Liberalism in The Arab World: Just A Good Idea?

Liberalism in the Arab World
Just a good idea?

Editor
Dr. Ronald Meinardus

First Edition 2014
Liberalism in the Arab World - Just a good idea?

2

Title of the Book
Liberalism in the Arab World
Just a good idea?

Editor
Dr. Ronald Meinardus

Editorial Assistant
Dirk Kunze

Publisher
Al-Mahrosa for Publishing, Press Services, and Information
Block 7399, Street 28 branching from Street 9, Mukkattam
Cairo, Egypt
Tel/Fax: 02-25075917
E-mail:mahrosa@mahrosa.com
Chairman: Farid Zahran

Serial Number: 8588/2014
ISBN: 978-977-313-533-1

This book was published by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors alone. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for
Liberty.

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Table of Content

Preface 5
Ronald Meinardus Promoting the liberal cause in
the Arab world: A personal
review
11
Clemens Recker Liberal ideas in Arab history of
thought: A homegrown liberal
tradition, or imported?
23
Saed Karajah Did Arab liberalism fail freedom
in the Arab Spring?
33
Mohammed Tamaldou Networking for freedom and
democracy: Gathering liberal
political parties in the Arab
region
41
Hassan Mneimeneh Liberalism in Lebanon:
Foundations and obstacles
59
Houda Cherif The struggle for liberalism in
Tunisia
75
Yusuf Mansur Bread, freedom and social
justice: Why only the market
economy will fulfill the
aspirations of the Arab masses
87
Wael Nawara Crowd democracy: Future
challenges facing liberalism
in the Arab region
101
Esraa Abdel Fatah Loaded victory: Egypts
revolution and where it stands
post-30 June
115

4
Shehab Wagih

Politics and liberalism in Egypt:
Did anything change?
129
Emil Kirjas The missing piece of the world
puzzle: Liberal International and
the Arab world
145
Koert Debeuf From Arab Spring to Arab
revolution: Three years of ALDE
representation in the Arab world
157
Ronald Meinardus My liberal times in Oum Al-
Dounia
169

Biographies of the authors

177

Other books in the series Liberal Publications

181


5
Preface

In 2013, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty
celebrated the 50th anniversary of its international work. It is of
relevance that the first project of this Foundation outside
Germany was organized in Tunisia with a program aimed at
training journalists. Half a century later, the Foundation is still
present in Tunisia - as well as in several other countries on the
Southern and Eastern rim of the Mediterranean - and involved in
myriad programs and projects aimed at promoting liberalism.
The past 10 years have witnessed dramatic changes in this
part of the world. Apart from the uprisings and upheavals that
have dominated the international headlines again and again, we
have seen important - yes, historic - structural changes. In a
political context, the maturing of civil society and the
development of a nascent partisan pluralism are among the most
significant alterations. This is not the space to deliberate on the
not always easy relationship between civil society organizations
and political parties. However, their parallel development is proof
that over the years the space for political participation, and also
political pluralism, has grown. This is important, for participation
and pluralism are two essential ingredients of liberal progress.
The book you are holding in your hands has been edited by
Dr. Ronald Meinardus, who has served as regional director of
the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty for the Middle
East and North Africa for more than seven years. His aspiration
in this oft-tumultuous phase has been to promote liberal
principles and politics through educative activities. In his opening
chapter, he takes a closer look at these principles and shares his
thoughts on the challenges and opportunities facing the liberal
cause in the Arab world. In the closing chapter, the editor, who
spent many years of his childhood in Egypt, shares personal
reflections at the end of his professional journey, which as he

6
writes has been filled with excitement, joy and also occasional
frustrations.
In some parts of the world, freedom is so entrenched that
many people deem liberalism as void of a mission, and thus
superfluous. In other, less free, parts of the world, the enemies of
freedom accuse liberals of all sorts of transgressions and
shortcomings in an effort to marginalize the concept of freedom
politically, socially and even culturally. Unfortunately, the Arab
world belongs to the latter category.
One of the most poisonous accusations against liberalism
heard again and again, also in this part of the world, is that it is a
foreign concept and not suitable for Arab societies. Against this
background, it becomes all the more important to trace and
document liberal roots in the Arab history of thought. This is
done, in this book, by Dr. Clemens Recker, a German scholar
and scholarship holder of the Foundation who has dedicated his
academic life to studying and writing about the great Arab
thinkers.
This book is an effort at stocktaking. The contributors share
information and their perspectives on the state and prospects of
liberalism in the Arab region. You will find a cascade of
information, arguments and also commentary. A uniting element
amid all the diversity is that all authors have been associated over
the years with programs of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation
for Liberty and have, thereby, established bonds of political and
personal friendship with the liberal organization.
Throughout the past decade, the Foundation has sponsored
liberal activities in many Arab countries and on various levels. A
special feature of this effort are the synergies created between
activities on the national or country level, on the one hand, and
cross-border activities on the regional and international levels on
the other. Bringing together liberal forces from the Arab world
for an exchange of experiences and knowledge has been - and
remains - the hallmark of the regional political work of the
Foundation.

7
Considerable progress has been achieved over the past few
years. Not only has a viable network or association of Arab
liberal political parties been established. This network and the
member parties thereof have also established close links with the
international liberal family. Today, Arab liberals are equal
members of this large global community. As one result of this,
for the first time Arab liberal voices are heard in international
liberal gatherings. This is good for the Arab world as it is good
for the international meetings, and also the quality of
international political dialogue.
In this book, we are pleased to feature the original accounts
of three important Arab liberals who stood (or still stand) at the
helm of the Arab liberal network. They are Mohamed Tamaldou
from Morocco, Wael Nawara from Egypt, and Saed Karajah
from Jordan. The fact that the members of the Alliance chose to
change their leadership in a democratic manner regularly is
symbolic of a new and liberal policy style.
Joining as authors are two European liberal leaders who have
invested much work in bridging the gap between the Arab
world and Europe. Koert Debeuf lives in Cairo where he
represents the liberal faction in the European Parliament in the
Arab world and has facilitated many an Arab political
intervention in the European Union. Emil Kirjas, the restless
secretary general of Liberal International, the world federation of
liberal parties, has over the years become an enthusiast of the
Arab world and the project of bringing Arab liberals into the
international fold.
While the book has not the space to feature all the liberal
stories of all Arab nations, the editor chose to feature two
countries with a special role for the promotion of liberalism in the
Arab world: Tunisia and Lebanon, two friendly nations whose
representatives sometimes bicker over which of the two owns the
right to be termed the mother of the Arab uprisings. We leave the
answer to you after reading the accounts of Houda Cherif and
Dr. Hassan Mneimeneh, who present to us fascinating

8
perspectives on their countries histories from a liberal vantage
point.
Liberals strive for an open and pluralistic social order that
entails the rule of law in combination with the protection of basic
human rights, democracy and a free market. We need to highlight
the free market, as it is here that liberals differ with socialists,
many conservatives, and other political opponents. For liberals,
economic freedom is not a problem but the key to solving many
problems. Few - if any - Arab friends of the Foundation have
argued this point as convincingly as Yusuf Mansour from
Jordan, who over the years has become a backbone of the
Economic Freedom of the Arab World conferences, which the
regional office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty
has regularly co-sponsored in cooperation with our comrades in
arms at the Canadian Fraser Institute and the International
Research Foundation of Oman. Mansours economic chapter
highlights that eventually only an economically free society will
be politically free - and prosperous also.
Egyptians fondly call their great nation Mother of the
Earth. The fact that the regional office of the Foundation is in
Cairo is a tribute to the immense political and also cultural
influence Egypt holds in the Arab world. Many a discussion
emanating from Egypt impacts discourses as far away as
Morocco or the Arab Gulf. Not always has this radiation been of
a positive or emancipative effect.
However, in all the regional projects of the Foundation,
Egyptians have made important contributions and played crucial
roles. This holds true also for the youth. Not surprisingly, many
of the programs sponsored by the Foundation focus on the youth.
Not only for theirs is the future, but also for their important role
in the past - blasting the way in the uprisings against
authoritarianism and suppression.
We are featuring two outstanding Egyptian liberals from a
generation that wrote history on 25 January 2011, and thereafter.
While Shehab Wagih and Esraa Abdel Fattah offer different

9
narratives - the one the story of an activist turned liberal party
operative, the other an activist turned NGO leader - both agree in
the end that Egypts transformation is far from over. It may take
years, if not generations, to reach a state of affairs that may be
termed free and liberal. What holds true for Egypt may be said to
hold true for other countries of the Arab world.
This brings us, at last, to the title of this volume. All the
authors, for sure, agree that liberalism is a good idea. They agree
that the Arab world would be in a better state if liberal principles
were respected and applied. However, we are far away from this
state of affairs today. For the moment, in most parts of the region,
liberalism remains just an idea - a concept and not a reality. It is
up to freedom loving people to change that.

10

11
Promoting the liberal cause
in the Arab world :
A personal review

Ronald Meinardus

One of the privileges of working in the international program
of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty are the many
opportunities to meet liberal organizations from all parts of the
world and liberal individuals of different national, cultural and
religious backgrounds. The most lasting assurance I have taken
from these many encounters has been that liberal ideas and the
conviction that personal freedom is better than a lack of it are not
confined to one part of the world or one culture. On the contrary,
the desire for personal freedom is universal.
The size and impact of the liberal movement varies from one
place to another, depending on numerous factors. In an
international context, liberal forces in the Arab world may be
understood as weak, in some respects, and with their backs to the
wall. Liberals here are confronted with myriad challenges.
Frequently these are related to false accusations and allegations.
An oft-heard stereotype suggests liberal ideas are not compatible
with Arab culture or Islam. Ironically, the assumption of the non-
compatibility of liberal (read Western) and Islamic (read Arab)
values is also propagated by influential Western thinkers who
argue that a clash of civilizations is unavoidable.
Most Arabs today have at best a limited exposure to liberal
conditions, as they grow up and live in a very different
environment. In most parts of the Middle East, the only
tangible experience with liberalism is economic
liberalization. In many cases, however, the declared market

12
reforms have failed to improve living conditions and remained far
below the expectations of the masses. Today, many Egyptians
blame market reforms for the perceived widespread corruption
and nepotism. They are not able - or not willing - to appreciate
that it is not the market system that has failed but that the main
reason for the absent trickle-down of wealth is the lack of rule
of law and accountability. These are essential preconditions for
markets to set free their beneficial power.
To say that liberalism has an image problem in the Arab
world is no understatement. This, to a considerable degree, has to
do also with international politics. On more than one occasion,
the conduct of outside powers has damaged the concepts of
democracy and liberalism (or liberal democracy). Western
powers have intervened in the region advocating hallowed liberal
and democratic principles and have then behaved in a manner not
compatible with those very principles. The invasion of Iraq
comes to mind, or the Palestinian question. In political debates
throughout the Arab world these cases are mentioned as examples
of Western double standards. This is not new. Historically,
Western colonialism in the region has tainted not only the image
of the colonizers but also the ideas they espoused. While they
claimed to promote democracy and human rights (albeit
gradually), on the ground they ruled in a profoundly illiberal
manner.
Today, liberal values and principles are under attack from
various sides in the Arab world. It is, therefore, useful to recall
the intellectual roots these ideas have in the region. That these
were much in fashion among Arab political thinkers in the 19th
and early 20th centuries, became apparent to me as I read the
book Liberalism in the Arab History of Thought by Clemens
Recker, a German Arabist who has dedicated his academic life to
the study of Arab political philosophy. His book was published in
our Liberal Texts series and I am happy to share with you that
it has become one of the most sought after publications we have
produced. Far from being only a contemporary political project,

13
the idea of Arab liberalism has deep roots in the regions history
of thought and was once prevalent in the public discourse,
Recker writes. Importantly, the author documents excerpts of
writings of mainly Egyptian political thinkers that convey strong
liberal messages. Man preserves his freedom of thought and
feelings and his natural liberty, even in the depth of a prison
He was created free, free in his will, free in his choices, is one of
my favorite quotes from Ahmad Lutfi Al-Sayyid, the famous
Egyptian intellectual who died in 1963 and has been described as
an architect of Egyptian secularism and liberalism.
As a liberal, I could not agree more. My basic assumption is
that most, if not all, people are fond of freedom. It is my
philosophical understanding that human beings strive not only for
material goods and spiritual peace but also for freedom. In this
regard, I am not prepared to accept that individuals from different
cultural, ethnic or religious backgrounds are different. We all
strive for freedom. Our creator has created us as free beings, and
we must defend this freedom. Or we should strive for it, should
we live under conditions that are not free.

Liberals under attack
In Egypt, as in most other countries of the Arab world, it is
not at all easy to be a liberal. These days, liberals are
marginalized politically and also ideologically. Their ideas are far
from being the mainstream. Political forces espousing liberal
ideas are on the defensive, and even avoid the attribute liberal
in their campaigns to reach the people.
There are various reasons for this defensiveness: some are
homemade, others the result of a merciless ideological onslaught
that has traits of systemic brainwashing. First, liberals are not
famed for their unity. In the crucial phase of post-revolutionary
Arab history we saw that liberal forces were not unified.
Regarding important issues they didnt speak with one voice.
Much more harmful than the lack of unity has been the

14
ideological onslaught. This has succeeded in denigrating
liberalism as a set of principles and values that are not compatible
with Arab (and Muslim!) mores and culture.
Liberals are often under attack from dictators and dogmatists,
who do not tolerate opinions others than their own. Dictators and
dogmatists spread a climate of intolerance; they consider liberal
forces as main foes. Liberals have suffered - and often withstood
- this pressure.
Many definitions of liberalism exist. This is not unusual for
one of the great political currents of our times. However, all
liberals agree in one essential point: the conviction that the
freedom of the individual is the most important political and
societal aspiration. While this may sound banal, it is not so at all.
Liberal politics strives to augment the freedom of the individual
at all times and in all fields.
Probably there is no other political term that is misused more
than the term freedom. More or less everyone is talking of
freedom and occupying the well sounding term. When
socialists, conservatives or religious fundamentalists speak of
freedom, they usually do not have the freedom of the individual
in mind. Their main concern is the rights and privileges of a
certain social group, a political party or a segment of society. In
political practice, this is different from the freedom of the
individual liberals aspire to. For us, every single man and woman
is entitled to the same rights and equality of opportunities.
The allegation that liberals and their ideas are inspired by
outside forces and have no homegrown roots is probably the
biggest challenge for liberals and liberalism in the Arab world
today. It is crucial that Arab liberals confront this allegation,
which - as we have seen and will argue extensively in this book -
is false. To assert that the idea of individual freedom is foreign
and, therefore, not compatible with Arab cultural and religious
beliefs, in my eyes, borders on racism, as it insinuates that the
people living in this sphere are either nor capable of or not ready
for liberty.

15
This is not to deny that modern liberalism is a product of the
European Enlightenment, which some centuries ago declared
reason and individual freedom the measure of all things. From the
outset, liberal thinkers and politicians promoted the ideas of
freedom of the individual in close conjunction with
responsibility, respect for human rights, and tolerance. Over the
years, it has become a broad consensus of all political
mainstreams that the basic liberal principles are universal in
nature. The general recognition of the universality of human
rights is one of the great achievements of human civilization.

Most demonstrators in Tahrir were liberals
Egypt has its own proud liberal history. That this nations
freedom fighters and freethinkers did not necessarily use the
epithet liberal as a label is irrelevant in this context. Much more
important is the fact that with their writings and their deeds they
aspired to promote freedom, human rights and other liberal values
and principles.
This brings me to the uprising of 25 January 2011, which I
had the privilege to witness up close. It is still too early for a
definite assessment of that grand event. However, I would argue -
and I have done so again and again - that what happened on that
crucial day and in ensuing weeks had much to do with liberal
aspirations. Most demonstrators in Tahrir Square were liberals,
without knowing it, Ibrahim Issa, the famous Egyptian
journalist, told a group of visiting European politicians a few
weeks after the uprising.
The calls of Tahrir Square for freedom, human rights and
social justice are liberal demands. Observers have likened the
Egyptian Revolution with the French Revolution or the fall of the
Berlin Wall: both historic events with a powerful liberal
dimension.

16
Egypts Revolution has also been called the Revolution of
the Youth. For good reason, the mainly youthful revolutionaries
took the decision to maintain the national character of the
uprising. To voice ideological or even partisan issues in Tahrir
was a taboo. Nonetheless, it is no secret that liberal Egyptians -
and foremost the liberal youth - stood at the forefront of the
uprising from the very beginning.
Egypt finds itself in a political transformation of historic
dimensions. There is widespread hope that the ongoing changes
may lead to a viable and inclusive (and therefore stable)
democracy that respects the rights of all citizens and is, therefore,
and in the best sense of the word, a liberal democracy.
Building and strengthening institutions essential for a
democratic order is among the main challenges facing Egypt
today. In this context, I am not only referring to the classical
democratic institutions - an independent judiciary, a functioning
parliament, an uncorrupted bureaucracy, democratic political
parties and a free press. An essential role in a democratic order is
also played by civil society. By civil society we mean the large
range of organizations and groups that are independent of the
state and engage in political and/or societal work. These groups
are often referred to as non-governmental organizations or NGOs.

Civil societys pivotal role
Historians of the future will surely ascertain that Egypts civil
society played a pivotal role in, at first, destabilizing the Mubarak
regime and then, in a second step, helping bring it down. But the
story does not end there. Against all the odds, civil society also
plays a crucial role in building the new Egypt as a democratic and
civil republic.
At the very center of the self-concept of civil society actors is
the role of limiting and controlling the power of the state. In
addition to the classic division of the executive, legislative and

17
judicial branches of power, civil society together with a free press
has the function of watching those in power and preventing the
misuse of their power. This mission is of particular relevance in
countries like Egypt that has emerged from authoritarian rule.
While checking and monitoring those in power is one
mission, civil society organizations also engage in promoting
political participation and educating the people about their rights
and duties. Not surprisingly these activities may lead to tension
and conflict with those in power.
Among the most distressing experiences during my stay in
Egypt has been what has become widely known as the NGO
crackdown, the assault of the Egyptian authorities against
foreign and Egyptian NGOs working mainly in the field of civic
education. While the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty
was not targeted directly (and many asked why we were spared),
the heavy handed dealing led to a deep crisis also in Egyptian-
German relations, thereby affecting our institute, at least
indirectly.
The constitution and associated laws should guarantee the
rights and freedoms of the non-governmental sector to fulfill their
assigned tasks. The status of non-governmental organizations
remains an issue of political debate and controversy in Egypt.
The government would be well advised to heed the experience of
other parts of the world - that a democracy ultimately will not be
stable unless it enjoys the support and the cooperation of civil
society.

Media revolution: a never-ending story
In the world we live in, media plays an ever-increasing role.
Technological development - you may also call it progress - has
lead to a situation in which ever-more people are using modern
mass media. While television stands at one stage of the mass

18
media revolution, the Internet has opened another chapter in an
unending story.
As more and more people spend more and more time being
exposed to media (or in the case of new social media, actively
using it), the importance of these media for society in general and
politics in particular has grown.
Throughout its almost four decades long history, media
projects have played an important role for the Friedrich Naumann
Foundation for Liberty. In addition to conventional training
courses for journalists and, at a later stage, activities for and with
bloggers and social media activists, programs aimed at discussing
the regulatory framework of the media in a liberal sense have
been among my favorites.
There exist basic differences in the role of the media in
democratic and authoritarian societies. These differences are of
particular interest for Egypt, which is in a difficult process of
transition from one order to the other. While Egyptians have
much experience with the media in the old, authoritarian order,
there is substantial debate as to how the new, democratic media
should look.
Authoritarian rulers tend to see the media as an instrument to
beautify their rule and make the people believe that all is in order.
In the media of authoritarian rulers, the opposition is either
silenced or given only marginal space. In a democratic society,
which Egypt is aspiring to become, the media is considered a
space for public communication. In this order, the media should
aim at reconciling in a peaceful manner various opinions and
interests, thereby facilitating the peaceful exchange of ideas. A
democratic media system must, by definition, reflect the
pluralism existing in society, be it in politics, in culture, in
religious terms, and so on, to name just the most relevant
differences. In this sense, the media system is a mirror of society.
And as a result, the reader of newspapers, or the viewer of
television programs, should become aware of this plurality and
diversity.

19
If you talk about the role of media in transition, you will soon
have to talk about the relationship between the state (or
government) and media institutions. In an authoritarian setting,
the influence of the state on the media is tremendous. In some
cases it is so strong that the freedom of expression is endangered,
so that journalists are forced to write or say what the political
leadership wishes to hear. In a democratic order, on the other
hand, freedom of the media is an important principle. How to
organize this freedom - in the sense that it is not exploited to
the detriment of others - is one of the challenges in establishing a
democratic media order.

No (liberal) freedom without responsibility
While freedom is a valuable good we are striving for, this
freedom should not be without limits. Freedom without limits is
not democracy, but tantamount to anarchy, a state of disorder in
which everyone behaves (or misbehaves) as she or he wants.
Democratic citizens do not like disorder. As to the media,
responsibility is one important limit to the freedom of the press.
There are other limits, such as the personal rights of the
individual, which journalists may not violate, or - on a more
general level - the rule of law.
It is a challenge to find a balance, or compromise, between
the total freedom of the media and other democratic principles
and societal considerations like the personal rights of citizens, the
rule of law, and social responsibility.
One suitable model to resolve this issue is through self-
regulation and a media code of ethics. Both mechanisms contain
elements of self-restraint or self-control on the part of the media.
It is important to highlight that in this model of self-control it is
not the government that exerts control: this would be censorship
and not compatible with a democratic and liberal order. In the
system of self-regulation the media and their associations regulate
their affairs themselves. In some countries, such as Germany, a

20
national media or press council plays an important role in
safeguarding media independence.
The Internet, meanwhile, is the biggest game changer of our
times. I cannot think of another invention or innovation in recent
memory that has had such a strong impact on the lives of so many
people as the Internet. The Internet has revolutionized the way we
communicate. This is no small matter, as communication is the
very essence of human interaction. All this has had a major
impact on our personal lives, but also on the societies we live in -
and the politics of these societies.
Seen in political context, the impact of the Internet has been
strongest in non-democratic countries. In authoritarian societies,
the flow of information is typically controlled by rulers. They
control the media and thereby effectively manage public
opinion. As a result, political dissent is channeled if not blocked
altogether.
The history of political authoritarianism is also a history of
censorship and thought control. In the ages prior to the advent of
the Internet, autocrats had a fairly easy task silencing dissent.
Quite fortunately, from a liberal point of view, this state of affairs
has come to an end with the arrival of online communications,
which - for technical reasons - is much more difficult to control
than traditional media.
The liberation of communicative channels has created the
basis for popular uprisings against authoritarian rule. There is
hardly a historical example that exemplifies this development
better than the so-called Arab Spring. It is completely wrong to
call the Arab uprisings a Twitter Revolution or Facebook
Revolution, as some superficial observers did prematurely. The
media, be it online media or traditional media, can never be the
cause of a popular uprising. However - and this is an important
point - there is general agreement that the Arab revolutions
would not have materialized as they have had it not been for the
significant role the modern communication tools played as
instruments: Internet-based applications such as Twitter,

21
Facebook and YouTube have been and continue to be sharp
weapons in the hands of those confronting authoritarian rulers.
Also in the Arab world, the Internet has become the home of
uncensored, free and independent communication. Dictators of all
shades hate such free and uncontrolled spaces; they are thorns
in their flesh.

Education matters most
In 2013, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty
celebrated the 50th anniversary of its international projects. It is
important to note that the first project outside the borders of
Germany was a training program for journalists in Tunisia. It says
a lot that unto this very day we are still active in that country and
involved in training media workers.
For more than half a century, the Foundation has cosponsored
educative programs in many parts of the world. For the most part
of this period, the Arab world and Egypt played an important
role. It is no coincidence that the regional office for the Middle
East and North Africa is in Cairo, the heart of the Arab world or -
as the Egyptians say with a touch of justified emotion - Oum Al-
Dounia (Mother of the World).
Basically, the Foundation I work for is an educative institute.
There exist various forms of teaching and learning. What we are
talking of is civic - or as we say in Germany: political -
education. Civic education is an important element for the
progress of a society. Civic education is particularly important in
a society in transition, as is Egypt and other Arab nations. In this
new phase of democratic nation building, civic education
becomes essential. The new Egypt aspires to be the democratic
Egypt of all her citizens. This poses major challenges for the
individual and society at large. To be a citizen in a democratic
polity must be learned. What I want to say is: we are not born
responsible citizens. By nature, we are not fit for a democratic
society. To remedy this situation, education, and particularly

22
civic education, plays a decisive role. Civic education is a
condition for effective and responsible political involvement, and
thus also an essential requirement for democracy.
While most, if not all, the educative programs I was involved
in throughout the years are designed for groups of people or
organizations, in the end it is the individual that counts. For me, it
has always been the most fulfilling of rewards, when at the end of
a training session or workshop a participant would approach me
and say, Thank you, I have learned something.

23
Liberal ideas in Arab history
of thought: A homegrown liberal
tradition, or imported?

Clemens Recker

Most observers would be quick to assess that liberal
traditions in the Arab world are few and far between. This seems
to be as true for political systems as for the history and diversity
of liberal political ideas and ideologies.
Until 2011, most political systems in the Arab world could be
characterized as authoritarian or undemocratic. Fresh hope rose in
the innocence of the first revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, but
soon dissipated as uprisings turned violent in Libya, Yemen and
Syria. By now, the outlook for liberal ideas and practices seems
as dull as it was before 2011. So, those observers claiming that
liberalism is alien to the Arab world seem to have been proven
right. The revolutions of 2011 and after, according to this
assessment, did not prove that there were indeed liberal
movements in many Arab countries, but rather the opposite: their
failure proved the weakness of liberalism in this part of the world.
In terms of political philosophy, the roots of Arab liberalism
are obscure to most people. To many, the Orient - to use this
catchy and unclear term - has never accepted any liberal,
progressive or modern ideas. This view, however wrong, has dug
deep into the conscience of a politically interested audience.
Montesquieu in his De lesprit des lois had few positive things to
say about the Middle East. Ernest Renan later came up with the
idea that Islam is the main culprit in the lack of open-mindedness
in the Arab world. In short, the Arab world was seen by European
intellectuals and observers to resemble a model that was anything
but liberal.

24
This was not only true for the development of political
systems, for basic human rights and political liberties, but also for
the development of a philosophy of freedom, of ideas on liberty
that would constitute a liberal current within Arab political
thought.
In modern Arab political thought, it was not liberalism that
rose to prominence.
Modern secular Arab nationalism such as embodied by
Gamal Abdel Nasser but also the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq
or the national movement in Algeria, is maybe known to people.
Equally, Arab socialism was adhered to by many of the newly
independent states following World War II. With the foundation
of the Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of Islamism, especially
since the 1980s, Islamic political thought came to be the most
important and most dangerous contester of secular, yet
authoritarian political regimes in the Arab world.
Arab liberals thus found themselves in a quagmire. They
were squeezed between what they considered two evils. They
could not support a state or a regime that was not liberal.
However, strongly opposing it gave the chance that the winner in
the end might come from the Islamist camp. This is very much
what happened during the Arab revolutions. Although liberalism
and liberals were involved, other movements came to power.
Also, historically speaking, the three ideological movements
mentioned above (nationalism, socialism and Islamism) are
related to the Arab world for good reason. Only in very few and
rather short-lived instances did Arab liberalism as a set of
political ideas translate into an actual political system, however
flawed. Egypt after 1923 might have been such an instance, or
Lebanon between independence and civil war.
Arab nationalism, socialism and Islamism, on the other hand,
did translate into actual political systems. Most of the newly
formed independent national states after World War II were both

25
nationalist and socialist; others - including monarchies - relied on
tribal solidarity, and forms of Islamic legitimacy.
But liberalism?
There is not even a proper Arabic word for liberalism. Some
call it libraliya, which is not wrong, but already sounds strange
enough to count as anecdotal evidence for the assumption that
liberalism is alien to the Arab world. In contrast to libraliya,
other political ideas managed to get proper Arabic names, such as
ishtirakiya (socialism), which is related to the notion of
participation and thus inclusivity.
Arab liberals, knowing the weakness of their own
terminology, have resorted to inventing alternative terms to coin
what they mean by liberalism. Some used Ahrar (those who are
free: plural of hurr, meaning free), but ever since Nasser and his
Free Officers (Al-Dubbat Al-Ahrar), the name was taken. Even
earlier, the great Egyptian liberal Ahmad Lutfi Al-Sayyid had
proposed the term hurriyeen (also the free ones), yet this idea did
not make it past his newspaper Al-Jarida.
Today, liberals are actually hiding behind softer and more
commonly accepted names than using libraliya outright.
Generally speaking, secularism (almaniya) is replaced by the
more moderate term of civic (maydaniya), capitalism by market
economy (as European liberals do), and generally less contested
terms are being used than librali. For instance, there are plenty of
party names that include democracy, reform but it will be
hard to find a party that bears the word liberal in its name. To
be fair, the same is true for many European liberal parties.
Ironically, it was the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that
found the arguably best solution by calling its political wing the
Freedom and Justice Party. Can you get more liberal than that?
Today, the problem is not only the lack of a proper term for
liberalism, but also of a definite and accepted meaning of the
word. For many, the term liberalism signals something close to
atheism, gay rights, liberalization of drugs and other supposedly

26
dodgy things. To be fair, the notion of what liberalism really is is
as much contested in the West as it is in the Arab world. In the
US, being liberal basically means being leftist. In Germany, as an
example, liberalism is associated with both advocacy of
capitalism as much as progressiveness on societal issues.
Our esteemed reader should be sufficiently disillusioned by
now and believe that there is no such thing as Arab liberalism.
But if that was true, why this book?
To make things short: because there is an Arab liberalism that
deserves to be discussed, promoted and supported. There is an
Arab liberalism that does not have to shy away in comparison
with liberal traditions in other countries or regions. There is an
Arab liberalism that has every right to reject accusations that are
directed against it, that it is alien, that it was imported. This Arab
liberalism has developed over centuries, actively and critically
engaging with inputs from the outside world and reactions in its
society. It played the role of a bridge, connecting the dots
between what other civilizations had used to solve their problems
with the necessities of local societies that had to be treated with
homegrown political recipes.
Interestingly, the argument of being alien and imported is
hardly applied to other ideologies, such as nationalism or
socialism, although their roots as modern ideologies should
assumingly be as European as liberalism.
What should surprise us is not that there is - in fact - an Arab
liberalism. We should be surprised that we know so little about it.
Liberalism is a set of political ideas that is usually being
developed in an illiberal environment. As we said before, there
are plenty of reasons for Arab political thinkers to turn liberal.
So, were liberal ideas imported? Yes, of course! Arab
liberalism was as much imported as any other ideology, and as
much as German, American, French, British liberalisms were.

27
There is no such thing as purity in political ideas. It is the
exchange of ideas and experiences that enriches and advances
any school of political thought.
What would German liberalism be without its inspirations
from France and Great Britain? Where did American liberalism
come from? Was not the rule of law imported from ancient
Rome? Is democracy not an ancient Greek invention?
If liberal ideas were imported in the first place, did they stay
so? No. Arab thinkers did what their colleagues had done, and
still do, in other countries: they selected, they adapted, they put
into context and they merged. They did so with creativity and
fervor.
When Rifaa Al-Tahtawi was sent to Paris in 1826 by the
Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali to accompany a mission that was
about to learn and study there, his homeland and with it the whole
Arab region and the Ottoman Empire were in a state of crisis.
Almost 30 years before, Napoleon had conquered Egypt and had
shown how advanced Europe had become in terms of weaponry,
training, logistics, technology - everything. Something must have
gone wrong in the region to fall behind and the delegation
Muhammad Ali sent to Paris was on a mission to catch up.
Upon returning to Cairo, Tahtawi wrote an account on his
stay in Paris. It contained descriptions of French and Parisian life
in the late 1820s. But he also wrote about the French political
system and this is what was to inspire generations of liberal
thinkers after him. It should be noted, Al-Tahtawi wrote, that
the French king does not yield absolute powers. The parliament
is independent; the judiciary does not follow the orders of the
king. The French system had inspired Tahtawi, who was later to
found the first Egyptian official newspaper and to head the
School of Languages from which many future Arab liberals
graduated. Tahtawis description of the French political system
became in many ways a blueprint for intellectuals in his own
society. Ironically, Tahtawi dedicated the book to his sponsor, the
Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali.

28
A generation after Tahtawi, the crisis in the Arab world and
the Ottoman Empire had worsened. While there was a certain
degree of optimism during Tahtawis time that, when
implementing the right reforms, the region would soon be back
on track and could follow and even overtake Europe, this
optimism had faded by the end of the 19th century. By then, the
Ottoman Empire had been considerably weakened; Egypt was
occupied by Great Britain, and greater parts of Northern Africa
by France. The notion of crisis had gained currency, and so did
calls for change.
Abd Al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi, for instance, related the
weakness of the Ottoman Empire to its authoritarianism and
looked at it from every possible angle: authoritarianism in
education, science, politics, finance, culture, and other domains.
The result is a strong call for liberty in the face of illiberal rule.
Qasim Amin as another example, who was one of the most
fervent advocates of the liberation of women, established a link
between the status of women in society and the countrys overall
progress. In 1899, he wrote his first piece called Tahrir Al-
Mara (Liberation of the Woman), in which he argued that men
and women have to be treated equally. He also tried to prove
from an Islamic point of view that the headscarf for women is not
compulsory.
The new situation was accompanied by the rise of a new
powerful force that was to have a strong impact on liberalism. In
the face of foreign occupying forces, nationalism began to spread
in Egypt. This nationalism had its own dynamics and forces, but
it took sides with liberalism. In the writings of Ahmad Lutfi Al-
Sayyid shortly before the outbreak of World War I, the call for
liberty is twofold. One addresses the occupying power, Great
Britain. It was England, Al-Sayyid wrote, who taught the
peoples of the world the value of freedom. Why does it deny this
freedom to the Africans? However, freedom from an outside
power is only one side of the coin. For the truly free society Lutfi
Al-Sayyid hoped for internal freedom was necessary. Egyptian

29
liberals were quick, therefore, to merge nationalist and liberal
ideas and demands into a political program that was to be
reflected in the delegation (wafd) of Egypt to the peace
negotiations in Versailles and that ultimately received at least
partial Egyptian independence in 1923.
A generation after Tahtawi, another thinker rose to
prominence that was to take on liberal ideas from a very different
angle. Muhammad Abduh (1800-1866), Islamic scholar and
formerly a radical student of Al-Afghani, tried to merge Islamic
jurisprudence and classical political thinking on the one hand, and
modern ideas such as democracy, just rule and freedom on the
other. What he accomplished was one of the most important
achievements in Arab liberal thought. How could liberalism be
alien if it was expressed in Islamic terms? Muhammad Abduh
saw modern democracy as already rooted in Islam, by the
concepts of shura and ijma. The principle of shura says that
every ruler has to consult and should listen to what his advisors or
his people tell him. Ijma is a consensus that is a principle in
Islam on the exegesis of the Quran. Of course, both concepts do
not fully or exactly reflect the modern concepts of democracy as
it was exercised at the time. What was more important, though,
was that the principle existed. Muhammad Abduh later gathered a
number of prominent disciples around him, many of whom would
become important liberal thinkers themselves.
One of them and who followed in Abduhs path to reconcile
or bring together Islamic teaching and liberal ideas, was Ali Abd
Al-Raziq. During the caliphate debate in the 1920s, he published
a book called Islam and the Roots of Governance. In this book,
Abd Al-Raziq refuted the notion that Islam was both din
(religion) and dawla (state). There were, of course, other
intellectuals who had held that opinion before, but Abd Al-Raziq
set out to refute the claim on the ground of the same arguments
and using the same instruments as those who suggested that Islam
was indeed religion and state.

30
This branch of Arab liberalism, which was concerned with
harmonizing the teachings of Islam and liberalism, achieved two
important developments at the same time. It Arabized liberalism
and it liberalized Islam.
By the beginning of the 20th century, some Arab liberals
started to rediscover the heritage of ancient Greece and Rome as
an inspiration. This was to have profound influences. It started in
the literary field when Sulaiman Al-Bustani, a Lebanese
polymath, translated Homers Iliyad into Arabic. Twenty years
later, the Egyptian thinker and intellectual Taha Hussein
published a controversial book titled The Future of Culture in
Egypt. In this book, he placed his country, Egypt, into the
Mediterranean civilization. He takes the political system of the
ancient Greek City States as a role model for Egypt. As Egypt is
part of the Mediterranean civilization, it is directly linked to its
Greek heritage. And it was in Greece where democracy was born,
Taha Hussein writes in an essay later on. Taking Greek
democracy as a model for Egypt is thus not an import from a
foreign civilization but a mere revival of Egypts own roots that
had been forgotten. This line of argumentation had a sensitive
side-effect: it more or less ignored the role Islam played in the
development and formation of Egypt as it was in the early 20th
century. If Egypt was a Mediterranean civilization and can
directly link itself to Greek and even Roman heritage, centuries
of Islamic rule in Egypt were - intellectually speaking -
insignificant. However, this way, democracy was also not an idea
that modern Europe had brought to Egypt or the Arab world.
Democracy was part of the regions very own historical heritage
and thus a revival of its own past, not a European import.
The examples mentioned and explained above show and
reflect the richness of Arab liberalism. It also clearly proves that
Arab liberals did not just express a Western concept of liberalism
in Arabic. A truly homegrown tradition did develop since
Tahtawi published his book on Paris in 1831.

31
An idea is not wrong because it comes from a different region
that had different experiences. But it is up to the Arab thinker -
people like Rifaa Tahtawi when he went to Paris - to take and
adapt what might be useful for his own country.
This is why liberalism in the Arab world had, and has, in
many ways other priorities than liberalism has elsewhere. This
was already the case in the 19th century. Arab liberals perhaps
gave more thought to the notion of just rule and the relationship
between worldly and divine affairs, between religion and state,
than Western liberal thinkers. On the other hand, Western
liberalism has focused much more on economic freedom than
Arab liberalism ever did.
Also between countries in the region, priorities of liberal
political parties differ. In some countries, for instance, liberals
want to build an impartial and functioning state. In others, the
priority lies in downsizing an overstretched government.
The task for Arab liberals has never been an easy one. By
arguing that there is a current of Arab liberalism - politically and
philosophically - one does not suggest that a landslide victory is
imminent. But one does suggest that there is a serious alternative
to those political recipes that have been applied so far.
Arab liberals today can look back to a remarkable tradition of
free and liberal thought in their own intellectual traditions. They
worked as politicians, journalists, lawyers and translators -
translating not words but meanings, not phrases but ideas.
Liberalism in the Arab world is no longer alien, because Arab
thinkers chose to engage it. In this respect, a lot has been
achieved. However, it is a task that never ends.

32

33
Did Arab liberalism fail freedom
in the Arab Spring?

Saed Karajah

Freedom came at the forefront of Arab Spring demands.
Crowds took the streets in an apparently unplanned manner, yet
expressed accumulative mass rejection of despotism and
totalitarian rule that kept Arab citizens living in a state of
isolation, fear and political absentia, depriving them of taking
part in political life for decades.
It is honest, however, to admit that the concept of freedom -
across the horizons of the Arab Spring - was not well crystalized
in the minds of the revolting masses, neither in the minds of
political and cultural elites. Arab peoples surprised their elites, as
well as they did themselves. They have not recovered from that
surprise even yet.
Arab masses took the streets in order to topple totalitarian
regimes, aspiring for freedom and a better economic life. Yet, in
their political consciousness, they did not realize the final
destination of freedom as they seized the historic moment. The
Arab people had had enough, and they revolted to put an end to
authoritarian states and leaders. But this did not necessarily mean
that the people were conscious of what to do with their acquired
freedoms, and where to go next.
For revolutions to experience setbacks is a fact of history.
The French Revolution (1789) needed 100 years to be settled as
the enlightening revolution we all aspire to nowadays. Another
established fact is that revolutions often devour their young, in
the full sense of the word. They are the first to be brutally killed
and mercilessly excluded. However, this does not change the fact
that in the reality of our Arab world in revolt, vast question marks

34
hang over liberties in general, and political freedoms in
particular. This is a matter for deep consideration; not in the way
of an analysis or perspective, but rather as an ultimate challenge
that needs to be addressed by political and revolutionary powers
in order to rescue the Arab Spring, to not let it turn against its
mass revolutionary spirit which - as I already said - sought to
eliminate totalitarianism and despotism, and to strengthen the
participation of the people in rule.
If this were to be the general duty of political powers, it then
constitutes depth, identity, and objectives for political and Arab
liberal powers, where individual and political freedoms - and
even freedoms in general - are the core and frontline of their
political actions.
This opportunity gives me not only space to evaluate the
attitudes of liberal powers towards Arab Spring events, but space
for reflection on the concept and significance of freedoms in Arab
contemporary political discourse.
If I may begin with language, it is surprising that the word
freedom or free has no comprehensive or synonymous
definition. It is a context-bound term. The free is the opposite
of the slave. The term freedom has no inclusive definition in
the Arabic lexicon, which is a reflection of pre-Islamic culture.
Poets of the pre-Islamic era expressed the concept of freedom in a
moral context, and related freedom to nobility and honor as the
far opposite of inferiority, of slavery and slaves. However, such
indications did not approach the general meaning of freedom as
the essence of human beings, and a condition for their survival.
Islam elaborated a concept of freedom, but only from a
religious perspective, and only for the purpose of setting criteria
for acts of worship. This elaboration first started with the early
Mutazilah
1
on the issue of freedom of will. But insofar as the
issue of freedom has been raised lately, it is in a political context,
as a means of resistance to the coercive mentality that dominated
the Umayyad era and that facilitated and justified despotism,

35
especially when Umayyad rulers built upon the single voice of
the ruler and freed it from any active grassroots participation.
With the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, mid-18th
century and early-19th century, Arab enlightened thinkers such as
Ahmad Lutfi As-Sayyed,
2
Imam Muhammad Abdo,
3
and others
recalled the concept of freedom as realized by the West. They
placed freedoms in the context of human nature. Lutfi As-Sayyed
even wrote: our hearts and minds refuse to be satisfied but
through freedom. Despite this foundation, the struggle for
freedom, and its reflections, remained captive, later expressed
within a human rights framework - especially womens rights.
The late liberals failed in laying solid grounds for - and
advocating - a comprehensive concept of freedoms, one based
upon non-negotiable individual freedom.
The discourse of the Arab enlightened thinkers remained - in
my view - a mere recall of Westernized freedom. They failed to
philosophically or realistically conceptualize freedom in a
manner that conforms to the exigencies of the Arab political and
social arena. Freedom remained a demand that could be
exchanged for other priorities, such as liberation from
colonialism, or eradication of poverty, or laid aside on claims of
the unpreparedness of the masses for absolute freedom.
Through the 1950s and post-50s era, totalitarian and invasive
states were established, oppressed individual freedoms and fought
against liberal parties and progressive thought. The ultimate
result was undaring liberal parties, particularly in respect to
personal and individual freedoms. One cannot disregard serious
endeavors to achieve political freedoms and participation;
however, personal and individual freedoms remained marginal in
such endeavors. Moreover, close observation reveals a recursive
retreat in personal freedoms and the rights of minorities, in
parallel with an increasing fight against individualistic ideology
and practices, which constitute pillars of the modern state.
Notions of liberty and personal freedoms, therefore, remained but
utterances on the sidelines of progressive and liberal political

36
discourse that was limited to liberalist (versus Islamist) slogans,
void of any real influence.
While political Islamist groups were promoting their own
misinterpretation of freedom, as being the adoption of
politically-interpreted Islamic laws, Arab liberals were busy
finding reconciliatory grounds for concepts of freedom and
politically-interpreted Islamic text. Thus, the struggle for
freedoms became confined within the folds of politically-
interpreted religious text, while liberal endeavors devolved to
bargaining on concepts of freedom in the Arab sociopolitical
arena. Further, freedom principles started to lean towards, and
reflect, the common grounds deemed shared with its very
adversary - the claim that freedom is no more than politically-
interpreted Islamic text; the very claim that lead to oppression of
both political and individual freedoms.
Moreover, Arab liberals complied with the rules of
politically-interpreted Islam, and took part in the so-called
ballot game. Alliances had been made between liberals and
utter exclusionists, and people had confused the ballot game with
compromising the basic constitutional rights of Arab citizens.
Even worse; by accepting such strategically unjustifiable
alliances and by compromising individual freedoms, the Arab -
Egyptian, in particular - liberals trapped themselves into the
dilemma of having to give up ballot-based democracy. 30 June
2013 is a vivid demonstration of the same. The dilemma took
shape amid the revelation of the exclusionary reality of theocrats,
their intolerance for power sharing, and when they tried to lay the
ground for building a totalitarian, authoritarian and autocratic
state that philosophically, politically, and realistically contradicts
the liberal vision of the state and its role in public life.
In fact, the lack of a comprehensive, well-defined concept of
freedoms, especially political and individual ones, and even
negotiating and compromising freedoms, led to severe distortions
in Arab politics. In Egypt, for example, civil society laws
imposed limits on the right of assembly. In Tunisia, personal

37
status laws were very progressive, compared to those of Egypt,
despite the fact that both Tunisia and Egypt were under
totalitarian, autocratic regimes.
Arab political discourse and opinion - especially the liberal
strand - has missed the full understanding of freedom. It sets
personal and individual freedoms as grounds for social and
political life, and builds upon them to accomplish economic and
political freedom, which makes it easier to sweep away personal
freedoms.
The best example is the exclusionary totalitarian rule of the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They tried to censor - or even
mute - the satire show of Bassem Youssef, and likewise did the
30 June order, which excluded the Muslim Brotherhood. Both
regimes failed to tolerate a satire-based TV show. The Egyptian
media accented its promotion of a savior and inspirational leader,
and toned up a discourse that may pave the way back to a
totalitarian, Nasser-like regime.
In truth, the situation is no surprise. The lack of a politically
enlightened and cognitive mainstream receptive to freedoms in
Arab discourse, and the absence of a cultural consensus on a
comprehensive concept for freedom as a core essence of
existence, opened the door to totalitarian rule, dispensing with the
individual on pretexts taken from the history of military juntas -
such as the priority of decolonization and critical timing.
Arab liberal powers need to understand that fighting
despotism takes place only through further freedoms and the rule
of law, and that overcoming oppression through denial of
freedoms, and stripping them, even from political opponents, will
only bring in a totalitarian regime - one that suppresses freedoms
and blows away hopes of the Arab Spring bringing individual,
political and social freedoms.
To put it in a nutshell: Arab liberal powers need to stop
politicizing liberal principles, and to be more politically rigid. In
other words, no bargains or compromises should be made to the

38
detriment of personal and individual freedoms, ownership, and
minority rights - not even under certain circumstances, or for
timely political motives. Political alliances should be made
within the context of clear agreements that do not jeopardize
liberal values, but rather ensure the continuity of Arab liberalism
in the Arab political arena.
The Arab Spring did not fail freedoms. Rather, the staunch
advocates of freedom failed it. It is time now for Arab liberal
powers to stand up and commence relentless efforts to ground
and promote a full understanding of freedom, based upon
glorifying personal and political freedoms, both for opponents
and allies, within a state of law and the rotation of power.

39

References

1-
The Islamic school of thought that adopted reasoning as a
source of knowledge.
2-
Ahmad Lutfi As-Sayyed (1873-1963) was a renowned
Egyptian liberal intellectual.
3-
Imam Muhammad Abdo (1849-1905) was an Egyptian
Muslim scholar and one of the founders of modernism in the
Arab world.

40

41
Networking for freedom and
democracy: Gathering liberal
political parties in the Arab region

Mohammed Tamaldou

When my friend Dr. Ronald Meinardus asked me to
contribute to a book that simplifies the past, present and future of
liberalism in the Arab region, and suggested that I cover the topic
from a personal perspective, highlighting the efforts and
challenges that accompanied the development of a
comprehensive organizational framework for Arab liberal parties
and organizations, I realized the difficulty and complexity of the
task at hand. It does not require a chronological arrangement of
events, a detailed narrative of obstacles and challenges, or a
simplified presentation of the different positions and approaches
adopted by this party or the other so much as it requires studying
the early manifestations - and analyzing the contexts - that
appeared with the development of an unprecedented Arab
organizational framework. These contexts posed embarrassing
questions from the beginning. We encountered a major challenge:
breaking the taboos surrounding liberalism in the Arab region.
Upon these taboos is based what is known as the Arab
exception - a concept used as a shield against democracy,
freedom, dignity, and similar values that continued to bother
Arab rulers at the time. The need for networking, cooperation,
and unifying opinions emerged, due to a common knowledge of
our joint Arab reality.
At first, when this entity came into existence, doubt was
confused with certainty, politics overlapped with security, and the
organizational aspect overshadowed the intellectual aspects.
Nevertheless, the Network of Arab Liberals was born, setting its

42
announced objectives to be protecting individual freedom,
plurality, democracy, rule of law, and enhancing market
economy. The Network of Arab Liberals was the umbrella that
turned into the Arab Alliance for Freedom and Democracy. If the
word liberalism has disappeared from the second title, this does
not at all mean that it was a rejected term. The opposite is true.
This term became widely circulated in the media, politics, and
society in the Arab region, especially amidst the Arab Spring,
which ignited two years after the establishment of the Network of
Arab Liberals. Some, rightly or wrongly, considered it a pre-
indictor for the transformation to be experienced by the region,
and upon which the values of freedom, democracy, and dignity
would be based.
For our part, it is hard now that we are close to these events
to assert whether they occurred by coincidence or in
synchronization with a group of events and developments that
this liberal organization can be a part of. In all events, analysis
and study will reveal this relation in the future.

Arab liberal thinking between originality and
Westernism
One cannot speak about Arab liberal parties and intellectual
trends without at least briefly touching upon the dilemma of the
relationship between Arab thinking and liberal thinking, and
therefore between Arab society and liberalism. Then come the
relationship structures between religion, politics and society, and
the position of freedom in such relationship structures.
Any reviewer of the interaction between the development the
Arab thinking and global thinking will notice that this
development has gone through three stages that created the
current Arab situation.
First is the stage of gaining awareness of the role - that
created liberal values - of the free, creative and active human

43
being. This stage became clear after the expansion of the Islamic
Arab world in the Arab east by the Abbasyid and Ottoman
empires. It was the same stage that was reflected at the
intellectual, social and economic levels after the expansion of the
Islamic empire in Andalusia. In these two events, Islamic and
Arab communities experienced prosperity in two different areas.
This prosperity was based on a huge margin of freedom for Arabs
that was created thanks to the vastness of the Arab empire,
breaking centralized authority, and that would allow for initiative,
creativity, and innovation resulting in the prosperity of the
sciences, raising opportunities for learning about the ideas and
experiences of other peoples and civilizations, establishing a
culture of tolerance, coexistence, and acceptance of difference.
Therefore, it can be deduced that liberal thinking is universal and
not exclusive to a specific geographical area or human group.
Arab intellectuals knew its early features before they were fully
crystalized in a system of thinking emerging in European thought.
Hence, any talk about importing this thinking from the West is
refutable.
The second stage entailed understanding the importance of
applying liberal values in developing daily life and strengthening
society. This stage became even clearer in the 19th century,
especially with the strong confrontations between Arab armies
and Western armies when Napoleon came to Egypt in 1798, and
the Isley defeat that occurred in Morocco in 1848. As a result, the
Arab existentialist question about the secret behind the victory of
the West and the defeat of the Arabs was raised. However, some
Arab pioneers in thought realized that the secret lies in the
intellectual and cultural climate, understanding the Wests
momentum as the outcome of a liberal culture that was like, as
the Moroccan researcher Abdulah Al-Arwi said, the air breathed
by whoever is aware of his personality and rights in Europe
during the 19th century.
This conclusion may be the motivation that encouraged
several Arab intellectuals, such as Muhammad Abduh, Rifaa Al-

44
Tahtawi, Qasim Amin and others, to take to Europe to find out
the truth about it.
The third stage entailed understanding the inevitability of
adopting liberal values as a mechanism for societal building. This
stage witnessed the most important obstacles, the most significant
enticements, and the most dangerous maneuvers that led to the
deliberate sidelining of liberal thinking while providing room for
thinking trends that are against it, hostile to it, and contradict it.
This stage witnessed the emergence of tyranny, subjugating all
voices calling for freedom and dignity.
For this purpose, socialists, conservatives, and others joined
forces to tighten the noose around those who embraced liberal
thinking, who were sometimes branded as infidels and at others
accused of espionage. In all cases, they were deemed aliens to the
Arab and Muslim community.
As a result, a discussion on the originality and Westernism of
the liberal trend was started. Some say it is a Western trend and
therefore does not accommodate the elements of Arab society,
making it imperative to reject it as a whole. Others said it is a
type of human thinking that is original to man, and therefore is
applicable in the Arab and Muslim community. In addition to
these two opposite positions, a third position came to light calling
for what is known as inception - i.e., the assimilation of
Western thinking into Arab thinking by building conceptual
bridges linking it to the original culture of the Arab and Muslim
community. Mostly, religious concepts were used as the bridge
over which Western liberal thought must pass, in order to link to
the original culture of the Arab and Muslim community. Such
bridges would mainly be used to clarify liberal values or to
immerse liberal ideas in religious values.
To conclude, bringing liberal thinking to the Arab and
Muslim reality was never an easy task. Networking between
liberal parties and groups in the Arab region was not at any point
a task that could be implemented in reality only by thinking about
it, and developing mechanisms to implement it.

45
The truth of the liberal political trend in the
Arab region
Speaking of the liberal political trend in the Arab region, it
basically means political plurality in the region, and therefore
freedom of expression and opinion, and the right to differ. We
understand to what extent can plurality - in the sense of multiple
trends and choices and not multiple groups and tribes - be a part
of Arab politics. Except for five or six countries, this type of
plurality cannot be seen in Arab political systems. The partisan
plurality-based liberal trend is very limited. If we include
intellectual plurality in the general list, and the ensuing freedom
of opinion, thinking and expression, along with the right to differ,
we inevitably bump into an unsatisfactory reality, especially
when busy creating a conducive environment for successfully
establishing the concept of Arab networking to defend the values
of freedom, dignity, and democracy.
I speak of this to give readers an impression of the difficulty
we experienced while working to achieve a dream whose
requirements were not available.
There were some Arab parties that embraced liberal values,
the oldest of which is Egypts Wafd Party. There was also the
Moroccan Constitutional Union, which was the first Arab party
that declared its belief in liberalism. It was also the first party to
join Liberal International. In addition to these two parties, there
were parties that were serious about their affiliation, while others
were either hesitant or experimenting with it. Moreover, some
brave figures and forums played a pioneering role in the
dissemination of the liberal trend in countries were partisan
plurality is unknown, or the conditions for founding a liberal
party are unclear. Conservatism and Islamism prevailed and the
one party or the majority party is the system used in the rest of
the Arab dictatorships. As a result, the emergence of a liberal
political trend in the Arab region was some kind of revolution
against the present situation. It was a political and intellectual

46
revolution that has made it binding to believers in this type of
thinking across the world to appreciate this unprecedented
courage, and to help disseminate liberal values in Arab
communities in particular. The Arab region has begun to attract
the attention of the international community, being a political
hotspot that is economically rich and has societal tensions the
results of which cannot be predicted.
The first sign of interest was when Liberal Internationals
executive committee convened in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2003.
It was the first time for Liberal International to hold a meeting in
an Arab country, which took place during the Iraq crisis. Interest
started to pick up with Liberal International holding two
conferences in Arab countries. The first one was held in 2006 in
the city of Marrakesh, and the second was in 2009 in Cairo.
This was what sparked the interest in networking and creating
a framework that would allow Arab liberal groups to gather and
discuss joint issues, and to meet with other members of the global
family of liberalism.

The birth of the Network of Arab Liberals
It was in Cairo in 2006 that a group of liberal parties and
groups in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) learned of a
meeting chaired by Lord Alderdice, president of Liberal
International at the time, in the same year in Marrakesh. The
Cairo meeting was attended by several groups from all countries
of the region. I met with Syrians, Egyptians from the National
Progressive Unionist Party, Yemenis, Iraqis, and Sudanese that I
did not expect to see in such a meeting. I wondered at the time if
this was a sign that they had begun to be convinced with
liberalism, or if they were just assigned to attend. In any case, this
meeting reached a number of conclusions. The first of these
conclusions was that working on a region such as the Middle East
and North Africa with its different races, sometimes different
languages (Turks), and the contradictions and gaps between its

47
political structures, would render a network of such size unable to
undertake its role. It might be enough to work on the Arab region
only, to reach the intended purposes.
This was the opinion reached in the meeting held on the
sidelines of Liberal Internationals conference in Marrakesh in
November 2006. The decision was taken to found a network to
focus on the Arab region. Ever since this moment, the liberal
family has been taking care of the new baby through Liberal
International and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
From early on, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation emerged
as a key supporter of the project, seeking to disseminate the
values of freedom, dignity, democracy, and human rights in the
Arab region. At first, it provided the necessary logistics to assist
members to structure their organizations, produce papers and
documentation to support their work, and build relations between
them and liberals across the world. Casablanca was the actual
launching point for the Network of Arab Liberals, where the first
constituent meeting was held in 2007 resulting in the birth of the
leadership and direction committee, which I was honored to
chair. It is no secret that this meeting was a screening process that
eliminated the parasites that sought to attach themselves to this
new political framework for their own purposes.
After that, meetings were held in Cairo, Beirut and Tunisia
for more deliberations and discussions before going on a trip to
some European capitals to learn about Western liberal
experiences in creating frameworks and training mechanisms.
The last stop in this process was in Al-Ein Al-Sokhna in Egypt.
Al-Ain Al-Sokhna was the real testing ground for bringing
different Arab views together in the frame of liberal reality. The
German expert who came to train us on how to draft a document
to announce our principles, set objectives, and develop an action
plan taking into account our points of weakness and strength as
an Arab group, worked hard to encourage us to embrace the
intellectual strictness and accuracy that Germans are known for.
Some of us carried a purely Arab culture, while others mixed this

48
culture with a French tinge, and others still combined it with an
Anglo-Saxon spirit. Nevertheless, he managed to deliver the
message before delegating me to translate it into reality when my
brothers chose me to chair the session for developing the
networks charter.
This was one of the most difficult and richest sessions. It
gave an early summary of the concerns of the Arab street that
would be voiced in public two years later, speaking for minorities
and women, and those who are vulnerable and persecuted
because of tyranny in the Arab world.
During this session, the problem of generalizing the
characteristic of being an Arab was presented. Non-Arabs also
reside in the Arab world. Also, the issues of the civic state,
secular state, citizenship, and others became the subject of open
discussions in Arab communities. Although the discussion was
heated, we managed to draft a joint statement upon which
everyone agreed.
1
This was our first successful step in
overcoming differences and adopting a mind-based - instead of
emotions-based - way of thinking.
I remember here that my friend Camil Chamoun said to me
after the end of the meeting, I admire your ability to turn tough
arguments to your side! My brother Makram Ebied joked: How
could you say we congratulate ourselves? Isnt this a type of
selfishness? I answered him: The Arab self is not a unified
entity yet, which is why we should ask its separate parts to
congratulate one another!

Cairo and the guided leadership test
I do not know what happens to us whenever the issue of
leadership is raised. We cannot help ourselves, and do not
measure our capacities, or assess our efficiencies before
announcing our intention to compete for a leadership post. I knew

1
The document is to be found at the end of this chapter.

49
this beforehand, and was psychologically ready for it, not because
I wanted to compete for the leadership of the Network of Arab
Liberals, but because I was prepared to form a correct opinion of
the competition for the presidency, to help me avoid going to an
extreme, becoming emotionally reckless, and submitting to
prejudices, and to use reason, prioritize public interest, and serve
the objectives of the network. As brothers are accustomed, I was
nominated to chair the general assembly session to ratify the
statute, and to democratically elect a new president and an
executive bureau. That was the second test after the common
ground test at Al-Ain Al-Sokhna.
I remember I adjourned the session for a break, in order for
members to choose candidates for the presidency of the network,
and for candidates to convince supporters. However, I felt some
coldness in the atmosphere during the break, as if it was not an
election, during which in our Arab region we are used to tricks,
plots and much screaming. While thinking about all this, my
friend Jordanian MP Mohamed Arslan requested to be given the
floor immediately after we re-enter the room, because he had a
proposal that he wanted to present on behalf of all members. I
began to realize the reason behind the coldness. They had agreed
on a name to be nominated for the presidency of the network. I
thought to myself if I should let the session follow the same
scenario as all other Arab partisan conferences, resulting in the
election of a president by group applause! I decided against this.
When we returned to the room, I deliberately ignored my friend
Mohamed Arslan who raised his hand to be given the floor. I
looked the other way asking if anyone wants to be given the
floor. Three members spoke before I returned to my friend to give
him the floor, who said that all of the brothers reached a
consensus on nominating Mohamed Tamaldou to be the president
of the network. I do not know why I was a little bothered by this
proposal. My task was to chair the general assembly - let alone
the fact that I did not nominate myself! Hence, I asked several
times if anyone wants to nominate himself. When no one came

50
forward, I agreed to put Mohamed Arslans proposal to vote and
it was a democratic consensus.
Despite this I felt uneasy. And over the two years set by
regulation to be the mandate of the president, after which he may
not run again, I tried to deal with this uneasiness.
If you remember the two key supporters I was telling you
about, Liberal International and Friedrich Naumann Foundation,
they were the first to send their congratulations on this occasion.
Lord Alderdice, president of Liberal International, said in his
message: I have been keen on supporting the development of
political work not only in your region, but in the whole world.
Within this context, I was honored to preside over the first
meeting for this network in July 2006. I felt more comfortable
when I learned that the network will be led by an experienced
liberal like you. It has made me very hopeful about the
continuous development and success awaiting the network.
Meanwhile, Dr. Wolfgang Gerhardt, chairman of the Board of
Directors of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, said: I learned of
your election as the first president of the Network of Arab
Liberals. It is great news and I congratulate you for it. I have
learned of the huge contribution you have made to bring together
liberal parties and organizations in the Arab region. I would like
to congratulate you for that. I honestly wish you the best of luck
leading this network.

Early years and outcomes: 2008-2010
Oddly, the Network of Arab Liberals came to existence at the
same time as the global financial and economic crisis. We came
to say that market economy is the only way to develop nations
and people, and that the freedom of initiative is the way to
develop peoples skills and motivate their creativity. However, a
golden opportunity came up for those claiming that capitalism
and liberalism were the cause for the economic crisis, and if the

51
market were more subject to laws and regulations, mistakes
would not have happened.
We had to face this emergency, and we did, by demonstrating
the importance of liberal positions in an event staged by the Free
Thought Forum in Jordan. My dear brother and friend, the
current president of the Arab Alliance for Freedom and
Democracy and president of the Free Thought Forum, Mr. Saed
Karajah, presented a number of specialized speakers who
proposed ways of facing the crisis from a liberal perspective in a
gathering that shed a lot of light on the implications of the crisis
for Arab economies and presented practical points with a view to
reducing the impact, and addressing the implications, of the
crisis.
I remember that my brother Mr. Karajah displayed a
characteristic that is rarely found these days: the courage to voice
his beliefs. Many of those who claim to defend established beliefs
cannot arrange a gathering under the title of liberalism in a
primarily conservative Arab community, and amidst narrow-
minded religious trends and numerous slanders and insults
against liberalism. I respected Mr. Karajah for his persistence in
organizing that gathering despite the surrounding risks. Which is
why when he approached me two or three days ahead of the
gathering requesting to hold the meeting without setting up a
banner outside of the room with the word liberalism on it, I could
not but respond positively to his request. I did not hesitate to tell
him that I understand. I remembered this while visiting Oman as
part of an international observation mission for the last legislative
elections, and seeing the heated political conflict between tribes
and how Islamists defended their position on elections. I realized
that the liberal trend in Jordan is in real need of patience and
serious work to be done by those who truly embrace beliefs and
protect principles and women.
The Arab Alliance for Democracy and Freedom supports the
message that we all carry, which is disseminating liberal values
across the Arab region. This task cannot be undertaken in a short

52
period of time, being a task that must be entrusted from one
generation to another. As a result, the network gave attention to
youth and women, and gave communication and media a large
role in the dissemination of these values. The Friedrich Naumann
Foundation managed to produce several books and allowed for
limitless electronic communications to train youth on freedoms of
expression and opinion. Out of faith in the role of the youth, we
provided space for youth who stumbled sometimes, and stood up
at others, until they became stronger and effective representatives
of liberal thinking in the Arab region. They also became field
activists who played a role in Arab activism at all levels and in
several Arab region countries.

Networking domestically and internationally
The process of exchanging ideas and experiences between
Arab countries via representatives of their liberal parties has
significantly developed. Through this process, we learned about
the truth of the situation in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia,
Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Every now and then, we
focused on regional issues from proximate perspectives. A
Maghreb seminar was held in Morocco by the Constitutional
Union on the relationship between religion and politics. It was
attended by liberal parties from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and
Mauritania. It was also attended by representatives of the Islamist
Justice and Development Party in Morocco. This was an
important step to establish liberal openness at the domestic level,
and an attempt to come up with a regional liberal vision on a
specific subject - the issue of migration. The Network of Arab
Liberals held a meeting on this issue in Tunisia, in which Arab
liberal parties produced a joint document that was presented to
the European Parliament. We interviewed a group of liberal
parliamentarians on this issue before a joint group of European
liberal parliamentarians and met with Arab liberal
parliamentarians in the city of Rabat to discuss it.

53
This meeting that was presided over by Mr. Hans Van
Baalen, president of Liberal International, marked the beginning
of Arab-European networking at the level of liberal
parliamentarians. The session held by the Moroccan parliament
was a significant indication of the importance of cooperation
between joint liberal groups to find liberal solutions to joint
issues. I hope we take this further in the future.
The most important achievement in this area was made in
Cairo when the Liberal International conference was held in
Egypt, the Mother of the World, as my friend Dr. Ronald
Meinardus repeatedly calls it in perfect Egyptian dialect. Held in
2009, it was the second conference to be held by this organization
on Arab land in no more than three years after the Marrakesh
conference. This international meeting was a true representation
of the spirit of liberal understanding on crucial Arab issues,
including the Palestinian cause. It enhanced the status of Arab
liberals in this generous country. This conference shed light on
the significant liberal and dear friend Dr. Ayman Nour,
highlighting the truth of loyalty to principles and values, and
recognizing the sacrifices made to defend values.
It was only natural for us after these steps to think of a way to
network and communicate with Liberal International in an
institutionalized manner. For this purpose, I made a proposal to
the secretary general of Liberal International to find a legal means
to make the voice of Arab liberals heard in the organizations
steering bureau, with the same applying to other regional
networks. This proposal was a reason for amending the
organizations internal laws. A clause was introduced to allow a
representative of the Arab liberal network to attend the
proceedings of the steering bureau. As a result, I gained the
opportunity to be a member in the international bureau. After the
Arab Spring, I was able to make the voices of Arab liberals heard
in the bureau and to present their visions, demands, and views of
what has been taking place in Arab countries.


54
Back to the start
In Casablanca, the leadership and direction committee of the
Network of Arab Liberals was formed. If Cairo were the place for
drafting instruments and electing a president and steering
structures, Beirut would be the place for rotating members of
these structures in 2010. The legal mandate of the elected steering
bureau in Cairo has come to an end, and new procedures needed
to be taken for holding new elections to choose a new leadership.
Some of my friends wanted me to continue and begged me to do
so - to which I responded that the regulations did not allow for
that. Some of them proposed to turn the ordinary general
assembly into an extraordinary one, to change the regulations,
and to hold another general assembly to elect a president in
accordance with the new circumstances. However, this proposal
mirrored what was being done by tyrant Arab leaders that we
used to scandalize. Given this, how could I, or we, accept that?
In any case, I went to the meeting room and announced my
resignation as president and that of the bureau in accordance with
the regulations we had originally agreed upon. The resignation
was accepted and we all got rid of the notion of the leader of
necessity that had threatened us - the leader without whom
corruption would prevail. The Network of Arab Liberals had got
rid of a deep-rooted Arab complex. After the end of the general
assembly where he gave a speech, and after the election of my
friend Wael Nawara to be the new president of the network, Dr.
Ayman Nour said: I admire your sense of deeply rooted
democracy. I would like to ask your permission to call you the
golden bracelet of Arabs.
The uneasiness I felt after my election in Cairo was entirely
gone because I did not participate in establishing an undesirable
tradition to produce Arab leaders the old way, which had nothing
to do with the spirit of democracy. It felt like liberalism was not
established enough in our conscience, which did not go beyond
the democratic mechanism to adopt an approach based on
respecting the other, recognizing his right, and the added value

55
that no one but him can present. The experience highlighted the
value of the individual, and faith in difference, which is the origin
of creativity, the source of riches, and the launching pad for
progress and development.
Hence, I felt that we have yet to realize the true deeper
meanings of liberalism. We have yet to incorporate it in our Arab
thinking. Therefore, in the beginning we had to take into account
that some of us have fully understood this type of thinking, while
others are still testing it, looking for common ground between
beliefs and new principles, while others are on a mission and are
ready to play a role. This was a reality that we faced with careful
attention that some continued to deem idiocy. I became sure of it
after the end of my mandate as president when I spoke to a
correspondent who called for denouncing the protests that erupted
in Tunisia as a result of Mohamed Bouazizis self-immolation.
That was the first spark of the Arab Spring saga, and the request
to denounce the protests was made by a liberal group.
The Arab region is today better prepared to accept the values
of liberalism and deal with them in accordance with the dignity,
freedom and creativity that the people of this region desire.
Significant efforts were made by the Friedrich Naumann
Foundation to facilitate what was achieved. Hopefully, these
efforts will not stop until we reach our dream of seeing an Arab
society that is proud of its character and features and is in tune
with the diversity and dynamism of the international community.

56
Ain Sokhna Declaration

The Network of Arab Liberals (NAL) is comprised of Arab
liberal parties and activists in the Arab world. The NAL is
committed to the principles of freedom, responsibility, pluralism,
tolerance, market economy, civil state, and the separation of religion
from state affairs. The NAL helps its members to promote liberal
reforms for a better life in peace and prosperity in the Arab world.
The Network of Arab liberals (NAL) supports its members to
achieve more democracy, and free and fair elections to overcome
authoritarian corrupt behavior and practices, and give the power to
the people in the Arab world to participate actively in politics. The
NAL knows that true democratic behavior and the rule of law will
fend off the danger of extremism and repressive regimes in our
region.
fight for private and public freedoms. The NAL wants that all
citizens of the countries of the Arab world can live without any
discrimination and repression, regardless of race, ethnicity, and
religion.
promote market economy, and competitive abilities of the Arab
world, vis a vis the current and future challenges. The network also
promotes the inclusion of the economies of Arab countries within
world economy, to enable these economies to achieve prosperity and
the fairest distribution of national wealth.
The NAL members are upright, brave, dedicated, credible, and
experienced in all forms of reform in the countries of the Arab world.
With its international ties the NAL is an important factor for
defending the Arab world interests in the international community to
overcome the unfair double standard oriented behavior of some
international powers.

57
The NAL invites all liberal parties, institutions and personalities
who believe in liberal values, and have the conviction to political
reform to join or support the NAL to bring peace, freedom,
democracy and prosperity to our Arab world.

58

59
Liberalism in Lebanon:
Foundations and obstacles

Hassan Mneimeneh

Unlike other Arab states, Lebanon enjoys a political
composition that stands upon liberal foundations. Observers find
liberal principles well presented in the preamble and provisions
of the Lebanese Constitution, an indication that the founding
fathers of Lebanon desired it to be saturated with liberal values;
not only culturally and economically, but also politically. It is no
mistake to say that liberalism is a cornerstone of the Lebanese
system and Lebanese society as well, both in ancient and modern
times.
This fact has been reflected in the behavior of the Lebanese
people, whose creativity and initiative have always been basic
merits in their daily routine, and their political and cultural
environment. The Lebanese people have always been the first
among Arab states to catch up with world changes, and the first
to engage with the newest political and ideological updates,
which shows a reality colored with liberally-based and liberally-
powered resilience.

Liberalism in the Lebanese Constitution
The Lebanese Constitution preamble builds a firm conviction
that the Lebanese system is a liberal one, in the full sense of the
word, and that liberalism serves as the pillar of the Lebanese
system and protective umbrella for religious diversity. Liberalism
in the Lebanese Constitution safeguards Lebanese minorities,
preventing any political or sectarian majority from exercising
dominance over minorities.

60
The preamble clearly states: Lebanon is a parliamentary
democratic republic based on respect for public liberties,
especially the freedom of opinion and belief, and respect for
social justice and equality of rights and duties among all citizens
without discrimination.
It also provides that: Lebanese people are the source of
authority and sovereignty; they shall exercise these powers
through the constitutional institutions.
Regarding economy, it is clearly stated in the Lebanese
Constitution that, the economic system is free and ensures
private initiative and the right to private ownership.
Moreover, the charter provides equality among all Lebanese,
providing that: Lebanese territory is one for all Lebanese. Every
Lebanese has the right to live in any part of it and to enjoy the
sovereignty of law wherever he resides. There is no segregation
of the people on the basis of any type of affiliation, and no
fragmentation, partition, or colonization. It adds: All Lebanese
citizens are equal before law. All citizens equally enjoy their
political and civic rights, and bear their public duties and
responsibilities without discrimination.
The Lebanese Constitution also safeguards freedoms in a
decisive and direct manner. It provides in Article 8: Individual
liberty is guaranteed and protected by law. No one may be
arrested, imprisoned, or kept in custody except according to the
provisions of the law. No offense may be established or penalty
imposed except by law.
Further, Article 9 stipulates: There shall be absolute freedom
of belief. The state in rendering homage to the Allah Almighty
shall respect all religions and creeds and guarantees, under its
protection, the free exercise of all religious rites provided that
public order is not disturbed. It also guarantees that the personal
status and religious interests of the population, to whatever
religious sect they belong, is respected.

61
The Lebanese Constitution attentively refers to education,
freeing it from the control of the state. It stipulates in Article 10:
Education is free insofar as it is not contrary to public order and
morals and does not interfere with the dignity of any of the
religions or creeds.
Article 11, in turn, addresses freedom of expression in an
explicit manner: The freedom to express ones opinion orally or
in writing, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, and
the freedom of association are guaranteed within the limits
established by law.
Ownership, as well, is emphasized in a liberal manner in
Article 14, which states: Rights of ownership shall be protected
by law. No ones property may be expropriated except for
reasons of public interest, in the cases established by law and
after fair compensation has been paid beforehand.
With such a plenty of dense liberal-based texts, there is no
room for doubt that the political system in Lebanon is well
established upon liberal bases and foundations. The Lebanese
Constitution has left no single liberal principle not explicitly and
directly provided within its terms. This means that the core of the
Lebanese system, and Lebanese identity, was established by
intention upon liberal foundations. Liberalism has always been
the ultimate goal of the Lebanese system, and the base of any
political activity or legislation.
Probably it was due to the flexibility of its political system,
and by fostering liberal values that promote and encourage
tolerance and coexistence, that Lebanon has successfully
sustained its national peace and social integrity in times of
extreme hardship. Thanks to the wide spread of liberal values,
which nurture diversity and plurality, no antagonistic or
totalitarian ideology has grown or flourished in Lebanon.
To liberalize the Lebanese system, therefore, is not the goal -
neither to float liberal values in Lebanon. That would be in vain.

62
The real challenge is to address obstacles that stand against
enhancing the liberal mood and culture in Lebanon.

Dilemma of liberalism in Lebanon
Liberalism is not a strict ideology; neither is it a strict
partisan order. As mentioned, it is rather a rights approach and a
general framework for any activity, be it individual or social,
cultural or political. That simply means that not every Islamist
is necessarily anti-liberal, while not every irreligious person
is necessarily liberal. Anti-religious despotism is not liberal.
Also, religious enlightenment - whether Islamic or Christian - that
respects and fosters rights may include a vehement liberal
approach. Like, for instance, the Justice and Development Party
of Turkey.
The poor performance of the so-called liberal powers is one
of many problems liberalism faces in the Arab region,
particularly Lebanon. Those liberal powers have limited their
liberalism to populist discourse in an attempt to mobilize people,
yet real liberal values and principles are absent from their practice
and political agenda.
Another problem is the dominance of identity discourse,
which focuses on cultural and intellectual invasion and regarding
liberalism as an alien imperial ideology while liberalism is a
rights approach that does not only limit the despotism of local
authorities, but also curbs imperialism itself, and abolishes any
excuse for a given state to colonize or manipulate another state,
considering such actions a flagrant violation of fundamental
human rights.
What is required is a well-tailored, mature sensitization
campaign on liberalism. Liberalism should not introduce itself as
an alternative to established intellectual or political movements;
neither should it be conceived nor practiced as political parties
competing with others over power. Rather, liberalism needs to be

63
introduced as a human rights system and set of principles,
establishing a framework for social and partisan solidarity,
political order, and any other human activity. The more
awareness is raised, the closer society gets to a liberal reality and
framework. The more liberalism is limited to be a mere political
opponent, the further society gets from the essence of liberalism,
and the deeper the despotic mentality goes.
Liberalism is not a political agenda. Liberalism is rather a
lifestyle, not enthusiastic slogans that respond to populist or
urgent needs. It is meaningless to say that a liberal party exists
among other political parties, because real liberalism requires its
deep philosophical implications to be present inclusively, not
only in a group or party. Liberalism is a general framework for
the whole of society, demanding every single individual comply
with its values and principles.

Obstacles to liberalism in Lebanon
Obstacles to liberal awareness in Lebanon include:

i. Structure of Lebanese system
The Lebanese system does enjoy a liberal essence, but the
Lebanese Constitution itself can be regarded as one of the biggest
challenges to liberalism. This is because of the conflicts the
constitution includes, in articles that are not so much counter to
liberalism per se, but yet might imply a conflict in their
application in Lebanese life.
The most challenging obstacle is sectarianism. Historic
sectarian components have been transformed by the system into
detached self-centered political blocs that moderate their own
social, cultural and religious affairs away from state control,
rather than being well-established social and traditional
components that have a doctrine-based religious structure.

64
The constitution, for example, stipulates that Muslims and
Christians are to be equally represented in the Chamber of Deputies,
with proportional seat distribution among confessional groups of the
two religious communities in a manner that guarantees fair
representation of all confessional groups in the formation of the
cabinet. Grade One posts shall be equally distributed between
Muslims and Christians.
Such provisions established a sectarian political reality.
Although these provisions were meant to be transitional, as
stipulated, they turned out to be static and a main feature of
public life.
Moreover, the constitution referred individuals to external
sectarian references to control them, confine their freedoms, and
limit their choices. Thus the constitution provides confessional
groups with full independence in managing their internal affairs.
It stipulates that: autonomy of confessional groups has its
historic roots and became a well-established tradition in the social
and political history of Lebanon. It is a main pillar upon which
the Lebanese system is established. Confessional groups
independently manage their personal status affairs. This led a
political society made up of sects, each of which represents an
organic unit in the state structure. Confessional groups do not
only enjoy judicial, administrative and legislative independence
from the state; even more, they take part in structuring the state
through their representatives role in composing and facilitating
institutions.
It is not our goal to highlight the imbalance caused by
political confessionalism in Lebanon, but rather to draw attention
to the fact that the confessional structure in Lebanon curbs
individual freedoms and hinders stabilization of natural non-
alienable human rights.
Confessionalism curbs the states capacity to perform its role
in protecting the individuals rights and providing means for the
individual to achieve his goals. Further, confessionalism has
turned into a tool used by every confessional group to serve its

65
interests, to imprison individuals within these interest systems -
which even take the shape of institutionalized mafia at times -
and create obstacles to those who do not belong to them.
One outcome is that Lebanon has become a fragile, lame-
duck state unable to protect itself from the hegemony of external
powers that manipulate its internal dynamics, depleting its
resources, to besiege individuals, limit their freedoms, and
penalizes them if they get disobedient - all under the nose of law
and traditions.

ii. Societal composition
Liberalism in the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon, suffers
from the dominance of traditions in society, and in family
relations. Tradition, in this context, does not mean Islam, which is
a victim of traditions in many cases (especially newly emerging
traditions that prevent Islam itself from responding to the
requirements of contemporary life).
It is true that traditions protect sustainability and transfer a
societys set of values through the generations, which ensures
dynamic stability. But dilemmas occur when traditions become
calcified and unchangeable, blocking the capacity to develop in
parallel and cope with major changes and updates that take place
everywhere. This may cause society to stiffen in turn, presenting
a hurdle to its advancement. Dilemmas emerge between what is
old and what is new, what is historical and what is modern, and
between what is authentic and what is contemporary. Without
satisfactory settlement, or an ability to overcome hard binaries,
forward momentum grinds to a halt.
Elimination of traditions is not the target, of course, but
rather moving them into a new arena, one that can contain new
human rights successes and merge them into the fabrics and
lifecycles of traditions. This includes individual freedoms and

66
lifting restrictions on human rights in general, regardless of
gender, class, race or religion.
Another dilemma is to be added to dominance of traditions in
society: the confessional composition of society. Confessionalism
is far more complex than simple religious affiliation. It is not
about sets of institutional and social relationships based upon
religion, but rather a form of fanaticism with internal political and
hierarchal order, and social inwardness, like a sealed wooden
chest. All members of a given sect are expected to uphold the
same attitudes and mentality, and any deviation or difference
from the norm punished in various ways, from censure and
exclusion to murder.
Therefore, the dilemma of Lebanese liberals contrasts with
the dilemmas of liberalism in neighboring Arab states. At the
time liberalism in the Arab region was about introducing
constitutional and institutional safeguards to protect national and
religious groups from the power and dominance of the state,
liberalism in Lebanon was concerned rather with finding
safeguards to protect both the individual and the state from the
hegemony of confessional affiliations and sectarian fanaticism.
As a result, Lebanons political life lacks an inclusive public
sphere and awareness with the role of state as a legal entity, and
misses the minimal commonalities that build up an inclusive
national culture - an essential requirement to sustain a unified
society rather than a divided one.
Due to all of these reasons, the modern history of Lebanon is
a history of confessional groups, not one of a unified political
entity attempting to accumulate its experiences and to correct and
improve its performance, reinforcing its centralism and
sovereignty.
The dilemma of liberalism in Lebanon is that the individual is
the victim of societys culture, which does not encourage free
initiative or release the internal powers of human beings. The
individual falls victim to sectarian and confessional affiliation,
which curbs individual freedoms. When the individual resorts to

67
his group to protect him from slavery, or at least marginalization,
at the hands of the state, he suddenly finds himself a slave of a no
less savage entity. Confessional groups started to establish their
own systems of penalties and rewards, their own centralities and
security apparatuses with powers outweighing even the power of
the state itself. Channels for free expression almost vanished, and
no shelter could be found from the new despotism.
One could say that in Lebanon two parties threaten the
individual and confiscate his freedoms: confessional groups, and
the state based on confessional structure. The hegemony of the
two parties will only be lifted through the revival of civil society,
which creates free and open space for creativities to emerge with
inter-sectarian voluntary activities, to act as a protection from the
hegemony of the state, and as well from the over-dominance of
confessional affiliation.
Civil society is the missing element in our Arab and Lebanese
reality, through which the individual may restore his individuality
away from his cultural affiliation, and broaden his channels for
expression. Civil society is the individuals opportunity to remove
the margins of the non-state and to redraw the boundaries of his
state, impact its performance and limit its powers.
However, it is worth underlining that civil society cannot
emerge in a weak state, or develop in a non-existing one. Civil
society is the child of balanced powers within the state. It cannot
be the outcome of states destruction, deterioration, or
destabilization; it is rather the outcome of a well-defined relation
with the state. This establishes the state and civil society as
requisites for each others existence, and makes the ultimate
result of their absence an infinite state of sectarianism.

iii. Absence of supportive liberal powers
The current challenge is not about existence or absence of
liberal movements in Lebanon, but rather in ones willingness to

68
be liberal, and ones desire to take reality into the broad liberal
space. The question of liberalism is a question to ones self, and
the main challenge is the ability to change, and having genuine
will to change.
This is a process that will not take place automatically and
spontaneously; it rather needs supporting powers, to be enlisted in
the political, cultural and social agenda, without bargains for
political deals or ministerial posts, and without waiving human
rights - no matter what consequences may take place, or how
powerful traditions and backwardness are.
Liberal movements in Lebanon and the Arab world need to
take an aggressive stance, in well-tailored performance that puts
into consideration present conditions and possibilities, in order to
stabilize the de facto liberal reality in political life, and further in
all aspects of public and private life. To do this, clarity of visions
and objectives must exist; there should not be any hesitation
pressing such visions or objectives, and neither any retreat under
pressure of those who do not understand the real meaning of
liberalism, or those who antagonize, casting liberalism as an anti-
religion approach. They want nothing but to serve their own
narrow interests after realizing that liberal culture would free
individuals from their control and dominance, giving birth to an
active, flexible and creative reality instead of the stifled,
dysfunctional reality that exists at present.

The liberalism we understand, and aspire for
The liberalism we understand and aspire for in our Arab
space, particularly for Lebanon, can be identified by the
following merits and characteristics:


69
i. Liberalism is a human achievement
Liberalism lifted all forms of dominance over humans and
strengthened the faith in the individuals ability to challenge his
destiny, determine his future, manage his life, and take his own
decisions. Liberalism has broadened the space for mans
existence, and diversified his choices. Moreover, liberalism has
passed to man the responsibility of realizing his goals, and rather
making a whole world - not alone, but with help of other fellow
individuals. In other words, in terms of liberalism, a man is as
responsible for others as he is for himself.
Liberalism, in this sense, calls for the elimination of all
obstacles to achieve ones goals, and elimination of fake
authorities - those standing on lies. No one, therefore, shall have
control over another, except within limits of necessity, such as
guardianship over minors till age of maturity. No economic
power shall be used as a pretext for exceptional controls. No
political power shall be transferred through inheritance. Power is
acquired by consent of everyone, only through liberal-based
democratic mechanisms. Similarly, no one shall have control over
the values and religious principles of society. All members of
society participate in interpreting these values, modifying them,
or even creating new ones. All individuals have the right to
understand and interpret their religion, given that all necessary
qualifications are provided.

ii. Liberalism means unleashing individual and
group initiative
Liberalism believes in individual creativity and innovation. It
is necessary to provide an enabling environment for such
creativity, and to remove all barriers in order to savor its fruits
and outcomes. Free initiative is not limited to freedom of trade
and materialistic production; it rather includes all domains where
man can express himself, explore nature, and develop

70
communities. It is our role to encourage creativity, to develop
talent, and to raise-up persons longing for innovation and
exploration. We aspire for a dynamic society that does not live by
memories but rather looks forward to the future.

iii. Liberalism means a set of natural rights for
individuals
Natural rights cannot be retained, limited, or stripped away.
This set of rights is a core component of human beings identity.
Philosophers of the Classical Age referred to this set of rights as
including rights of ownership, freedom, and security, and a
human rights package can be added as well as a universal value
all individuals are entitled to have and sustain. Add to that also
human dignity, which was the spark for the latest Arab uprisings.
Advocating these rights is not about slogans; it is our target to
integrate them in any legal interpretation, or include them in any
constitutional amendment. It is our target also to refine our legal
system, as well as our cultural system, from anything that may
counter such rights.

iv. Liberalism means that man is the ultimate goal
of a state
Man must be the end, or goal, of all values. Man is the source
of legitimacy for all powers. Everything must serve mans needs,
not otherwise. Everything must be working for mans best
interest, happiness, and perfection.

v. Liberalism means that the states job is limited to
securing the interests of its individuals
Building individuals capacities, and to empower them to be
productive effective members of society, is central to liberalism.

71
Any power that overweighs the interests of individuals - or the
interests of society as a group of individuals - shall be
meaningless. Liberalism is not only about rejection of despotism
and absolute powers, it rather rejects all sorts tradition-driven
powers, or disguised despotism that comes out from the heart of
democracies, such as majority despotism.

vi. Liberalism is the absolute guarantee for real
democracy
The democratic process can easily be manipulated,
transformed to become null and void. Liberalism requires a
democracy that is not a mere interface for power possession.
Democracy, from liberalisms perspective, is strictly linked to
maintaining all peoples rights. In the liberal view, the end goal
of democracy is not power, but rather expressing peoples minds
and aspirations, and protecting their interests and rights.

vii. Liberalism means that society joins the state in
decision-making and public sphere management
Individuals have the right to build voluntary and free
associations, through which all aspects of public life can be
addressed, in case the state fails to, or in case society can
contribute more effectively. This may include charities, social
solidarity, family support, and human rights lobbies. Liberalism
believes that society, through its internal dynamics and
institutions, is capable of balancing the states powers, and even
limiting them, while contributing to the creation of enabling and
humane productive spheres.

viii. Liberalism provides that the individual is an
integral part of society
An individual shares with others identity, culture and values,
while having his own private sphere apart from society. An

72
individuals affiliation with a group or sect, or a religion, does not
mean the creation of a surrounding out of which he cannot go.
Affiliation and belonging are pointless if coerced or imposed.
Affiliation and belonging must come as free will and desire. So,
individuals enjoy freedom of movement within their societies,
and are entitled to build free associations as added affiliations.
Social identity is not a closed circle; it is rather an interactive
dynamic, and is not limited to one form, but rather is an ongoing
renewed being. In a liberal atmosphere, therefore, no social or
cultural identity has the right to confiscate the individuals will,
or limit his choices, or strip away his rights to be unique and
different, even within the narrow circles of affiliations - let it be
family or tribe, village or city, sect or religion. Affiliation is
everyones right, and at the same time, no individual should be
forced into an affiliation or belonging against his own will. The
right to join a group, a party, a religion, or a social organization,
must be preserved and protected as a part of mans natural rights.
It is a voluntary and free decision to be part of a group, and must
never be forced or coerced.

ix. Liberalism means protecting everyones right of
belief
Under liberalism, everyone has the right to practice rites he
believes in, providing necessary protective measures for him to
do so and preventing persecution because of beliefs. Liberalism is
not a new religion - this must be stressed - and is not here to
compete with other religions. Liberalism is a rights approach that
works for the protection of all believers, defending their right to
freely choose their beliefs and preventing anyone from imposing
their choices on others. Liberalism is not here to reject a
conviction, or to judge an ideology, simply because it is not a
cognitive system or scientific research methodology. In the first
place, liberalism is a rights approach to human activity, and it
provides the best environment for human creativity and
effectiveness.

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x. Liberalism is not a way out of religion
Neither is liberalism a step above religious values, as some
may unknowingly promote. Liberalism respects mans beliefs and
choices. However, there is a problem in stiff interpretations of
religions, and not religions per se; the dilemma of encountering
mentalities that try to narrow religion to a single interpretation.
That is the ancestral mentality. They refuse to listen or to see the
updates surrounding them, intentionally or unintentionally. They
want to suppress all intellectual and scientific thinking of new
horizons, because this may harm their positions as the guardians
of belief, and will reveal how narrow minded they are. Liberalism
releases mans creative faculties to better understand and make
new methodologies that would go deeper into facts and
knowledge. The same applies to religion, where responsible, not
absolute, freedom helps finding new tools for understating, and
helps creating critical mentalities to better understand how
religious texts will serve our lives, not our ancestors lives. Islam
enjoys a vibrant spirit that will never be sensed and lived without
having a similar spirit in mind and mentality. This can only be
achieved through liberalism, which is keen on unleashing mans
powers, including his powers of spirit and mind.

xi. Liberalism means ongoing development and
productive economic mobility
There has always been confusion between liberalism and
capitalism. They are completely different. It is true that liberalism
supported accumulation of capital, in the early 19th century,
when it first started. Yet, that was for the purpose of launching
new individual initiative, and stabilizing the individuals right to
employ his wealth and work in whatever way he may desire.
However, capitalism reached an oversized aggressive limit that
required liberals themselves to confront and challenge capitalism,
calling for reasonable limits on it and the fair redistribution of
wealth. Even more, neoliberalism adopted social justice as its

74
slogan. When the focus of liberalism comes first on the
individuals right to invest his own financial and intellectual
properties, this means keenness on having a sustainable and
dynamic economic movement. It does not stumble except by the
state putting its hands on production and trade, which may detach
the individual from his creativity. The generators of development
break, and recession sets in.

xii. The objective of liberal parties is to consolidate
society under universal human values
Universal values lift cultural barriers among peoples,
allowing gaps to be bridged. National identity is the pivot, not
sect or memory or history, despite their significance. Human
depth and solidarity is the core, along with the sacred right to live
in a dignified manner.

xiii. Liberalism means sharing the worlds
problems and crises
Liberalism does not to limit itself to cultural or geographic or
religious privacy. As long as the target is to free man, and to
unleash his internal abilities, liberalism is a universal concern.
The concern is to develop the whole world, not only ones limited
surroundings, and to eliminate ignorance, fanaticism, poverty,
and dictatorships everywhere. This is the liberal approach to
providing man with a universal identity, to be shared by
everyone, particularly those who believe in mans pricelessness.

This is our liberalism. This is what we want to accomplish in
Lebanon and share with the rest of the world. This is our pass into
a dynamic world, and our key to making our modern and
contemporary history.

75
The struggle for liberalism
in Tunisia

Houda Cherif

Liberal philosophy in the history of Tunisian political
thinking traces its roots back as far as the 14th century and the
scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). The Tunis-born intellectual
held progressive views on politics, justice and free economy,
regarding tax policy, production, the role of the state and private
property. He inspired many others.
In the mid-19th century, Ibn Khalduns theories were adopted
and developed by Kheireddine Ettounsi (1822/3-1890).
Kheireddine put forward the concepts of freedom, equality,
democracy, and individual rights. One may say he laid the ground
for a Tunisian liberal philosophy. Kheireddine acquired a good
understanding of the West through his visits to Europe and his
four years residence in France (1852-1856) after which he
returned to Tunisia to advocate individual liberty and underline
its importance to achieving progress.
Kheireddine Ettounsi became prime minister in 1873 and was
the first Tunisian leader to urge for a compromise between the
nations heritage and openness to Western civilization. He
believed that the problem of underdevelopment could be
overcome by creating a modern system in which freedom is the
prerequisite to ensure economic growth. He also propagated that
the European economic model could be emulated, although it
needed to be adapted to Tunisian specificities; that change should
respect Tunisian traditions and take into account the Arab-Islamic
identity of the country. He believed that liberal ideas are
compatible with Islam, which also called for freedom, respect of
belief and encouraged trade and good governance.

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So there exists a call for a Tunisian liberalism since the end
of the 19th century. For Kheiredinne, blind copying of Western
concepts would be dangerous and produce negative effects. He
called for reform of the administration and the modernization of
laws allowing for more freedom. He also believed education is
the best way to achieve these aspirations. In 1875, Kheireddine
founded the Sadiki School. Eventually, he retreated for seven
years to put down all his knowledge and theories in a book he
titled Akwam El-Masalek fi Maarifati Ahwal Al-Mamalek (The
Surest Ways to Know About the State of Nations). There, he
described life in European countries and his admiration for
Europes lifestyle, expressing the need for Western democracy
where rulers are responsible to an elected assembly. Kheireddine
called for urbanization and the introduction of the banking
system.
Since the end of the 19th century, and with the beginning of
direct European interference in the affairs of Tunisia, there was a
growing presence of liberal thinking. However, this did not
appear in a systematic or well-defined manner and was also not
adopted by ideological movements or political parties. Freedom
was the basic tenet of a new class of thinkers. This concept was
present in the writings of the main leading reformers who
promoted political freedom and called for the right of the people
to choose their rulers and for the necessity to draft a constitution
that would guarantee individual rights and set a path to
democracy.
In 1920 came the birth of the Free Tunisian Constitutional
Party (Al-Hizb Al-Horr Al- Destouri Al-Tounsi), which I
consider the first Tunisian liberal party. This coincided with the
birth of a national movement against French colonialism. In spite
of their poverty and their simple and primitive weapons,
Tunisians began to fight against the French who had occupied
Tunisia since 1881.
Newspapers appeared and linked the leaders of the national
movement and the people. Numerous associations that declared

77
themselves anti-colonial flourished. These were first signs of
hope for freedom of speech and opinion, and eventually even
national independence.
The Free Tunisian Constitutional Party (known in short as the
Destour Party) emerged from The Movement of Young
Tunisians and demanded the establishment of a constitutional
system, the separation of the three powers, and freedom, equality
and compulsory education.
Unfortunately, in 1934, the party split into two - the old and
the new Destour parties. While the first - the Old Destour Party -
called for a return to Arab-Muslim traditions, the latter put
Tunisias independence and modernization as its main goal.
Tunisia celebrated her independence in 1956. Soon after, a
Constituent Assembly was elected and tasked with developing a
new constitution that the sovereign - at the time Lamine Bey -
promised to proclaim without modification. Meanwhile, the
Court deliberated several reform decrees during meetings of the
Council of Ministers. Among these was the Personal Status Code
of 13 August 1956, which gave Tunisian women many rights and
a unique status in the Muslim and Arab world. It also marked
Tunisia as a country that seriously strived for modernity.
The monarchy was abolished by the Constituent Assembly on
25 July 1957, and on that day the first Tunisian Republic was
declared. Then Prime Minister Habib Bourguiba was appointed
president and his government reaffirmed commitment to the
realization of national sovereignty and the modernization of
society, focusing on three axes: politics, society, and culture and
education.
In due course, the main state institutions were Tunisified:
namely, the national security apparatus, the diplomatic service,
the judiciary, the administration and the staff in the governorates.
The new government also strived for monetary independence
through the establishment of the Tunisian Central Bank and the
creation of a national currency, the Tunisian Dinar, in late 1957.

78
That year also saw the birth of public schools, which were
new, modern and free of charge, and that aimed at eradicating
illiteracy.
Until the early 1960s, the Neo Destour Party defended liberal
principles and traditions: the idea of a free civil society governed
by a constitution that clearly outlines the limits of government
and protects the citizen from the abuse of power. However, 1962
marks a drastic shift when the national council of the Neo
Destour Party proclaimed the adoption of socialism, and - only
one year later - declared a one-party system. In consequence, all
political activities outside the new one party framework were
banned.
While socialism was soon to fail in Tunisia, one party rule
continued for many years.
On the economic level, the 1970s were characterized by the
dominance of quasi-liberal economic policies that gave priority to
economic efficiency through government investment and
incentives for foreign investment. Politically, Tunisia entered a
phase of isolation with strong limitations on the freedom of
expression, and also political marginalization.
After Bourguiba fell ill in 1975, the question of his
succession dominated the political scene. Opposition movements
flourished in response to Bourguibas continued refusal to accept
political pluralism and an autonomous civil society. This led to
the beginning of social turmoil and the rise of Islamism.
The emergence of fundamentalism (or the religious right)
threatened liberal achievements and modernist efforts and pushed
Bourguiba towards adopting repressive measures. Thus his long
reign, which had begun in an atmosphere of liberalism, ended in a
climate of harsh struggle against the rise of Islamist ideology.
In the midst of this, Minister of Interior Zine Al-Abidine Ben
Ali proclaimed himself the Savior of the Republic and led a
fierce struggle against the Islamists, which in fact actually
increased their number and consolidated their ranks.

79
At the beginning of his reign, Ben Ali promised real
democratization. He canceled the life presidency, limiting it to
three terms, and proclaimed a law allowing for the creation of
political parties. In 1994, the legal opposition entered the
Chamber of Deputies. Ben Ali then announced a constitutional
reform that would allow party leaders to run for president.
While Bourguiba had failed to make of Tunisia a country of
rights, liberties and democracy, Ben Ali excelled in faking the
same. He created an illusion. His 23-year rule made of Tunisia a
country of repression, corruption and total degradation of
education; a country where the people had lost all confidence in
their rulers, and where political parties were useless and served
mostly as decor.
Following 14 January 2011, Tunisia experienced an
explosion of ideologies and the emergence of more than 100
political parties of various tendencies. The long-awaited dream of
political pluralism became a full-fledged reality. In normal times,
political parties serve two purposes. Theyre either in power and
run the government or they are in opposition and develop
alternate proposals expressing and representing the dissatisfaction
of voters unhappy with their rulers. After 14 January, political
parties found themselves in neither the first nor the second
position. Their responsibilities in this difficult phase of transition
to democracy were not clear.
With no party in power after the dissolution of the former
ruling Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD), they could not
operate as opposition. They then placed themselves as
spokespeople of multiple political and ideological circles. They
represented different categories of Tunisian society, stimulating
public political debate. All this was done with an eye on future
elections and a desire to attract voters. Tunisias political
spectrum was getting more and more complicated with political
actors increasing at an extraordinary pace. The new wind of
freedom revealed a society rich in ideas, projects, and programs
of various orientations. They seemed to have one common

80
denominator: a free and democratic Tunisia. This we could see
from the similarity in the names of different political parties, but
also looking at their programs and goals. At some point, we were
faced with a total mix up of ideologies within one and the same
party. Apart from one or two parties who openly declared
themselves as liberal, most other parties defended liberal ideas
but did so using different hats - such as democrats, social
democrats, center parties, and many others.
On 23 October 2011, 1,500 lists with 11,000 candidates from
27 constituencies stood for election. A fierce campaign had
preceded this historic event. In this political setting, liberalism
was among the first victims. Many voters associated liberalism
with reckless freedom, wild liberalism, and even imperialism.
Others identified it with decadence in Western societies, or with
drugs and prostitution.
Just after the revolution, the following parties professed to
foster liberal ideas:
The Maghrebi Liberal Party (later the Maghrebi Republican
Party) advocated interdependence between representative and
participatory elements of democracy and, in its program, gave
particular importance to the youth, women and Tunisians abroad.
It said it would promote the liberal values of freedom of
expression and free enterprise and urged the elimination of all
forms of inequality, exploitation and alienation.
The Social Liberal Party promoted freedom and human
rights, the protection of minorities, the abolition of the death
penalty and support for just causes such as the rights of the
Palestinians. For them, social equity was an important issue also.
The Young Democrats Party advocated freedom, equality and
the rule of law and called for the defense and promotion of
human rights and multiculturalism. The Young Democrats
supported a middle way between a free and planned economy and
a fairer distribution of national wealth.

81
Afek Tounes party called for the protection of individual
freedom and in particular the freedom of expression, freedom of
association, freedom of faith and freedom of opinion. The party
promoted the necessity of establishing rule of law with an
independent judiciary defending the fundamental rights of
citizens. Afek Tounes called for the separation of powers and for
a state-regulated economy based on an equitable distribution of
wealth.
The Social Centre Party called on all Tunisians to gather
around liberal and modern social values. The party promoted the
idea of a true democracy taking into account the economic, social
and cultural development of the Tunisian people. As with the
other parties, this group expressed total commitment to human
rights as established by international law and sought to install a
spirit of fair and effective competition between different actors in
the economic field. The party also made an equitable distribution
of the countrys wealth among all citizens a demand.
The National Movement for Justice and Development did not
deny adhering to an Islamist ideology, claiming it presents the
ideas of Ibn Khaldun. The party encouraged private initiative and
the rule of justice. It advocated an Islamic economy and
encouraged private investment to reduce disparities and promote
solidarity.
It is apparent that all these parties call for freedom, equality,
human rights, a constitutional state, democracy, free and fair
elections and a - more or less - regulated liberal economy,
respecting individual rights, social justice and the specificities of
Tunisian society.
However, in Tunisia, liberalism remains a very controversial
concept. One explanation is that this could be related to the nature
of the Tunisian people who tend to act differently when it comes
to the private and public spheres. They accept the idea of
individual freedom in the first, but seek more dependence and
reject free entrepreneurship in the second. This could be
explained by a mentality that feels more comfortable and secure

82
in a group. For different reasons, liberalism has been identified
with money and business, and for many almost became a symbol
of domination of a global capitalist order that threatens the
countrys wealth through foreign control.
In mid-April 2012, the president of the Maghrebi Liberal
Party, Mohamed Bouebdelli, changed the partys name to Parti
Republicain Maghrebin. This change reflects the aversion of
many Tunisians to liberalism and the anti-Islamic or anti-
religious connotation it holds. The party leader felt there was no
time to waste on raising confusion about liberalism and liberal
values. These could be promoted, he thought, without mentioning
the highly controversial term liberalism.
I could quote several articles in Tunisian newspapers that
added to the peoples confusion about liberal ideas and concepts.
Sadly, liberalism is not portrayed as a concept of freedom that
augments growth and wealth, but on the contrary as a notion that
leads to increased poverty and marginalization.
This takes me to the time I was in politics and preparing for
the first party meeting of Afek Tounes. The party had been
founded by a group of self-made men and women who had
studied abroad and had come home with new visions and fresh
ideas. Many were owners of businesses and drove to the meeting,
which was held in Downtown Tunis, in their private cars. Some
of these cars were rather luxurious. This simple fact created a
problem for the party, prevented it from taking off for some
months. We were tagged as liberals, as if this itself is a sin. Our
distractors did not accuse us on the basis of the content of our
program. Our program was not yet ready at that point. They
attacked us simply because we drove expensive cars. From there
on in, it was easy to associate the party with business, money and
special interests. This little episode labeled the party as a group of
wild liberals.
For many Tunisians, liberal means having money, it means
looking out for ones own interests and ignoring those of others.
It means selling the country to foreign powers. It means a wild

83
kind of freedom - freedom that can stomp over all other values. In
short, many Tunisians have little knowledge of liberalism and
cling to a pre-set negative opinion, and stereotypes.
The unfortunate fate of liberalism in the Arab world came to
the surface in the various meetings and conferences organized by
the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty that again and
again dealt with this challenge. I have come to some conclusions:
First, one of the main factors that blocked liberalism in the
Arab world is the absence of democracy and the presence of
corrupt systems that have brought about political and economic
instability. Poverty and social injustice made people look at
individual liberties and entrepreneurship with much suspicion.
They think these are the cause for their distress and, therefore,
violently reject the liberal concept.
Add to this the absence of strong liberal leaders able to find a
balance and adapt liberal values to the specific Arab context.
Liberal leaders need to get into the frame of mind of the Arab
person as an individual, and in his or her community (the
street), and come up with suitable liberal responses to the
specific challenges of each society. This has, quite obviously, not
happened after the Arab Spring.
Finally, with the rise of religious fundamentalism, liberalism
has received an even more violent blow as the contest came to
focus on emotions. Islamists deliberately linked liberalism to
moral decay and religious negation. Islamists - wrongly - pointed
to a freedom detached from responsibility, while liberal thinkers
put responsibility at the very core of their theory.
While writing this paper, I posted the question What is
liberalism? on my Facebook page to get some reaction from
people. Answers varied from imperialism, freedom, less
state, free initiative, do whatever we want, economic
freedom and political freedom, an absolute freedom of ideas
and expression, let it be, let it go, a strong rule of law, the
right to difference, to the first step towards anarchy, and more.

84
Quite clearly, there is some ambiguity regarding the
definition - let alone understanding - of the term. This presents a
danger to the spread of the concept in this country. Liberalism is
so vast that it has to be defined whenever mentioned. Some of the
above definitions were close but not complete. Unfortunately,
that is also true for many more political terms and concepts. One
answer to this challenge is political education.
Providing the most basic knowledge required to understand,
analyze and make good decisions in politics has become an
urgent matter. Terms like democracy, the rule of law, state,
individual, and other freedoms, socialism, liberalism,
conservatism and many others need to be precisely defined so
that the citizen may acquire a clear mind, allowing him or her to
make responsible choices.
Liberals in the Arab world need to find a strong branding.
Then they have to identify tailor-made strategies specific to each
of their countries to spread the concept as a complete well-
defined theory.
Liberal movements in the Arab world are a hidden power that
can push towards reform, just like in the past. They need a
pragmatic approach, to mobilize large segments of society and
lead the next phase.


85

References

1. Chouikha, Larbi, Tunisie: les chimres librales, La pense
de midi, No. 19 (2006), pp. 29-37. http://cairn.info/revue-la-
pensee-de-midi-2006-3-page-29.htm
2. Hibou, Batrice, Le libralisme rformiste, ou comment
perptuer ltatisme tunisien, LEconomie politique, No. 032
(2006).
3. Mrad, Hatem, Liberalisme et libert dans le monde arabo-
musulman (Edition Nirvana, 2012).
4. Talbi, Mohamed, Goulag & Dmocratie (Finzi Usines
graphiques, 2011).

86

87
Bread, freedom and social justice:
Why only the market economy
will fulfill the aspirations
of the Arab masses

Yusuf Mansur

It has been argued that the causes of the unfolding Arab
Spring in various Arab states are similar; the uprisings had their
roots in the global economic crisis and in the patrimonial political
natures of the governments in the region.
1
Others blamed the
youth bulge being under- or unemployed as underpinning the
Arab Spring.
2
Some claimed that failed policies, such as
agriculture policy in Egypt - which made the population
dependent on wheat imports - and water and agricultural policies
in Syria, were behind the rise of the masses.
3
Others asserted that
global warming contributed to the spike in food prices, which led
among other things to the uprisings.
4
More still argued that social
media and Internet penetration were a cause of the revolutions.
5

The arguments presented herein will underscore that the roots
of the Arab Spring arise from the failure of Arab economies to
develop. This failure, it is emphasized, is due to institutional
factors that have stymied and curtailed the development of
freedom in all its forms, leading to unfreedom and the
consequent lack of development. Changing/reforming failed
institutions is a necessity for development. National institutions,
formal and informal, must change for the better. Such change, as
established by history, will not come without turmoil.
This chapter defines economic freedom in the first section,
presents a brief summary of what Arabs want, based on
publications in this regard, discusses the relationship between

88
economic freedom and political and civil rights, links growth to
development, and offers conclusions based on the above.

Defining economic freedom
Alfred Marshall identified economic freedom with
freedom of industry and enterprise.
6
Decades later, Milton
Friedman saw economic freedom as the ultimate model as it
allows actors greater productivity.
7
In the Friedman tradition,
economic freedom means efficient governments, the respect and
protection of property rights, and freedom of exchange. It is about
the extent to which rightly acquired property is protected,
individuals are engaged in voluntary transactions inside or
outside a nations borders, and the freedom to move freely within
and across those borders.
8

A researcher who dares to set aside his intellectual biases
would probably find the treatment of freedom presented by Noble
Laureate Amartya Sen, in Development as Freedom,
9
as the most
comprehensive in the literature. To Sen, economic freedom is
only one of several types of freedom, which should include (1)
political freedoms, (2) economic facilities, (3) social
opportunities, (4) transparency guarantees and (5) protective
security.
10
Furthermore, Sen stressed that such freedoms are
interactive; they contribute dynamically to each other and any
imbalances lead to deficits. Political freedoms (in the form of
free speech and elections) help to promote economic security.
Social opportunities (in the form of education and health)
facilitate economic participation. Economic facilities (in the form
of opportunities for participation in trade and production) can
help to generate personal abundance as well as public resources
for social facilities. Freedoms of different kinds can strengthen
one another.
11


89
What the Arabs want
Arguably the most comprehensive and honest view of the
Arab region was recorded in the Arab Human Development
Report (AHDR) 2002. The report noted that Arab countries had
invested more in physical capital than human capital, and stated:
The Arab region might thus be said to be richer than it is
developed with respect to basic human-development
indicators.
12
The report asserted that human development in the
Arab region should be addressed by resolving three key deficits:
freedom and good governance, womens empowerment, and the
human capabilities/knowledge deficit relative to income.
13

While several Arab countries have been making gains in
health and education service provision, they are still
unproductive, even though, as both neoclassical and Marxist
analysts agree, healthier and better-educated people are more
productive.
14
Meanwhile, approximately 60 percent of the Arab
population is under the age of 25, making the Arab world the
most youthful region in the world.
15
That potential is not without
challenge, however. Surface water, for example, is scarce and 43
percent of it originates from elsewhere.
16

Interestingly, the AHDR 2005 predicted an Arab Spring.
17

Another more recent voice came from the Arab Center for
Research and Policy Studies, which publishes the Arab Opinion
Index. The Arab Opinion Index Report for 2011, based on a
survey covering 12 Arab countries and 85 percent of the Arab
population,
18
provided some insights into what the region really
wants. A clear majority supported democratic reform, believing
in the transfer of power; less than half trusted the executive
branch of government; 36 percent only trusted their countries
legislative bodies; 83 percent believed that corruption was
widespread in their countries; only 19 percent thought their
countries legal systems treated all citizens equitably; 67 percent
of respondents believed that intra-Arab cooperation was not
satisfactory; around three-quarters supported lifting travel and

90
trade restrictions between Arab countries and establishing a
unified monetary system.
Most respondents attributed Arab revolutions to corruption,
dictatorship and the lack of justice and equality. In other words,
economic freedom is not enough. Further, respondents believed
that it is doubtful that a well-functioning market economy will be
achieved without democracy and proper representation or
participation, in addition to transparency and accountability
mechanisms.

Economic freedom, political and civil rights
In its most generic and agreed form, economic freedom
means an improved business and investment environment with
little to no red tape. Note that based on this definition alone, one
would stipulate that the lack of economic freedom in Tunisia was
the trigger that ignited the Arab Spring. After all, Mohammed
Bouazizi, the Tunisian man who self-immolated on 17 December
2010, did so in dismay at the lack of economic freedom afforded
to him by the local bureaucracy: he had been prevented from
gaining a permit to operate a vegetable stand.
19
It took his
burning image, coupled with economic strife and rising
unemployment, to erupt a nation on 18 December 2010. Within
less than a month, President Ben Ali relinquished power. The
surge was so quick, and the removal of the president so swift, and
relatively costless, that a wave of protests took hold in Arab
countries, each demanding reform in various degrees.
Economic freedom matters, yet it must be supported by
political and civil rights to enable development. Furthermore, as
Sen asserted, without political and civil rights economic freedom
- like any other economic system - will hardly produce optimal
results. New empirical evidence supports the view that political
and civil rights are important contributors to growth and
development. In a study of 100 countries over 30 years, the
Economic Freedom of the World Index
20
found indices of civil

91
rights and political liberties to be strongly linked to a countrys
per capita income growth in the long run.
21
A one-unit change in
the initial stock of economic freedom on a scale of one to 10 is
associated with a rise of almost one percent in the average
economic growth rate during the period; a one-unit change in
initial civil and political rights conditions on a scale of one to
eight increases average economic growth by more than 0.3
percent during the period.
The market economy and its mechanisms require political
liberty, as Adam Smith noted;
22
freedom of exchange and
transaction are part of the basic liberties that people desire and
appreciate. This does not take away from the importance of the
market mechanism and it being the most efficient tool at creating
economic growth and even economic equity under some
conditions, as noted by many scholars. However, civil and
political freedom facilitate the better functioning of the market
economy by enabling more predictability and stability within the
market through better protection of property and transaction
rights in addition to an institutional policymaking process.
23

Could Arab governments have sidestepped issues of
economic and political freedom by simply giving people more
subsidies and economic rent - given that they could afford it, of
course? In other words, could bread alone be the answer? After
all, several Arab countries witnessed revolts when bread prices
increased. In some Gulf countries, such as Oman and Saudi
Arabia, which witnessed the beginning of turmoil, demands were
either economic or could be subdued or addressed through
economic gains.
24
Several oil rich Arab countries, and some not
so rich, were able to stave off rebellions by dispersing money,
cash, gifts, and jobs to their citizens.
25
However, one would argue
that rents and gifts by rulers are but temporal solutions and not
remedies.
Stable and steady long-term economic growth, and
consequent development, which goes far beyond bread alone, will
continue to elude Arab governments and economies as long as all

92
types of freedom do not exist or are considered lagging. Current
growth bursts are resource based and depend upon world demand
cycles for hydrocarbons.
Liberalizing economies without other freedoms taking root
within the institutional setup does not work. Lacking
transparency and accountability due to forms of absolutist
governance leads to market distortions and inefficient
distributions. Almost all Arab states in this regard can be
classified as exclusionary states, whereby groups close to the
ruler are offered rents while others are not. Of course, levels of
reward and exclusion depend on whether the state is in possession
of great rents or not.
Seeming improvements and movement towards economic
freedom are not tenable without political reform, as has become
evident over the years. Without political and civil rights, gains
will be ill distributed and successes can be derailed. Elites close
to rulers have been able to divert the gains of the market economy
to their own coffers while the masses suffered. Further, some, as
in the case of Ahmad Ezz in Egypt,
26
purportedly a partner of
Alaa Mubarak (Hosni Mubaraks son) and regarded as the king of
steel in Egypt, was able to change competition legislation
27
in
order to safeguard his own interests and curtail whistleblowing
activities in his many enterprises.
A state that possesses ample oil and gas reserves is able to
shower its elites with direct fiduciary rents and other benefits
such as licenses to import or establish activities from which
others are excluded. On the other hand, a country that is poor in
resources would probably appoint its loyalists into public posts
and enable them through selective transparency practices and
non-accountability to become rich by skimming from the public.
Across the board, Arab governments deployed their resources to
subordinate citizens and gain loyalties
28
; in the process they
curtailed not only economic freedom but also freedom in general,
and thus sacrificed development.

93
Obviously in such societies the weak and vulnerable will find
no voice. Non-elected governments will find no need, unless
pressed or threatened externally and/or internally, to rally the
people to support their policies. Hence, such governments, which
answer to the dictator, do not usually follow popular demands,
but bypass them and push them aside as long as the ruler is
satisfied with their performance or has not become aware of riots
or destabilizing movements. When it becomes apparent to the
leader that the government has become a liability, they exit and
are replaced with a new team that works under the same or
similar directives of exclusion.
Arab governments, particularly those that do not have ample
oil or gas reserves to create significant rents and usually receive
significant amounts of aid, have tried to become hubs for
attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). In this sense, they
thought FDI would increase peoples incomes and welfare. Yet
they missed an important point that given the rentier state, the
welfare gains will be ill distributed, thus exacerbating existing
inequalities, creating inflation without jobs, which would foment
greater unrest. Furthermore, given the unilateral nature of
decision making in these economies,
29
most FDI sought the safest
form of investment, real estate, which did not help lower high
unemployment rates within these countries.
30

Arab markets, opened over the past two decades through
trade liberalizing agreements and reform programs, have not lead
to industrialization; gains went to the few and people saw
monopolists raise prices. The results of market enhancing
mechanisms and policies, such as trade liberalization, which
would tend to enhance competitiveness, have lead to higher
prices and greater distortions. The Arabs were thus labeled the
orphans of globalization.
31


94
From growth to development
Growth in every Arab country that is not dependent on
carbon exports has not been steady or rising for extended periods
of time. Although many of the countries were engaged with the
global economy and allowed for capital and labor flows, they
lacked other factors such as governance and inclusiveness, which
have been determined as important for a rising and long term
growth. The literature is rife with evidence that over time, the
institutional arrangements within a country are the primary cause
of sustained high economic performance.
32
Further, a growing
number of economists now believe that the institutional
arrangements within a country matter the most,
33
and that factor
accumulation and technological advancements are a result of
growth and not the causes of growth.
34

The idea that institutions matter have become even more
popular recently due to, among others, the work of Acemoglu,
Johnson and Robinson,
35
which emphasized that institutions are
the fundamental cause of long term growth - an argument that has
been further elaborated in Why Nations Fail by Robinson and
Acemoglu. In the latter, the authors underlined that, more than
any other reason, nations whose institutions are exclusive and
extractive fail.
36

Failing to produce good governance and transparency in the
Arab world may have been intentional whereby autocracies
attempt to buy time by appeasing certain groups they believe are
necessary for regime survival. However, by doing so they would
be fomenting unrest among those who do not receive rent - the
majority of the people. In other words, Arab regimes relied on
pleasing a minority of elites that had become used to extracting
the fruits of any economic gains.
Extractive economic institutions lead to a lack of law and
order, insecure property rights, artificial entry barriers, regulatory
hurdles to the functioning of the market economy, and non-level
playing fields. On the other hand, extractive political institutions

95
concentrate power in the hands of the few, reduce transparency
and checks and balances, and enable corruption. The former
needs the latter, and a vicious cycle emerges.
The majority of the people languish in poverty and
underdevelopment. Rulers are thus encouraging and growing
dissent on the home front by favoring short term remedies and
temporary measures over addressing long term problems. The
situation is best summarized in the words of Winston Churchill:
Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers they dare not dismount. And
the tigers are getting hungry.

Conclusion
The reason why Arab economies have failed so far is due to
the existence of exclusive and extractive institutions. Formal and
informal institutions cause exclusionary practices and have elites
that extract the wealth of the nation, thus preventing the majority
from reaping the fruits of their labor.
Arab economies can move towards becoming effective
market economies through substantive reforms that transition
countries from rentierism into inclusive meritocracies. To do so
requires dramatic changes in key institutions in the Arab world.
The post-colonial history of the Arab world, where autocratic
regimes ruled through exclusive institutions, should not be
viewed as the destiny of the Arabs. It can be changed, as history
attests in several other regions of the world. However, history
also shows that political upheaval accompanies this reform,
whether by minor or major revolutions.

96

References

1. Joff, George, The Arab Spring in North Africa:
Origins and prospects, The Journal of North African
Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (2011).
2. Special Report: The Arab Spring, The Economist
(2013).
3. Goldman, David P., Economic Blunders Behind the
Arab Revolutions, The Wall Street Journal (2013).
4. Johnstone, Sarah and Jeffrey Mazo, Global Warming
and The Arab Spring, Survival, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2011).
5. De Sterck, Hans and John Lang, The Arab Spring: A
simple compartmental model for the dynamics of a
revolution (2013).
6. Marshall, Alfred. Principles of Economics (London:
Macmillan, 1890; reprinted, 1949), p. 8.
7. Friedman, Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose
(London: Seker & Warburg, 1980), p. 3.
8. Gwartney, James and Robert Lawson et al., Economic
Freedom of the World: 1996 Annual Report.
9. Sen, Amartya, Development as Freedom (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999).
10. Ibid, p. 10.
11. Ibid, p. 11.
12. Arab Human Development Report 2002: Creating
Opportunities for Future Generations (UNDP) p. 26.
http://arab-
hdr.org/publications/other/ahdr/ahdr2002e.pdf
13. AHDR 2002 only mentioned freedom as a deficit.
However, in the preface of the AHDR 2004, which
focused on freedom, the concept of good governance
was immediately joined with freedom, thereby
emphasizing the significance of governance in addition
to freedom.

97
14. Richards, Alan et al., A Political Economy of the Middle
East (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2013), p. 98.
15. Arab Human Development Report 2009: Challenges to
Human Security in the Arab Countries (UNDP) p. 36.
http://arab-hdr.org/publications/other/ahdr/ahdr2009e.pdf
16. Ibid, p. 37.
17. Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the
Rise of Women in the Arab World (UNDP), p. 29.
http://arab-
hdr.org/publications/other/ahdr/ahdr2005e.pdf
18. The Arab Opinion Project: The Arab Opinion Index,
published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy
Studies.
http://english.dohainstitute.org/release/5083cf8e-38f8-
4e4a-8bc5-fc91660608b0
19. Abouzeid, Rania, Bouazizi: The man who set himself
and Tunisia on fire, Time Magazine (21 January 2011).
http://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044723,0
0.html
20. The Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) Index
measures and ranks countries according to the degree of
economic freedom present in five major areas: size of
government (expenditures, taxes and enterprises); legal
structure and security of property rights; access to sound
money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation
of credit, labor and business. Within these areas, 21
components are incorporated into the overall index.
Many of the components are themselves made up of
several sub-components.
21. Chauffour, Jean-Pierre, Freedom, Entitlement and the
Path to Development, The World Bank Economic
Premise, The World Bank, Issue 59 (June 2011) pp. 1-5.
22. Sen, Amartya, Freedom of Choice: Concept and
content, European Economic Review (1988).
23. See: Chauffour, Jean-Pierre, 2009. The Power of
Freedom: Uniting human rights and development

98
(Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2009); and Chauffour,
Jean-Pierre, On the Relevance of Freedom and
Entitlement in Development: New empirical evidence
(19752007), Policy Research Working Paper 5660,
The World Bank (2011).
24. Abdullah, Abdulkhaleq, Repercussions of the Arab
Spring on the GCC States, Doha Institute, 17 May
2012. http://english.dohainstitute.org/release/050a254b-
e013-4060-9aab-32238f34cf47
25. See: Mansur, Yusuf, Arab Renaissance and Economic
Freedom, in Meinardus, Ronald (Ed.), Bridging the
Gap: An Arab-European dialogue on the basics of
liberalism (Cairo: Al-Mahrousa for Publishing, 2013),
and Mansur, Yusuf, Did the Arab Spring Benefit
Economic Freedom in Jordan? lecture delivered at an
event hosted in Amman, Jordan, by the Young
Entrepreneurs Association (YEA) and the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) as part of
Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012.
26. Ezz is currently serving a three-year sentence in Egypt.
27. Jordan: Hurdles to Implementing Competition Policy
in Jordan, in Mediterranean Competition Bulletin /
Bulletin Mditerranen De Concurrence, European
Commission (October 2009).
28. Springborg, Robert, The Precarious Economics of
Arab Springs, Survival, Vol. 53, No. 6 (2011).
29. Nugent, Jeffrey, Explaining the Paradox: Generous
foreign investment laws but little foreign investment in
Arab countries - the role of legal shortcomings,
Working Paper, University of Southern California
(2001).
30. Mansur, Yusuf, Overcoming Barriers to FDI in
Jordan, Working Paper, The Fraser Institute, Fraser
Institute/International Research Foundation Publications
(2008).

99
31. The Orphans of Globalization? Global Compact
International Year Book 2011, The Evian Group, IMD.
http://imd.org/research/centers/eviangroup/upload/Lehm
ann_GCYB_2011_Arab_Spring.pdf
32. Commission on Growth and Development, The Growth
Report: Strategies for sustained growth and inclusive
development (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008).
http://growthcommission.org
33. Easterly, William, The Elusive Quest for Growth:
Economists adventures and misadventures in the
tropics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
34. North, Douglass C., and Robert P. Thomas, The Rise of
the Western World: A new economic history
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). Also
see: Rodrik, Dani, Institutions for High-Quality
Growth: What they are and how to acquire them,
Working Paper 7540, National Bureau of Economic
Research, Cambridge, MA (2000).
35. Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A.
Robinson, Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of
Long-Run Growth, Working Paper 10481, National
Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA (2004).
36. Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson, Why Nations
Fail: The origins of power, prosperity and poverty (New
York: Crown Business, 2012).

100

101
Crowd democracy:
Future challenges facing liberalism
in the Arab region

Wael Nawara

Over the past few years, Tunisia, Egypt and several states in
the Arab region experienced massive grassroots movement,
including protests, uprisings and revolutions that changed ruling
regimes and brought down presidents and governments. The main
slogans of the grassroots movement called for freedom, social
justice, and human dignity. These uprisings called for liberal
values and ideals and we could clearly spot the liberal colors of
huge groups of participants. We cannot say, however, that liberal
parties - or parties of any other ideology - had organizationally or
politically led this movement, because it was self-organized and
took place mainly at the grassroots level where most of the
participants carried no specific ideology. When we look at the
roots of the revolution, we cannot help but see the liberal element
evidently clear along the way. Some liberal parties in Egypt, for
instance, were among the pioneers that heralded the revolution
and produced a generation of youth, activists and political
leaderships that had struggled against Mubaraks regime for
many years before the revolution, and later participated in the
revolution, and were used by media outlets as icons for it.
Post-revolution developments in Egypt brought down the
myth of Islamist popularity and dominance. This is not to deny
that Islamist movements enjoy deep allegiances or vast resources,
but their strong support is restricted to a limited segment of
society alone, as we anticipated in articles dating back as early as
2004. And while larger segments may not have a specific
political allegiance, they are against Islamism and perceive it as

102
not only a threat to the national identity and cultural identity of
the country, but also to national security and the very concept of
the homeland itself. Islamists do not acknowledge the idea of a
homeland based on a certain nation identifying with a specific
geographic territory that has been inhabited by their ancestors for
centuries - or in the case of Egypt, many millennia. Sayyid Qutb,
a leading Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, regarded homeland as
nothing but a fist of rotten dirt. For Islamists, the homeland is
their monolithic faith, or rather a narrowly defined extremist and
strict version of it. This poses the risk of dividing any country
they come to govern, as happened in Sudan.
Nevertheless, Islamists can and do win a disproportionately
large share of elections, leveraged by their superior financial and
organizational capacity, the effectiveness of their electoral
machine and the obedience they command from their troops. In
other words, they win by their superior resources and logistics, as
compared to their rivals, and not necessarily because voters like
them or feel compelled to elect them as a religious duty. If the
latter were the case, it would be something hard to change.
Yet despite an incredible financial and logistical edge over
his competitors, the Muslim Brotherhoods candidate, Mohamed
Morsi, received only 25 percent of the vote in the first round of
the 2012 presidential elections. In the second round, Morsi won
slightly more than half the votes, mainly because his competitor
was Ahmed Shafiq. Many of those voting for Morsi did so
because they identified Shafiq with Mubaraks regime in an
attempt to prevent a past they loathed from being resurrected.
Although some people would now regret electing Morsi and
the Muslim Brotherhood in post-revolution Egypt, my belief is
that the collective consciousness of Egyptians greatly benefited
from experiencing the Brotherhoods coming to power. The
experience has contributed to bringing down many illusions,
legends, barriers and taboos. For the first time in the history of
Egypt, we saw angry groups of Muslims praying in a mosque,
preventing preachers from using that mosque as a platform for

103
political campaigning. They have even established sieges around
the mosques used by Islamists for political propaganda,
mobilization, or those used for harboring Islamist militias, or as
camps where Brotherhood members tortured their opponents. To
indicate that they are Muslims, contrary to Brotherhood televised
claims that the protesters were mainly Christians, many protesters
would pray on the ground outside the mosque during the siege.
At the end of the Brotherhoods period in power, millions
took to the streets to call for Morsis removal and bringing down
the Morsheds rule - referring to the Brotherhoods Supreme
Guide, whom Egyptians came to regard as their presidents boss.
These massive demonstrations took place not only in Cairo and
Alexandria, but also in most cities, towns and even many
villages, especially in the Delta region. The events that took place
between 2011 and 2013 in Egypt compressed the hundreds of
years it had taken Europe to revolt against Church authority and
finally separate religion from politics. This separation may not be
complete, neither in Europe nor in Egypt. But it has begun. Hence
bringing down the Brotherhood government, with all the cultural
implications of this event, may prove to be more significant than
toppling Mubaraks regime.
However, the Brotherhood was not brought down by the
ballot box but by popular protests that began in November 2012
after Morsis famous decrees by which he placed himself above
the judiciary and the constitution. Popular protests grew and
escalated over the next months. Anti-Muslim Brotherhood state
institutions, such as the judiciary, police, army, private media,
remnants of Mubaraks regime, and even Salafists at the end (or
at least their political leaderships), joined the 30 June front that
toppled Morsi and brought down the Brotherhood regime.
Although opinion polls conducted by Gallup and Baseera showed
very clearly the unprecedented collapse of the popularity of the
Brotherhood, even months before the removal of Morsi, bringing
down the Brotherhood by the ballot box was almost impossible
for several reasons. As it was impossible to remove Mubarak

104
through elections, removing the Brotherhood through the ballot
box might have been even more difficult because of its unlimited
and unchecked underground resources, the clandestine ways of
the organization, the international nature of its operations, and the
way it works to infiltrate multiple domains, including businesses,
syndicates, unions, universities, religious establishments, schools,
clinics and various social services.
The Brotherhood was removed by large-scale protests
supported by the army, police, judiciary, and most of the state
agencies and wings. However, did that mean the end of the
Brotherhood or the inability of Islamism to gather votes in the
upcoming elections and what follows? Does this mean that voters
will shift to voting for liberal and or leftist parties? Not
necessarily. The 25 January Revolution and the 30 June wave
added little to the strength of official parties. These massive
uprisings occurred as a result of a high level of peoples
empowerment, or what we can call crowd democracy.

Crowd democracy
At the end of March 2008, at a workshop in Beirut that was
attended by the founders of the Arab Alliance for Freedom and
Democracy (which was called the Network of Arab Liberals at
the time) and sponsored by the Freidrich Naumann Foundation, I
remember giving a presentation entitled The Facebook
Revolution. I basically prophesized how social networks would
change the world, and the implications of this on the political,
economic, social, and cultural aspects of life. I also said that the
coming change would not be merely a change of governments or
regimes, but rather in the nature of power. That change would
alter the relationship and modes of interaction between the
people, on the one hand, and symbols and institutions of authority
on the other. In other words, it is not only the person who sits at
the top of the pyramid who will have to go, but the pyramid itself
will no longer exist! For someone from Egypt, where pyramids

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have always been so fashionable, both as grand monuments and
in administrative structures, this seemed a bit strange! Change
would not just change figures, but also the structures and the
relationships that rulers had traditionally used to govern.
The future of power hierarchies is bleak. Traditionally
hierarchies will become flatter and will look more like a flexible
network, where influence would be more interactive, coming not
only from top to bottom, but also from all relevant sides. At the
time (March 2008), I had had a brief yet very impactful personal
experience to support that theory. In August 2007, I was forced to
use Facebook as a political and media platform when Mubaraks
security apparatus decided to shut down Al-Ghad newspaper. I
had to find an alternative and decided to turn from the offline
world that was taken over by Mubarak and his security apparatus
to the parallel online world of Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. In
line with the parallel state theory that I published in 2005 and
2006, whenever a formal channel is closed or shows too much
resistance, pressure builds up creating a parallel informal
channel. In the same fashion, I had to create one of the very first
political forums on Facebook, together with a number of friends
and colleagues, under the name The Third Republic. It included
over 1,000 members and started to gain influence. It could be
regarded as a combination of a virtual political party and a
virtual newspaper media channel in the parallel world. This
forum initiated discussions on the emerging power of the people
and the sweeping change that would be caused by a new power
that the regime could not stop. The power of influence was
about to influence power. A few years later, the spark of change
was ignited in Tunisia, followed by Egypt and Libya. The
infection spread across the Arab world, and regimes,
governments and presidents fell. The whole world order is now
facing a new challenge: large crowds are rising and reclaiming
their power from political bosses and middlemen. The balance of
power has changed in favor of the people.

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Traditional democracy is based on power, while crowd
democracy is based on influence. Influence is intangible and
voluntary. Power is also intangible, but when needed it summons
claws and fangs. Power (or the state that holds power)
monopolizes violence. Because social media influence is
voluntary, it cannot use violence or threats of violence, although
it may incite it.
How did governments, security apparatuses, and state-owned
newspapers and media outlets lose the balance of power to
individuals and crowds that are connected to one another in
different ways?
Due to the spread of social networks, blogs, and citizen
journalism, and the ability of a single person or a small group of
people to start their own personal TV or radio channels on
platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo and Soundcloud, the
advantages previously exclusive to states, governments, parties
and giant organizations that accompanied the emergence of
representative democracy have been eroded, and crowd
democracy began to appear as a step towards a true popular - or
even direct - democracy.
But what is crowd democracy? Does it mean that whoever is
capable of gathering more crowds on the street can rule? Or will
the world be run through Twitter and Facebook? Definitely not!
Crowd democracy is based on the simple idea that the masses
can take better and wiser decisions than a small group of the
ruling elite. The word elite itself implies the presence of some
exclusively distinguished group that is capable of taking smarter
decisions and drawing up wiser policies and legislation on behalf
of the masses who, if they took charge, may make populist
decisions, legislation, or policies. By populist we mean popular,
but also irresponsible and unsustainable, such as reducing taxes
while increasing government expenditure on public services and
utilities, causing growing budget deficits and public debt
accumulation leading to definite disasters. Has this already not

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happened in most countries under different wise regimes,
including parliamentary democracies?
If we think about it, elected officials may be more prone to
adopting irresponsible financial policies, because they often
remain in their posts for a limited and short period of time. They
are often described as myopic who could not care less about what
might happen in the future after they leave office. But while
representatives and presidents stay for a term or two and then
eventually leave, the people, in the collective sense, remain. If
you make one mistake, you and your family will pay for it sooner
or later, gradually leading decisions to eventually become more
responsible.
Traditional parties are made of members who are connected
by a long-term organizational relationship. They develop a
consensus around a certain agenda or manifesto that represents
their ideology with more or less fixed positions on hundreds of
economic, social and political issues. A party derives its power
from the number of its members and supporters, the quality of its
leadership and cadres, the depth of its pockets and funds, its
media and political strength, its ability to mobilize in elections
and ultimately garner parliamentary, local and executive seats.
Opposite to that, crowd democracy does not know solid
organizations or long-term loyalties, but depends on flexible
clusters of activists, enthusiasts, and supporters who embrace a
certain cause, goal or a limited set of demands in a voluntary
manner that is based on self-organization and personal initiative.
In a parliamentary democracy, a group of representatives, or
elected or appointed government officials, decide upon policies and
legislation on behalf of the people, while crowd democracy maximizes
the power of the people. In other words, the people regain the power to
make decisions by public opinion, which creates a connected mind or
a collective mind empowered by social networks and modern
communication technology.

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In 2005, James Surowiecki, who writes a famous column in
The New Yorker, published a book entitled Wisdom of the
Crowds. The title itself is an allusion to another book adopting
somewhat an opposite view, written by Charles Mackay and
published in 1841 under the title Extraordinary Popular
Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Other books were
published in the same spirit, holding the crowds judgment in low
esteem and often using the terms crowd psychology or mob
psychology as synonyms for foolishness.
Surowiecki postulated that crowds could make better choices
than small elites, even if the elite were a group of experts on the
topic in discussion. To be fair, Surowiecki mentioned some
situations where crowds may fail to take the right decision, for
reasons related to the psychology of crowds.
The experience of the past three years in Egypt has proven
that crowds can - and do - make serious mistakes, but they can
quickly correct them or revisit their decisions. The collective
mind, and not for instance activists or so-called opinion leaders,
is what directs and moves the people. Some think that social
media is power and they strive to harness that power to
themselves. But social networks are the opposite of power.

So what is power?
Power starts when a fraction of the freedom of choice and the
will of decision-making is embezzled from millions of
individuals. No matter how small the part that is taken is, when it
is multiplied by millions, the president, government or institution
would control immense power. Concentration of power in the
hands of an elite creates a great deal of authority when compared
to the fragmented nature of the will of citizens. With social
networks, thousands and millions of opinions made by simple
individuals are often filtered out through a process of natural
selection of trends, and the collective mind or the connected mind
evolves quickly, bringing out decisions that are supported by the

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crowds wisdom. The election here is not for a deputy, a
representative, or a president, but for a specific decision on a
specific issue. This is the difference between parliamentary
democracy and crowd democracy, as a step towards direct
democracy. Social networks give back freedom of choice and will
power to their owners, retrieving stolen goods, while technology
gradually eliminates the need for the services of middlemen and
representatives, or at least reduces their powers.

The end of power?
We are lucky to be witnessing radical transformations in the
nature of power and the style of government. Not only political or
economic authority is being challenged, but social, cultural and
spiritual authority as well. We can see protests spreading across
the world, not only in the Arab region. Greece, Turkey and Brazil
saw similar massive protests. Movements such as Occupy Wall
Street in the United States, and similar networks in many other
countries, are initial manifestations of the change in the nature of
power. The future of power, at least power as we knew it, is
bleak. This, however, does not mean the end of the state,
parliaments, governments, or executive authority. These
institutions may continue, but their role will change and their
power will decrease. The likely function of a future parliament
will be as a facilitator rather than legislator. It will facilitate the
social dialogue of the crowd, craft the legislation drafted by the
collective mind or connected mind, implement the policies that
the people think right for them, and focus on the priorities of the
people, and not on those of lobbyists that have for long become
brokers or middlemen between authority and big corporations.

Manifestations of crowd democracy
What is the proof that crowd democracy exists? Is it only
some theory describing a far-flung future? Have we seen
indications and proof of this phenomenon in Egypt?

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I claim that crowd democracy has been in action since 25
January 2011 and maybe even before that. But on 25 January,
people or crowds became self-aware of their collective power
giving birth to the collective mind and gathering the scattered
wills of individuals into one popular will. As a result, the seat of
government moved from the presidential palace to Tahrir Square!
The Square started to make its own decisions; dismissing the
president, dissolving the government and the parliament,
abolished the constitution, ordered the detention and trial of
corrupt officials, it even dissolved the State Security
Investigations apparatus. SCAF (the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces) and the interim government that came after
Mubarak realized this change and started to interact with it.
Almost every Wednesday, decisions were made by SCAF or the
interim government to respond to the demands of the Square or
the collective mind of the crowds, to avoid their rage the next
Friday. Also, crowds started to refrain from gathering when
activists called for events that the people did not approve of, such
as the sit-in in front of the Ministry of Defense in July 2011 and
May 2012. When the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled to
dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Peoples Assembly
in June 2012, the crowds did not assemble a single voice of
protest because they were satisfied with the ruling to dissolve an
assembly they felt did not represent them or speak for them. The
same happened in the early days of the revolution when an
activist climbed the Tahrir main stage and ordered the people to
go home. The people refused and turned their back on him. Some
activists went to negotiate with then Vice President Omar
Suleiman on behalf of the crowds and returned with items that
summarized the agreement. But that agreement was not binding
on the Square and no one gave it notice. Concerned activists
discovered their true limited influence on the crowds when they
opposed the collective mind.
On 30 June and after it, the crowds imposed their will and
removed a president, and a wealthy organization and powerful
organization from power. Despite the Muslim Brotherhoods

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funds, militias, weapons, international relations, and strong
alliances with terrorist groups, they found themselves isolated
and hunted not just by the state, but also by the people. The
crowds imposed a roadmap with specific steps. The army had to
follow. And while SCAF temporarily replaced Mubarak in
February 2011, it was the head of the Supreme Constitutional
Court who became the interim president on 3 July 2013. Neither
the army nor the police could stand against the public will of
millions of Egyptians. The army and police abandoned Morsi as
they did Mubarak before him, because no army could
successfully force a people with a conscious collective will.

Challenges facing liberal parties
The traditional challenges facing liberal parties can be
summarized as follows:
Organizing and building an effective movement with
committed members.
Funding. Most liberal parties are either penniless or rely on
a small group of capitalist financers.
Building an electoral machine at the central level, and at the
level of districts, municipalities and bases.
Developing an economic, social and political program that
is based on reality but is also inspired by the ambitions of
the people, and coming up with solutions for chronic
problems and a vision for a future of opportunities.
Developing inspiring media messages and preparing leaders
with charisma and media influence.
Developing cadres and young leaders.
Empowering youth and women.
Putting an end to fragmentation and internal conflicts via
mergers, alliances and coalitions.

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Activating a social agenda and engaging and serving the
people at a grassroots level.

These are the traditional challenges. What about crowd
democracy? Does it not impose other types of challenges?
The main challenge facing parties under crowd democracy is
the need to think differently. Times have changed and the role of
the middleman will be phased out. What applies for markets
where consumers communicate directly with producers,
removing several layers of the distribution chain, applies to the
market of politics. Political parties are becoming irrelevant.
One of the slogans of the revolution was, No Brotherhood, no
parties. Our revolution is a revolution of youth!
The main candidate for the presidential elections in Egypt is
Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who does not belong to a
party. The political landscape shows that there is little interest in
political parties, whether liberal or socialist, unless they create a
real role for themselves. This may possibly be achieved if a party
joins a crowd adopting its cause and demands. The party may,
for instance, come up with communication mechanisms to enable
its members and crowds it identifies with to express their
opinions and influence the political agenda of the party. The
biggest mistake for a party is to seek to have a group of famous
activists who belong to a crowd (adopting a certain cause) to
join the party, thinking that they would automatically attract the
crowd into following them. The opposite could happen, because
crowds seem to abandon whoever claims to be leading them and
they go along with those who appear to be following them!
The best move for a party that seeks to have a spot on the
future map is to develop new rules for the political game in line
with crowd democracy and not clashing with it. These rules
would, for instance, make parliament a facilitator for social
dialogue - the dialogue of the crowds. It should propose
mechanisms, and technical, political and legislative tools, for this

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dialogue to happen and gather due influence. These mechanisms
should encourage policymakers to listen to the collective mind
and learn from the wisdom of the masses. We must not forget that
liberalism is much wider than liberal parties. Liberal parties
should therefore encourage the presence of liberal crowds in
the general sense, even if there are not many points of agreement
in various issues.
Many traditional challenges will continue to face liberal
parties in the future, especially that Islamist parties will continue
to exist for years to come. But perhaps the best move for liberal
parties at this point is to respect the crowds, and listen to the
voice of the collective mind. Follow the crowd and you will most
likely be right on the things that really matter.

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115
Loaded victory:
Egypts revolution and where
it stands post-30 June

Esraa Abdel Fatah

I count myself among members of the generation of Egyptian
liberal youth who are between their twenties and forties. I believe
they bring new blood to liberalism in the Arab world after several
strikes the Arab liberal movement sustained. The hardest strike
came in 1952 by the Free Officers who staged a coup against a
fledging plurality-based and parliamentary rule system. It shook
the foundations of free liberal economy in Egypt and ushered in
socialist and totalitarian thinking.
This cruel experience had implications on the climate of
creativity and freedom of opinion, and on development and
quality in all areas. There was also the unforgettable June defeat,
which was not only a military defeat, but also an event that
revealed the extent of the hypocrisy, lying and deceit of varied
state bodies that monopolized knowledge, news, radio, TV,
education and industry. The Voice of Arabs Radio reported that
we were fighting on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, only for us to
realize we had lost Sinai and were fighting on the west bank of
the Suez Canal.
The size of the disaster and the persistence needed to
overcome it all but stopped a generation. This might have been
the reason why Sadat tried to reopen the parties, previously shut
down by Nasser to prevent them from contemplating and
reevaluating the socialist totalitarian dictatorship experience.
Our generation was born after the peace treaty with Israel
was signed, a parliamentary coalition between the Wafd Party
and the Muslim Brotherhood was formed, liberal writers and

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intellectuals such as Farag Fouda were assassinated, and the
Berlin Wall fell. This was the first manifestation showing very
clearly that the capitalist model and the liberal economy are about
to deal a deathly blow to the socialist camp. Stories of human
rights violations started to be circulated, and others of how the
liberal West respects the humanity of man, is creative in
production and development, while granting citizens individual
freedoms.
All of this took place under ongoing government control over
the media that used to pick what type of news we would hear,
what type of movies we could watch, and even what type of
activities parties could undertake inside their facilities.
The Gulf War had a huge impact on the stories Nasserites and
Islamists used to repeat about the one nation, be it Arab or
Muslim. We all heard of the killings, thefts, rapes that were
committed by the Arab Iraqi Army against Arab Muslims in
Kuwait! That was a painful blow to the different kinds of Arab
totalitarian and socialist regimes.
We saw regimes that claimed to fight imperialism
everywhere allow for Western bases to be established on their
territories and run to sign a joint defense agreement with a major
state that was previously classified as infidel.
Then we reached the point where the Madrid Conference was
held and the Oslo Accords signed, presenting a real and live
model for us, the youth generation, to prove that gains can be
made through legal and political struggle, rather than hate speech
and war.
All of this remained in the consciousness of my generation
that continued to observe, analyze, and understand, until we came
to be convinced that there was a major global wave unfolding
based on the freedom of the individual, the freedoms of
expression and opinion, and the freedom of economy, while
respecting law and democracy.


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Satellite channels emerge
In the mid-1990s, Egypt launched Nile Sat, which marked the
official beginning of the open skies era. With the increase in
the number of arts, sports, drama, and news satellite channels, the
region entered a new intellectual phase. The conflict turned into
an intellectual and ideological one, where every group defended
its logic using a large group of speakers and even a larger group
of viewers no longer centered within the borders of one state but
spread all over the region.
Moreover, the professionalism and huge expenditures of
these channels provided the opportunity to not only learn about
the experiences of major and developed countries, and hear from
their officials, but also to learn about their elections, including
political campaigns, motivating my generation to expand their
imagination, dream bigger, and ask questions. Why does the same
not happen in our countries? Why is there no plurality? Why
cant Egypt have a new president? Why is there no role for the
youth, women, Copts, or minorities? Why are elections not rigged
in Europe? Why no impact on national security? A lot of
questions continued to be raised without answers until the
Internet became available in Egypt.

Internet in Egypt
A great technological leap has made communication easier,
safer, and distant from brutal authorities that suppressed any
gathering of a political nature. Then, chat rooms and forums that
were bolder in discussing issues of religion and politics freely,
and with no censorship, inspiring discussions and motivating
minds. After being convinced of the points of view of others,
many changed their positions. At this point, it became clear that
there is a generation that does not need to be spoon-fed and has
begun to use the rest of its senses.


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Kefaya movement and Al-Ghad Party
Egyptian politics has also gone through a development phase,
in parallel to the development of thinking, and may have been
affected by it. There was a great need for new blood to bring life
to the political movement that had been stiffened, including the
ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) at the time.
The Kefaya movement included different political groups -
Islamist, leftist and liberal. The foundation of Al-Ghad Party was
a massive addition, enabling the youth generation to have a
political platform similar in orientation to them; that spoke their
language, and used their modern methods. As a result, Al-Ghad
and Kefaya became meeting points for youth. All members of Al-
Ghad Party, who were automatically members of the Kefaya
movement, gained experience in organization and enlightenment,
and learned the features of the new Egyptian political spectrum
that seemed to be overlapping at many times, where liberal
overlapped with national and with socialist. At every gathering,
differences between individuals appeared and closer groups were
not formed until Facebook appeared.
When Facebook appeared in 2007, it offered a perfect
political platform where virtual protests, discussions, debates,
alliances, and even electoral campaigns took form. Pages
criticizing the ruling authority and fighting bequeathal plans for
the presidency were created. Groups and pages promoting
liberalism were also created. With some surprise, liberals realized
they are much greater in number than they thought they were. We
found there were enough of us to start parties and change
movements by enlightenment drives. In 2008, I once called on
people to watch Heya Fawda (It is Chaos), a movie by Khaled
Youssef and Youssef Shahin. It was a realistic and painful movie
where the security state we lived under was perfectly depicted,
clarifying that it can only be fought by the people, who must
unite and face and break the security fist. We arrived at Radio
Cinema where the movie was showing only to find tens of
security vehicles surrounding the building to prevent the protest

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that started after the movie aimed at greeting the filmmakers and
sending a message to all others that art is a free liberal tool of
cultural and intellectual change. Facebook, it turned out, forced
the security forces to mobilize!
So we thought, let us do it again and pick a day for peaceful
action, like Gandhi did, calling for a strike all over India to force
the occupation authorities out. For us, that was 6 April 2008. Two
weeks earlier, I started a Facebook page named 6 April, Public
Strike by the People of Egypt. Attracted to the title, politicized
and un-politicized youth started to join to learn about what would
happen in Egypt on 6 April. They knew, wrote, created, and came
up with ideas to spread the word. Our purpose was to reach out to
people through their economic needs, which represent a priority
for them. They started to feel that we are on their side when we
called for increasing income in line with price hikes. They
participated and through freedom of expression they wrote on the
page to spread the idea. Among the ideas proposed were writing
on banknotes, and putting up 6 April signs on cars or balconies.
The day was a success in which different society groups
participated. Young men and women were arrested, and I was one
of them. I was arrested because I called for it, and founded the
page while emergency law was in effect. Thanks to the peoples
sympathy and local and international media pressure, I was
released. The mature people of this country called me the
Facebook girl and a new stage of struggle began with a newly
acquired experience and popular faith in freedom of expression,
even virtual expression, that was being violated and that must be
fought for.
The ceiling of demands of the struggling liberal generation
became higher with Ayman Nours release from Mubaraks
prison after ElBaradeis announcement of his possible
presidential candidacy. My political activity started in 2004 with
Ayman Nour, Al-Ghad Party, and the Kefaya movement. Then I
met with some liberal youth who worked with Dr ElBaradei in
2010 and we organized a huge popular welcome for him after the

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end of his term at the International Atomic Energy Agency and
his return home. His presence and intention to run when the
constitution was changed, allowing a true and competitive
democratic environment, raised the ambitions of all of those who
called for change - particularly liberals. He chaired the National
Association for Change that included figures from all groups of
the Egyptian opposition, while demands for amending the
constitution became louder, aimed at enabling independents to
contest elections - and real elections, not the usual fake ones.
ElBaradeis international status as a Nobel Peace Prize
winner shed a lot of light on the importance of change in a stifled
Egypt. The activity of Ayman Nour and his movement did not
stop, and the courage of Al-Ghad Party youth played a role in
fighting repeated bequeathal attempts. We can also never forget
the national campaign against bequeathal, He Shall Not Rule,
regardless of the frustration that crept into the minds of some
youth because of the recent acts of some of the same figures who
led it.
Then came 2010, with signs that Mubaraks regime could be
forced out. After amending the constitution twice, and the
judges crisis, the time came for legislative elections that were
paving the way for the awaited bequeathal to take place in
about a year, after the end of Hosni Mubaraks then-current term.
For that reason, the NDP was very extreme in its attempt to get
rid of all types of opposition to the extent that the resulting
parliament was almost 100 percent composed of the ruling party.
Ahmed Ezz, the NDPs organizational secretary at the time and
the engineer of the 2010 parliamentary elections, had made a
most foolish mistake that the whole NDP paid for after. Liberal
democratic groups and leftists became more enraged. Even
ordinary citizens were enraged.
At the time, I worked as an elections observer with a trained
team from the Egyptian Democratic Academy, of which I am
honored to be a cofounder. Our monitoring was not traditional:
we used maps and had violations appear wherever they happened,

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anywhere in the country, and in a timely fashion. This was one of
the modern tools we used to make real change, to expose and
eliminate corruption and election rigging. Society started to
bristle with rage, especially after Ayman Nour published a picture
of the face of a completely un-politicized young man from
Alexandria, Khaled Said, after he was tortured to death. Khaled
was not a political activist, but an ordinary citizen, which made
the public feel they were prone to danger even if they kept a low
profile. Meanwhile, the National Association for Change took
action by establishing a parallel parliament within Al-Ghad Party.
Made of 100 members, that parallel parliament included figures
not only from Cairo but also from other governorates. At the
inaugural session of the invalid 2010 parliament, Mubarak
described the parallel parliament in his speech as worthless,
saying: Let them have fun. That spurred young liberal and
democratic groups to begin preparing for what we believed could
be a final battle, and one that was close.
Against the backdrop of these political events that took place
between 2009 and the end of 2010, I began to work on rights
awareness through the Egyptian Democratic Academy. We
observed the 2010 parliamentary elections, and communicated
with, motivated, and trained youth from different groups by
engaging them in political or rights-based public work. Our
ability to communicate with some international liberal
organizations honed our experience and helped us to learn from
international liberal experiences. One of the most renowned and
well-established liberal organizations was Friedrich Naumann
Foundation. Having an office in Cairo, and young liberal
Egyptians who understand the nature of Egyptian society in its
team, made this organization particularly special. The best thing
it did was encouraging liberal youth to write, compete in writing,
and share experiences, along with hosting international liberals in
Egypt. Liberal youth were given the opportunity to travel to
Germany and attend international conferences to exchange
experiences. I am honored to be one of these youth who gained
the skill of exchanging experiences locally and internationally.

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The Tunisian Revolution
In mid-December 2010, when most of the Egyptian
democratic change forces were preparing for the next steps, a
young man from the Tunisian city of Bouzaid named Mohamed
Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest at the economic and
security circumstances affecting his rights as a human being. That
spurred anger on Tunisian streets that reached outside the
countrys borders. I challenged those who said Egypt is not
Tunisia, saying Egypt will follow Tunisia. At that time we
were working on the page of We Are All Khaled Said to call
for a protest for change and against police violations on Police
Day, 25 January 2011. A full-scale revolution erupted in Tunisia
to the extent that Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali could not contain the
resounding impact of the chant, The people want the fall of the
regime! Later, I heard that slogan echo in other Arab capitals.
Cairo was the first to repeat that chant, which was originally
a liberal demand. People demanded their freedom years after
giving it up to suppression and injustice.
Eighteen days passed, just like the 18 days I spent in
Mubaraks prison after 6 April 2008. Eighteen days in 2008 that
changed me as an Egyptian citizen, and a different 18 days in
2011 that changed Egypt. These 18 days were the age of the
Egyptian democratic civil revolution. It became clear that dark
forces were about to rise to grab the fruits of this revolution,
depending on the poverty of the simple people who are not
educated enough to spot traders in religion. At that point, liberals
and civil state advocates started to meet frustrations.

Dreams crushed by obstacles
The Muslim Brotherhood meeting with Omar Suleiman to
negotiate the release of its leaders, such as Khayrat El-Shater,
from prison, which was aired on the media, was a prelude to what
several rounds of negotiations throughout the 18 days lead to.

123
One could not help but wonder what these dark forces were
negotiating with the dictatorial forces then in power.
Overwhelmed with the historic moments we were making, we did
not give much attention to the details. Our dream came true and
the president stepped down. We were too blinded by this moment
and the joy of the victory over the tyrant regime to think that the
alternative that was soon to rule and manage the transition period
was part and parcel of the regime that was supposed to have
fallen. Despite doubts we had about the constitutionality of the
resignation, we were optimistic and hopeful that the military
institution would manage the transition period to achieve the
principles of the revolution expressed in Tahrir Square. The
method of resignation confirmed to us that the 1971 Constitution
was no longer standing and that a new constitution would be
drafted.
Led by Field Marshal Tantawi, the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces (SCAF) announced the formation of a committee
to amend the 1971 Constitution that was brought down at the
moment of Mubaraks resignation. Revolutionary and liberal
forces sought a true democracy, not a fake one, as we were used
to before the revolution. Democracy is not only a ballot box, but
also a long process that ends - not begins - with elections. We, the
civil forces, raised the slogan of Constitution First and rejected
the constitutional amendment committee that included no liberals.
The product of this committee had nothing to do with free civil
principles. Liberals faced a major challenge represented by the
alliance formed between SCAF, the former regime, the Muslim
Brotherhood, and the Salafists who began to organize themselves,
become more visible, and participate in million-man marches.
That alliance represented about 75 percent of Egyptians, which
was reflected in the heaven versus hell referendum on 19
March 2011, while liberals and the rest of the democrats
constituted about 25 percent of the votes. Certainly, all types of
weapons - religion included - were used. If you say yes, you will
go to heaven. If you say no, you will go to hell. This was the first

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strike against the free civil liberal state that we dreamt of, and
thought we could achieve, after 11 February 2011.
This was followed by elections for which liberal parties -
particularly those formed after the revolution - were not ready
compared to political Islamic forces that commanded old and
interconnected organizations, in addition to a lot of funds
collected through charity work or taken from some Gulf
countries. The second strike was the electoral loss to political
Islam.
That other side, which stood against the rise of a liberal state,
was not the only reason for the consecutive blows to our dreams.
Liberals themselves were a reason, as some liberal parties
decided to go into electoral coalitions with the Muslim
Brotherhood that resulted in very little benefit for them. Al-Ghad
Party committed this mistake and still does, unfortunately.
The challenge of religious groups controlling the whole scene
was a nightmare for real liberal forces that did not realize the dire
need for unity and integration. Liberal groups continued to be
scattered in the form of tens of parties, only two or three of which
had real weight, while others had closed offices.
However, the performance of the Free Egyptians in
parliament, and that of individual Wafd Party parliamentarians,
gave a glimpse of hope until parliament was dissolved by virtue
of a decision from the Supreme Constitutional Court. God saved
us from the inferno of Islamists taking control over legislation,
bent on forcing us back to past ages where liberty and opinions
were suppressed and women enslaved. Despite the consecutive
blows, liberals managed to stand up again and cling to thin hopes
that could turn to realities.
After the dissolution of parliament, we began to work on the
presidential elections, in which no revolutionary young liberal
candidate participated. We did everything we could to save what
could be saved and to unite some candidates who carried different
ideologies but shared the desire to save the revolution from the

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trap of the former regime and that of political Islam.
Unfortunately, personal interests were prioritized at the expense
of public interests, as all candidates insisted on competing and
scattered the civil revolutionary voting bloc. Liberal youth were
fragmented, as one group supported an Islamist candidate who
claimed modesty, Dr. Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, and another
stood by a leftist candidate who claimed openness, Mr. Hamdeen
Sabahi. Others saw nothing wrong with backing Mr. Amr
Moussa, due to his closeness to the liberal camp and despite his
former affiliation with the Mubarak regime. Others supported
General Ahmed Shafiq, fearing that the Muslim Brotherhood
would come to power.
In the end, the fears we had from the beginning became
reality in the runoff round when Islamists mobilized - supported
by some liberals who feared the return of Mubaraks regime
represented by Shafiq - in support of Mohamed Morsi, who
claimed to be the revolutions candidate. Meanwhile, another
group refused both Morsi and Shafiq and either boycotted the
election or invalidated their ballots. I personally believe that those
who invalidated their ballots, including myself, were more than
one million, constituting the critical liberal revolutionary bloc
that could not vote for a candidate affiliated with dictatorship or
fascism.
Mohamed Morsi won the runoff and became president. As a
result, we entered the worst year in memory as the political
Islamic current manipulated and abused religion to shield its
failures and defame the civil opposition. Gaining control over all
key state institutions was a clear priority for the Muslim
Brotherhood government. A new strike against the idea of the
civil liberal state was delivered by Morsi when he issued a
dictatorial constitutional declaration in November 2012,
ironically uniting democrats, liberals and leftists together in a
new political coalition under the name The National Salvation
Front. That coalition was a sign that the liberal trend was gaining
ground and winning support. This became crystal clear in the

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Itihadeya, Moqattam and Tamarod protests, as well as in other
moments when larger groups of Egyptians came to see liberalism
as the only logical route to achieving their reasonable human
needs.

30 June and after
On 30 June 2013, a revolution that was liberal at heart
erupted, bringing down abusers of religion and drawing up a new
political roadmap. This revolution brought a significant liberal
figure to the position of vice-president - Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei.
Later, Dr. ElBaradei pulled out, leaving in shock those who had
supported him for years, while embarrassing liberals who
delegated him in Tahrir Square to represent them at the countrys
time of need. This, together with the support of Dr. Ayman Nour
and others who promoted the theory of a soft coup to the
Muslim Brotherhood, frustrated liberals. In spite of this, other
liberal groups, such as the Wafd, the Free Egyptians, and the
Conference Party, as well as independents, insisted on continuing
the 30 June drive to fight terrorist groups, expressing popular
sentiment to different degrees.
The blows after 30 June were less harmful than those before.
They could be tolerated or deemed as a natural outcome of the
critical situation. They started when the 50-Member Committee
tasked with amending the 2012 Constitution was composed of an
absolute majority of leftist Nasserites, to the extent that Dr.
Mohamed Abu El-Ghar, president of the leftist Egyptian Social
Democratic Party, was chosen as a representative of liberals,
signifying clear exclusion of this promising trend in Egypt. The
fact that we were unable to repeal the article on military trials was
also a strike against the idea of the civil state. However, it was
kept due to the need to fight terrorism. We are hopeful that it will
be changed in a future parliament that represents us clearly. We
also hoped for positive discrimination for women, at least
temporarily, which we still hope to see in the next election law.

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Hope and working to achieve what we seek was a motivation for
us to go on. Despite frustrations, the liberal minority managed to
draft a constitutional chapter on freedoms, which we consider a
victory of liberal principles in the history of the development of
Egyptian constitutions.
Implementing the first step of the post 3-July political
roadmap, which was the referendum on the constitution that has
already taken place, signifies that we have achieved the first
demand we had after Mubaraks fall - Constitution First - and
have proven to Egyptian society and public opinion that we were
right from the beginning; that true democracy must have its
principles established in a constitution for all Egyptians. The next
step was to face other challenges, the first of which for liberals to
have a presidential candidate. That was not achieved, as Defense
Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has won the vast majority of the
publics support. He has become Egypts most powerful man,
with liberal parties seeking to be on his good side, and to be close
to him by all possible means. Leftists, on the other hand,
presented more than one candidate; namely, Mr. Hamdeen Sabahi
and Mr. Khaled Ali.
Unfortunately, liberal political groups presented no strong
liberal alternative until now - one capable of making the people
feel the same enthusiasm and optimism they hold for El-Sisi. We
have become confused and are waiting on his decisions. We are
waiting in hope for a liberal candidate to come forward to
compete and convince the people of his worth.
All of this inspired me to write on my personal pages on
social media websites that the third anniversary of 11 February is
one of a loaded victory. We must be cautious of all that is
coming, since temporary deceptions - albeit ones that impress us -
lead us to fall into long dreams.
Certainly, we must all think again, rectify our course, make
the right choices as liberals, and set our own priorities. Now,
there is still time, which we may not have tomorrow.

128

129
Politics and liberalism in Egypt:
Did anything change?

Shehab Wagih

I do not remember the first time I heard the word politics.
But I distinctly remember the impression this word gave in my
country and most of the Arab region towards the end of the last
century. It was a magical word surrounded with a holy aura. I
remember that mentioning this word left people with different
impressions: fear of provoking important people, power and
influence, and big change in peoples lives, and on fewer
occasions hope for a better life. I also remember that the word
liberalism did not mean much in the life of Egyptians and that
most Egyptians either did not understand what it means or did not
care to. In the beginning of this century, everything changed and
words such as politics and liberalism started to leave different
impressions. Here, I would like to tell you the story from my own
perspective, and support it by presenting some of my personal
experiences. I imagine the story as made up of three chapters.
The first began in the middle of the first decade of this century,
while the second chapter began on the evening of 25 January
2011 and ended with millions coming out against Dr. Mohamed
Morsi on 30 June 2013, marking the beginning of a new chapter,
the outcome of which, and when it will end, I cannot tell.

Chapter I
In his book, Political Challenges and Changing Agendas, Dr.
Mark Kesselmen claims that the most important factors that
changed political situations globally in the beginning of this
century were the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fall of the

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Berlin Wall, the events of 11 September 2001, and the 2008
global financial crisis. Although I cannot confirm that all of these
international factors had anything to do with what happened in
the Arab region in the beginning of 2011, I can relate to you what
led to these events.
12 December 2004 was an unremarkable winter day in most
of Egypt. Although most Egyptians sensed no change, it was
different in the Downtown area of Cairo where hundreds of
Egyptians gathered in front of the High Court to say Enough
(Kefaya) for the first time to the Egyptian president, who is still
venerable and wise until this moment, Mohamed Hosni Mubarak.
No one can tell when exactly this group began to come together.
Some believe that the beginning was in the protests arranged in
support of the second Palestinian Intifada in October 2001. While
others think that the group did not come together except in March
2003, following the US invasion of Iraq. What is certain, though,
is that the group came together despite ideological differences.
Kefaya held its first meeting in November 2004 at Abu El-Ella
Madis home, where they agreed to say to Mubarak Kefaya /
Enough, no to extension, no to bequeathal. The Kefaya alliance,
if I may call it such, included Islamists, communists, anarchists
and liberals, in addition to some of those enamored with fame and
who tried to become visible at the expense of a group of honest
patriots who loved this country.
Kefaya reached the peak of its success in 2005 when it
managed to hold a large number of events in areas that were
considered to be off-limits, such as the International Book Fair
and Downtown Cairo. Most importantly, it managed to open for
the first time channels for dialogue and communication between
various political groups in Egyptian universities. In my school, I
saw Ahmed Badawi, member of the liberal Al-Ghad Party, and
Mohamed Eid, who is a liberal and brother of activist Ahmed
Eid, working with Mostafa Mohey and Khaled El-Sayed, who are
leftists, not caring about their ideological affiliations. The Muslim
Brotherhood was supposed to cooperate with Kefaya in

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universities. But it was clear to me - at least in my school - that
the Brotherhood members were very afraid of adopting Kefayas
slogans, because they believed they crossed their red lines, and
they decided to protest only for national and Islamist issues
instead of national political issues. I was impressed with Kefaya
just like many others from my generation and I went with its
members to my second protest ever. The first protest I had ever
been to was one of the protests supporting the Palestinian
Intifada. I was a high school student at the time.
I cannot give one reason for the dissolution of Kefaya, but I
distinctly remember when it started to break down. It was when I
suddenly learned that some colleagues of mine were no longer
directly affiliated with Kefaya, but affiliated with Students for
Change. I learned that others preferred to work with Youth for
Change. Groups began to fight over actual roles and
communication with the elite. This was followed by the
withdrawal of all Islamists who justified their move by an article
posted on a website that they believed undermined the value of
the hijab (the veil). I must not forget to mention that some were
monitored by security and others slandered by the media.
However, what was certain was that by the beginning of 2006,
Kefaya had become very weak and lost a lot of its glamor.
In the winter of 2006, I was on my way to attend a lecture at
my school when I was stopped by a colleague who knew my
beliefs and who asked me to join the Democratic Front Party. My
colleague believed the party to be the heir of the liberal wing of
Aziz Sedkys front. Knowing the restrictions suffered by parties
in Egypt, and interference of the security apparatus, I was
hesitant. But I was determined to go through with it and I
remember very well the first meeting I attended with the youth of
the Democratic Front Party. Dr. Shady El-Ghazali Harb was the
partys youth secretary at the time and he was very passionate
about the new party and wanted it to be a party that truly
represented the liberal trend. Then, I was not as enthusiastic about
the intellectual trend as I was about building an organization that

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could compete with the National Democratic Party (NDP). I
found the minimum of capabilities and young efficient members
in this party to make this dream possible.
I wish today I knew in 2007 that the most important thing
lacking in the Democratic Front Party was more training for
members on its political beliefs, and respect for the rules of
organizational work and teamwork. The party lost a lot of its
members due to the lack of clarity in the purpose of partisan
work, and organizational discipline, and the passion of party
members that was at most times overwhelming. At times, this
passion contradicted with the partys political beliefs.
To be honest, many attempts were made by several local and
foreign partners to support the Democratic Front Party and
improve its performance by providing training opportunities for
its members. The first opportunity was a meeting between party
youth and Ukrainian Orange Revolution youth in Istanbul. The
meeting was arranged with support from the British Liberal
Democratic Party and Friedrich Naumann Foundation. Tens of
events were organized by the party in cooperation with civil
society organizations. Institutions would not have been able to
arrange these events without the support of the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation. These activities helped build the capacities
of the cadres of several political movements until they had a role
in the Egyptian political landscape.
In early 2008, the status of the workers of El-Mahalla
Spinning Company aggravated, and shy calls for a strike were
made, capturing the interest of the Democratic Front Party. The
suggested date for the strike was 6 April 2008. A few days
earlier, it was clear that that day would not be an ordinary day.
The media, on the other hand, tried to convince citizens that it
was an ordinary day, although reality was completely different.
On that day, the city of Mahalla was out of the control of the
Egyptian state. Armed men took over the streets and imposed
charges for cars to pass. On that day, citizens expressed
unexpected anger against the police and anyone connected with

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the NDP in Mahalla. For a moment, I asked myself if it was
possible for the same to happen elsewhere in Egypt.
The period between 2008 and 2010 was the peak time for
youth movements - especially the April 6 Movement that was
established when calls for the Mahalla strike were first made.
Most of its leaders at that point were not new to political work, as
rumored. On the contrary, most of them were graduates from
Kefaya. I remember my first meetings with Ahmed Maher in Al-
Ghad Party before he became the leader of the April 6
Movement. He was a young liberal man who was loved by most
of his colleagues. He truly hated Mubaraks regime and was
ready to do anything to face it. I remember the day he was
released after spending some time in detention in El-Basateen
Police Station. While taking him home in my car, it crossed my
mind that prison might have undermined his passion. But on the
way home, he was preparing for events to challenge Mubaraks
regime. Conflicts inside April 6 started from the first day. Some
of these conflicts were ideological, but most were personal. What
was certain, however, was that despite all of the conflicts, the age
of a unified April 6 was much longer than that of a unified
Kefaya. The reason for this might have been the passion of its
youth, or the public leadership of Ahmed Maher, and his concern
that the movement had a clear image.
6 April 2010 was a critical day in my life. Before that day I
was a political activist in a party and carried a certain political
ideology. But I could not say that I truly knew what politics was
before that day. I followed closely politics in the European
Parliament and was always impressed by its rich diversity and
interest in political research. I saw in 2010 a job ad for temporary
researchers at the European Parliament, specifically with the
liberal and democrat bloc. I was very enthusiastic about this
temporary job, applied for it, and was surprised when my
application was accepted and my date of travel set to 10 April
2010. I was thrilled about the new experience to the extent that I
prepared everything to travel - my visa, flight ticket, and army

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clearance - one week before the date of travel. Then came 6 April
2010 when there was a call for a protest in Downtown Cairo.
Before the protest began, and while trying to assemble, I was
arrested together with a number of colleagues. On the evening of
8 April, I was transferred to Maadi Police Station to be released.
But the real purpose was the idea that putting me with convicts
would make me respect my supposed masters. I remember well
the many interventions made for my release on the evening of 9
April, so I could travel to Brussels on the morning of 10 April. I
distinctly remember the feeling that arises when your country
puts you in prison for expressing your political opinion about
your homeland, while another country is willing to host you, pay
you a salary to express your political opinions and analyses, and
teach you how politics should be. The experience of working for
the European Parliament was the most important in my life,
because it is where I learnt that politics is not about attractive
slogans, but procedures that improve peoples lives.
During my stay in Brussels, Mohamed ElBaradei started to
take a place in the political scene, and many Egyptians began to
look up to him as a source of hope. Opposition groups at the time
tried to make Dr. ElBaradei a center point of attraction, and
established the National Association for Change around him.
However, what was truly special was the group of youth that tried
to organize themselves in what was known as the ElBaradei
Support Campaign. Then an incident occurred, one sadly usual,
but due to special circumstances it changed the face of Egypt. A
young Egyptian man from Alexandria, named Khaled Said, was
beaten to death by the police. His picture went viral on social
media, enraging many of those who belonged to his social class
and did not - until then - care about political work. It seemed to
everyone that the practices of the police apparatus could no
longer be tolerated.
After the comedy of the 2010 parliamentary elections
organized by the Egyptian regime, many youth movements
wanted to use the anger of Egyptians against the police. Being a

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holiday, calls for protests against the practices of the police
apparatus on Police Day were made on the Facebook page We
Are All Khaled Said with the purpose of removing the interior
minister. As events developed in Tunisia, the ceiling of the
ambitions of the youth started to rise. If we speak of the early
days of 2011, we must not forget the events following bombing
of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria, and the thousands of
Egyptian Copts who protested against the slackness of the
security apparatus that did not defend their churches.
The morning of 25 January 2011 was not like its evening.
The change that Egypt went through on that day was
unprecedented. But before leaving this scene, I would like to
explain that at those times the word politics was connected to
hope for change in Egypt, where it was possible to criticize the
president and fine to criticize ministers. As such, at that point,
liberalism was not popular. But even though the term liberalism
was an enigma for most Egyptians, parties and movements
declared themselves liberal.

Chapter II
I fully admit that I am biased on this stage in the history of
Egypt. Despite the mistakes we made, it was a stage of hope and
feeling the strength of these people and their ability to change. In
this stage, the word politics was connected to change, freedom,
and revolution. Fear of the word vanished and Egyptians started
to learn more about liberalism. But liberalism was heavily
attacked and had its image destroyed in these days - a defaming
of people more than it was a defaming of the principles of
liberalism per se.
On the morning of 25 January 2011, some limited and usual
clashes occurred between security forces and activists. But the
numbers were extremely surprising, especially that most of the
faces were entirely new. We had never seen them before. By
evening, protestors managed to take over Tahrir Square.

136
Although the numbers of protestors in the square were not large
on that day, it was a group that truly represented the Egyptian
educated elite. I remember very well the attack of the security
forces on that day against protestors near Kasr El-Aini Street.
Responding to that attack, I heard protestors crying very strongly
for the first time, The people want to bring down the regime.
The customary attacks by security forces could not disperse the
protestors, as the numbers were unusual. I remember that many,
including Dr. Osama El-Ghazali Harb and Mr. Ibrahim Eissa,
decided to bring tents and spend the night in the square. By
midnight, security forces made an unusual attack where huge
amounts of teargas and large numbers of conscripts were used.
Security decided not to let the sit-in continue.
Most of the political groups gathered and decided to call on
citizens to come out on Friday, 28 January, to protest after Friday
prayers. On 26 and 27 January, security forces were exhausted
chasing protests led by youth who were mostly no more than 20
years old. I cannot really tell until this moment what motivated
these youth and these large numbers of people to come out
without a clear call. Then came 28 January, which was a very
different day. On that day, the police wanted to break protestors
by force, only to be broken by the protestors for good. Police
vehicles and stations were attacked, police officers and cadets
were attacked on the streets, and the police lost its prestige after
losing its respect. The attack against police stations and
policemen was by us justified at the time as an act of self-defense
against the attack led by the police force against protestors.
However, three years after the revolution, I must admit that while
the attack of the police against protestors was a crime, the attack
against police stations and policemen was also a crime.
After 28 January, the situation developed and as we all know
led to the resignation of Mubarak on 11 February 2011. The
question raised on 28 January was who was the alternative. Some
believed the solution to be a presidential council, while others
thought it to be urgent elections. Others proposed forming a

137
government with absolute powers. To be honest, the problem was
not about the form of the alternative as much as it was about his
identity. Most leftists and Islamists at the time were against Dr.
ElBaradei. All groups were struggling to secure a large share of
the presidential council, if created. Eventually, most groups
agreed to let the military council (the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces) run the government temporarily. I remember at
that time that some civil groups, in one of the meetings of the
National Association for Change, called on the army to give
power to a civil authority but the Muslim Brotherhood withdrew
from the meeting and sent less important representatives to
subsequent meetings.
At this stage, many felt that the reason behind the success of
25 January was the use of force. Others believed that change can
never be made except by force, and considered any negotiations
in politics to be betrayal - hence refusing negotiations with
Mubarak. A serious imbalance occurred when those who had the
power and ability to make change on the ground had the stronger
voice, instead of those who adopted reason and politics. The
authorities at the time wanted to appease whoever was capable of
mobilizing people more than those who had a political vision or a
vision for the future. I do not claim that the Youth Revolution
Coalition represented all of the revolutionary groups on the
ground. But it could have been an acceptable representative of the
voice of reason. But because many sided with power and change
by pressure, neither the coalition nor any other group could enter
into a political negotiation. Eventually, the military council had
absolute authority, with no side present to express the revolution
politically.
The situation in political parties at this stage was at its
absolute worst, given that Egypt was already suffering from too
many ineffective political parties before 25 January. After that
date, the situation got out of control, as most of those who
founded political parties did not have a clue what political parties
are. Hundreds wanted to create parties and accused older parties

138
of treason. Then others established parties to accuse the new
parties of treason, while a number of youth movements continued
to accuse all parties of treason and reject the very idea of them.
In the meantime, the Muslim Brotherhood was the only
political group that could present an agenda backed by a strong
and coherent organization. The purpose of the Brotherhood was
to seek authority through speedy elections before the other groups
could prepare themselves to compete. For that purpose, the
Brotherhood presented itself to the military council as the loyal
ally and close friend that supports the process of peaceful change
and does not make radical demands that are difficult to meet. In
the meantime, youth groups that spoke to themselves and to the
media became tougher in their demands to which they received
no response due to their inability to mobilize large numbers of
people.
The March 2011 constitutional referendum was one of the
hardest strikes against civil parties and youth groups that united
together with the people against the military council and the
Brotherhood, but that were sorely defeated. Most civil groups
wanted to have the constitution drafted first; religious groups and
military council supporters were clearly campaigning for stability
and the will of God. Despite the strength of the strike sustained
by civil groups, they did not unite truly and accusations of treason
continued to be made. The gap became even wider when some
civil groups came out calling for a renewed use of popular force.
The loss of the parliamentary elections was another defeat,
but it was to a great extent an expected defeat, as the selection
criterion for civil groups was not popularity on the ground as
much as it was revolutionary purity and personal relations. As a
result, the candidates presented were not only weak in terms of
electoral performance, but also in terms of political performance,
which became evident after their election. In the parliamentary
elections, we saw overblown accusations against existing
leaderships - of being remnants of the former regime. Even
Osama El-Ghazali Harb, who was one of the first to go to Tahrir

139
Square on 25 January, was accused of being a remnant of the
former regime by some revolutionary adolescents. In this stage, it
became clear that youth groups started to lose the sympathy of
the Egyptian people because some of these groups were too
extremist in their demands and too persistent for radical solutions
that cannot be achieved.
But the absolute defeat that changed the scene and rearranged
coalitions happened in the 2012 presidential elections. Civil
groups were divided and failed to settle on one candidate. A
number of youth groups began to claim they were the best choice,
leading to the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate who
promised to respond to the demands of youth groups and engage
civil groups. However, once he came to power, Mohamed Morsi
broke all his election promises and began to restructure the state
to be the Muslim Brotherhoods preserve, depending on the fact
that it was the only organized group that was well experienced in
the mechanisms of political work. Several confrontations took
place between him and youth groups. Later, animosity grew
between him and the army and pro-stability groups due to several
actions that were seen as promoting violence and extremism,
leading to Al-Qaeda leaders raising black flags in the North Sinai
city of Al-Arish.
The actions of Mohamed Morsi forced the leaderships of civil
groups to unite and form the National Salvation Front (NSF). The
NSF started a political battle against Dr. Morsi aimed at revealing
the true nature of his acts to the public and the outside world, to
strip him of what he claimed was his legitimacy. Mohamed Morsi
lost most of his allies and by the time the Tamarod Movement
began to collect signatures in support of withdrawing confidence
from Dr. Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood had lost all of its
political allies. When the calls for the 30 June protests were
made, a different scene started to appear in Egypt, indicating that
everyone would join forces to put an end to the rule of the
Muslim Brotherhood.


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Chapter III
I do not know how many took to the streets 30 June 2013, but
I am sure it was the largest protest in the history of Egyptian
protests. These large numbers of people were truly enraged by the
Muslim Brotherhood, the fact that certain groups monopolized
the state, and their feeling that the state was changing. Many of
them yearned for the relative stability that was present under
Mubarak. This might have been the first time for political
coalitions to change to the extent that the most extreme leftists
stood by Mubarak supporters against the rule of Mohamed Morsi.
The majority of people knew that Morsi would not remain in
power. We hoped he would call for early presidential elections,
but he continued in denial and insisted to challenge millions of
protestors. The Brotherhood staged a huge sit-in at Nasr Citys
Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square. The purpose of the sit-in and its
demands were not clear, but the intended message was I have
supporters too. The comparison on numbers was not at all in
favor of Mohamed Morsi. We knew the army would intervene,
but the question was when. Our biggest fear was that the army
would intervene after an open confrontation between the
protestors of the Rabaa sit-in and the protestors of the Al-
Itihadeya (Presidential Palace) sit-in, because the human price of
such a confrontation would have been very high and the impact
would have been truly frightening.
On 3 July, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the Coptic Pope,
and a number of patriotic politicians met with then Defense
Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to announce the removal of Dr.
Morsi and the beginning of a new political roadmap. Clearly, the
Muslim Brotherhood did not get the message and raised the tone
of its discourse against what they sometimes called the
undermining of electoral legitimacy and at others Gods
legitimacy. The Brotherhood barricaded the Rabaa sit-in and
another at Al-Nahda Square in Giza. They also set up their media
machine inside the sit-ins, turning them into mini states within
the state. I cannot tell if the rumors circulated about the presence

141
of wanted terrorists in the sit-ins are true or not, but I am sure that
the state would not have been able to reach into the sit-ins even if
they were.
We expected Dr. ElBaradei to become prime minister after 3
July and expected a lot from him. But we were surprised to see
Dr. ElBaradei excluded from the selection process for the post
and instead appointed as vice-president for international affairs.
In the meantime, the Muslim Brotherhood escalated its activities
against the state, declared it did not recognize the new
government of Egypt, and took things a step further by inciting
violence against the army and the police. People began to be
more enraged by the Brotherhood. Moreover, the rage against the
Brotherhood was connected to similar rage against the
government that was seen as being too tolerant with sit-ins that
made the lives of local residents impossible. A popular anti-
Brotherhood wave was formed rejecting reconciliation or even
dialogue and calling for the use of violence against pro-Morsi
protestors.
It was widely rumored that negotiations were held before the
sit-ins were forcibly dispersed, but until now there is no direct
evidence of such negotiations from neutral sources. The only
thing certain is that the security forces dispersed the Rabaa and
Nahda sit-ins after the Brotherhood and its associated National
Coalition to Support Legitimacy decided to escalate without
limits. As time passed, the escalation increased to the extent that
coalition members considered the Egyptian state an infidel entity
or traitor, and believed that members of its apparatus may be
killed and its facilities vandalized, leading popular hatred against
the coalition to grow.
The way the government managed the crisis was not ideal, as
the government did not embrace the necessary enlightenment and
transparency. It even tolerated the old ways that were used by
Mubaraks regime for years and proven useless. On the other
hand, the National Coalition to Support Legitimacy was no
smarter, as it provoked many by hate speech that incited violence

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against the army, police, Copts, and 30 June supporters,
dramatically decreasing their popularity as a political group
capable of running the state and making some of their
sympathizers state they would refuse to vote for them if elections
were held and they participated.
The constitution that was adopted might have been the only gain
made by Egypt after 30 June. We do not consider it an ideal
constitution, but most of the Egyptian political spectrum agreed on it.
Salafists, communists, representatives of Al-Azhar, the Coptic
Church, and syndicates, artists, the revolution youth, and all other
important groups of Egyptian society held serious discussions on it.
Most political groups deemed the new constitution better compared to
older Egyptian constitutions.
The popularity of Islamist groups decreased dramatically in
Egypt. Believing Islamists cannot rule the country has made
citizens more open to the term liberalism. Also, daily political
discussions contributed to achieving a better understanding of
politics and realizing its impact on our lives. But although many
Egyptians started to better see the impact of politics on all our
lives, many tended to blame politics for the recent deterioration in
Egyptian standards of living. Some yearned for security even at
the expense of freedom. Under these circumstances, some may
think liberalism has no chance. But I believe it has a golden
chance, now being the only system that was not tried in Egypt.
In Egypt, despite the relentless accusations that crisscross the
political scene, liberalism has a bright future. Many regular
citizens yearn for the voice of reason. Due to technological
developments, and learning about the experiences of others,
Egyptians have a real appetite for freedom, wish to improve their
living conditions, and have a better understanding of the lies of
populists. The greatest risk now is not political competition or the
interference of the state; the fear is that the interim government
fails to deal with present crises, leading to economic and security
chaos. However, if the government is able to manage this stage,
hold elections, and bring a diversified parliament that represents

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the entire Egyptian political spectrum, Egypt will have taken its
first steps towards establishing a liberal democracy that responds
to the ambitions of people who aspire for freedom.

144

145
The missing piece of the world
puzzle: Liberal International and the
Arab world

Emil Kirjas
*

We call upon all men and women who are in general
agreement with these [liberal] ideals and principles to join us in
an endeavor to win their acceptance throughout the world, are
the final words of the famous Oxford Manifesto from 1947,
which many describe as among the major political documents of
the 20th century. It was exactly the document that founded
Liberal International - the oldest liberal international political
organization in the world. For far too long those words have not
reached the ears or the hearts of the people in the Arab world;
until the last decade, when the Arab liberal awakening echoed
these words in Arabic from the Gulf to the Atlantic.
A lot of words have been said and many texts have been
written about the Arab Spring. Some praise it, others deny it,
some challenge it, others embrace it; there are many different
opinions about it in the Arab world. However, one fact remains
undeniable: over the past years the people in the Arab world
started hearing, discussing and debating openly about freedom, if
not breathing it with full lungs. And that is a qualitative change
that cannot go unnoticed. While it will be history that will
ultimately judge, in that sense the last decade has been the decade
of the Arabs in the international liberal family. Slowly, Arab
liberals have made it on the stage of the world of international
liberalism.

*
The positions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not
necessarily reflect those of Liberal International.

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Initial steps
The first decade of the new millennium was marked by the
unveiling of the biggest missing puzzle on the map of
international liberalism: that of the Arab world. While the end of
the 1980s and the early 1990s brought Latin American and
Eastern European liberals, the late 1990s and the first years of the
new century were the days of African and Asian liberals. And
when many thought that it would take a while for the empty
puzzle of the map to be filled, liberal politicians from Tunisia,
Morocco, and then Egypt and Lebanon, made the world map
complete.
Arab liberals had a challenging task: both to operate in a very
difficult environment, mostly in countries run by despotic
undemocratic regimes, and to present themselves to a world that
had little-to-no-knowledge of the countries where they were
coming from. For many in the democratic world, Arab countries
were terra incognita in a political sense. Many had known about
the oppressiveness of Arab regimes, the suppression of any
freedoms and liberties, but not so much about the hidden
movement of critical thought, mainly expressed through
philosophy and culture. Breaching those barriers was anything
but an easy task.
While all countries in the Arab world have their nascent
movements in past decades, the first ones who reached out to the
international liberal community were the Tunisian liberals.
Operating under an undemocratic regime, being allowed to be in
certain way involved in the daily political life of the country ruled
by President Ben Ali, was Parti Social-Libral (PSL). While
tolerated by the system, and even allowed to have some nominal
representation in parliament, PSL was itself subject to
monitoring, surveillance and intimidation.
PSL joined Liberal International in 1997, the first of the
liberal parties in the region. It was a period of dialogue and
opening of doors. The youth got integrated in the International

147
Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY), following the footsteps of
the mother party. However, it took 11 years for PSL to change its
status from observer member to full member of Liberal
International. Pressures from the system, a lack of reliable and
independent information on the ground, and insufficient trust
marked relations with the international liberal family. It was
exactly the barrier that the Arab liberal had to breach towards
joining the international liberal family.
I vividly remember my visit to Tunis in 2002, then as
president of IFLRY. I met the leadership of the party, but not in
their headquarters. We had to meet in the street, and then in a
restaurant, because we were followed. While walking down the
streets of Tunis we discussed how difficult it was to operate in the
state controlled by Ben Ali, and how they aspired that one day
we would feel free as you feel free in Brussels (where the
headquarters of IFLRY were at that time). Look at that guy. He
is from state security, pointed my host from PSL to a grumpy-
faced gentleman in dark brown clothes. He continued: He knows
you are a foreigner, he knows we are meeting, and he is following
us. Wait and see, he will follow us in the restaurant. And in fact,
he did. The security guy calmly sat down two tables from us, all
by himself, not even making an effort to cover up that he was
observing us. I very clearly remember what my Tunisian liberal
friend said: Dont worry, he wont harm you. They just want to
know what we are talking about. And if someone, they will
interrogate us. But we have nothing to hide. And most
importantly, as long as we have you as friends, we are covered.
The last words were the most important: the relations and
belonging to the international liberal family offered a refuge, and
some clout of protection. Maybe the Tunisian liberals from PSL
were not the best example of freedom fighters one might imagine
from that perspective, but at that time they were opening doors.
And it remains a fact that they were the first members from the
Arab world of Liberal International; just as much as it remains a
fact that Liberal International formally complained to Socialist

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International that their full member - Ben Alis Rassemblement
Constitutionnel Dmocratique (RCD) - was harassing members
of PSL. At Liberal International events, especially in the second
half of the last decade, PSL representatives spoke of the need for
more freedom, more respect of human rights, more womens
rights, and closer links with the democratic world.
It was the organization of the first Liberal International
Congress in Africa, in Dakar, under the title Islam and the
West, that opened the door for closer relations with the world in
which Islam was the dominant religion - and in that sense, with
the Arab world. That congress echoed loudly the message that
Islam and liberalism are in fact compatible. The document
adopted by Liberal International in Senegal was as much eye
opening for Western liberals as heart-warming for many liberal
followers of Islam. Exactly in Dakar, on the edges of the world of
Arab influence, Liberal International welcomed two key parties
from the Arab world: Union Constitutionelle and Mouvement
Populaire from Morocco. An important country, a country that
was transforming itself earlier than any other country in the Arab
world, Morocco was a nation that had decided to deepen links
with the democratic world. The inclusion of these two important
Moroccan parties with parliamentary and government
representation marked the process of real Arab inclusion and
involvement in Liberal International. It marked the opening of a
decade that I dare say no one expected would follow.

Arab liberals get organized
If in 2003 in Dakar someone loudly predicted that by the end
of the first decade of the 21st century two out of four congresses
of Liberal International would take place in the Arab world, and
that in the next year two out of four executive committees of
Liberal International would be dedicated to the Arab world, the
delegates would have near unanimously declared that person a
foolhardy optimist. The developments in the years to come have

149
proven that such an optimist would have actually been a realist,
and fortune-teller!
Among some there is a general misconception about Liberal
International. It is perceived as an institution on its own, a non-
governmental organization set up to promote liberalism around
the world. In fact, Liberal International is a federation of parties
that voluntarily decided to join forces and to promote their
common liberal values, nationally and internationally. This is
what makes Liberal International strong and vivid. Members fight
to win elections nationally, but also understand that in the world
it is only by joining forces, supporting each other and sharing
experiences, that we can achieve our common aspirations. That is
the sprit that guides the organization. Based on that spirit,
empowered by the Dakar Congress, many members of Liberal
International oriented their international solidarity and support
efforts towards Africa and the Arab world. Champion among
them was - and remains - the German liberal foundation, the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF).
Based on the example set by then Liberal International
president Annemie Neyts Utteboeck, who organized the congress
in Dakar, the newly elected president, John Lord Alderdice, in
2005 initiated a policy of engagement and dialogue with the
Arab world. With his extraordinary experience as the first
president of the Northern Irish Assembly after the Good Friday
Agreement, Lord Alderdice embarked on extremely difficult
tasks to facilitate talks that seemed impossible: among the Israelis
and the Palestinians, among the Palestinians themselves, among
the different factions in Iraq. In parallel with the Liberal
International presidency, that involvement created new
atmosphere of trust among a number of Arab liberal leaders and
the leadership of Liberal International. As much as there was a
growth among the Arab liberal movements in various countries,
Lord Alderdice had a distinct sense of understanding for the
historic opportunity to seize the momentum and deepen the
cooperation. Under his presidency, Liberal International

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organized two out of three congresses in the Arab world: in
Marrakesh, Morocco (2006) and Cairo, Egypt (2009). Indeed, if
he didnt host a congress in his native Belfast, Northern Ireland
(2008), maybe all Liberal International congresses under his
presidency would have been in the Arab world.
With unparalleled support offered by FNF, and with
inclusion of other partners like the Liberal Group in the European
Parliament, in 2006 Arab liberals gathered in Cairo, Egypt for a
major international liberal conference under the title, A
Framework for Liberal Democracy in the Middle East. Many
Arab liberal organizations were present. Some were political
parties, some were think tanks, and some were NGOs. They all
shared one goal: to bring liberalism to the Arab world, to ensure
that all Arabs live in freedom and democracy. That conference
was a historic event that ended with foundation of the Alliance of
Liberals in the Middle East and North Africa (ALMENA). Later
renamed the Network of Arab Liberals (NAL), and finally known
today as the Arab Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AAFD),
that network took over the torch of liberalism in the region. It
encouraged and empowered members of the network; that
through mutual support they can indeed achieve liberalization of
their societies. The Arab liberals organized themselves to be
equal partners with the existing liberal networks in Europe, Asia,
Africa and Latin America.
Liberal International was there to fully back this new regional
development and the first General Assembly of the Arab liberal
network took place in parallel with the Liberal International
Congress in Marrakeh, Morocco, in November 2006. An
elegantly chosen theme, Democracy and Development, sent
clear message to the region that progress could be achieved
through liberal democratic reforms. The region was no longer
marginal, but became actor in the global world of liberalism. The
coordinator of the network, Mohamed Tamaldou of Union
Constitutionelle (Morocco), won in competitive elections the post
of vice president in the bureau of Liberal International.

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It was the turn of Egyptian liberals to make their
breakthrough in Liberal International. Under the leadership of
one of the most prominent liberals in Egypt, Dr Osama Harb, a
newly created liberal party, the Democratic Front Party (DFP),
expressed its desire to strengthen the international liberal family
with its membership. The congress in Belfast, Northern Ireland
(2008), brought Egypt onto the map of Liberal International.
Soon El-Ghad Party, led by Ayman Nour having been freshly
released from prison, established cooperation with Liberal
International. Instrumental in that process was prominent
Egyptian writer Wael Nawara, who decided to dedicate himself
fully not only to promoting liberalism in his country but also in
the region. He made sure El-Ghad became a member of Liberal
International and he took over the presidency of the Network of
Arab Liberals. This new situation helped us all learn something
that should have been obvious: Arab liberals are completely alike
liberals in the other parts of the world, as set by the example by
the two member parties from Egypt - DFP and El-Ghad - which
later, after the toppling of Mubaraks regime, were not able to
join forces and present a common candidate list at the elections.
On this particular issue, Egyptian liberals have proven to be alike
their colleagues from the Netherlands, Denmark and Finland.
Few would have thought of such a comparison.
Liberal International maintained a focus on the region. There
were no revolutions in sight, but important work was going on.
The annual Liberal International Prize for Freedom in 2008 was
awarded to Professor Padraig OMalley, especially inspired by
his latest efforts in peaceful reconciliation and democratization
work in Iraq. Jordan saw growth of its liberal groups, while
Lebanese liberals made their way in IFLRY, not only joining the
global liberal youth organization, but also hosting its executive
committee and congress. Liberal Internationals bureau debated
and decided that liberals in the region needed further support, and
that the focus should be Egypt.

152
One of the most interesting discussions followed on how to
organize a congress in Egypt that would be supportive to Egyptian
and Arab liberals but at the same time be permitted by Egyptian
authorities to take place. Joint reflection with Dr Harb of DFP and the
vigilant Dr Meinardus of FNF produced a result: Education for the
21st Century. As co-hosts of the congress in Cairo, they claimed
rightly that it would be difficult for any government to say no to
education. Mubarak and his people accepted; even a minister from the
cabinet was sent to the opening of the congress. There, dozens of
young liberal volunteers and many delegates from Egypt and the
region discussed Education and Human Rights, Education and
Democracy, Education and Freedom, and Education and Free
Trade. The devil is in the detail, it is said. In this case, liberalism -
regarded by Mubarak as the devil -was indeed in the detail of the
congress theme. Maybe one of the greatest achievements of that 2009
Cairo congress was indirectly seen two years later on TV screens
around the world: half of the young people who were volunteers at the
Liberal International congress were in the front rows of the January
2011 revolution that toppled President Mubarak.
Coincidentally, it was in Cairo that Hans van Baalen, as
newly elected president of Liberal International, announced that
he sees politics as playing rugby, and not tennis. Mubarak
faced a practical demonstration of what Van Baalen meant.

Revolution and evolution
A logical consequence of the policy of engagement and
dialogue was the approach of strength and growth. That is
how Hans van Baalen led his presidency of Liberal International
in the region and globally. Liberal International consolidated its
membership in the region and saw growth. It was a period of
people awakening at the end of 2010 and 2011 in Tunisia and
Egypt, with a domino effect on the whole Arab world.
Liberal International was quick to react to developments in
the region, both as an organization and a network of member

153
parties and partners. As the world was following on TV screens
the liberation of the Tunisians and Egyptians from autocratic rule,
various liberal partners gathered in London for a coordination
meeting on a rapid reaction and immediate assistance to the Arab
world. There were FNF, European Liberal Democrats from the
European Parliament and the party, Liberal Democrats (UK),
VVD and D66 (the Netherlands), SILC (Sweden), the Danish
Liberals, NDI (US), etc. Various policies, actions, activities,
visits and support were agreed upon. The Arab world continued
to be focus of Liberal International, but in a different and much
more dynamic way. Liberal Internationals president went
immediately on multiple visits to Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.
Other bureau members followed suit. FNF and the ALDE
(Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) Group in the
European Parliament were quick in organizing a significant
conference in Cairo on the Arab Spring. We were not there to tell
anyone what to do; we were there to offer experiences and
support, whenever asked. Arab liberals already had the status of
equal partner within the international liberal family. Just as many
in other parts of the world have learned from their mistakes, so
will liberals in the Arab world.
Liberal International transformed itself into a key player in
the region. The Socialist International, which had in its
membership Mubaraks National Democratic Party and Ben Alis
RDC, had no credibility. The Christian Democrats/Conservatives
had nothing to offer. Liberalism became the only credible
alternative on the political system, but faced a new challenge:
religious populism and the lack of a democratic system.
Constitutions needed to be altered, elections to be organized, but
the rules of the game were not clear and there was insufficient
political training. Populism was difficult to counter. Liberals were
at the forefront of the revolutions, but were not able to manage
the processes that followed. Islamists were leading in Tunisia and
Egypt, while Libya and Syria were involved in bloody wars. The
need for a liberal Arab world was again the main theme of
Liberal International. Its executive committee met on the first

154
anniversary of the Arab Spring, in Barcelona (Catalonia), hosted
by the Catalan liberal government and in cooperation with the
Union for the Mediterranean. The Free Egyptians Party affiliated
to Liberal International, while Mahmoud Jibril of Libya became
part of the Arab Liberal Leaders Network led by ALDE Group
leader Guy Verhofstadt.
New political initiatives were born, including a network of
liberal parliamentarians from the region, putting the Arab liberal
world ahead of some other regions in the world. The presence of
Arab liberals in the decision-making bodies of Liberal
International was fortified with the election to the bureau of Abir
Al-Sahlani (Iraq/Sweden), the first Iraqi woman elected
democratically in a parliament outside of Iraq.
Lebanese liberals realized they had to fill the vacuum created
by their absence from the international liberal family. The Future
Movement, under the renewed leadership of Saad Hariri and
Secretary General Ahmad Hariri, was quick to react. Not only did
they join Liberal International, but they also launched major
efforts to support the liberal idea in the region, with the executive
committee meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2013. The president of
Lebanon, who pointed at Liberal International and AAFD as
crucial political actors in the region, received Liberal
Internationals president and bureau.
Today, Morocco is slowly on its own genuine path to become
a truly open democracy, with liberals, now reinforced with the
membership of RNI (the National Rally of Independents) in
Liberal International, playing a key role. Tunisia has shown that
one can have a conclusive democratic dialogue in the Arab world,
and we hope that the liberals from Afek Tounis will soon join the
international liberal family. Egypt, after major setbacks, has to be
persistent in implementing fully its roadmap to democracy. The
role and the responsibility of liberals are paramount. Lebanon
continues to be the hub of democracy in the Middle East, with
growing pressure on liberals from the armed conflict in Syria and
militants within Lebanon. Here, we have to admit that all our

155
collective efforts failed in the case of Syria. It is a tragedy that
will remain a dark spot on our collective consciousness for many
years to come.

In place of conclusions
Many rushed to compare what happened in Eastern Europe to
what was happening in the Arab world. This led to erroneous
expectations on both sides. Some crucial elements remain shared:
Eastern Europe is not homogeneous, and neither is the Arab
world; cultural background played a role in Eastern Europe, and
so too in the Arab world. In looking for parallels and building
expectations it would be better to compare the Arab world to
countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire. We can see that
neither are the polities stable, nor democracy deeply rooted, nor
liberalism flourishing in any of those states - be they former
Ottoman or in the Arab world. Building functional liberal
democratic societies is a long process, but we must maintain the
effort, be energetic and never give up. That long-term vision
should and must include freedom and liberty for people in the
Gulf.

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157
From Arab Spring to Arab
revolution: Three years of ALDE
representation in the Arab world

Koert Debeuf

17 December 2010 was an important day for the European
Union. The European Council of Prime Ministers and Heads of
State decided to change the Lisbon Treaty (or the new European
constitution) in order to make more cooperation between
European countries possible. This cooperation was urgently
needed to tackle the global economic and financial crisis and
crisis of the Euro. This crisis was the main topic of debate since it
began in 2008. Solving this crisis was (and still is) a matter of
survival for the European Union and consumed the attention of
European leaders as well as the Alliance of Liberals and
Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the European Parliament.
Nobody noticed that on the same day Mohamed Bouazizi had
self-immolated in Tunisia after the police had confiscated his
wares, the only possessions he and his family had. The fact that
protests erupted in the entire country appeared in the news, but
nobody paid attention. The fact that people took the street asking
the regime to leave seemed to be a small detail compared to the
challenges the EU was dealing with.

From Brussels, over Tunis to Cairo
On 14 January 2011, I was in Amsterdam where I had a
meeting with one of my friends who happens to be half-Dutch
half-Tunisian. He was permanently distracted. He received phone
calls from his father. When I asked him what was going on, he
told me that it seemed probable that Tunisias president, Zine Al-
Abidine Ben Ali, would step down. A few hours later, when I sat

158
on the train back to Brussels, my friend called me overjoyed that
his father was right: Ben Ali had fled the country.
I was shocked. How was this possible? Why didnt we see it
coming? And maybe more importantly, would this revolutionary
spirit spread to other countries in the neighborhood?
Apart from one press release, of one of the ALDE MEPs,
Marietje Schaake, congratulating the Tunisian people, no one
really knew what to make of the Tunisian case. However, a
Tunisian girl on an Italian talk show, just after the revolution,
gave one very strong answer. Guy Verhofstadt, president of
ALDE, was a guest on the same program. She said that at the
funeral of Mohamed Bouazizi, on 4 January 2011, it was not the
green flag of Islam but the red flag of Tunisia covering his coffin.
In other words, it was not an Islamist but a liberal revolution.
It was this insight that helped us to react swiftly and firmly
once the revolution started in Egypt on 25 January 2011. From
that moment on the ALDE group was committed to support the
Egyptian people in their demands for freedom, dignity, social
justice and bread. And we pushed the EUs high representative
for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, to do
the same with all the means we had. Just after Hosni Mubarak
stepped down, we organized a videoconference with liberal
opposition leader Ayman Nour in order to understand and
endorse the demands of the Egyptians. On 26 February 2011, a
high level delegation from ALDE (ALDE president Guy
Verhofstadt, Liberal International president Hans Van Baalen and
vice-president of the European Parliament Edward McMillan-
Scott) visited Cairo, attending a conference organized by the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

From Cairo, over Tripoli to Damascus
The ALDE delegation in Cairo quickly understood the
importance of what happened in Tunisia and Egypt and the
opportunity of it for the Arab world and for Europe. Thats why
we called for a Marshall Plan in order to help these post-

159
revolutionary countries to become stable, prosperous
democracies. That was exactly what the Marshall Plan did for
Europe after World War II and what the European Union did for
the former communist countries of Central Europe. We also
asked the European Parliament to establish representation in
Cairo.
However, in the meantime, the revolutionary spirit spread
like wildfire all over the Arab world. On 14 January, people
started demonstrating in Jordan. On 3 February, protests had
started in Yemen. On 17 February, in Libya. On 19 February, in
Bahrain. On 20 February, in Morocco. On 14 March, in Saudi
Arabia. On 15 March, in Syria. The outcome of the
demonstrations in each of these proved to be very different. In
Morocco and Jordan, both kings, with bloodlines going back to
the Prophet Mohammed, succeeded in calming down the protests
by promising reforms. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the revolts
were crushed in the most brutal way. In Yemen, it would lead to
the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, while in Libya
and Syria revolts descended into civil war.
On 10 March, the ALDE group invited a delegation of the
Libyan opposition. No one had ever heard of the persons that
would come to Strasbourg. But we decided to give them a chance
to explain their case. Mahmoud Jibril was the man that took the
floor. He was very precise in describing the Libyan situation and
in what he expected from Europe: to recognize the National
Transitional Council, to install a no-fly zone over Libya, and to
provide the liberated areas with medicine and food. Jibril
convinced ALDE to endorse his demands immediately and to try
to convince other actors to do the same. After this meeting Jibril
(together with subsequent Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan) met
with Catherine Ashton, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, each one of whom he
convinced of his demands. That is in short how the NATO
intervention in Libya came to happen.

160
This positive outcome convinced European liberals that we
could do more to support the Arab people in their fight against
dictatorship. One lesson we learned from the transition of the
post-communist countries in Central Europe was that it is a
mistake not to support political parties. Parties are the backbone
of democracy. If political parties dont function, the goal of a
stable liberal democracy will never be reached. During a new
visit of ALDE to Cairo, in the beginning of May 2011, the idea of
sending a representative on a permanent basis to the Arab world
was born.

Three years of ALDE representation
I had the honor of becoming this representative of ALDE in
the Arab world. The choice fell on me because of my political
experience (advisor to the Belgian prime minister, director of the
Flemish Liberal Party, chief of staff of the president of ALDE)
and my fascination for the Arab world. I had visited the Arab
world several times, where I had felt the weight of dictatorship,
not least in Syria. ALDE gave me three main tasks: 1) to try to
understand what is happening in the Arab world and write regular
reports; 2) building a network of liberal Arab leaders and
connecting it to ALDE; and 3) to try to give advice to liberal
politicians, parties and activists in order that they can reach their
goals - this in cooperation with the Friedrich Naumann
Foundation.
My first mission - trying to understand what was happening
in the Arab world - was more difficult than I thought. I realized
soon how little we, Europeans, know about the Arab world and
its history. I quickly understood how Eurocentric our Western
view is. It is not exaggerating to say that Europeans have no
knowledge of Arab history between the death of Cleopatra and
the foundation of the State of Israel. The only time the Arab
world, or the Islamic world, appears in our history books is when
they were a threat to our civilization. The Battle of Poitier in

161
732, in which the Frankish leader Charles Martel defeated the
Islamic troops and saved Europe. The Crusades, when our
knights had to liberate Jerusalem from the intolerant Muslims and
safeguard Christian access to Christian holy places. The fall of
Constantinople in 1453, when we lost the capital of the
Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans. The same Ottomans even
came all the way up to Vienna twice (in 1529 and 1683) but were
luckily defeated. These moments were the 9/11s of the Middle
Ages. They left us with the impression that the Arab world and its
Islamic troops had only one goal: to destroy our Western Judeo-
Christian civilization.
Apart from these confrontations, Westerners generally have
no idea what else happened in the Arab world. We know that in
1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt and found a backward society.
He brought in a team of scientists and historians to record what
was left of this great Pharaonic society. It was the French who
rediscovered the pyramids and the old temples, deciphered the
hieroglyphs and composed an Egyptian encyclopedia: the
Description de lgypte. The other prominent image we tend to
have of Egypt is of Lawrence of Arabia, the British soldier who
finally succeeded in uniting the quarrelling Arabian tribes. Yet,
the moment they get the opportunity to govern liberated
Damascus, they make a complete mess of it.
However, the Christian West did have a weak spot for the
Arab world, in particular for the world of One Thousand and One
Nights, the Arabia of the harems, the Turkish bath, polygamy, the
mystery behind the womens veil. It is the Arabia of sensuality
and sexuality. Everything that was forbidden in Christian
morality appeared to be possible behind the thick walls of Arabia.
It is this combination of ignorance and romanticism that Edward
Said called Orientalism. In his famous book of the same name,
Said explores the incidence of Orientalism in a vast amount of
Western literature and art on the Arab world. Certainly in the
19th

century, the age of Romanticism, the Arab world was
pictured as a refined but decadent - and thus forbidden - world.

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That changed in the second half of the 20th

century. With the
foundation of Israel in 1948, the Arab world came again to spell
trouble. There were the wars with Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973,
the Suez Crisis, the oil crisis, the war between Iran and Iraq, the
civil wars in Lebanon and Algeria, and the terrorist attacks by
Algerians in France. The fact that more than a million Algerians
were killed in their War of Independence seems not to bother
Westerners much. Instead, we watch the news of the hijacking
and bombing of planes by the Palestinians of Yasser Arafat, and
the Libyans of Muammar Gaddafi, the frightening Islamic
revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini and his declaration of war on
the West, the first and the second Intifadas, the terrorist attacks
on US embassies, Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait,
followed by the First Gulf War, the attacks by the PKK in
Turkey, Hamas in Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan.
Another important reason for our misunderstanding is the
lack of knowledge about Islam. I remember when I was in
Washington in 2006, the Belgian ambassador showed me an
article in The New York Times in which the journalist discovered
that in Iraq there were two important different groups of
Muslims: Sunni and Shia. This is three years after the US
invasion of Iraq. It is just one example of how limited our
understanding is of the broad spectrum of interpretations and
theological discussions within Islam. I heard so many times in
Europe that democracy and Islam are opposites. Those who
expound the idea forget that the third largest democracy in the
world, Indonesia, is 90 percent Sunni Muslim.
It is impossible to understand liberalism in the Arab world
without knowing a few historical facts. In the 19th century, there
were major efforts to modernize the Arab world and to search for
reconciliation between the ideas of the West and the East. But it
must be said that the West wasnt very supportive of these efforts.
On the contrary, the two major democratic revolts in Egypt - in
1889 and 1919 - were crushed by the British. The Arab Revolt

163
against the Ottoman Empire, during World War I, ended in
betrayal. We all know the story of Lawrence of Arabia where the
Allied Forces promised the Arabs independence if they would
unite and fight on their side. Instead, the French and the British
divided the Middle East between them in the infamous Sykes-
Picot Agreement. On top of that, British Prime Minister Balfour
promised the Jewish community a new home in Palestine.
This is not the right place to discuss the entire history of the
Arab world. But the point I want to make is that Europeans often
forget how 19th and 20th century colonialism blocked genuine
efforts towards independent liberal democracies in the Arab
world. It is the colonial past that created the combination between
liberalism and nationalism, on the one hand, and between
Islamism and anti-Westernization, on the other. And I am sad to
say that as a matter of fact our Western policy hasnt really
changed during the last decades, and even not since the Arab
Spring. Neither Europe nor the United States have made a serious
policy shift after the people got rid of their dictators. There is no
new vision, no extra support, and no efforts to help this liberal
democratic revolution succeed.

Arab Leaders for Freedom and Democracy
The second mission ALDE gave me was to create a network
of liberal leaders in the Arab world and make a connection
between them. Of course, a similar network already existed: the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation had created the Network of Arab
Liberals, later the Alliance of Arabs for Freedom and Democracy.
This liberal network included parties and organizations and
gathered on a regular basis. So many asked the question: What
could be the use of creating another network?
The aim of Arab Leaders for Freedom and Democracy was to
bring together only one or two top leaders per country in order to
share information and experience on an informal basis. To my
surprise, all the Arab leaders I asked to join this network

164
immediately agreed: Amr Moussa (former secretary general of
the Arab League and foreign minister of Egypt), Ayman Nour (a
key opposition leader in Egypt) Mahmoud Jibril (former prime
minister of Libya), Ahmad El-Hariri (opposition leader,
Lebanon), Awn Khasawneh (former prime minister Jordan),
Yassine Brahim (opposition leader and former minister of
economy of Tunisia), Nguib Chebbi (opposition leader,
Tunisia), Naguib Al-Masri (economic tycoon, Palestine), Hanan
Ashrawi (former minister of the Palestinian Authority) and Fawaz
Tello (Syrian opposition leader).
The network itself gathered only once so far, in September
2012, in Cairo. The events of the Arab Spring postponed every
other planned meeting: bomb explosions in Lebanon; the massive
protests on 30 June 2013 in Egypt that led to the ouster of
President Mohamed Morsi and the writing of a new constitution;
and so much more. Instead, several of the members of the
network of Arab Leaders for Freedom and Democracy met with
one another when occasion allowed, giving each other
information and advice. Almost every one of the leaders visited
the European Parliament on the invitation of the ALDE group in
order to explain what was happening in their country, and to point
out what they expected from the European Union.
Amr Moussa was the first to visit the European Parliament, in
June 2011. After him followed Mahmoud Jibril. Then Yassine
Brahim. Fawaz Tello explained the Syrian situation on several
occasions. Ahmad El-Hariri warned the European Parliament of
the involvement of Hizbullah in Syria before they officially
announced it. And there was the debate with Mahmoud Jibril and
Nguib Chebbi on what the EU should do to help the Arab Spring
succeed.
The ALDE group paid special attention to Syria. The first
public appearance of Salim Idriss, general commander of the Free
Syrian Army, happened in the ALDE group meeting in Brussels.
The first visit of Ahmed Jarba, president of the Syrian Opposition
Coalition, to Brussels was also organized by the ALDE

165
representation in the Arab world. Obviously, such unique visits
are only possible through a deep and continuous involvement in
Syria. That is probably the most important role that ALDE and its
representation have played during the last three years: giving
Arab leaders a European platform at the highest level. It changed
the view of many decision makers on what exactly was
happening in each of these Arab countries. It also pushed the
European Parliament, the European Commission and the high
representative to go further in their support for those people who
fight for freedom and democracy in the Arab world.

Giving advice to liberal parties, politicians and
activists
By trying to fulfill the third part of my mission I realized how
different the situation and the people in the respective Arab
spring countries are. Most Tunisian politicians have had an
education in France that makes them pretty sensitive towards
democratic values. In Libya, people have no political experience
at all, as Gaddafi forbade every political activity. However,
Libyans are very eager to learn; this contrary to most Egyptians.
In Egypt, the elder generation is very proud and unwilling to take
any advice - certainly not from a foreigner. The younger
generation is different, but in general still too revolutionary-
minded in order to work in a strategic and structural way.
In Jordan, political parties do not exist, apart from the
Muslim Brotherhood. In Palestine, there is a political landscape
but it is completely dominated by Fatah. In Lebanon, there is a
political tradition, but the situation is currently blocked by what is
happening in Syria and the strong involvement of Hizbullah in
the Syrian war. In Syria, there is a lot of potential, but doing
politics in times of war is a whole different ball game. On top of
that, the international community and its main actors are playing
their own political and geostrategic game that hasnt been
beneficial to the cohesion of the Syrian opposition.

166
During the three years of my mission in the Arab world I also
learned that the word liberal has different meanings in all of
these countries. In Egypt, being liberal means in the first instance
being non-Islamist, but not necessarily being anti-regime. In
Syria, liberals are also non-Islamists, but always anti-regime. In
Tunisia, the word liberal has the same connotation as in France:
being on the right side of the economic spectrum. The same
counts for Palestine. In Libya, using the word liberal is not a
smart thing to do as for most people it is exactly the same as
atheist. Last summer, there was even a campaign against
Mahmoud Jibrils affiliation with ALDE. His picture was put on
a pamphlet together with the picture of Guy Verhofstadt and
myself, saying that ALDE supported gay rights. In Jordan,
liberalism has no real meaning, while in Lebanon it symbolizes
openness towards European values.
Knowing this, it forces European liberals to be openminded
in choosing partners in the Arab world. I have trained the
National Forces Alliance from the day it was formed in order to
prepare it for the first elections in Libya. Liberal or not, they were
the only party in the Arab world that defeated the Muslim
Brotherhood in elections. I also trained individual politicians,
activist networks and womens rights organizations throughout
the Arab world, but I must admit that the results of that are rather
blurred. Perhaps more important was the role ALDE and I could
play in putting their concerns on the agenda of the European
Union, and of their own country. ALDE has written many press
releases to put pressure on governments to release activists from
jail or to press the EU to get more involved in Libya or Syria.

This is an Arab revolution
The most important thing that I have learned after three years
living and working in the Arab world is that this is not just an
Arab Spring. What we are witnessing is much bigger. If we take a
look at the demographics it is clear that a tsunami of change is on

167
its way. More than half of the Arab population is younger than
35. The patriarchal and hierarchical system on which the Arab
societies are built is coming under huge pressure and is on the
brink of collapse.
At the same time there is a huge battle going on between two
fundamental and different views on the future of Arab societies.
Its a battle between those who think existing problems will be
solved by religion and by going back in time, and those who are
convinced that its time for new ideas and that religion is not a
part of the political way forward.
It took France more than 80 years and 14 constitutions to
pass from the French Revolution in 1789 to the stable democracy
of the Third Republic in 1870. Expecting the Arabs to succeed in
becoming stable democracies in a few years time is nothing less
than shortsighted nonsense. There is no Arab Spring, as there is
no Arab Winter. There is an Arab Revolution that will bring a
deep transformation of the Arab world. We have to be more
patient, but also more supportive. It would be a historic mistake
to give up supporting Arab liberals at moments where we have
difficulties to understand what they are aiming for. I am
convinced that the Arab Revolution will evolve towards liberal
democratic societies, albeit not European ones. It is time to accept
this and to welcome it.

168

169
My liberal times
in Oum Al-Dounia

Ronald Meinardus

The Arab world looks back at turbulent years. The Middle
East and North Africa have seen dramatic changes - uprisings and
upheaval, revolutions and revolts. I had the privilege to witness
this up close. For a zoon politikon, or a political animal, there
could have hardly been a more attractive posting than the capital
of Egypt, which her people proudly and in slight exaggeration
refer to as Oum Al-Dounia, the Mother of the World.
The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF)
assigned me to serve as their regional director for an area
spanning from Morocco in the West to Turkey in the East. In this
position, I found myself at the interface of politics, civil society,
academia and journalism. Its been a fascinating time, full of
suspense, excitement, and drama that captured me also
emotionally. All this came together with heartbreaking moments
of disappointment, and despair. As I write these words, I am
aware that although a foreigner in a foreign land, I took many
things I witnessed personally and to heart. You may term it
empathy; in any case it is sympathy for the people and their
causes I often identified with.

* * * * *

The story is far from over. All agree that Egypt and the Arab
world are in a phase of transition. How long this will last and
where it will end is anyones guess. Much of the early
enthusiasm, the atmosphere of departure in early 2011, has
vanished. Gone is the widespread certainty - in hindsight one
would say naivet - that an era of democracy, human dignity and

170
social justice laid just ahead. Many pronouncements have turned
out to be empty slogans. In many places, hope and euphoria have
vanished to be replaced by disappointment, cynicism, and retreat.
All this has not come overnight. For a long time, I used to
spend my Fridays in Tahrir Square, which became my personal
barometer of the public mood and the status or condition of the
revolution. Another indicator of the general mood was the
uncounted discussions with Egyptian friends and colleagues,
mostly on the sidelines of educative activities and seminars. I
developed a sufficient proficiency in (Egyptian) Arabic to address
an audience and engage in valuable dialogues that helped me
shape a picture.

* * * * *

My job came along with clearly defined objectives. Apart
from managing a sizeable administration, which at times seemed
to grow inexorably, my mission circled around the goal of
promoting liberalism in Egypt and the MENA region. While
ideologically liberals always focus on the individual, our project
work for very practical reasons centered on organizations we
would partner with. You need to identify partners to reach your
target groups. For me, it has always been essential that all
educative activities would have their local partner, and thus a
local beneficiary.
Promoting liberal values and principles is a political
objective. The people interested in liberal issues and advocacy are
typically organized in political parties and civil society groups.
For this reasons, many of our programs take place in cooperation
with these partners. Direct cooperation with political parties has
been a no-go all along. Such interaction could rightly be
construed as illegal political interference. I always made it clear
that our programs are addressed at members of political
organizations and not at the organizations themselves. While this

171
may sound like hair splitting, there is a major difference. Helping
or even financing political parties or groups in campaign
activities is another red line. This has never happened and would
breach not only the laws of host countries, but also our own strict
regulations.
I mention this because the role of the Foundation I work for
has repeatedly been an issue of controversy. Among the most
depressing experiences during my stay in Egypt has been what
has become widely known as the NGO crackdown, the assault
of the authorities against foreign and Egyptian NGOs. While we
were not directly targeted, the political fallout was substantial and
led to a deep crisis in relations between the Federal Republic of
Germany and the Arab Republic of Egypt. This also affected our
institute indirectly. For the record, I need to add that those
Egyptians - be they in government, academia, in the media or in
the political sphere - who know our work distanced themselves
from the witch hunt and acknowledge our contribution.

* * * * *

Promoting liberalism in the Arab world is a Herculean task. It
is no exaggeration to say that liberalism has an image problem
here. Many, if not most, Egyptians have a negative view of all
things liberal. Out of ignorance and as a result of systematic
brainwashing, many perceive liberalism as against their heritage
and culture and in contradiction with religious teachings. I find
this stereotype repugnant and an unacceptable affront against the
many liberals who are religious. Over the years I have worked
with many Arab Muslims and Christians who are true believers in
the Almighty and just happen to have more progressive views in
political and social issues than their reactionary denouncers.
Defaming these people as unbelievers goes against the rules of
human decency.

172
There are various reasons for the weakness of liberalism in
the Arab world. You may find authoritative explanations in this
book. They are sociological, cultural and political. It is well
established that many, if not most, political parties claiming to be
liberal are elitist and have a hard time to pass their message on
the street. It is also no secret that many of these parties lack
organizational clout and unity. Disunity and factionalism remains
the Achilles heel of Arab liberalism. As long as this malady
prevails, liberal forces will remain far away from popular success
and political power.
In the Arab world, as in other cultural environments, liberal
is not an attractive brand name. It is no surprise that not a single
political party in the Arab world uses this epithet in their name.
Of course, I felt disappointment when in late 2011 the Network of
Arab Liberals, a federation of liberal political parties from the
region, took the unanimous decision to drop the name liberal
and rechristened the group as the Arab Alliance for Freedom and
Democracy (AAFD). Full of political symbolism, this very
visible retreat was a concession to a hostile public that has yet to
understand what liberalism stands for.
To rectify this unfriendly image and promote a rational debate
about liberal ideas and policies has been the main focus of my work
in this part of the world. We have organized myriad educative
activities and various campaigns to raise liberal awareness. I am
particularly fond of a liberal book series in Arabic in which mainly
Arab liberals publish their thoughts. You are holding the most recent
volume of the Liberal Texts in your hands right now.

* * * * *

Another priority throughout has been efforts to promote
cooperation between liberal parties in the region. The buzzword
here is networking. Liberal parties in the Arab world have come a
long way in associating and working together. Liberal networking

173
does not only have a regional, Arab dimension, but also an
international extension. Over the past few years, the bonds
between Arab parties and their Alliance and the international
liberal family have grown exceptionally. Today, many Arab
liberal political parties are members of Liberal International, the
world federation of liberal parties in London. They participate in
its congresses and thus have a chance to promote distinctly Arab
causes in these international meetings.
Many challenges our societies face today will never be solved
on a national level: regional and international coordination is of
the essence. The field of international relations should not be left
exclusively to governments. Political parties, and civil society,
should have a stake also. For this, they need to cooperate. This is
one raison detre for organizations like the Arab Alliance for
Freedom and Democracy or Liberal International.

* * * * *

More recently, the sense of harmony between liberals in the
Arab world, particularly in Egypt, and their companions in
Europe and the West has suffered a blow. Differing assessments
of the events in Egypt in the summer of 2013 are the main reason
for the setback. This is not the place to get into details. But it is
safe to say in a nutshell that liberals outside the Arab world have
shown little understanding, let alone sympathy, for the conduct of
the security forces against Islamists. As a result, there exist
profound differences of opinion between Egyptian and European
liberals on how to deal with political Islam. I share the European
position that in the long run the problems facing Egypt (including
detestable terrorism) will only be solved in the context of a
political process.
Discussing these matters honestly and openly has become
increasingly difficult. In an environment governed by emotions
fanned by nationalistic media, Egyptian interlocutors often expect

174
unconditional support for their position and the actions of
authorities. This makes reasonable dialogue difficult, and as a
result foreigners with a diplomatic inclination often simply avoid
such interaction.
The exchange of ideas is always important - particularly in
difficult times, like the ones we are in right now. This goes all the
more for dialogues among liberals who intrinsically hold a
common set of values. Against this background, we have
developed new programs that aim at bringing young liberal
leaders from Europe and the Arab world together to discuss
issues of common interest and, hopefully, arrive at joint
conclusions.

* * * * *

Looking back, the past three years have been exhausting
emotionally and also physically. If I say this as a foreign political
observer, what should Egyptians say who have acted at the
forefront of political developments throughout? Politics in Egypt
has become exceptionally dynamic and short-lived. At times so
many things happened in so little time that it became nearly
impossible to keep up with the frenzy. This is a paradise for news
junkies, one could conclude. But the speed of events has a
downside. When so many transgressions happen all at once, the
judiciary faces problems following up. New violations occur
before old ones are redressed. This may lead to a climate of
impunity, which is the opposite of the rule of law.

* * * * *

Once you drink from the River Nile, you are destined to
return. So goes an old proverb that holds true for me. I spent part

175
of my childhood in Cairo and my return to this grand metropolis
nearly half a century later in a senior professional position was an
experience laden with emotion. Strangely, very few Egyptians
who know my biography would inquire how it felt coming back
after so many years. I assume they just wanted to avoid the
answer that all was better back then and today things have
become much more difficult. Of course, it was a completely
different country then - a different epoch in the 60s and 70s of the
last century.
Amid all the changes, many of which are not to the benefit of
the country, one important component has survived more or less
unaltered, and this deserves special mention: the kindness and
human generosity of Egypts people. For me, it remains a
mystery how in all the chaos and degradation the average
Egyptian, the men and women in the street, the shopkeepers and
taxi drivers, the messengers and doormen, and all the others,
preserve their friendliness and exceptional sense of humor. I
dislike stereotypes and I am not an anthropologist. My
unprofessional explanation would be that making fun, and the
unparalleled - at times annoying - Egyptian habit to take things
lightly is a collective reaction to the daily sufferings and
humiliations.
Although I have lived the privileged life of a hawaga
(foreigner) without the sufferings of the average Egyptian, I note
that I have been partially infected by the stated Egyptian
character traits. I like to crack jokes even when the formal
situation does not necessarily invite such distractions. I am also,
quite sincerely, starting to take things less seriously, although as a
German by upbringing I will probably never fully adopt the
culture of malesh (nevermind).

* * * * *


176
Egypt is confronted with myriad problems. Living in Cairo,
this beast of a city, one senses that these problems keep growing
by the day. To make things worse, few are the signs that those in
charge, whoever they may be, have the intention, let alone a plan,
to put order into the uncontrolled chaos. Recently, strategic
politics has become victim of transition politics with short-lived
governments living from hand to mouth.
Everybody seems to agree that the country must find
solutions for colossal problems. But beyond that, little is visible.
A united effort, a national vision and, on top of it all, a declared
political will are in demand. What should the country look like in
10, 20 or 50 years?
I have missed such debates. The only seemingly reliable
projection I have heard repeatedly is that by 2050 - a horizon the
big mass of young Egyptians will be around to experience -
Egypts population will have exploded to 150 million. This
projection is material for foreign doomsday prophets who fear
Egypts problems have reached dimensions and complexities
beyond control and management. They predict more
impoverishment, hunger revolts, chaos and as a political answer
to all of this, harsh dictatorial rule. Arguably, this is the bleakest
of all the bleak scenarios available in the market place of
opinions. As an optimist by nature, I stay away from this school
of thought. However, for the bleak scenario to remain what it is (a
dark projection of the future), radical and structural political
adjustments need to be taken now. The problem for Egypt is that
such drastic steps are nowhere to be seen.


177

Dr. Clemens Recker read political and Middle Eastern
studies in Heidelberg, Damascus and London. He wrote
his PhD thesis on Liberalism in Arab History of
Thought at Heidelberg University.
An alumnus of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for
Liberty (FNF), Dr. Recker collaborated closely with the
regional office of the FNF in Cairo, publishing an Arabic-
language reader on liberalism in the Arab world in 2011
and presenting his academic findings in various
educational activities throughout the region.
Saed Karajah is legal counselor and attorney at law for
Karajah & Partners Law Firm, which he established
1994. He is a member of the board of directors of various
for profit and non-profit institutions, such as the Jordan
River Foundation and the Jordan Media Institute. He is
also a member of the Royal Committee for Educational
Development, the Higher Committee for Womens
Affairs, and the Jordanian Lawyers Syndicate. As a
social activist, Karajah represents the Free Thought
Forum (FTF), a liberal foundation. He is the current
president of the Arabic Alliance for Freedom and
Democracy (AAFD). Karajah has published many articles
on civil society, individualism and liberalism in the Arab
world.
Wael Nawara is a strategist, a serial entrepreneur and a
corporate coach. He is a regular contributor to Al-
Monitor, the Huffington Post and the Egyptian
newspapers Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Dostour, Al-Tahrir
and others. His articles have also appeared in
international publications, among them The Guardian and
New York Post, Harvards Crimson and Slate. Nawara is
co-founder of Egypts Al-Ghad Party, the National
Association for Change, and Al-Dostour Party. He served
as president of the Arab Alliance for Freedom and
Democracy (AAFD) from 2010 to 2012. In December
2011, TIME Magazine profiled Nawara as the Protester
for its Person of the Year.
Nawara graduated as a mechanical engineer with honors
and earned a Masters in international marketing from the
University of Strathclyde. In 2012, Nawara was a visiting
fellow at the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard
Kennedy School. In November 2013, he was scholar in
residence at Trent University, Ontaria, Canada.

178
Mohamed Tamaldou is a senior member of the Union
Constitutionelle from Morocco and a founding member
and former president of the Arab Alliance for Freedom
and Democracy (AAFD), formerly known as the Network
of Arab Liberals (NAL). Tamaldou currently serves as
vice president of Liberal International and is the treasurer
of the Arab Center for Scientific Research and Human
Studies in Morocco. He is the author of several studies on
the Arab world and has translated a variety of books from
French to Arabic.

Dr. Hassan Mneimneh holds a degree in history from
the Faculty of Arts at the Lebanese University. He
received his PhD in history from l'Universit Paris-
Sorbonne (Paris IV). He worked as professor and director
of the College of Arts and Humanities where he lectures
in the Department of History. He also worked as a
journalist in a number of newspapers and magazines,
authoring a large number of cultural, political and
educational articles. He was vice president of the
Lebanese Association for Studies and Historical Research
and participated in several committees to update the
educational curriculum and bylaws of the Lebanese
University.

Houda Cherif is an independent political and civil
society activist in Tunisia. In 2011, she was among the
founders of Afek Tounes and later served in the executive
bureau of Al-Joumhouri party, a fusion of centrist and
leftwing opposition parties formed in early 2012. While
responsible for external affairs in Afek Tounes, Cherif
took charge of transitional justice issues within Al-
Joumhouri. She has published on varied subjects, such as
women, the disabled, education and transitional justice, in
local and international media. Cherif is a graduate of the
Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences of Tunis and holds a
diploma in teaching methodology from the University of
Bristol, England, as well as degrees in political science
and technical communication.

179

Esraa Abdel Fattah is an Egyptian activist and blogger.
Arrested by Egyptian security in 2008, she drew the
attention of the media thereby challenging the states
censorship policy and becoming a symbol of resistance
and resilience against corruption and injustice. Abdel
Fattah played an active role in the uprising that called for
the end of the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak.
She was shortlisted as one of the candidates for the 2011
Nobel Peace Prize. In October of that year, Glamour
magazine named her a Woman of the Year. She is
currently vice-chairperson at the Egyptian Democratic
Academy (EDA). Arabian Business Magazine recently
included her in a list of the 100 most powerful Arab
women.

Shehab Wagih holds a Bachelors degree in engineering
from Helwan University. He is currently regional
program coordinator at the Cairo office of the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF). He is also the
spokesman and president of the Educational and Political
Training Committee of the Free Egyptians Party (FEP).
Dr. Yusuf Mansur is CEO of EnConsult in Jordan and a
specialist in economic consulting in the areas of policy,
trade, antitrust, competitiveness and strategy. He worked
as CEO for the Jordan Agency for Economic
Development and the Jordan Investment Board, held the
position of director general of the Jordan Telecom
Regulatory Commission and served as resident
representative of the UNDP in Kuwait. Within the Jordan
Upgrading and Modernization Program, Dr. Mansur
worked as an international capacity building and policy
adviser. Dr. Mansur received his Masters and PhD in
economics from the University of Oklahoma.

180

Emil Kirjas is secretary-general of the London-based
Liberal International. He was junior minister of foreign
affairs of the Republic of Macedonia from 2004 to 2006.
A former president of the International Federation of
Liberal Youth (IFLRY), a position he occupied for four
years, Kirjass past professional experiences include the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF). Kirjas holds a
Masters degree in geopolitics from Kings College
London.

Koert Debeuf lives in Cairo where he represents the
European Parliaments Alliance of Liberals and
Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the Arab world. He
served for many years as advisor to the Belgian prime
minister. He publishes with EU Observer, Carnegie, Al-
Monitor and others mainly on developments in the Arab
world. Debeuf studied ancient history at the universities
of Leuven and Bologna. He was president of the students
of the Faculty of Arts and student representative on the
academic council of KU Leuven. In 2008-2009, he
founded a liberal think tank, Prometheus, of which he
was director. In 2014, he published the book, Inside the
Arab Revolution. Three years on the frontline of the Arab
Spring.
Dr. Ronald Meinardus holds a PhD in international
relations from Hamburg University. A journalist by
profession, Dr. Meinardus worked for several years for
Deutsche Welle, Germanys international broadcaster. He
served the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty
(FNF) in Greece, South Korea, the Philippines, and most
recently in Egypt as regional director for the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA). While in South Korea, Dr.
Meinardus was adjunct professor at the Graduate School
of Local Autonomy of Hanyang University. He has
published widely on current political affairs in academic
journals and newspapers. His publications deal with
developments in Germany, the Balkans, Southern Africa,
East Asia, the Arab world, and matters related to
liberalism and democracy.


181
Other books in the series Liberal Publications

Refaat Lakousha: Liberalism and Egyptian Society -
Crisis and Guide, 2009
Henriette Haensch (Editor): Women and Mirror -Visions
on the Contemporary Reality of Women, 2009
Ronald Meinardus and Ahmed Naji (Editors): Why I am
Liberal, 2009 (also available in English)
Ronald Meinardus (Editor): Liberalism in the Arab world
- Visions and Perspectives of Arab Politicians, 2009
The Program of Liberal International, 2009
Clemens Recker: Liberalism in the History of Arab
Thought, 2010
Basem Fathi (Editor): We Were There - Liberal Youth
Voices of the Egyptian Revolution, 2011
Hala Mostafa: The Crisis of the Arab Liberalism -Egypts
Model, 2011
Amira Hussein and Wafaa Attia (Editors): Human Rights
and the Egyptian Political Parties after the January 25
Revolution, 2012
Ronald Meinardus (Editor): Bridging the Gap - An Arab-
European Dialogue on the Basics of Liberalism, 2013
(also available in English)
Ronald Meinardus (Editor): If Egypt Were Liberal -
Youth Articles on Liberalism, 2013

Links to these and other liberal publications at:

http://www.fnst-egypt.org/Publications.html

Liberalism in The Arab World: Just A Good Idea?

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Just a good idea?

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