards the other in general and distort all principles of tolerance and peace; this aims to weaken and to isolate the Egyptian nation and to ruin its reputation; this serves the purposes of the Israeli expansionist rightwing who urge Israeli citizens to consider all Arab countries as a source of perpetual threat.

Thirdly:

 The Egyptian military was defeated and crushed in wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. It humiliated itself when in 1973, it demanded a ceasefire though Egypt is the initiator of this war; the Security Council did not force Israel to leave Sinai; the defeat forced the Egyptian military to make several civil sacrifices; yet, the ignoramuses in it who betrayed Egypt and stole its wealth were too arrogant to admit being defeated; they claimed victory and that they protect the nation.

Fourthly:

 The crimes of the July 1952 State and its military against Egyptian citizens are never committed before by any foreign occupiers: the British, the French or even by the Israeli occupiers of Sinai; readers can ask elderly Bedouins of Sinai. The military rule and interference in civil life in Egypt led to corruption, oppression, and failure on all levels especially failing to protect Egypt; the defeats of the Egyptian military which has existed for 140 years now are proved in many studies, documents, and books.

Fifthly:

 The nationalization in the 1950s and the 1960s was nothing but to provide civil properties as spoils to the military rule men; financial losses increased as the military rule men controlled capitalism and assets and then the natural sources; this was done in the process of militarization of the Egyptian economy and all other governmental sectors. This means the military generals became an armed mafia network of merchants especially in black markets; they became thugs who continue to steal the wealth of the nation.

Sixthly:

  The spontaneous demonstrations and protests in France, Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, and Lebanon prove that societies who have definite social and political demands but have no central efficient leaders may fail; this shows how corruption, corrosion, and aging reached authorities and also the opposition movements within their social and political entities and syndicates. This is the case even if such demonstrations are led by ordinary, spontaneous leadership.

 The manifesto of the minimum requirements of the aims of introducing change in Egypt:

1- The first aim is to bring about the collapse and the ouster of Al-Sisi and his central feudal military state in Egypt; this ouster of Al-Sisi is a tactical aim; the military controlled by Al-Sisi cannot face strong protests and manifestations in all Egyptian cities, or else, Egypt will turn into another Syria; at one conference, Al-Sisi, surrounded by his military generals, announced brazenly that without the Egyptian military, Egypt would be lost and ruined! This insult deserves being united to collapse this barbarian regime which betrayed Egypt and lacks all ethical, moralistic, and humanistic values. By the way, the regional and international circumstances will not support this freak of a regime for a long time.     

2- All manifestations must be peaceful and consist only of civilians; the peaceful civilian resistance is the strong weapon to contain and defeat all attempts by the barbarian, dangerous regime to introduce terrorism and violence leading to a civil war.

3- The ultimate aim is to establish a civil, democratic State with an excellent Constitution that protects citizenship rights regardless of sects, denominations, colors, classes and sex of the Egyptian citizens; this Constitution must never serve any ideologies or political groups; in fact, religions and moralities must never be controlled by any authorities; rather, they should be cared for by centers which advocate social and civil freedoms.   

4- The Egyptian military armed forces must never interfere in the Egyptian administration, economy, and political life; no retired military men should engage into political participation unless after the passage of a specified period of time.

5- Possessions and assets of the military armed forces inside Egypt cause more corruption and greed inside the military circles and finance oppression; such possessions and assets must be restored to the Egyptian civil government and its Treasury to finance the infrastructure, projects, compensations for people who lost (or will lose) their jobs, and loans for the youth at low interest rates (e.g., 1%), and this will help eliminate the centuries-old problem of ownership inside Egypt.   

6- This means the Egyptian State will have free markets open to the international markets and linked to the international capitalism but it will also have a social/economic margin to finance projects of education, health insurance, etc., and this Egyptian State will allow the existence of NGOs and voluntary activities without interference except through legal supervision of such activities.  

7- The only proprietor and producer in the Egyptian State will be Egyptian citizens with active participation in the social, economic, and political life; this means all properties will be privately owned and never owned by the State or the military; yet, some major projects like the Suez Canal must be Egyptian joint stock companies (this was the aim claimed by the Nasserist regime, yet, Nasser betrayed Egypt and made this aim a mere banner to turn Egyptian wealth into spoils granted to the military generals).  

8- The Egyptian State must abolish all types of institutions, universities, centers, institutes, and schools of religious education (established and encouraged by the military regime) which must be turned into ordinary public schools and technical schools whose curricula will be radically changed by the Ministry of Education; as for the Ministry of Waqfs (or religious endowments), it will be abolished and its missions will be undertaken by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Of course, this means that all houses of worship and its possessions and sources of finance will be supervised only by the municipalities.       

9- The Egyptian State will be decentralized and its governorates and their official posts will be through local elections.

10- A State Apparatus will be established for the sake of organizing the public service; the Egyptian State must maintain the peace within the regional and international level; it will have open borders with stable countries without any exceptions; it will believe in peaceful coexistence and continental, regional, and international cooperation. 

11- The Egyptian military will be restructured; it will be modernized and it will defend all borders of the Egyptian State; it will have a smaller number of men as is the case with the military of all democratic countries (Israel and the UK have 160 thousand people in their militaries, whereas Egypt has at least 600000; Egypt does not need that huge number at all in the military ranks). National guards and forces will be established from among civilians who will be trained to serve Egypt in case of emergency and natural disasters; such forces will have missions defined by the Egyptian Parliament and the municipalities; the military armed forced (whose sole mission is to defend the borders) will not interfere in internal, civil cases of emergency inside Egyptian cities. By the way, in modern history, no democratic countries fought against one other; wars now are waged only by totalitarian and tyrannical countries.  

 This manifesto consists of main ideas of our forthcoming book/study titled (A Vision of the National Deliverance); its aim is to try to answer this problematic and historical question: How the nation would be the only owner of Egypt and the only beneficiary and Egypt's only defender?).

Lastly: our comment:

 We agree wholeheartedly with the ideas found in the article by Mr. Al-Mahdi; our question posed here is as follows: How to apply these ideas?! This is the major problem.

1- Preachers of reform like Mr. Al-Mahdi and ourselves have nothing but our pens; we lack the means to reach and influence millions of citizens. If Mr. Al-Mahdi and ourselves would be candidates in transparent, and fair Egyptian Parliament elections, we will never get any votes. When preachers of reform write political articles, this is done in the framework of daydreaming and wishful thinking, or at least, we write about what should be done. The writings of the preachers of reform are part of the process of raising awareness of readers; our writings will never be in vain or lost; our writings on reform ushers freedom and provides light within the route toward freedom; at the same time, our writings bear witness to the era in which we live in order to clear our conscience in this modern era when the culture of slaves and enslavement reigns supreme in the Arab world.

2- Al-Sisi monopolize might, authority, and power in Egypt; he stands against any measures of religious and political reform; he exceeds all limits in his infringements of law and authority; we do not think there would be turning back by him; his tyranny and savagery will increase with the passage of time; we tend to think he buys with money the gratification of international and regional powers in order to have absolute power inside Egypt against citizens. This means that Al-Sisi has reached the zero equation of non-negotiation; i.e., it is either he lives or Egypt and the Egyptians live. 

3- We never wish that change inside Egypt would be by the means of revolts, civil wars, or the riots of the hungry masses, because in such cases, mass graves will fill Egyptian soil while waves of mass immigration will fill the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea, and, eventually, another enthroned pharaoh will reach power within the dominant culture of slaves and enslavement.   

4- We never wish that change inside Egypt would be by means of foreign interference inside Egypt by, e.g., the USA, the EU, Russia, and/or Israel, as this will certainly turn Egypt into another Syria and a huge market of the purchase of weapons and arms; this will give the chance to the KSA, the UAE, Qatar, and Turkey to destroy, corrupt, and ruin Egypt.

5- The option of maintaining the status quo of the silence and submission of the Egyptian citizens will lead to the slow death of the Egyptian citizens instead of quick annihilation through civil strife. 

6- The only glimmer of hope we have is in this daydreaming or wishful thinking; i.e., we assume that the Egyptian Military Armed Forces do not lack patriotic elements who never agree with the decisions and the decrees of Al-Sisi, the current enthrone pharaoh, and these military patriotic elements may initiate a coup d'état in the right moment to oust Al-Sisi, provided that these military patriotic elements would submit the power and authority to the Egyptian nation through a civil interim government which, in its turn, will introduce the much-needed legislative reform which will establish the bases for a civil State and free, transparent elections of the executive and legislative authorities. This was done before in Sudan by the Field Marshal Abdel Rahman Suwar Al-Dahab (1934 – 2018).    

7- There is no hope in Al-Sisi and his generals; the only glimmer of hope is in the patriotic elements inside the Egyptian Military Armed Forces. We hope also that our writings, the writings of Mr. Al-Mahdi, and the writings on reform by other thinkers reach those patriotic elements and enlighten their minds and their way. 

8- This is our comment; we wait for comments of our dear fellow Quranists.