discussions with the IMF over the conditions for a US$4.4 billion loan, when what was needed was immediate action. Until Egypt could show it was sorting out its finances investors withheld their cash. Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat, and so as the currency slid, finances became even tighter. The country had to keep going cap in hand to more Arab states for more loans. So while they inherited a mess, the new government made matters worse. Egypt tottered on the verge of bankruptcy.
The economist Ahmed el-Sayed el-Naggar warned that Morsi was making getting agreement on reforms harder because he had already made some of the same mistakes as the old regime:
Morsi has surrounded himself with the same business entourage as Mubarak had, and they all have the same ideas, the same interests, and they are stopping him from reforming the economy because it is not in their direct interests. So the environment and the people that surround the Presidency haven’t changed. All that’s different is that in the middle of this is Morsi, not Mubarak.
These challenges would be a tall order for even the most adored of revolutionary parties or leaders. The Muslim Brotherhood is not adored by most of the Egyptian people. It is not even liked by very many of them, because it is barely trusted. The rushing through of the foundation of the new Egypt, its constitution, only made that worse. It set up a struggle over the role of women in society, which has begun in all the new democracies that have seen Islamists come to power. Now that women have a real vote they will help decide the fate of the new Islamist governments.
I asked Egypt’s leading women’s rights campaigner, Nehad Abul Komsan, if the new constitution there was good or bad for women.
It is a disaster. ‘Bad’ is a very nice word. It’s a disaster for women and human rights in general. It is very vague and open to interpretation. We could end up with women leaving their homes only twice. Once to move from their father’s house to their new husband’s house, and once to be carried to their graves. There is no guarantee that there will be a liberal interpretation of the constitution. There are no guarantees the situation for women won’t be worse than Saudi Arabia.
Was she more worried by the Salafists or the Brotherhood?
Both, but sometimes we think the Salafists are much better than the Muslim Brotherhood. Both of them believe in the same thing but the difference is the Salafists are very honest about how they see the role of women. That means you can have a proper discussion with them and sometimes you can change their views. If you don’t, then they will say honestly: ‘We are not convinced.’ The Muslim Brotherhood is completely different. They have the same beliefs, they have very conservative views, but they talk nicely about how they believe in women’s rights. But their double, or triple, standards mean you cannot trust them. The last two years have shown they lie about everything. They just want to build a new dictatorship around religion.
Nehad was speaking as a woman who also took her faith seriously. When we met she was wearing a headscarf that entirely covered her hair. But her identity as a Muslim did not make her any less feisty about her rights as a woman in an Islamic society.
The Brotherhood entered the third year of the post-revolution era with not many friends at home and even fewer abroad. It struggled to find answers to Egypt’s many problems simply because there are so many. For now the more elections it fights the more it is likely to lose support from the wider population. The sympathy it once had is long gone. The clean image it was so proud of has been sullied by the dirty business of politics. In power the Brotherhood was accused of using the same instruments of state security that oppressed its membership for so long to now try to silence its detractors. Its instincts were to try to impose obedience,
The economist Ahmed el-Sayed el-Naggar warned that Morsi was making getting agreement on reforms harder because he had already made some of the same mistakes as the old regime:
Morsi has surrounded himself with the same business entourage as Mubarak had, and they all have the same ideas, the same interests, and they are stopping him from reforming the economy because it is not in their direct interests. So the environment and the people that surround the Presidency haven’t changed. All that’s different is that in the middle of this is Morsi, not Mubarak.
These challenges would be a tall order for even the most adored of revolutionary parties or leaders. The Muslim Brotherhood is not adored by most of the Egyptian people. It is not even liked by very many of them, because it is barely trusted. The rushing through of the foundation of the new Egypt, its constitution, only made that worse. It set up a struggle over the role of women in society, which has begun in all the new democracies that have seen Islamists come to power. Now that women have a real vote they will help decide the fate of the new Islamist governments.
I asked Egypt’s leading women’s rights campaigner, Nehad Abul Komsan, if the new constitution there was good or bad for women.
It is a disaster. ‘Bad’ is a very nice word. It’s a disaster for women and human rights in general. It is very vague and open to interpretation. We could end up with women leaving their homes only twice. Once to move from their father’s house to their new husband’s house, and once to be carried to their graves. There is no guarantee that there will be a liberal interpretation of the constitution. There are no guarantees the situation for women won’t be worse than Saudi Arabia.
Was she more worried by the Salafists or the Brotherhood?
Both, but sometimes we think the Salafists are much better than the Muslim Brotherhood. Both of them believe in the same thing but the difference is the Salafists are very honest about how they see the role of women. That means you can have a proper discussion with them and sometimes you can change their views. If you don’t, then they will say honestly: ‘We are not convinced.’ The Muslim Brotherhood is completely different. They have the same beliefs, they have very conservative views, but they talk nicely about how they believe in women’s rights. But their double, or triple, standards mean you cannot trust them. The last two years have shown they lie about everything. They just want to build a new dictatorship around religion.
Nehad was speaking as a woman who also took her faith seriously. When we met she was wearing a headscarf that entirely covered her hair. But her identity as a Muslim did not make her any less feisty about her rights as a woman in an Islamic society.
The Brotherhood entered the third year of the post-revolution era with not many friends at home and even fewer abroad. It struggled to find answers to Egypt’s many problems simply because there are so many. For now the more elections it fights the more it is likely to lose support from the wider population. The sympathy it once had is long gone. The clean image it was so proud of has been sullied by the dirty business of politics. In power the Brotherhood was accused of using the same instruments of state security that oppressed its membership for so long to now try to silence its detractors. Its instincts were to try to impose obedience,
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