Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
Is our ruling system intelligent to understand
By
Hossam Badrawi
The first features of the state in the Islamic heritage began after the arrival of the Prophet Muhammad to the Elmadina city, where he assumed religious and civil authority. The city was inhabited by different warring and reconciling tribes, as well as Jewish and some Christians.
Profit Muhammad established a civil constitution for the state, which was signed by the different tribes, and he united the migrants and the supporters into a unified community of Muslims. He granted civil rights to all, regardless of their religion, in war and peace.
After the death of the Prophet, and the spread of Islam to the Levant, Iraq, Persia, and Egypt, it was necessary to establish a new model of governance, especially with the beginning of the dispute among the contemporaries of the Prophet.
We believe that it was natural and reasonable to the point of obviousness that there would be no religious leadership after the Prophet. What happened afterward was a new type of leadership not connected to the message or based on religion. The evidence of this is the rule of Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufy who assassinated his competitors, despite his confession of being more knowledgeable about religion and closer to the Prophet. The rule then passed to his son, Yazid, who governed from Asia to Africa, and he was known for his worldly leadership, confirming that the rule shifted to a non-religious form wearing the cloak of religion to confirm its dominance.
Rule in the conquered countries under Arab armies shifted to a new dictatorship in the name of religion, where power is inherited, opposition was not allowed, and power can only be changed through revolutions or assassinations even within the same family. It was military rule in the name of religion.
Philosophers say that religious and military rule are two sides of the same coin because the philosophy of control in both intertwines and resembles one another. It relies on obedience, not questioning, and severe punishment for those who disobey God’s orders as interpreted by the clergy and priests, in hopes of reward after death, or the orders of military leaders to ensure the security of the nation, which they sell to the people.
Whether we speak of God or the nation, there was always this temptation of pleasing the divine and taking pride in sacrificing for the nation, and the seriousness in punishing those who disobey the orders.
We might think that we have rid ourselves of religious rule in Egypt, but this is an illusion because it can return at any moment of civil weakness. From historical experience, it seems that the shift from military authority, which enjoys the privileges of power, discipline, obedience, and commitment, to civil society control at once is very difficult and leads to many problems, sometimes chaos and corruption.
The striking common model of the religious military state is Israel, which is a unique model in the world because it combines all the evils of both systems.
Why does Egypt need a modern civil rule?
As for why we believe that Egypt needs civil rule, it is because the rotation of power and the oversight of state institutions, and the balance of powers, protect individuals and their rights mentioned in the constitution. The possibility of power rotation places every ruler at a moment when he leaves power and faces the judgment of the masses, so he becomes cautious and does not overstep on rights or become authoritarian in governance. It allows for some dictatorships to achieve progress before power and the throne blind them, and governance begins to believe that one man is the only one with all the solutions, and hypocritically, everyone around him benefits from his staying in power,however at the moment of change, they turn against him, a scene I witnessed several times.
Yes, there are dictatorships that have achieved developmental leaps, but they are exceptions, and the utopia of the just dictator who, despite the permanence of his rule, does not succumb to the euphoria of power and thinks he is above the law is not real and not stable.
Anyone who reads history does not get lost, and history says that all military or factional systems, regardless of their accomplishments at certain moments, are like building a sandcastle on the beach. They mostly end with violations of freedoms, coups, wars, revolutions, or assassinations that destroy what has been achieved and bring the country back to ground zero again.
No state has achieved accomplishments like Germany under the rule of Hitler as He was the creator of the largest industrial, economic, and military renaissance During the first half of the previous century however he ended up by destroying his country.
Even after World War II, the German citizen in the western part following the war was the same as the citizen in the eastern part, and the Korean citizen in the southern side is the same in the northern side, but it ended up as 100% superiority in the western and southern cases, and failure by 100% in the eastern and northern cases, despite the fact that the genes and mentality are the same there and here, & the factors of success and failure are the same, natural resources and human wealth, but the management style was different in all aspects.
There are many examples between what appeared to be the strength of the Soviet Union and its collapse, in Eastern and Western Europe, and between all that we read about the rule of President Tito and the division of his country and its inhuman civil wars, after his death . Another example was Nehru, who ended up making India one of the major powers under the democracy chosen by him and the dictatorship chosen by Pakistan. There are numerous examples in Africa, which gained independence for most of its countries and fell under military rule, collapsed economically, and were defeated culturally, leading to famines, civil wars, and corruption.
We do not believe that the Egyptian people, the owner of the first state in the history of humanity, now accept explicit dictatorial rule . After the 1952 revolution, the generations of rulers without exception claimed democracy and popular participation in governance, despite the fact that at the heart of its system was the philosophy of the one-party system and the system that does not accept the rotation of power. The intent is that the rule of Egypt is moving towards the democratic model with a strong presidential system regulated by the possibility of power rotation. I now see that Egypt is at a crossroads, and the most important thing in the Egyptian constitution is to endorse the rotation of power and not to allow any elected president to rule for more than two terms only. This constitution must be respected, and the government and the people must work to apply it and create an atmosphere for it, as stated in its fifth article which says: “The political system is based on political party pluralism, peaceful power rotation, separation of powers and their equilibrium, and the correlation of responsibility with power, and respect for human rights and freedoms, as clearly stipulated in the constitution.”
There is a decline in the importance of ideology as a framework for uniting citizens within a political or party framework. Perhaps the greatest concern for the citizen now focuses on the effectiveness of governance, meaning the extent of achievement and response to the The citizen’s demands outweigh the ideological concept adopted by the regime. However, achieving greater efficiency in governance is linked to the most capable individuals reaching positions of power through a system that allows for this. It is also linked to the importance of having a system of oversight and accountability for decision-makers, as well as setting term limits to ensure renewal of thinking and vitality of performance.
In short, we believe that the new generation of democracy should focus on the following elements:
– The effectiveness of governance
– Competence of the rulers
– Independent oversight and accountability separate from the executive authority
– An independent and effective justice system (the real revolution must happen in this field)
– An education and culture system that clearly allows citizens to choose the best.
In the upcoming political stage, we must search for a new initiative for governance, reaching an agreement between what we dream of as a modern civil state and the reality of the actual power on the ground, so that the country is not deprived of its human potential and effective national institutions.
An initiative that gives freedom its place and respects it by regulating the complete justice, which does not allow freedom to turn into chaos or selective manipulation of the law. An initiative that allows the people to choose freely, balancing good choices with a balanced parliamentary system that gives the educated and experts a place in the Senate to regulate and protect the development path and receives the pulse of the street from local councils and the parliament, whose members should represent the people directly in their constituencies.
The Egyptian armed forces currently hold the reins of power, and they should not be politically responsible for the challenge of development, as the country would lose their reference value in the event of departing from the constitution and legitimacy, or destructive revolutions, should the people call for it.
The armed forces should not be responsible before the people for the political situation, and we must maintain its role in preserving Egypt’s independence against any aggression, and in protecting the people and the constitution when necessary.
Therefore, a new formula must be found that respects the balance of power but does not waste the foundations of the civil state, and this is what we must strive to formulate with the participation of all stakeholders in society.
