Does liberalism have a future in Egypt?
Can we imagine a future for politics in Egypt without liberals and liberalism? Egypt’s political community is diverse and pluralistic, with competing and overlapping presences across liberal, Islamic, Arab nationalist, and socialist persuasions, to name a few. The liberal stream needs to remain an integral part of Egypt’s political and social landscape. Yet, even after successive decades of the liberal experiment in Egypt, Egyptian liberalism has failed to attract a broad political and social currency, or infuse its ideas into the mindset of viable political parties. January 2011 provided a unique moment for liberals to cultivate key political capital, but this opportunity was regrettably squandered. Rather than gain political ground, or consolidate their presence by building durable institutions, liberals instead fell into fragmentation, entrenched themselves in conflicts with Islamist forces, and resorted to myopic identity politics, all of which coalesced into wholly unnecessary polarization of the Egyptian political landscape. As a result, liberal representation and performance in the post-January 2011 electoral process was dismal. Liberals continue to be viewed with suspicion, their role as a credible opposition increasingly suspect, particularly after their support for the military coup of July 2013.
Presently, Egyptian liberalism faces a serious crisis, which if left unresolved casts serious doubt on its future viability.1 Constructing a meaningful future for liberals in Egypt will require that liberals themselves recognize this crisis, and take the necessary steps toward its resolution. This crisis can perhaps be best encapsulated by the infamous appearance of liberal icon Mohamed El Baradei alongside both the Shaykh of al-Azhar and the Coptic Patriarch, as well as a representative of the conservative Salafi trend, during the pronouncement of the Coup Communique on July 3, 2013 – thereby demonstrating a complete disregard for the liberal narrative’s purported commitment to a civic state based on neither religion nor militarism. Indeed, the chapters in this book offered considerable explication of these disappointing contradictions, and in so doing raised concern about the existence of true liberals and liberalism in Egypt.
Liberalism in Egypt presently exists in the form of liberal ideas, scattered and eclectic, that have not coalesced into a coherent liberal trend or stream that represents a wide segment of Egyptian society. What is needed, then, is a brand of liberalism that is grounded in the nuances and particularities of Egyptian society, and constructs an indigenous liberal model with its own creative frame of reference, moral values, inclusive political orientation, and economic vision – one that advocates social justice rather than the unfettered free market. Fortunately, though, Egyptian liberals do not need to start from scratch in reconstituting their project, and thus in resolving this crisis. Liberals have a rich legacy of “liberal nationalism” to build upon, but the onus is on them to relate convincingly to that century-long legacy and indigenize its primary strengths.
Put another way, if we expect to build a democratic future in Egypt, it would be folly to discredit liberals and liberalism altogether. In fact, to build roots for liberal ideas and promote support for a democratic culture, it is necessary to highlight Egypt’s liberal legacy, albeit a weak one with recognizable deficiencies. That legacy, replete with a yearning for freedom, rights, and political participation and representation, is well established in Egypt’s modern history. The liberal narrative in Egypt begins as early as the nineteenth century with Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi (d. 1873). Contemporary liberals present Tahtawi as the founding father of secular liberalism in Egypt. Yet, in fact, Tahtawi remained a distinctly Muslim reformer who remained faithful to the Shari‘ah, his absolute monarch and patron Muhammad Ali, and own indigenous values, despite his admiration for certain European liberal ideas. He tried to find roots for European ideas in Islam. Tahtawi translated the French Constitution of 1814 and the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of 1789 into Arabic. Subsequently, the country had its first constitution and a Shura Council of Representatives in 1886. Liberal parties mushroomed from the beginning of the last century and Egypt lived a parliamentary experience till 1952.
Like Islamic activism, Egyptian liberal nationalism was the twin child of Islamic modernism. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897) and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), the founders of the Islamic modernist trend, diligently sought to synthesize a long list of liberal values within an Islamic framework: reason and rationalism, progress and change, nationalism, civic virtues, popular will, restrictions on sovereign powers, political representation, and civil rights. Their disciples, however, took the ideas of the Islamic modernist project into considerably different directions, one textual and the other liberal/secular. The former culminated in fundamentalist and/or politically activist strands of Islam, represented by the Muslim Brothers. The latter, on the other hand, produced a liberal Egyptian nationalism, which later evolved into secular liberalism. This bifurcation has polarized Egyptian intellectual and political life ever since, until today.
Understanding this background in the development of Egyptian liberalism is crucial for making sense of its limitations and of its ultimate future. Egypt has witnessed three denominations of liberalism throughout its modern history: nationalist, secular,2 and neo-liberal. As these different strands of liberalism are explicated in detail in several chapters in this book, I will focus here on the first, as it remains the most capable of fostering a distinctly Egyptian model of liberalism moving forward – even with its serious shortcomings. This strand of liberalism was central to the movement for national independence and hence enjoyed popular support, all while avoiding outright hostility to the identity and values of Egyptian society. Yet insofar as nationalist liberalism evolved within a distorted democratic context, it was not able to produce a coherent intellectual and socio-economic program. Consequently, later secular liberals criticized liberal nationalist Saad Zaghlul (d. 1927), the leader of the Wafd Party, for his conservatism and his inability to “liberate the Egyptian mind.” Zaghlul’s cardinal sin, secular liberals maintained, was his criticism of Ali Abd al-Raziq’s book Islam and the Fundamentals of Governance and Taha Husayn’s The Future of Culture in Egypt, the former advocating a separation of religion and state, and the latter advocating a wholesale embrace of European lifestyle and values.
Yet despite those limitations and a lack of a coherent intellectual vision, the liberal legacy in Egypt nonetheless made formative and lasting contributions to Egyptian society. Continuing the reformist trend it had inherited from the Islamic modernists, liberals highlighted the need for social reform at the religious, educational, and political levels of Egyptian society, promoting values of freedoms of thought, religion, and expression, individual rights, the rights of women and minorities. Egypt’s “Liberal Age,”3 as Albert Hourani has called it, institutionalized these ideals through the founding of the Egyptian University (later renamed Cairo University), the modern Egyptian nationalist movement, the 1923 liberal constitution, a nascent parliamentary system and culture with incipient political parties, a relatively free and bustling press,4 and Egyptian economic companies to back the struggle for the country’s independence. Towering liberal figures, such as Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, Muhammad Hussein Haykal (d. 1956), Taha Husayn (d. 1973), Abbas al-Aqqad (d. 1964), Ahmad Amin (d. 1954), Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat (d. 1968), Tawfiq al-Hakim (d. 1987), Naguib Mahfouz (d. 2006), and many others enriched Egypt’s literary and artistic life for decades to come, and enshrined Egypt as the cultural center of the Arab word. Liberal ideals, moreover, had a formative impact on the modern Egyptian judiciary system, which until recently was firmly grounded in liberal ideals and individual rights.5 Suffice to say, for whatever its blind spots, Egyptian liberalism nonetheless bequeathed modern Egypt a meaningful legacy, that could pave the way for a more robust liberal polity moving forward. This, however, would require elevating liberalism from a scattered set of disparate ideas into a political force with popular currency.
At present, liberalism in Egypt faces several challenges that prevent its transformation into a bona fide popular intellectual and political trend. Aside from the fact that the Egyptian bourgeoisie class is predominately not liberal, and has often allied with the authoritarian state under Sadat and subsequently Mubarak, liberalism suffers at the levels of personalities and leadership, orientation and practices. Few liberal figures are willing to acknowledge the crisis of liberalism in Egypt in this respect.6 Liberals in general demonstrate a tendency to blame others for their shortcomings and for their inability to compete with other political forces – particularly Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. They accuse the Islamists of undermining their ideas and deliberately distorting their liberal message, and of inaccurately associating them with moral permissiveness and aversion to religion. They further attempt to victimize themselves by suggesting that successive authoritarian Egyptian regimes had targeted and repressed liberals and excluded them from the political process, in favor of the Islamists. Some liberals go as far as to blame the deficiencies of Egyptian culture and the paltry level of education of the Egyptian populace for the inability of their political project to gain firmer grounding, suggesting that these handicaps render most Egyptians ill-equipped and unprepared to properly appreciate liberal ideas.
The crisis of Egyptian liberalism thus starts with the liberals themselves. In fact, it has become increasingly difficult to identify precisely who constitutes a “liberal” in contemporary Egypt.7 Today’s liberals are diverse and heterogeneous in their intellectual and philosophical orientations, incorporating under the broader aegis of liberalism a strange confluence of Nasserites, leftists, Arab nationalists, Islamists, human rights advocates, former security officers, and even “eradicationists.”8 As the liberal intellectual Wahid Abdelmaguid explains, “liberals in Egypt are not one trend. They embrace extremely broad and general principles – to the extent that some are close to the left, while others are to the extreme right.”9 Naturally, it thus becomes difficult to identify a consistent liberal stance at the level of ideas and practices. In some cases, liberals have articulated scattered ideas and contradictory positions that are dictated by personal or partisan interests. Al-Nida al-Jadid, an organization established in 1991 to represent liberals and liberal ideas, was a serious attempt to unite liberals, but was not properly institutionalized and thus could not survive its founder Said al-Najjar. Most recently, the National Salvation Front – a coalition of political parties established in part by Mohamed El Baradei in opposition to then President Mohammad Morsi’s November 22, 2012 constitutional declaration – was the closest manifestation of a liberal political apparatus, given the participation of many prominent liberals. However, that coalition’s role in undermining Egypt’s democratic transition and giving rise to the coup of July 2013 reveals the internal contradictions that continue to plague Egyptian liberals.
Indeed, at their most basic intellectual and philosophical orientations, liberals differ considerably over fundamental issues. They maintain widely differing positions on the social scope and dimensions liberalism ought to maintain in Egyptian society (social liberalism versus neo-liberalism); the concept of individualism in a predominantly collective culture; individual freedoms and public rights; the identity of the Egyptian state; the role of religion in state and society; their relations with Islamists; and their relations with the state. Accordingly, liberal forces and parties are struggling to identify their own platform, which in turn presents a significant obstacle to liberalism becoming a popular and effective intellectual and political trend in Egyptian society. The future of liberalism in Egypt will thus depend on the liberal project adequately addressing certain shortcomings at its basic intellectual, political, and societal levels.
Reconcile with Egyptian cultural identity and social values
As mentioned previously, liberal nationalism emerged from the mantle of Islamic modernism, and was not immediately dismissive of religion; in so doing, it was able to maintain popular currency, and offered formative contributions to Egyptian civil society. But in contradistinction to this accommodationist posturing by liberal nationalists, secular liberals instead have long been waging the same futile wars and “intellectual battles” against the very social values and core beliefs that Egyptians hold dear. Time and again they raise the same controversial issues without offering meaningful resolution or providing viable alternatives: the role of religion in state and society, the place of the Shari‘ah in the legal and social structures, the nature and authority of the Quran, the secularity of education, literary and artistic freedoms, the role of religious institutions, women’s rights, veiling, civic marriage and divorce, establishing the authority of reason and science over society and their supremacy over religion, the purported backwardness of Egyptian culture and society, among others. Accordingly, it is little surprise that secular liberals have failed to gain popular support.
Liberalism as a political project simply cannot succeed when it overtly declares war against the very values and belief system constitutive of the society in which it operates. Yet for decades liberals in Egypt have done precisely that, viewing religion and Egyptian society’s traditional culture as the basis of its underdevelopment, and relentlessly attempting to overhaul the education system to resocialize Egyptians into proper liberal subjects. Yet forced social engineering, as the experience of the French in Algeria adequately demonstrates, is an exercise in futility. Whether liberals approve or not, Egyptian society remains a predominantly religious one, and Islam provides a fundamental basis of its identity, moral values, and core belief system. Today’s liberals in Egypt thus need to make a historic compromise with the questions of religion and of Egyptian social and cultural identity, in the same way Islamists need to make a similar compromise with the questions of modernity and liberalism. This can be accomplished very conceivably by assimilating elements of the Islamic discursive tradition that can help contextualize liberalism’s basic ideals, drawing on Islam’s emphasis on human dignity, individual responsibility, equality, pluralism, and respect for the law. Put another way, liberals need to abandon their attempts to forcibly uproot religion and the allegedly backward aspects of Egyptian cultural identity, and instead adopt a model of synthesis, following in the footsteps both of their Islamic modernist and liberal nationalist predecessors.
Properly define liberalism
Ironically, despite liberalism’s lengthy track record in modern Egyptian history, the concept of liberalism remains ambiguous and inaccessible to average Egyptians. Prominent liberals recognize this failing, acknowledging that “Arab perception has not formed a clear understanding of the meaning of liberalism,”10 and admitting to the “urgent need to explain what liberalism is and the ways to implement it.”11 Osama al-Ghazali Harb asserts that “this thought [liberal] until this current moment [1990s] seems besieged and unable to crystalize itself.”12
As liberalism remains nebulously defined, moreover, its objectives and goals increasingly run the risk of being articulated in reductionist and formulaic ways that do little justice to the true aims of the project. Under these auspices, some liberals engage in false marketing of liberalism, unconsciously vulgarizing and misrepresenting its tenets in an attempt to make it seem more appealing to the masses. Liberalism is often idyllically portrayed as a magic wand that can effortlessly provide solutions for all the ills plaguing Egyptian society, and as an end in itself – despite the fact that these caricatured depictions often lack much content. Substantive engagement with Egypt’s core political and social challenges is thus replaced with empty sloganeering, as the following examples demonstrate: “Liberalism is the element that provides security for all the segments of society...A garden that can contain all types of flowers and thorns”;13 “Liberalism is a clear and a straightforward approach to grant the human mind and thought a true opportunity to rid itself from its problems and crisis”;14 “The objective of liberalism is to liberate the mind [and achieve] economic and social growth.”15
In a similar vein, liberalism is often arbitrarily juxtaposed with other modern ideological persuasions such as modernity, secularism, and democracy, in an attempt to establish a casual and deterministic relationship between what are wholly distinct orientations. For instance, to add additional mystique to liberalism under Enlightenment auspices, the renowned liberal intellectual Shaker al-Nabulsi sees modernity as the essence of liberalism, describing it as “an electric current that lights the dark corners.”16 In a Hobbesian manner, he preaches for the Leviathan by declaring that “the decisive victory of modernity will only come through a consolidated sovereign...”17 offering Napoleon in France, Muhammad Ali in Egypt, Ataturk in Turkey, and Bourguiba in Tunisia as illustrative examples. Yet given the fact that none of those figures would properly qualify as a liberal, Nabulsi’s attempt to draw a causal connection between liberalism and modernity is ultimately contrived. Similarly, other liberals attempt to conflate liberalism with secularism, despite the two orientations bearing no inherently causal relationship: “democracy will only be achieved through adopting secularism, separating religion from the state, separation of religion from politics. Religion has never experienced democracy. Secularism is the same, its rules are the same. There is no moderate secularism and radical secularism.”18
Moreover, in addition to being reductionist and misleading, these liberal narratives fail to look critically at the contradictions that wholly permeate liberal societies. Similarly, they fail to recognize or acknowledge the multiple permutations that exist within the domains of liberalism, modernity, democracy, and secularism; accordingly, they remain unable to properly articulate how to orient those ideological persuasions in a way that does justice to the particularities of Egyptian society. For liberalism in Egypt to have a meaningful future, liberals will need to temporarily step back from their ongoing skirmishes with Islamists, and instead direct their energies inward, and invest in building an intellectual framework for a distinctly Egyptian liberalism. They need to clarify and explicate its main tenets, and its relation with the Western experience with modernity. And more importantly, they need to adequately persuade Egyptians why, if at all, they should give secularism, Westernization, and neo-liberalism a priority over Islam and their indigenous social and cultural identity. And if they cannot successfully persuade Egyptians on this front, they need to modify their definition and articulation of liberalism in a way that does sufficient justice to those concerns.
Disengage from the authoritarian state
Despite portraying themselves as the antithesis of, and bulwark against, authoritarianism and the arbitrary caprices of the state, Egyptian liberals have an established track record of colluding with the autocratic Egyptian state. In fact, many have considered the state apparatus the only viable vehicle ultimately to implement their reform project. Tahtawi was a loyal custodian of the autocratic and absolutist state of Muhammad Ali. Similarly, the Umma Party established by Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid and Abduh’s disciples in 1907 was well received and encouraged by Lord Cromer, who viewed them as the real stakeholders in Egypt and the country’s future elite. They in return viewed the presence of the British as a benevolent occupation that worked for the interest of the country. This relationship also provided them with protection against the National Party of Mustafa Kamil (d. 1908) and Muhammad Farid (d. 1919), which called for immediate independence from the British and for keeping links with the Ottoman Sultan. Owing to their reformist orientation, many of the early liberals assumed high positions within the state apparatus. Likewise, the Liberal Constitutional Party, the rival of the Wafd Party, drew close to the British to support it against the overwhelming popularity of the Wafd Party. Finally, even under the Nasserite regime major liberal intellectuals and writers, despite the increasingly authoritarian and illiberal tenor of Nasser’s rule, nonetheless agreed to serve in his state apparatus and his cultural and media institutions.19
Under the rule of Mubarak, moreover, many liberals continued this posturing of remaining hand in glove with the state apparatus. Accordingly, liberals were largely not at the forefront of the protest movement during that period, with the exception of the al-Ghad Party and, at a very late stage, the Democratic Front (whose founder was a former member of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party). Ironically, some liberals went as far as considering Gamal Mubarak a “crystallization of a national liberalism in a new phase and a new thinking.”20 Hazim al Biblawi, a presumably liberal figure who following the coup of July 2013 became interim prime minister, is a testament to this proclivity, and years earlier offered a succinct explication justifying liberal collusion with the state. In 2005, while Mubarak was still in power, Biblawi articulated two main challenges to Egypt’s successful transition to a robust liberal system: the dearth of liberal leadership and the inability to organically produce new ones on the one hand, and the increasing popularity and looming threat of anti-liberal Islamists on the other.
To address this impasse, Biblawi maintains that actively advocating liberal reforms might backfire by benefiting and emboldening anti-liberal forces; instead, he proposes that the best course of action to facilitate a liberal transition, bafflingly enough, is to throw support behind Mubarak, going so far as refraining from fielding a candidate to run against him in the forthcoming presidential elections. This strategy, he concludes, would best allow for promoting liberal freedoms and constitutional reforms, and for eliminating exceptional restrictive measures during Mubarak’s new term.21 Given his willingness in 2005 to accommodate the authoritarian Egyptian state as a necessary fulcrum for advancing the liberal project, Biblawi’s role in 2013 as head of the post-coup cabinet that orchestrated the worst massacre against political protesters in modern Egyptian history becomes far less surprising.
Liberal embrace of the returned authoritarian state following the coup of 2013, from their participation in the National Salvation Front coalition that emboldened military intervention in the first place, to their involvement in the post-coup administration and the fifty-member committee that wrote the post-coup constitution, fundamentally tarnished the credibility of the liberal project, and raises serious questions about its future viability. To overcome this crisis of legitimacy in the future, liberals must fundamentally rethink their association with the authoritarian Egyptian state. Namely, they need to disengage from the state as an interlocutor, and instead build their own independent institutions that promote their vision. Granted, institution building is indeed difficult under the yoke of a repressive state – a fact liberals regularly point out – but even then, other forces, namely the Islamists and the April 6th Youth Movement, have managed to build meaningful independent institutions under those very same circumstances, while simultaneously keeping a degree of distance from the state. Liberals must do the same.
Overcome liberal elitism
Liberals often blame society at large for the failure of liberalism to take hold in Egypt. As mentioned earlier, liberals often maintain that the core values of Egyptian society conflict with the fundamental tenets of liberalism, particularly democracy, human rights, rationalism, secularism, and liberal citizenship.22 Seeing the two value systems as fundamentally incompatible, some liberals have expressed concern at the idea of having the illiterate Egyptian masses participating in the electoral process. Some have proposed voter disenfranchisement, by granting the vote of the illiterate Egyptian masses half the value of the literate elites; others have gone further by suggesting banning the masses from voting altogether. This elitist posturing, moreover, has characterized Egyptian liberalism since its early inception, with Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid and his colleagues having disenfranchised Egyptians who owned less than fifty feddans from voting. Liberal elitism has always been predicated on an implicit, and sometimes explicit, paternalism, in which liberal elites alone warrant trusteeship over Egyptian society. Despite their putative rejection of absolute truths, Egyptian liberals nonetheless present their project as an inerrant truth. As one liberal claims, “liberalism is a clear and a straightforward approach that grants the human mind and thought a true opportunity to rid itself from its problems and crisis.”23 In presenting liberalism as so manifestly just that it alone can bring Egyptian society to salvation, liberals by extension present themselves as uniquely qualified to chart Egypt on the proper path to redemption – thereby alienating themselves from the very society over which they have become the self-appointed messiahs.
If liberalism expects to have a meaningful future in Egypt, liberals must overcome this alienation by reminding themselves that they in fact remain part and parcel of the society they continue to criticize, and commit to being leading agents in the production of its values and political orientations. Egyptian liberals thus must produce leaders that can properly connect with the Egyptian “masses” (‘awam) and “mobs,” appreciate their chosen priorities, and inspire them to adopt a liberal vision for the future. They must thus maintain a strong presence in professional syndicates and in the student movements. Additionally, liberals must build substantive institutions and organize a popular base that is both committed to liberal ideals and is willing to actively advocate for their implementation.
Put another way, Egypt needs a viable liberalism, and a national liberal stream. Whether liberals can cultivate that coherent national stream, and thus ensure its future viability, though, will depend on its cultivating a coherent political and cultural bloc that adheres to liberal ideals and demonstrates consistent liberal practices. One main task in that respect would be to reconcile the liberal project with Egyptian social and cultural identity and with Islam, and to properly contextualize the intellectual narrative of the liberal project in a way that properly speaks to the concerns of the masses. Ayman Nour, the leader of al-Ghad Party, envisions “an Egyptian liberalism that does not clash with religion or human moral values; does not oppose human rights and does not side with wrong.”24
If liberals fail to properly reorient their project in this respect, then the crisis facing Egyptian liberalism will further entrench itself, and will become increasingly difficult to resolve in the future. The reason being, liberals no longer carry monopoly over the use of purportedly liberal terms and concepts. Other political forces, despite not necessarily being liberal as such, are advocating these same political values – and are perhaps more successfully reaching the masses of Egyptian society. One obvious implication of this development is that liberals and their political discourse stand to be marginalized. The democratic process will further alienate them, because their elitism and alienation from the base of Egyptian society precludes them from winning elections or from offering a viable counterweight to the Islamists. Egyptian liberals can no longer hide behind the authoritarian state to force an otherwise unwilling Egyptian populace to adopt its programmatic agenda. They must instead construct a broad and unified political vision, and cultivate durable independent institutions that support that vision – or else remain stuck in the morass of alienation from Egyptian society, and continue to be cavalierly dismissed by the masses at the ballot box.
NOTES
1 Al-Sayyid Amin Shalabi, “Liberalism and its dilemma in Egypt,” Al-Ahram Online, May 30, 2016, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Wafyat/395388/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A3%D8%B2%D9%82%D9%87%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%89-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1.aspx; Abdelghaffar Shukr, “The future of the liberal stream in Egypt,” al-Badil, April 3, 2009, http://www.copts-united.com/Article.php?I=39&A=1340; Amr Hamzawy, “The crisis of Egyptian liberalism and its reconstruction,” Shorouk, July 31, 2013, http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/view.aspx?cdate=19062016&id=a0d3b570-7511-4607-94bf-e2df2be150ab
2 A large number of the advocates of secular liberalism were associated with the Liberal Constitutionalist Party that split from the Wafd Party in 1922. This split took liberalism in a new direction. Its intellectual leaders advocated secularism and Westernization as the philosophical basis for the reconstruction of Egyptian society, viewing a wholesale adoption of a Western social and cultural framework as the antidote for the country’s social and political ills. They were deeply critical of many aspects of religion and Egyptian popular culture, and called for its replacement with particular Western mores, like the donning of European clothing and the establishment of the Latin alphabet. In so doing, secular liberals caused much consternation with many of their fellow Egyptians, who then as now have come to associate liberalism with Westernization, and even with outright atheism.
3 This phrase comes under severe criticism because of the use of the term “liberal” while Egypt languished under the yoke of both British occupation and autocratic kings.
4 For more on the centrality of the press in the early Egyptian liberal project, and its ultimate failure to live up to those ideals in the context of the uprising of 2011 onward, see Mohamad Elmasry’s chapter in this volume, “Myth or Reality?: The Discursive Construction of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.”
5 For more on liberalism in the Egyptian judiciary, see Sahar F. Aziz’s chapter in this volume, “(De)liberalizing Judicial Independence in Egypt.”
6 See Ayman Nour, “The crisis of Egyptian liberalism and its representatives,” https://www.facebook.com/dr.Aymannour/posts/10152408772511318
7 Amr Hamzawy, “The liberals in Egypt,” Shorouk, October 31, 2015, http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/view.aspx?cdate=31102015&id=179ef7f5-7d0e-4e59-8a29-c85b6fcce17b; “Liberals from home,” Shorouk, January 22, 2012, http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/view.aspx?cdate=22012012&id=e6d01467-cb4d-4e5a-8aa6-1665392e57e2; and “Dictatorship in the name of liberalism,” Shorouk, January 22, 2012, http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/view.aspx?cdate=18012012&id=65d328b0-0a55-49ec-b8ec-2a589c8bd17f
8 This term refers to political actors who are extremists and are willing to physically eliminate their opponents.
9 Wahid Abdelmaguid, “Who are the liberals in Egypt,” Al-Ahram, September 19, 2011, http://www.ahram.org.eg/archive/Issues-Views/News/102230.aspx
10 “The state of liberalism in Egypt,” al-Bayan, December 22, 2013, http://www.albayan.co.uk/rsc/print.aspx?id=3188
11 Ahmad al-Shazly, “Egyptian intellectuals circle around ‘liberalism,’” Middle East Online, February 3, 2015, http://middle-east-online.com/?id=193360
12 Nahed Ezzeddin, “The liberal stream and human rights,” NHRC, May 11–12, 2008, http://www.nhrc-qa.org/ar/%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B4%D8%B7%D8%A9-%D9%88%D9%81%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA/
13 Nabil Sharaf al-Din, “The crisis of liberalism in Egypt,” Al-Masry al-Youm, December 12, 2008, http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=192575
14 al-Shazly, “Egyptian intellectuals circle around ‘liberalism.’”
15 Ibid.
16 Shaker al-Nabulsi, “The necessity of the Sultan to achieve modernity,” Ilaf, December 22, 2008, http://elaph.com/Web/ElaphWriter/2008/12/393223.htm
17 Ibid.
18 Omayma Abboud, “The concept of reform in the neo-liberal Arab discourse,” al-Tajdid al-Arabi, September 4, 2005, http://www.arabrenewal.info/%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%88%D9%82%D8%B9/11099-%D9%85%D9%81%D9%87%D9%88%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%8A-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%B6-%D9%86%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B5-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF.html
19 For more on liberal collusion with the authoritarian Egyptian state, see the chapter by Ahmed Abdel Meguid and Daanish Faruqi in this volume, “The Truncated Debate: Egyptian Liberals, Islamists, and Ideological Statism.”
20 Hani Nusayra, “Do not look for liberalism in Egypt but for liberals,” al-Hayat, April 10, 2009, http://daharchives.alhayat.com/issue_archive/Hayat%20INT/2009/4/10/%D9%84%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%AD%D8%AB-%D8%B9%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D9%84-%D8%B9%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%8A%D9%86.html
21 Hazem al-Biblawi, “The road to liberalism,” Al-Ahram Online, March 13, 2005, http://hazembeblawi.com/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%82-%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%82%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9/
22 Ezzeddin, “The liberal stream and human rights.”
23 al-Shazly, “Egyptian intellectuals circle around ‘liberalism.’”
24 Nour, “The crisis of Egyptian liberalism and its representatives.”