Conclusion about alternative

Today, we put an end to the first part of the rich dialogue that took place on the pages of the Almasry alyoum newspaper along with e-mail and social media websites about the alternative that can occupy the space left by rejecting the groups claiming to represent the only Islamic religious reference.

The second part I believe will be about shifting from the phase of giving opinions to paving the way for real action that can encompass all those eager for positive action in the nationalist domain… and third part could be about planning… tasks distribution… roles integration, experience and connecting with those who can help execute and address people whom we wish can represent cadres for the desired change.

I have opened the door for all points of view… inside Egypt and abroad… but I haven’t published here any of what I received on e-mail or Facebook which included any violation to dialogue ethics like insults or so… which is considered a real change in my character… I am the one who has never missed a chance to engage using all weapons and words!

I have already promised to submit my opinion about the alternative in the end… but first, I’d like to thank Mr. Ghassan Tahboob, the Arab thinker and distinguished media man who was the first to impose the question around which we have discussed.

I noticed that some understood the alternative we mean as what we should do in education, culture and other fields of human activities … while some others understood the space left as the absence of some people or muslim brotherhood group and all their likes while they still exist… are spreading and active in more than one field and place… others, meantime, thought that the alternative to “inclination towards religious references” is to head towards nationalism… towards secularism… believing these are the root solution for all problems… and that both of them is the remedy to all mistakes! I’m not going to comment on every opinion I received as this will make it an endless discussion lasting for weeks even if we published such discussion daily… now I shall present my opinion about what I think is the alternative.

First, I believe the alternative intended is the answer to the key question: how can we – with all our different political and thought inclinations, ideological stances and economic and sociological situations – all work so that the nation can have proper education, health system, living standards… to the end of the list… that are adequate to what our beloved Egypt deserves and to make her an active strong nation like the rest of the live developed nations in the north, east, west… and even in the south?!

How can Egypt have a decent political life where active political parties are effective because they represent social powers or adopt key ideas… how can Egypt regain its own comprehensive integrating cultural civilized distinguished character encompassing all its geographical and historical prerequisites… how can Egypt well employ its geographical position, situation and stance in Africa, Arab region, third world and the whole world in a way that is adequate and comparable to its geographical, geo-political, civilized and long-time-in-history facts… to the rest… without having negative effect of such prospected role like what happened before in previous times when Egypt was hit hard due to its role?!

I believe no one disagrees with what I said… and so the case now is not who you are or who I am… whether intellectually, ideologically or politically… the case is about every one of us orbiting around one centre… no matter how far every one of us from that centre is… but we all should orbit one centre… that is Egypt… and Egypt here is not a vague word… when we say Egypt we mean the state along with its land, sea, air, people, and authorities distributed among legislative, judiciary and executive… we mean the state that came to eminence before most, if not all, other states… Egypt that has been through many and long historical phases with the line chart representing its history fluctuating between ups and downs… the catastrophe was always when that continuous line representing the long history is cut.

It was proved that the national consensus, solidarity and desire for collective work appear the most and even double in times of shifting from “decline and decadence” to “rise and power”… in such case, and in my opinion, I believe the mechanism or the way adopted to reach the national consensus and orbiting around one centre; that is Egypt… is expressed in one sentence… “Keeping the Egyptian state to the last moment and doing all that can enable this state to go bigger and greater... It’s a clear goal: the balanced strong cohesive Egypt qualified to do its role”!... meaning; whether you are liberal… secular… nationalist… islamist… or even an Egyptian chauvinist not believing in any ideology or having no orientation at all… Ok… fine… but what I understand is that whoever you are… you shall not mind if you work hard with everyone else so that we can have an advanced distinguished proper education in Egypt and the same thing regarding all other fields!

I believe you agree with me that the scientific and technical progress in the world now has already put down the criteria needed to achieve such goals… exactly like the case when we build a sky-scraper… you make soil tests, foundations’ cement mix… to the rest of steps, procedures and standards already-known to build a sky-scraper where these standards are supervised by human experts regardless of their intellectual, political, religious or even non-religious orientation they may have!

Does this mean we shall have a one-style society with no differences at all? … the answer is No… absolutely not… being different is not only a must, but inevitable… however, I believe such difference shall always be channeled into the way of doing better in the task entitled to you… and guaranteeing the best results within prescribed time schedules!

In my opinion, the first step on this way is that we shall all unite on one target; that is studying what happened to Egypt and Egyptians and caused such tragic shift from a society that once united in one to stand against the enemy and remedy the causes and effects of 1967 War… and they had what they want through the War of Attrition and the October 1973 War… to the society we live in now… suddenly, everything changed… concepts we never witnessed before prevailed… Divide, despair, looting, stealing, illegal enrichment, loss of national will, collective migration either to the Arab region or the world, adopting systems obstructing to development and progress and consecrating in the same time the concept of individual salvation and making profits over the nations’ dead body!

Then I suggest that some of us meet to discuss and study reasons behind failure of political parties and groups, the thing that poured in the benefit of religion-proclaimed ideologies on the expense of leftist and liberal ideologies… we shall also discuss precursors and results of January 25^th and June 30^th revolutions!

All this shall lead to finding the answer for the question asking how the Egyptian state can be the centre we orbit around… how we can achieve all we aspire to in all fields… and how we can avoid falling again like we did before when we fell in the gap of the interim phase following the October 1973 victory to the mire of looting and despotism and what came later.

Now, I invite those who want to participate in the first step about what has happened to our beloved Egypt to communicate with me.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on July 20, 2016.

To see the original article, go to:

http://ahmadelgammal.blogspot.com.eg/2016/07/blog-post_19.html

#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #alternative

Opinions regarding alternative (2)

Today, we continue publishing the comments I received through my e-mail and Facebook page in discussing the answer for the question imposed by Mr. Ghassan Tahboob in comment over an article I wrote in Almasry alyoum tackling the subject of reconciliation with muslim brotherhood and their probable coming back to the Egyptian political life as a participating party approved on by the society.

The question was: what is the alternative that can fill the space left in the Egyptian and Arab political life? I have already published some comments of those who follow and are interested in what I write while some others wrote blaming me for not publishing their points of view.

Today, I publish what is already written in my e-mail and over my Facebook page on the pages of Almasry alyoum… I do that because I want the newspaper of Almasry alyoum to be a place for a wide range-debated national and Arab national dialogue discussing the present and future of our countries and Arab nation. The reader who has no access to e-mail or Facebook shall have the right to know and read that dialogue… so, again I thank all those who participated and commented and all who read… I also thank the editing and management staff of Almasry alyoum for that distinguished role.

Mr. Muhammed el-Ramadi wrote blaming: “the first step on the way of reform is that the political leadership shall agree with us in our hopes and goals so that our common goal can be the rock blocking the way in front of those who mess with our nation’s future”.

Dr. Saed esh-Shimi also wrote trying to predict the future however I believe his words are dangerous: “we try to find an exit without being fully acquainted of the international changes we have already tackled and discussed since the nineties… that is… a new era is going to start in December 2020 when the Anglo-Saxon Christian western civilization is declared dead and a new human civilization, coming from the east where China, Japan, India, the two Koreas and Iran are, is born… Unfortunately, many gulf regional countries will go behind a Shiite Islamic tide that will continue to expand in the 150 years to come… like what happened before with the Ottoman Empire… it’s what I think our children and grand-children will face… and these are just abridged headlines”!

Mr. Emad Gerges wrote: “the answer is one word… Freedom… freedom of speech and expression without limits… without security or political constraints”.

Mr. Muhammed Ghazi said: “the absence of role model leader is the cause behind this… and here I don’t mean the charismatic leaders like Muhammed Ali, Saad Zaghloul and Gamal Abdel-Nasser… I here mean the modern example of leadership… I also believe that people should truly believe in what they claim of loving their country”… then Mr. Ghazi focuses on the issues of corruption spreading, absence of social equality, and role of intellectuals.

Dr. Sameh Morkos, Medicine professor in Britain, affirms that there is no reconciliation and no place for the ideology of muslim brotherhood in the twenty-first century… and that secular culture is the one ought to occupy the cultural domain… he also believes that we shall not achieve any progress in our Egyptian and Arab societies unless we move from the dependency mentality to the scientific one and that we shall change from pre-modernization into post-modernization standards calling for adopting the subjective scientific thinking… and a cultural revolution shall take place to spread secularism and to call for radical change in the educational system… As Egypt has already been once on the way of modernization in the first half of the twentieth century and giants in all cultural and scientific fields were brought up through an advance educational system… Egyptian intellectuals in this era shall unite and work to spread secularism and adopt a progressive educational project and media program calling for spreading the civilized human culture and thought… we should make use of the Egyptian philosopher Murad Wahba who adopted secularism and stood bravely in face of salafism and uncovered their reactionary ideology and how shallow it is…”

Dr. Sameh Morkos finally recommended that we, I and Dr. Wahba, should communicate together saying: “I hope a workshop attended by real Egyptian intellectuals – and they are few – is organized to conduct a serious discussion and to present a document depicting means of establishing secular cultural in Egypt and pave the way for a radical reform in the education system instead of those empty discussions over islands most Egyptians know nothing about”.

Engineer Hazem Radi also gave a long and rich-in-contexts opinion saying: “the main idea which I call the comprehensive vision is focused on building a real human who has a critical mentality, a comprehensive vision for life and clear definitions for human, country, religion and society… and that the state shall work hard to achieve such target… otherwise we will be semi-humans… building semi-society… living in semi-state… and then all abnormal ideologies, looking forward to “master the world” and take control of humans and turn them into senseless robots, will control us.

The Egyptian has to realize that he is psychological and sociological sick and has to accept therapy no matter bitter and hard it is… as without this therapy, he will remain sick suffering from his economic, social and psychological illnesses… he will complain forever unless he starts therapy.

Real beginning is education… then education… and finally, education… the philosophy of education has to start by educating the meanings of life, love, brotherhood, equality… by educating the meaning of difference and how to be different over means and not goals… the philosophy of education has to start by educating the real meanings of country and land.

Second point is economy… definition of economy is the best way to manage resources to maintain human development as economy has always a goal to achieve… in my opinion, any economy that is not seeking human development will fail on the long-run even if it succeeded on the short-run… The economy has to serve the whole society through developing the human intellectually and make him free, creative and forgiving… I don’t care if that economy is capitalist or socialist as long as it cares about developing the individual and the family and it maintains basic prerequisites for the society.

The third point is politics… politics is about achieving people interests… politician is the man who works with a specific target in his mind to achieve using any means… this man can make peace between those fighting and disagreeing to fulfill his target… but does that politician have to be a man of ethics? Here comes the role of normal bringing up in making that politician a man of manners… so he doesn’t stab you in the back… and does not resort to mean means or make use of pain or honor to reach his goal… all this is connected to education goals we have already talked about before.

In the coming article, I shall state my own opinion over the matter.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on July 13, 2016.

To see the original article, go to:

http://ahmadelgammal.blogspot.com.eg/2016/07/2.html

#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #alternative

Opinions regarding alternative (1)

First, I’d like to say many happy returns to everyone… may you all be well… the feast has come but we have nothing to say but to excerpt the words of the poet al-Mutannabbi who said:

Feast… how did you come again?

Like the last time… or with something new this time.

As to lovers… long distances separate us.

I wish you didn’t come while they are away.

I don’t want to go on mourning our martyrs of brave army and policemen… also civilians including Christian clergymen who all paid their life in sacrifice for their country.

Now I move to what we have talked about in last week’s article regarding the question imposed by my friend, the elite Arab thinker and media man Mr. Ghassan Tahboob. He inquired about the alternative that is supposed to fill the space resulting from rejecting the muslim brotherhood movement and all their likes who claim to be the only reference for Islam that must be followed.

It was very favorable that I received a lot of comments on the subject discussed through my e-mail and Facebook page. Of course, the space allocated for the article will not be enough to publish all I received – and they are all important participations including those disagreeing – so I beg your pardon to publish only some of them.

I start by the blame directed by Dr. Wael Lutfi, professor in Cairo University, who has already given me a copy of his book “regaining identity”. In this book, a civilized model with all the criteria we talked about and looking for in an alternative was depicted. I here apologize for Dr. Wael for I haven’t written a review on his book so that readers can know about the importance of this book and that was due to painful health problems that disabled me for a long time but I promise I will do. Now, I shall lay before you what Mr. Tahboob said to explain the idea which I published without him expecting me to do such thing. His lines represent the main idea of the subject we tackle.

And I here excerpt some of them:”… what I wrote was nothing but what a man thinking in loud voice would say due to the knowledge he gained for his interest and keen daily follow for half a century for the events, ideas, and developments in our Arab world and the whole world. If I knew that Mr. Ahmed Elgammal would publish my message, I would have cared more about ordering ideas and maybe add more… but I will narrate some of them… our generation has embraced big dreams and saw them break one after another… we saw attempts for union failing… we saw countries squashed… others dismantling… we saw Israel going more tyrant and expanding… we saw the whole world changing around us while our Arab world stayed still… also, our generation has witnessed empires falling down… others going stray believing in illusions of end of history and clash of civilizations… we witnessed all these illusions falling down as the theory saying that the end of history is set by the decisive victory for capitalism is contradicting itself by the global financial crisis that took place in 2008 with its percussions still affecting us until today… also, clash of civilizations is apparent the most inside the West itself, for example, that continuing rise for the ultra-far right in Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and others… ringing the bell for a probable new fascism on the way… and here before our eyes, we can see the dilemma of the European Union before and after Brexit voting… and Britain itself which divided vertically and domestically over supporters and opponents… crisis in Russia’s relations with the USA and Europe… all those are considered branches of the Western civilization tree… and the scene is complete when we look at the deep division in the USA on the domestic level which is well-revealed by the rise of the ultra-far right presidential candidate Donald Trump.

I enlist all those changes that took place during two decades – and they are nothing but abridged headlines and very small part of all – to let you know that we are not the only ones going through huge changes… not the only ones feeling uncertainty regarding the future. Modern and post-modernization states and communities are haunted by uncertainty due to economic recession, rise of unemployment rates, growing of populism, and distrust in the capability of official institutions to find solutions for domestic crises. These states and communities are going through huge changes that are not less severe than those faced by our Arab region except that they are violence and blood-free until now… however violence rates can be seen; the latest was the assassination of a British member of parliament on the hands of a British fanatic who considered her human commitment a betrayal to her country!! And like what happened to us when we were forced and pulled to the past and attempts to cancel our future… today, the same thing happens when some western nations are dragged to the fanatic national past that produced Nazism, Fascism and caused two world wars.

After five years and more of what the western media called “the Arab Spring”, I guess the Arab world has become more aware of itself and the dilemmas it faces… also more aware of progress requirements and positive changes needed, ahead of them is to maintain the state and its institutions whatever criticism we have over their behavior as the alternative to the state and its institutions are the unknown, destruction, violence militia, accusations of blasphemy, killing… all these pretexts used by some regional and international powers to serve their interests like what we all saw in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq…

Like everyone, I felt pain for the destiny that countries of that so-called Spring ended to but when the Egyptians succeeded in retaking their country in that same day three years ago, my pain ended… when Arab countries gathered around Egypt that is coming back to its people, that represented a light in the end of that “Spring” tunnel… If Egypt rises, the whole Arab world will do… if the Egyptian nationalism is fine (like once said by our Master, Mr. Ahmed Bahaa ed-Din), then the Arab nationalism will be fine… I’m optimistic about the future… I also would like to say that “Spring” that took place more than five years and more has long been late… may be more than a hundred years late, during which, our life in the Arab world has been filled with vagueness, confusion of establishing standards and its practical depictions: like citizenship, the national state, democracy, progress, modernization, good governance, inability to shape the relation between religion and state… between religion and politics… this vagueness and unsubstantiated speech have to come to an end… and they are already… but slowly”.

Then Mrs. Magda Abaza, the one with the determined national stance and enlightened thinking and whom I care about reading every line she writes, wrote: “we are witnessing now an era of huge changes in our region and the international circles… all parties are trying to outline new policies right now since the book is open… unfortunately, we have no political powers on ground ready to do any collective work as many of them have fell in the mire of foreign funds and subordination while the rest lacks many things I believe everybody knows about… But the Egyptian state is firmly rising despite all obstacles it has in the institutions and corruption spread through many decades gone… and it is fully aware of its role and it’s regaining it along with all glory of Egyptian heritage… the experiment this time is positively different because it depends on people away from traditional plans or supportive political entities, despite the difficulty of this because it increases the state dependency on pure instinct… today, in addition to the necessity to push in the way of changing some laws obstructing to restructuring those institutions, the state is in need of every active cadre to be in position and working hard… we shall even recall that spirit of the War of Attrition… I hope we can all live up to the challenges we face…

Also, Dr. Gamal Hassan, the novelist and Psychiatry professor in Britain, wrote: “building the individual aware of the era we are passing through by freeing him from poverty and need is the first to do… and there are efforts exerted by the state along with its institutions to get rid of the slums and reintegrate the people living there… also to provide goods at competitive prices… we shall do this to prevent anyone from affecting this individual while voting… I also believe that a preliminary balance in foreign policy is getting clearer each day to reach an equation that can balance between the nation interests and not provoking the ever-lying-in-wait powers in the region whatever masks they wear…

As to Dr. Ahmed Morsi, he invited us all to discuss saying: “it is damn serious and we need to think outside that box filled with misery… let us all meet after the feast to open that box… let us have another box gathering all of us… I invite you all to participate.

Mr. Salah Hegazi wrote: “this question about the alternative is just what Shakespeare once said “that is the question” in his epic, Hamlet!!! This question is not new at all… it was imposed before since the setbacks of the Arab renaissance age starting from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the defeat of all efforts to change the traditional culture in pre-modernization communities as described by the French sociologist Durkheim who wrote and corrected what the German sociologist Tönnies said… as long as the society along with its social and economic structures are pre-modern, then the danger of muslim brotherhood and salafists coming back is still standing… this danger is gone only when the society changes from a consumer into a productive industrial one… only then, this society will depend on productive professional ties and religion merchants will have no role to play… we shall detail that later…

Finally, I come to what my friend, Mr. Osama Affifi editor-in-chief of al-Fekr al-Moa’ser, wrote: “believe me Ahmed… Arab nationalism is the answer… only the Arab Nationalism ideology will help protect this nation from sectarianism, racism, tribal fanaticism and subordination… it will open the door for a progressive freeing human Arab formula… now is the role of loyal Arab nationalist to reconsider the contemporary Arab thought and to engage with the changing reality to come up with a progressive Arab alternative only from Egypt that is recovering now despite all setup plans against her and the region.

In the coming article, I shall publish more opinions that are not less important… thus widening the circle of discussion regarding the question asking “what is the alternative after muslim brotherhood and their likes are gone?!”

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on July 6, 2016.

To see the original article, go to:

http://ahmadelgammal.blogspot.com.eg/2016/07/1.html

#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #alternative

Key question about alternative

I receive gladly many comments over my articles in Almasry alyoum newspaper… tens of comments written on my Facebook page are available for everyone who want to read and analyze the context of our dialogue where many sociological, political and thought perspectives meet.

However, there is a comment I believe is important… and it is indeed… because it imposes a fundamental question I received through my e-mail from my friend, Arab thinker and elite media man Mr. Ghassan Tahboob, the Arab nationalist Palestinian who adores Egypt and always recognizes its gratitude over his generation and many others in more than one field… he is one of those who are still working hard to master and excel in their field… he is also very proud of his cultural and civilized Arab composition and a very loyal friend.

Here is an excerpt of what Mr. Ghassan wrote commenting over last Wednesday’s article… he said: “… again, I ask you to write your diaries since you had the gift of precisely detecting people’s everyday life details, whether sociological or economic, and depicting them in your writings in your own special way.

As to what you said regarding “reconciliation” balloons… you hit the truth in the results you reached… however… what is the possible alternative for muslim brotherhood movement , salafists and all their likes?... what is the alternative that can fill the big intellectual emptiness in the whole Arab world? How can we have this alternative?

I believe you notice that some islamists have started reviewing some of their doctrines… like the case in Ghannouchi in Tunis and before him was the Moroccan Benkirane and after him came muslim brotherhood in Jordan… most probably, those are nothing but some tactics to cope with current time events… but such tactics shall have effects on the long run and will attract many young people... especially, that religion has an established entity in our Arab societies… the West realizes this fact very well… and that what helped them in the West to draw their policies in our region since the end of the Ottoman caliphate… and most probably, it’s one of the secrets lying behind the relation that is never broken between Britain and muslim brotherhood movement… also, it’s one of the reasons why the USA still cares about muslim brotherhood and keeps ties with them…

Unfortunately, the West has found its target in islamists and succeeded in using them… once against the Egyptian nationalism in 1919 revolution… another time against Gamal Abdel Nasser… and third time was in Palestine to weaken the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)… and today, they use the islamists to dismantle every Arab country that includes religious or ethnic diversities…

Don’t you notice that islamists; Sunni and Shiite, are major partners in the devastation of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and in the Palestinian division… also in Egypt’s problems… and the Lebanese and Bahraini cases as well?...

You definitely know that muslim brotherhood are perfectly pragmatic… compared to them, Machiavelli is nothing but a young student in their school of pragmatism… so, it’s very likely that those “reconciliation” balloons are indicating something is being prepared or negotiated… back to the question… who will fill this big intellectual emptiness in our Arab life..?

Can the Egyptian elite nationals come up with a description that can cope with People’s natural inclination to religion and objective changes we’re going through… can this description tell how to address young generations, incorporate them in the society and provide visions to fill this emptiness so that those young people do not have to reproduce the past…?... I meant the Egyptian elite nationalists specifically because they represent the leading figures in thought and modernization in our Arab world… and let whoever say whatever they want… simply, it’s the truth.

I know you, like me, feel the burdens of our reality… such burdens that may push you into frustration… but here I remind myself… since when wasn’t our Arab reality, starting from the second Abbasid era, free of burdens?... May God help you continue lighting candles in our dark night…”.

Here ends Mr. Ghassan’s comment over last Wednesday’s article which talked about the reconciliation suggested by minister al-Aagati and MP major-general Sa’ad el-Gammal.

First, I’d like to say that what Mr. Ghassan said is the essence of all that can be discussed over any national, Arab-national or regional future away from guardianship of any groups or powers claiming religious reference and ahead of them are muslim brotherhood, salafists and their likes.

So the question is: what is the alternative that can fill the space left by the non-existence of those groups… that space that is not only limited to thought but extends to people’s daily practical life?

In his comment, Mr. Tahboob has pointed to a very important historical moment when he made a connection between the collapse and fall of the Ottoman caliphate and first appearance of muslim brotherhood funded by Britain, or you can say that the British have thought of finding another alternative of religious reference in the region… and so muslim brotherhood group was established in 1928, short time after caliphate disappeared.

This important notice reveals that our present and future is not a pure domestic equation… however, there are other regional and international parties playing roles in this regard… and so, the question again, can we find the alternative that fill that space and in the same time doesn’t make enemies of those parties?

This is connected to another important question I have asked long before… how can we build a strong balanced cohesive Egypt that interacts with its surroundings without provoking other parties to prevent them from hitting the Egyptian experiment like what happened before with Muhammed Ali, Ismail Pasha and Nasser?

I hope we all participate in such dialogue… I have a lot to say about it which I may write in another article in addition to the comments I will receive.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar

This article was published in Almasry alyoum newspaper on June 29, 2016.

To see the original article, go to:

http://ahmadelgammal.blogspot.com.eg/2016/06/blog-post_29.html

#almasry_alyoum #ahmed_elgammal #alternative