Alright y'all, it's Anti-War Radio, I'm Scott Horton and I'm happy to welcome Adam Morrow back to the show.
He and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani write together at Interpress Service, a lot of the time anyway, and Adam is there in Cairo, he's been covering the revolution, especially foreign policy aspects of the revolution in Egypt, and this will be his, I don't know, 6th, 7th time on the show, updating us on what the heck is going on over there.
Today's Friday, how big was the big thing out in Tahrir Square today, Adam?
Not too big, Scott, actually.
I don't think it was as big as it was last time, and the numbers actually have been back and forth as to how big it is.
There's been some controversy over how big they are, but most accounts agree that it never broke the million mark like we saw back in the revolution, back during the 18-day uprising.
People getting tired?
It probably was less than 100,000 last week, and this week in the tens of thousands.
Well, I guess the economy's gotta be suffering over there, and people are just getting tired of protesting too, huh?
Yeah, that's exactly the thing, you really put your finger on it.
A lot of people are saying enough is enough, we need to focus on rebuilding the country, we need to focus on the transition to democracy and upcoming elections, and we can't go out and protest for every little thing.
That's a very commonly held opinion here.
Well, so tell me this, do you think the average revolutionary is pretty confident that there's going to be fair and free elections coming up here in September?
Well, this is another thing, that this recent round of small protests that we've seen for the last two Fridays, today and last week, is a degree of polarization within society, where you basically have more Islamically-oriented people saying that they want to just stop demonstrating now, let events take their course, and let's have elections, in the confidence that they'll do very, very well in upcoming elections, knowing that they've had a much longer time to prepare than their secular rivals have had, in that the Muslim Brotherhood movement has been around for decades, it's the strongest opposition force, and will probably do very well in upcoming elections.
So their point is, let's not rock the boat until then, let's just have elections and see how things pan out, and then after that, we can reconsider the Constitution, because a lot of people want to see a new Egyptian Constitution written, whereas more secular-minded people and a lot of the Christian minority here, which is put at roughly 10% of the population, although the exact figures aren't available, they're more into the idea of changing the Constitution before elections, in advance of elections, and those are the people that you saw mostly today and last Friday out demonstrating in Tahrir Square.
So there has been a little bit of post-revolutionary polarization, in terms of the protest movement.
And now, for the latter forces, what kind of changes to the Constitution are they trying to push for before the elections?
Okay, it basically boils down to, as you know, there were already amendments to the Constitution about, what was that, about one or two months ago.
They passed, they subject them to a referendum, a national referendum, and this vote won by something like, I think, 77% of the vote.
So they made changes to the Constitution that would allow, basically liberalize the political system and make it easier for people and movements and parties to field presidential candidates.
There's some conflict over Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution, which basically says that Islamic law will be a primary reference for legislation, a primary point of reference for legislation.
And now, some people believe that if the Constitution were to be rewritten now, in advance of elections, there would be a strong push to eliminate that article.
So in a sense, the conflict comes down to that article, and fears on the part of the Islamic elements, the more Islamically oriented elements of society, fear that that particular article will be gotten rid of, which, of course, needless to say, they oppose.
Now, is it really the case, too, that most people believe, do you believe, that the military is really not interested in just remaining the government, that one way or the other, they much rather liberalize and let the parliament have more power, let there be elections, let the people have a government, rather than take it away from them?
Sure, sure.
I don't think there's any secret plan that the government, that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has run the country since February 11th, since when Hosni Mubarak stepped down, I don't think there's any secret plan that they want to maintain power and, you know, delay elections indefinitely.
And there's far too much power, or there's far too much pressure on them to leave.
They have to hold elections.
Maybe they can get away with delaying it for six months, because the infrastructure simply isn't there, or something like this, for technical reasons.
Pressure is too great for them to try to hold on to power.
The only way they could possibly do that was if there was a series of domestic disasters or catastrophes, some kind of security challenge that forced them, that they could use as an excuse to delay elections.
And that's possible.
Some see the recent round of sectarian fighting that happened over the last month, and what happened in that case was a lot of the people that were instigating these sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians later turned out to be armed or to be paid thugs, who most people said were elements of the former regime, being paid by elements of the former regime.
So there are forces out there that are trying to smash up national unity and to cause just the sort of domestic strife that I mentioned earlier.
So if there was something like extreme sectarian clashes or something that the council could say, oh, we're standing on the verge of civil war, we can't have elections now, that is within the realm of possibility.
But outside of that, they have to hold elections.
There'll be no choice.
All right.
And now, on the elections, are these small districts, or are we talking winner-take-all, bi-party, and pretty big places, pretty big swaths of the country at a time, or how's that going to work?
Well, I don't know the...
You know, I'm curious as to how pluralistic the parliament could look at the end, you know?
Right.
Right.
How pluralistic the...
Are you talking about technically, specifically, what system are they going to use in terms of districts and zoning and that sort of thing?
Yeah.
I mean, not to the, you know, nitty-gritty details, but I just wonder, are they going to, you know, it's basically, you know, like our 535-member house, each with their own little district, or is it the two or three biggest parties get to win and put their slate up there, you know, those kinds of things, broad strokes?
Right.
Right.
Well, in broad strokes, as you know, the parliament that was dissolved under Mubarak was completely dominated by his ruling National Democratic Party, which has also since been completely dissolved.
In the previous, let's see, in 2005 parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to capture roughly 20% of the chamber of parliament, and that was a watershed.
That had never happened before.
Subsequently, in the elections that happened late last year, the NDP looked like it had learned from its mistakes and had clamped down much more tightly on elections, and only one Muslim Brotherhood member was actually voted in the last parliament, but since it's been dissolved.
Now, this time around, the Brotherhood, like I said before, is the strongest, just because it's had the longest experience, it's had decades of experience.
Even though it's never been a political party, it's been formally outlawed.
It was officially outlawed.
So it's never existed as a formal political party.
But what happened very significantly, just in the last couple of weeks, the Muslim Brotherhood has begun making moves, has begun the process of creating its own political party, which will now be legal.
That's never happened before, and I think maybe two weeks from now, their new party, which is called the Freedom and Justice Party, will begin its activities, barring any unforeseen objections by the ruling council.
The party is expected to launch within two or three weeks.
Adam Morrow is on the phone from Cairo, he's a reporter for Interpret Service, IPSnews.net.
We're going to find out more, especially about the Gaza Strip, and so forth, after this.
Anti-war radio.
All right, y'all, welcome back, it's Anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Wharton, wrapping up the week here with Adam Morrow from Interpret Service, that's IPSnews.net.
His latest piece is called Popular Opposition Mounts to Camp David Deal, and part of this has to do with what we were just talking about before the break, the legalization of the Muslim Brotherhood as a political party, and I guess, so the obvious question is, are they right over at Newsmax.com, that if the Muslim Brotherhood is able to join this government outright, that we're all going to die?
Should we be terribly frightened that the Muslim Brotherhood is participating in government?
No, no, of course not, of course not.
Well, but I mean, this is the same thing as Ayman al-Zawahiri, the terrorist, right?
No, no, the Muslim Brotherhood has, I think they formally renounced violence in the 1950s, and have never been involved in any, or in the 1970s, rather, and have never been involved in any sort of act of terrorism or violence since then.
And even before that, the accusations of the use of violence against them were never proved.
I think there were accusations that they had tried to assassinate former President Gamal Abdel Nasser, but those charges were never proven, and they deny it until today, and the group is not known for violence in any way.
What's interesting on the subject of Camp David, though, is that they have the party that they're about to launch, which, by the way, is only planning to field candidates for 50% of Parliament, and is also not going to field a presidential candidate.
The party has come out and said that, that they will only field candidates for half of the seats in Parliament, and they will not field a presidential candidate.
So I don't think, on the subject of Camp David, though, they have said that, they've also said that they would respect the terms of all international agreements that Egypt is signatory to, including Camp David, although other members of the group have come out on record as saying that the issue of Camp David would be put before a national referendum after elections are held, in order to let the Egyptian people decide whether or not they want to remain a part of the Camp David peace agreement.
Well, what I'm hearing from you, I think, basically, is that the Muslim Brotherhood is a conservative organization, not a radical one, as fundamental as their beliefs might be.
They're basically a bunch of old men, and, you know, at least upper-middle-class type guys.
They're not about, you know, remaking the world.
Well, I'll tell you, their leadership does consist almost exclusively of old men, as you described them, but at the same time, they do have an extremely active youth wing that was very, very active in the middle and later stages of the revolution, a very large and very active young membership in the organization, which occasionally does clash with the older, higher-ranking echelons as well.
Alright, well, so, I guess you can, you know, mostly phrase your answer in terms of foreign policy, but I guess, you know, what's your best guess, overall, about what the government might look like if the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies became the dominant force in the government?
Because that's, of course, the scare story here in America, so I was hoping, you know, we could get a little clarity from you there.
Right, right.
Well, as I said, they won't be fielding a presidential candidate, and they will only be fielding candidates for 50% of the parliament, so they're not going to sweep elections, there's not going to be a Brotherhood president, and they're not going to take control of parliament.
I mean, they've said themselves that they don't intend to do that.
One of the reasons being is that they don't want to...they know how they're perceived in the West, and as well by some people here in the Middle East, and they want to basically reassure...it appears that they're looking to sort of reassure people that they're not out to completely take over the government.
That being said, you could have a situation where they're not the only Islamist party that's being formed.
There are others, and together they could possibly capture a majority of seats in parliament, in which case they would have a very real effect on Egyptian legislation and policy.
Now, if that were to happen, oh boy, if that were to happen, and I don't necessarily think that would be a negative thing.
I mean, that would simply reflect the will of the Egyptian public.
And if you want to pose as a democracy advocate, you know, you have to accept it when groups or people that don't necessarily share your own values or principles win in a democratically held election.
I mean, you know, the point could be made about Hamas winning or sweeping the 2006 Palestinian legislative election.
But in terms of Egypt, what would happen?
Well, are you talking domestically or are you talking in terms of foreign policy?
Well, either way, I mean, I guess probably, you know, to put words in Newt Gingrich's mouth or something like that, it would be a horrible totalitarian nightmare at home and war with Israel abroad and that kind of, you know, the Islamo-fascist caliphate is coming to get us all, you know how they tell it.
Right, right.
Well, I think there's no doubt that they would push for a more equitable solution to the perennial Israel-Palestine conflict.
And I think that's reasonable because, again, that would reflect the public opinion here for the most part.
I think they would want the border with Gaza open permanently.
I think it would actually cause Israel to maybe modify its stance in terms of negotiations.
I mean, people are complaining that this Israel-Palestine problem hasn't been settled in 60 years plus now.
I mean, there's a reason for that.
I mean, one of the reasons being that Israel seems to hold all the cards politically and that it's backed up by the U.S. and the EU and even the U.N.
So this would change the equation.
A brotherhood, you know, brotherhood in political influence in Egypt would definitely change the equation.
You know, just like the disappearance of Mubarak in February has changed the equation in the in the in the long running negotiations between Hamas and Fatah, you notice as soon as Mubarak disappeared from the scene and Mubarak was very, very pro-Fatah, was very against, very anti-Hamas, as soon as he disappeared from the scene, you suddenly had a breakthrough.
And these these two sides, these two Palestinian factions signed a reconciliation agreement within, you know, when within one or two, well, within three or four months of his of his ouster.
So it would certainly shake up the so-called peace process.
But I think it could be very easily argued that the peace process is in need of some kind of shake up in order to in order to, you know, realize any sort of viable and fair settlement.
It's Adam Morrow from Interpress Service.
He's on the phone live from Cairo, Egypt right now.
And we had a conversation somewhat along these lines one week ago, and we talked about how the next day, last Saturday, would be the opening up of the Gaza Strip to some degree.
And I was wondering if you could explain your best knowledge of how things are going there at the border, who's been allowed to cross and to what effect locally and internationally, say, for example, in Tel Aviv, in New York?
Sure, sure.
The latest from what I can tell from the border is, as your listeners, I'm sure your listeners know, the border was opened partially to much to much fanfare last Saturday, following statements, following promises as much from from Egypt's new foreign minister.
Now, again, it was only open partially before it was opened.
I believe it was open.
It was open six hours, six hours a day, five days a week.
They expanded that to eight hours a day for six days a week.
However, it's still limited to individuals.
It's still limited to individuals.
There's no large scale commercial transaction, large scale commercial traffic going through the border.
So it's still far from from operating like any other normal international border would be.
It's still restricted to individuals.
And this is a cause that this is the source of this is a source of complaint from from both Egyptians and Palestinians who are saying that, you know, are complaining that it's still like I said, it still isn't functioning like an international border ought to because, as you know, it's not only an issue for the people of Gaza, it's not only an issue of them getting out individually.
They're also in desperate need of large quantities of commercial products, especially building materials in order to rebuild the strip after it was it was destroyed, largely smashed up two years ago in the Israeli attack, the Israeli cat's lead assault.
So so people are still waiting to see if that's going to if there's going to be any more progress on that front, if they're going to open it up to more, if they're going to open up to more traffic.
The latest thing I also heard was a couple of days ago, people are saying that a ceiling has been put on the number of passengers coming out of the strip to three hundred and sixty a day, which is new.
And apparently there have also been recent accusations from Hamas that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is actually requesting that Egypt keep it closed for his own political purposes.
As you know, that was was was benefiting from the closure because it basically put pressure on their main rival, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
So there's talk now that that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are trying to are trying to keep it closed, which would be which would be shocking, especially considering their recent reconciliation agreement.
All right.
I guess news dot net for Adam Morrow.
Thanks very much for your time, Adam.
Thanks.
Thanks again, Scott.
I'll talk to you soon.
