Why I am Liberal

Egyptian Youth Essays on Liberalism

2 Why I am Liberal

Title of the Book

Why I am Liberal
Egyptian Youth Essays on Liberalism

Editors
Dr. Ronald Meinardus
Ahmad Nagui

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

All publication rights reserved to Friedrich Naumann

Foundation for Liberty (FNF)
Serial Number: 2010/11551
ISBN: 978-977-316-376-7

This book was published with the support of FNF in Cairo.

The ideas expressed in this book do not necessarily express
the opinions or views of the Foundation but only those of
the authors of the essays.
3 Why I am Liberal

Table of Contents

Foreword 5

Introduction 7

Chapter One
Attempts to Define Liberalism

The Cornerstones of Liberalism 13

Because Richness is in Difference 21
Liberalism Protects Pluralism 29
For Sake of the Freedom to Choose 37
Responsible Freedom 43
The Flexibility of Liberalism is the Reason
for its Continuity 47

Chapter Two
Because I am a Human Being

Liberalism is the Prerequisite for Human Existence 59

A Human-themed Theory 67
Liberalism is the Freedom of Choice 73
Why am I Human‫؟‬ 77

Chapter Three
Egyptian Liberalism

Because I Believe in Freedom 87

Liberalism: A complete System of Human
Values for the Development of Society 95
Liberal Solutions for the Crises the Egyptian
Society 103
He Who Differs from Me Is not against Me 113
4 Why I am Liberal

Chapter Four
Private Experiences

A Moment of Freedom 119

I Adopted Liberalism Long before Knowing
the Term 125
I Was a Radical Islamist but Am Now a Liberal 131
It is My Liberalism 143
I Chose Liberalism because I Am a Woman 149
So that Mariam Loves her Country 155
5 Why I am Liberal

Foreword:

The book you are holding in your hands contains twenty

distinguished articles submitted by young Egyptians who
participated in the essay writing contest on “Why I am a
liberal”. This competition was the first of its kind in Egypt and
co-sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for
Liberty (FNF) and the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth
(EULY). The competition took place in the first half of 2009
with the support of the media partners El Marsy al Youm and
Radio Horyitna.

All in all 76 articles were submitted and considered by a

team of senior judges who ranked the quality of the
presentations according to a set of defined criteria, among
them the literary quality, the liberal content and message
and the originality of the arguments. The team of judges
consisted of the following individuals:

Dr. Ali Eldin Hilal, Prof. Faculty of Economics and

Political Science, Cairo University, and Former Minster of
Youth

Dr. Wahid Abdel Megeed, Expert in Al Ahram Center for

Political and Strategic Studies and Vice President of the
General Book Authority

Dr. Gamal Abdel Gawwad, Expert in Al Ahram Center for

Political and Strategic Studies and Lecturer of Political
Science, American University in Cairo

Mr. Charl Fouad Al Masry, Executive Editing Manager, El

Masry al Youm Newspaper
6 Why I am Liberal

To secure the objectivity of the selection, the names of the

writers were removed from the texts submitted to the
committee of judges.

Mr. Muhammad Sa’d Muhammad's article titled "The

Flexibility of Liberalism is the Reason for its Continuity"
ranked first in the competition.

The aim of the essay writing contest and the present

publication is to give an opportunity to the Egyptian youth
to explain in their own language what it means to be liberal
today. The organizers believe that by asking the young
people themselves to express their thoughts and ideas, we
are following a basic liberal principle.

This book aspires to contribute to the ongoing discussion

about liberal values and principles and the relevance of liberal
politics in this part of the world. We invite you to join this
debate. For further information go to www.librali.net.
7 Why I am Liberal

Introduction:

By Dr. Ronald Meinardus

Regional Director
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty

Liberalism is one of the great political mainstreams. Yet, at

the same time, in the political dictionary of our times hardly
another word is as controversial as the term “liberal”. For
many, and surely the liberals, the term has only positive
connotations. However, the many opponents of liberalism
treat it as a curse.

This dichotomy is also apparent notably in Egypt, as in other

parts of the Arab world. A powerful coalition of conservative,
fundamentalist and pseudo-progressive ideologues has joined
forces in a continuous effort to demonize liberalism. The
proponents of this anti-liberal campaign use all sorts of
negative epithets to denigrate liberals, they call them immoral,
greedy, unpatriotic, foreign-led and un-religious, even anti-
religious. In order to counter these false allegations, yes insults
liberals must go on the ideological offensive and convince the
(silent) majority that what is said of them by their opponents is
not only wrong and malicious, but at times also deceitful.

One important challenge, and at the same time a significant

advantage of liberalism, is that unlike other political
mainstreams it rejects dogmatism. By definition, liberalism is
contrary to dogmatism. Liberalism does not offer a single,
ideological answer to complicated and complex problems.
Liberals like to debate before they come to a conclusion, they
ask questions before they give an answer. This openness to
discussion and the willingness to question more or less
everything should not be misunderstood as a lack of principles
8 Why I am Liberal

and values. On the contrary, liberals have well defined

principles – and some of them are not negotiable.

At the centre of these stands the freedom of the individual; to

enhance freedom and protect it from encroachment is the very
essence of all liberal endeavours. In a liberal order, the
freedom of the individual is not conceivable without
responsibility, which gives a social dimension to the liberal
project. In a political philosophical sense the precedence of
individual freedom leads to the great concepts of human
rights, the rule of law and the equality of opportunity in
society. All these great “inventions” of human civilization are
the result of myriad battles and struggles throughout centuries.
In these battles liberal men and women were always at the
forefront.

Being opposed to dogmatism, it is only natural that liberals

engage in long debates regarding the interpretation of these
basic principles – and what they mean in practical every
day (political) life. In this context it is fair to argue that, in
effect, there exists not one single liberalism that fits all
societies and all countries at any given historical moment.
Depending on the given political, economic, cultural, yes
historic environment, liberal programs may have varying
priorities and focal points.

I am saying this against the background of my experiences

working for a liberal Foundation in various parts of the
world over the past twenty years: After associating with
liberals in Greece, in South Korea, in the Philippines and in
Taiwan and now in Egypt and in the Arab World, I have
come to appreciate that all are confronted with
fundamentally different political, social, economic and
cultural challenges - and, therefore, are forced by
circumstance to develop specific political answers to these
local challenges. Still, in defining their programs and
9 Why I am Liberal

policies, liberals in all parts of the world are united by the

conviction that in the end of the day the promotion of the
freedom of the individual must be the ultimate focus of the
political endeavour.

One of the most intriguing experiences since coming to this

part of the world two and a half years ago has been to discover
what I like to term the dynamism of Egyptian liberalism.
Egyptian liberals are by far stronger in numbers and in
intellectual power than many people inside and outside the
country think they are. Also, happily Egyptian liberalism is
potentially much stronger than the existing organizations that
claim to represent it today. This, I hasten to add, is not the sole
fault of these organizations, but also a consequence of a
political environment which is little supportive or – to put it
bluntly – inimical to liberal political mobilization.

This brings me directly to the essays in this book. They reflect

the richness and the originality of liberal thought among the
youth of Egypt. We at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and
the judges of the competition who analyzed the contributions
with great care and the highest possible objectivity were
absolutely fascinated as we read the entries submitted. In the
end, it was a very tough task to choose what we deemed are
the twenty most valuable contributions.

As the Regional Director of the Foundation, I wish to

congratulate all the writers for their participation and their
contribution. I encourage everyone to read the following
pages and I hope that in the end you will agree that each
and every one of the essays contains a unique and
intriguing contribution to the Egyptian liberal discourse.
The texts provide an insight how young Egyptians define
liberalism, how liberal ideas have had an impact on their
lives and how – on a more general level – young Egyptians
10 Why I am Liberal

believe liberalism could change in a positive manner the

future of their country.

In my many encounters with young Egyptian liberal men

and women, I have met modern Egyptian patriots with a
great personal concern for the future of this great, yet
problem ridden nation. My Foundation is proud to be
associated with these fine young people and we are happy
to provide the sponsorship of this publication so that their
voices may be given a wider audience. Liberalism, this
book documents, is very much alive in the minds (and the
hearts) of the Egyptian youth.
11 Why I am Liberal

Chapter One
Attempts to Define Liberalism
12 Why I am Liberal
13 Why I am Liberal

The Cornerstones of Liberalism

Ahmad Sayyid Husayn Muhammad

I was born in 1983, I am currently

pursuing a PhD in the Department
of Political Sciences in the Faculty
of Economics and Political Sciences,
Cairo University. My dissertation is
a comparative study of the paths of
political regimes. I work in the
Media and Communications Sector
of the Arab League. I take part in
many of the activities of civil society
and youth organizations both inside
Egypt and abroad. For example, I
have participated in two courses
organized by the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation.

I dream of an ideal world in which

values such as justice, tolerance,
equality, freedom and non-
discrimination prevail; a world free
of war and strife.
14 Why I am Liberal

The concepts and principles of liberalism emerged at a time

when the world was teeming with ideas and opinions, theories
and ideologies, clashing ideals and desires. Liberalism
presented to the world the essence of an experience rooted in
human history. This experience delineates borders in human
social relationships, builds economic thought and constructs a
political edifice. It rises above disparity and difference and
boosts the value of the individual, simply for his or her intrinsic
value as an individual, irrespective of background. When I ask
myself; “Why am I a liberal”, I find the question automatically
transforming itself in my head into; “How could I not be a
liberal?!”

The concept of liberalism – in brief – started with the political

system that emerged and developed in Britain starting from the
seventeenth century and whose most prominent thinkers were
David Hume and Adam Smith. It was the concept of individual
liberty regulated by the rule of law that affected the liberal
movements of the European continent and it became the pillar
on which the political traditions of the United States were
based. The term “liberal” soon spread to common usage and at
its inception was used to refer to the supporters of
parliamentary systems, freedom of thought, free trade and
private ownership. In short, it referred to a belief in the
possibility of achieving world prosperity through unleashing
natural forces and trusting in the ability of the individual to
achieve both personal happiness and communal happiness
simultaneously.

In our societies, the concept of liberalism is tainted by a good

degree of confusion and ambiguity. The opponents of
liberalism believe that it is connected to moral lassitude, that it
is an invitation to dissolution and depravity and that it is in
opposition to religions. But is this truly what liberalism is
about? Let us review together the most important precepts of
liberalism; at least from my perspective.
15 Why I am Liberal

The individual: The principles and procedures of liberalism

begin and end with the individual; as a human being with a
separate and distinct identity. Encouraging the individual’s
pursuit of aspiration to realize potential and develop
abilities should be the main goal of the state. As such, it
should be the ultimate political value of the state and
liberalism aims at removing all obstacles that may deter the
individual in his mission to improve and evolve.

Ownership: The opponents of liberalism believe that one of its

most significant shortcomings is the difficulty in balancing
between the individual’s right to private ownership, on the one
hand, and the collective right of all individuals to develop their
abilities on the other. The latter is, as we mentioned above, a
fundamental moral principle of liberalism and its proponents
believe that the right to private ownership contributes to
power politics and class barriers between individuals and this
in turn detracts from the principle of the right of individuals to
develop and improve their abilities. Yet private ownership, as
defined by liberalism, is based on the principle of inclusion.
This means that the individual’s right to private ownership
should not impinge on the rights of others. Ownership,
according to liberal thought, is a much wider concept than
simply giving preference to private ownership over the
collective rights of others.

Equality: This is one of the fundamental cornerstones and

basic values of liberal thought. It has a number of dimensions.
Political equality is equality at the ballot boxes. Anyone who
satisfies conditions of eligibility is entitled to an equal vote
and is allowed to run for political office. Legal equality is the
principle that all individuals are equal before the law. Equality
in social mobility is the right of every individual to move up
the social classes according to his abilities. Economic equality
guarantees each individual a certain level of economic
16 Why I am Liberal

security – not equality in income between all citizens. Social

equality is equality regardless of religion, race, ethnicity,
gender, color or ideology - all are equal in rights and duties.

Liberty: This is the most important of liberal values.

Liberalism aspires to a free society and a free state. There are
two conditions to “liberal” freedom; abolishing restraints and
neutralizing threats that may limit the individual’s ability to
exercise his right to certain practices. These practices include
membership in a political party, freedom of thought, freedom
of religious affiliation, freedom of faith and they are all
individual liberties, the achievement of which should not be
hampered by restrictions or threats.

Liberalism is mainly concerned with the individual and

political life and argues that politics is a craft and an art
created by man. Government is not a natural order; albeit a
necessary one. What is natural is human liberty and it is
neither acquired nor given – all humans are created equal. One
of the most famous of liberal beliefs is that the human mind
alone is capable of determining the shape of the life most
ideally suited for humanity. Liberalism advocates religious
and moral tolerance, broad-mindedness and acceptance of
difference in opinion.

It is these values – all values that come naturally to humans

– that make liberalism an expression of who I am. It
expresses that I am a human being with rights balanced by
duties. In these values I found all that I believe in: All
people are equal regardless of ideology, ideas, color, race or
ethnicity. Women are the pillars of society and they stand
beside men at equal footing. My freedom as an individual
coupled with my respect for the freedom of others, is my
highest conviction. The social justice I have always wished
for is the most sincere expression of what liberalism aspires
to through free market forces and through its principles. All
17 Why I am Liberal

this brings about great benefits to the individual himself and

to society as a whole.

Now, let us imagine that Egyptians – through their society

and government - have turned to liberalism. How would the
future be?

There is no doubt that a citizen who grows up in an

environment of freedom and is raised to respect others, care
for them, for their welfare and best interest and accept with
broad-mindedness opinions opposed to his belief system is a
citizen who is capable of living a sublime humane life. He will
be a creative and inventive personality capable of developing
his talents to their utmost limits. Furthermore, liberalism helps
societies find peaceful means to rid themselves of struggles
and differences. All societies have differences and liberalism
legitimizes these differences and attempts to find
compromises between them through dialogue and without
violence by means of institutions and mechanisms of conflict
resolution. Liberalism also attempts to widen the scope of
political participation and protection of liberties. Moreover, it
guarantees peaceful change in society because it encourages
social mobility and provides equal opportunities to all to
achieve higher positions as long as they have the necessary
capabilities and aptitude. This protects society from social
tremors that may reach the level of communal violence with
undesired consequences. Liberalism will therefore help
abolish all forms of corruption, favoritism and nepotism
especially in employment – which is the most immediate
concern for youth – and will therefore gradually resolve the
most dangerous of problems facing Egyptian society, namely
unemployment and the disappearance of the middle-class. It
will also support the smooth transition of power and the
pumping of new blood into society enhancing it with new
ideas that could help it develop and prosper. It will limit the
sense of estrangement and non-belonging. Finally, the
18 Why I am Liberal

achievement of justice will play a vital role in the future of

Egyptian society. This will be due to the potential for change
and development that comes with liberalism even under the
shadow of laws that do not support justice. It also guarantees
equality to all before the law and thus achieves justice in all its
forms, whether political or social or economic or legal. This of
course is in addition to the most distinctive facet of liberalism,
which will be a vital factor in sketching the future, namely
supporting liberties. Liberalism co-ordinates between liberties,
even when they are in conflict amongst each other or with
other values. This in turn leads to the realization of justice and
equality and this is when democracy in its correct form –
where the interests of the individual converge with those of
the group – is achieved.

It is therefore possible to state that liberalism is a call for

dialogue, respecting intellectual difference, co-existence,
tolerance of the other who may differ in opinions, attitudes,
races and religions and acceptance of his right to existence,
freedom and happiness. Liberalism is a form of positive non-
alignment towards all religions and is not at all, as some think,
antagonistic towards religion. On the contrary, it is protection
for all religions. Liberalism works towards strengthening the
concept of citizenship whereby members of society are equal
in the eyes of the state regardless of religion, race or color.
Liberalism does not seek to abolish or fight religions; it simply
does not wish to involve the Sacred in games of worldly
interests, for the most dangerous thing would be to exploit
religious sentiment for political gain. Liberalism is human to
its utmost limit and it believes that human beings are the
pillars of life. It also believes that freedom of thought and
responsible freedom is the fate of humanity and the basis for
its advancement and growth. It builds a human being who has
free will and who lives within a free society, for without this
kind of free thought there will be no creativity. Liberalism
rejects violence and calls for justice and humanity that sheds
19 Why I am Liberal

false ethnic identities. It is liberalism that gave women back

their rights. It is liberalism that is a system of communal,
cultural and human values that build and do not destroy.

So how could I not be a liberal?

20 Why I am Liberal
21 Why I am Liberal

Because Richness is in Diversity

Cynthia Farahat

I was born in 1980. I study

Journalism in the Modern Science
and Arts University. I was a
founding member of a liberal
political party between 2004 and
2007 and have participated in
organizing a number of political
activities related to liberalism and
human rights under the auspices of
both Egyptian and international
civic organizations.
In addition to my work experience
as co-coordinator of the Network
of Arab Liberals in collaboration
with the Friedrich Naumann
Foundation in 2008, I practice
sculpting and writing as hobbies. I
dream of a political environment
in Egypt that is both civic and
civilized and that emulates the
types of political regimes that
facilitate all aspects of life for its
citizens and have discovered that
the ideal way to achieve this is
through work, political civic and
liberal struggle with passion and
love for this nation and for the
achievement of comprehensive
human rights for all citizens of
Egypt, on all levels, as is the case
with the citizens of the free world.
22 Why I am Liberal

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become

so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of
rebellion.”
Albert Camus

Many thinkers, scholars and philosophers have remarked that

good questions incorporate their answers. From that we can
deduce that good ideas hold within them the mechanisms for
their successful application. This question (why am I a liberal)
can be classified as one of those self-explanatory questions
that answer themselves somehow, especially if we rely on
observation and life experience to mould our opinions and
thinking methods. We are not accustomed, in the Arab
Region, to wonder about the terms that define us and that we
may even be obliged to fight for. We do not stop to think
about this type of question, a question that may even be
considered by some as criminal for we did not choose most of
the identities that define us. Most often they are Prêt-à-Porter
identities.

Laws exist to punish skeptics who question those ideologies

they didn't choose for themselves, yet they are being used
consistently to represent us. The laws that are there to protect
these ideas are an indication of the critical situation we have
put ourselves in and which does not speak well for our ideas
and methodology. We were brought up to believe in
ideologies, defend them, and sometimes die for them without
being afforded the luxury of questioning them, analyzing them,
or objectively testing them or doubting the degree of their
relevance or applicability. We were therefore never primed to
question even the most private of beliefs such as those related
to religion or political orientation. Most of the definitions that
represent us are drilled into us. They are an intellectual and
existential reduction of who we really are and they do not even
allow us the luxury of rejecting them. Political, legislative and
penalizing systems against questioning and criticism and this
23 Why I am Liberal

in itself is sufficient proof of the inapplicability of these

ideological systems. We need a lot of courage to come face to
face with this realization.

So why liberalism? My personal choice of liberalism to be

one of the basic tenets by which I define myself is not
simply a result of conviction of an idea. It is much, much
more than that. Liberalism is the political, social and
intellectual philosophy that I found myself being guided by
as I tried to live the values of brotherhood and tolerance by
putting the rights of all those around as a priority in my
daily life. My ambition is to be a small seed for the solution
rather than a negative factor in the problem. One of the
fundamental points that makes me proud to represent
myself by this term is because liberalism is capable of
presenting itself through a critical question such as this and
accepts that I write now in its favor or against it and in both
cases allows me the same rights and privileges. This is
because liberalism is a political and economic system and a
way of philosophical and everyday thinking that does not
involve incriminating those who doubt it, analyze it or
reject it. In fact, you are choose it freely and rejected freely.
Moreover, liberalism will guarantee me the right to declare
and announce my disapproval and rejection of it through its
very different channels! And I do not accept to represent
myself by an idea unless this idea can tolerate my rejection
of it should choose to do so one day. Yet this degree of
tolerance would certainly make me more and more
tenacious in holding on to it.

Liberalism assumes that I am responsible and mentally

adequate of bearing the burden of freedom, which in my
opinion is more difficult than being born within a sealed
system of intellectual slavery that affords us with the means to
relinquish individual responsibility and throws the burden of
informed choice off our shoulders. With liberalism, all options
24 Why I am Liberal

are available and I have to choose and decide and bear the
consequences. This is responsible freedom and it is not the
freedom that is endorsed by non-liberal regimes. They try to
convince us that freedom is moral lassitude and crime, as if
these regimes do not themselves suffer from all forms of
immorality and criminal behaviors. In fact, their policies of
opacity and covering up inflame the situation and provide the
perfect environment for these problems to escalate.

Liberalism is knowledge through the right to publish all ideas

and information and to disseminate knowledge through any
medium of communication. Liberalism creates an environment
of freedom in which you can get to know yourself and come
face to face with your true identity hidden under the veneer of
big words that have been forcefully dictated and indoctrinated
to you. It allows you to choose after you get to know your
identity and after you become relatively informed about the
nature of the outside world, not through what is said about it in
the media of its enemies, but through how it has chosen to
represent itself. You then bear the consequences of this
newfound knowledge and accept responsibility for it because
there is no merit in choosing virtue if this choice is forced upon
us. In fact, choosing any human or moral value within an
atmosphere of freedom is the true test of the real mettle of the
truth of our core. This is the kind of space that liberalism
affords us so we can see ourselves in our true light and choose
and become who we want to be based on experience, trial and
error and individual responsibility. This to me is liberalism.
The late American Judge Potter Stewart once said,
“Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself”. To
withhold information and rein in ideas because we are not able
to deal with them is to pre-judge that we are mentally
disqualified for freedom. It is a preconception that dooms us to
incompetence of thought. Withholding ideas and information
through censorship makes us more enslaved to prevalent ideas
that are approved by dictatorships and totalitarian regimes.
25 Why I am Liberal

My choice, as an individual, to represent myself as a liberal

does not simply stem from my love of tolerance, it is also a
pragmatic choice based on how I can make use of it. It
therefore contains within it the seed of self-improvement and
evolution that is the main trait of the planet we live in.
Liberalism is the result of accumulative knowledge that comes
from centuries of human struggle to improve our civilization.
It is an idea that has crystallized through centuries of trial and
error and forbearance with the aim of creating an environment
suited to the application of political, individual and economic
liberties and for the practice of sound science, art and thought
under the banner of liberalism. This freedom has been one of
the primary goals of the human race many eras and epochs
past. Moreover, it is a political and intellectual system that is
good for hundreds of years to come, and should a better idea
appear, liberalism is capable of evolving with it and not
obliterating it. It is a philosophy of bridges and open doors,
not of ready-made walls or dictated identities.

Liberalism is a thought process that has taken shape through

an experimental methodology of scientific and critical
thinking. Its applicability is tried and tested and its success is
proven. I have adopted it and am overwhelmed by a need to
apply it so as to create for myself an environment that
embraces my trajectory towards self-improvement. And
because I am part of this planet on this historical moment and
because evolution and change are the fundamental quality of
Planet Earth, it will not wait around for me to acknowledge it
and it will not move backward with or without me. Yet in
embracing evolution and development, I fulfill a need as an
individual and as part of society to be in sync with the nature
of evolution, to be at ease with the world, and to find myself a
small space in which I may be creative with my life on both
the individual and social level.
26 Why I am Liberal

Liberalism is one of the few ideologies in the world that

propose criticism of self and other as one of its primary poles.
This is because it is one of the results of relative human
accumulative experience that discovered that freedom is the
ideal ground and the true lab for trial, error, evolution, and
then success. One of the main pillars on which it stands is
acceptance of the others without incriminating difference or
attaching negative preconceptions and labels to it. I disagree
with Sartre for saying hell is other people. On the contrary,
other people, other cultures, and other identities are a paradise
of richness as has been proven by liberalism, which comes in
tandem with pragmatism. We grew up in Egypt learning from
society that difference is a sign of danger and that it should be
avoided, in fact obliterated, at all cost. I then discovered that
diversity is indeed a goldmine of educational, cultural,
developmental and peaceful resources. The benefit that I
derive, for example, from dealing with Orthodox, Catholic
and Anglican Christians or Sunni, Shia, Quranic, Bahai
Muslims, Jews, Atheists or Sikhs or Hindus or Buddhists is
indescribable. It has enriched me with intellect, education,
depth, tolerance, forbearance and logical thinking much, much
more than I would have gained if I had imprisoned myself
within one idea, seen the world through its eyes and prejudged
it inexperienced. The liberalism that has emancipated my
mind and allowed me to exist in a healthy environment is the
same liberalism that is applied in western countries that offer
asylum even to those who do not believe in these countries or
have even attacked them ritually. Liberalism has created a
social and political environment where even those who
oppose and fight liberalism aspire to live. Even its opponents
desire to live under its protection! Are any of the ideologies
prevalent here strong enough to take a similar position?

Can any of the schools of thought currently prevalent in our

society provide refuge for those who oppose them as liberal
societies and countries have with their opponents?
27 Why I am Liberal

For example, can Salman Rushdie come to us and find

protection? Can we afford him complete rights although he
has rejected a principle tenet of our identity the way the
United Kingdom has guaranteed protection and rights to its
opponents from other countries, this in spite of the fact that
some, like Omar Bakry, have announced their complete and
utter hatred of this country? For years, Bakry has rejected and
criticized the UK, until he finally decided to wage war and
incite violence against it after years of living in luxury and
comfort of the money of the British taxpayers. Can we,
without liberalism, reach this level of sophistication and give
our opponents a chance to express themselves peacefully non
violently?

We do not accept those who differ from us or oppose us

some of ideas and ways, and this is why non-liberal
countries have problems like transition of power. We never
find a scene as powerful as the one we witnessed in the
United States when the white man bowed in front of the
black man he had previously enslaved not very long ago
and handed him the keys of the White House to rule him
from.

This scene that shook the world was one of the few scenes
that I witnessed and made me truly grateful to witness one
of the strongest moments in humanity's modern history. I
was watching a scene whose protagonist was not simply the
black man who triumphed over oppression and slavery. The
real triumph belonged to the white man who vanquished his
racism. This scene is the answer to the question, “why am I
a liberal”. I am one because liberalism is a triumph over our
individual bigotry before it is a triumph to whom rights are
endowed.
28 Why I am Liberal

Abraham Lincoln once said, “As I would not be a slave, I

would not be a master”, and as I would not be a victim of
oppression, I would not be a silent party to its favor.
29 Why I am Liberal

Liberalism Protects Pluralism

Amir Ma’di

I was born in 1986, I am a sixth year

medical student in the University of
Tanta.

I hope for a just life for all those

who live on this land. I hope that
each individual can enjoy full rights
to freedom of thought, education,
health service and a quality of life
that guarantees dignity.
30 Why I am Liberal

In his Novel, Veronika Decides to Die, Paolo Coehlo

recounts a story through one of his characters who is a
patient in a mental hospital:

“A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire

kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which
all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drinks that water
would go mad. The following morning, the whole
population drank from the well and they all went mad,
apart from the king and his family, who had a well set
aside for them alone, which the magician had not
managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to
control the population by issuing a series of edicts
governing security and public health. The policemen
and inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned
water, and they thought the king’s decisions were
absurd and resolved to take no notice of them. When the
inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they
became convinced that the king had gone mad and was
now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the
castle and called for his abdication. In despair the king
prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen
stopped him, saying ‘Let us go and drink from the
communal well. Then we will be the same as them.‘
And that was what they did: The king and the queen
drank the water of madness and immediately began
talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now
that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not
allow him to continue ruling the country? The country
continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants
behaved very differently from those of its neighbors.
And the king was able to govern until the end of his
days.”

This is what actually happened with the totalitarian Arab

states that are ruled with an iron fist. Their rulers only care
31 Why I am Liberal

about staying in power as long as possible and the only

thing they need to do to achieve that is to desensitize their
people.

In our homelands, our rulers do not care about the level of

awareness or culture of their people. They are comfortable
with the state of backwardness we have reached. In fact, they
encourage it and “improve” upon it. If there is a wave of
religious sentiment, they seek to ride it, and, in fact, augment
it by claiming to be more faithful to religion. If voices are
raised demanding rights for minorities, they will perform
some acrobatic acts of placing minorities within high-profile
positions, but all within existing quotas.

In the simple story narrated above, we find that truth

invariably has more than one version. It is not necessarily the
case that what the majority agrees on is the correct version. In
our totalitarian societies, the idea of individual liberty
disappears and the individual becomes a cog in the wheel of a
comprehensive system in which the differences between its
components become blurred. All become similar ... they have
the same ideas... the same feelings... they rise together in
anger and also yield together without difference. This is in
opposition to the simplest rules of life... the essence of life is
based on difference... to the extent that I believe that should all
the people- with no exception - unite under one idea, either
this idea is false, or the people are tainted with a good degree
of backwardness!

These types of people are similar in their qualities and their

psychological and mental levels. There will not be much
diversity in their imagination, dreams, worries or their ability
to display anger or contentment. There will be slight
variations but they are weak cautious variations, ineffective
and void of daring. These people are alike in their intellectual
qualities and abilities to the extent that they concur in
32 Why I am Liberal

judgment and vision. They are highly adaptable even with

what contradicts or hurts them.

They see everything in the same dimensions, the same size,

the same color and they do this without feeling that this is
wrong.

We will find that should we mix our leaders, our wise men,
our litterateurs, our teachers, with our mentors, our men of
letters, our writers, our thinkers, if we mix them with the
masses and members of the working classes, the two groups
will not differ much in their interpretation of major vital
issues and in their vision. In fact, they will be
undistinguishable.

The language of both teams – the leaders and the masses –

will certainly differ, but their ideas will not. Nor will they
differ much in what they accept or reject, in their level of
intelligence or stupidity. And in the same way as clothes
may change the outer appearance, but they do not change
the core of the human being, some of these people may use
the most progressive of terms to express the most backward
of meanings and ideas.

There is a deadly silence – a mental silence that prevails in

their intellects, their visions, their morals, and their feelings
about matters and events.

They do not fight or clash or differ with anything or any

new happening, not in thought, or in views... they are
simply a dumping ground for matters and events... they are
not activists or fighters or adversaries or rivals .. they co-
exist with the market and with current affairs.

All of this makes them polite, humble, forgiving, and very

generous in their understanding, their opinions and their
33 Why I am Liberal

pain. They are never angry and they never revolt for a
better life... they do not even know the value of life.

They are frozen in time at a certain historical moment at a

certain level of misery, ignorance and backwardness... and
they are mentally, morally, socially and intellectually
conditioned to be frozen. They do not reject their condition
or deny it or try to bypass it. If it were possible to leave it
behind, they would not be able to do so... humans progress
because they cannot stand being behind... they progress
because they cannot stand being silent!

You may ask the question, what does all of the above have
to do with liberalism?

The answer will inevitably be about me. Why am I a

liberal?

How do I see liberalism?

I explained before that the default is difference and

variation, and that this is the issue of humanity and its
freedom to think and own and decide. Liberalism protects
difference... it gives each individual the right to practice his
freedom without infringing on the rights of others. It
protects him from religious and political dominance. The
individual is the foundation on which laws are built, and
these laws have to protect the right of each individual to
religion, thought, sex, education and to vote.

Liberalism supports the rights of the individual vis-à-vis laws,

habits and customs that limit personal freedom and also
against the interference of the state in personal life. Liberalism
supports a myriad of cultural liberties in literature, arts and
creativity.
34 Why I am Liberal

Liberalism also supports economic freedom because it

advocates limited or no market control. According to liberal
thought, the market should be left to control its rise and fall
through supply and demand and other variables without
interference from the state, whether in the form of
protectionism or limits to rise or fall. It considers that the
value of goods should be determined by the choices of the
individuals.

Liberalism grants the individual freedom of expression,

privacy, worship, just trials, emancipation from slavery, and
the right to protest. This is why when we talk about the
future of liberalism in Egypt, it is doubtless that to achieve
a successful effective form of liberalism, we have to have
democracy. But we do not have democracy and if we did, it
would not be sustained without freedom, which is the
backbone of liberalism.

Liberalism cannot be applied without the complete and

equal protection of the civic rights of all members of
society. If democracy exists in Egypt, it is only practiced in
form because it is a far remove from the actual practices of
free elections and freedom of expression and the freedom to
form political parties. If these liberties do not exist, there
will be no liberalism, because if freedom is usurped, there
is no basis for liberalism.

I would now like to make an important point and it is that

liberalism is much broader and more comprehensive than
democracy, but how?

1. There may be democracy in Egypt someday, but that

does not necessarily mean that it will protect freedom
of expression or publishing for instance, or minority
rights. This is because this will be a government of
the majority and they may rule as they please because
35 Why I am Liberal

they will have the necessary votes and laws backing

them. On the other hand, in the case of the adoption of
liberal thought, all these rights will be guaranteed and
there will be no fear of what the majority government
might do. This is because the three authorities –
legislative, executive and judiciary– will be separated
because the ruling principle will be that one person
cannot hold more than one authority. For example, no
legislation can be passed without the approval of the
executive elected authority – the parliament.
2. The state will not be dominated by the religion or
belief code that the ruling majority follows. This will
guarantee that the minorities’ rights are not lost. And
because authority will stem from the voters who come
from different religious and intellectual backgrounds,
the minorities will be represented, if only in a limited
manner and this in turn leads to their interests being
defended.
3. Opposition will not be sharp or violent. It will be calm
because the loss the opposition has suffered at a given
time is only temporary and it is only political. It does
not come with loss of rights because rights are
guaranteed by liberalism.
4. The tradition of respecting the other and respecting
human rights will be truly practiced in society on a
daily basis at home and at work, at schools and in the
street. It will not simply fodder for the ballots come
election time.
5. Choosing the ministers of the government will not
only be in the hands of the president, but will be under
parliamentary discretion.

For all of the above reasons, I believe that liberalism could

protect these unaware peoples and help them rise from
under the ruins of backwardness and slavery.
36 Why I am Liberal
37 Why I am Liberal

For Sake of the Freedom to Choose

Muhammad Zaki ‘Abd al-Tawwab

I was born in October 1980, I

graduated in 2003 with a BSc in
engineering from the University of
Helwan (Degree: Good). I also hold a
diploma in electrical power systems
from Cairo University (2005). I am a
maintenance engineer in the Central
Bank of Egypt, and since 2004 have
been a founding member of al-Ghad
political party. I have been a member
of al-Ghad’s Committee for Training
and Political Awareness since 2005
and its deputy since 2006. I am also a
founding member of the Dream of
Democracy Foundation since 2006.

I have participated in a course on

effective political parties that was held in
Jordan in March 2009 under the
auspices of the International Republican
Institute. I have also participated in the
establishment of web-based groups and
internet sites that support liberalism and
secular state. I dream of propagating
true liberal culture among the citizens of
Egypt so that it may become modern,
liberal, democratic and secular.
38 Why I am Liberal

Humanity in its original state is free. It has since become

shackled by dominance and tyranny, but it continues to
struggle to regain its original state of freedom from all
bondage it has been chained to against its will. This is why I
have chosen to side with humanity in its “natural state”, in its
free state. I have chosen to side with the liberal man. I have
chosen to be a liberal.

If free man were asked to choose between being the master

of his own decisions and between delegating others to
decide for him, he will undoubtedly choose the first option.
He will choose his freedom, his independence, his dignity
and he will reject every totalitarian authority that is forced
upon him under the pretext of his best interest. Free man is
more aware of his interests and his options and of his
desires and of what all of humanity aspires to. For that
reason, and because I am free, I am a liberal.

Personal freedom is by default followed by independence of

thought, the kind of independence that allows you to think
unfettered by limits or borders and that emancipates you from
the bondage of reproduction and memorizing, from the herd
mentality, and transfers you to broadmindedness and
creativity. And because man was born to create, building on
the experiences of his predecessors, and not to regurgitate
experiences generation after generation, and because I am not
a record that can be switched on with the click of a button, but
a thought process, I am a liberal.

And because independent thought leads to independent

opinions that represent the thinker in each stage of his life and
because they lead to intellectual and critical development, and
because it is with independent thought and not memorizing set
sections of prose or poetry that nations are built and because I
am an independent thinker, I am a liberal.
39 Why I am Liberal

Independent thought leads to free will and freedom to choose

what to believe in and it is difference and multiplicity in
political and religious beliefs that produce civilized dialogue
and the ethics of debate. It is difference that raises the
collective level of culture. And because I believe that when
man is free to believe as he wishes all reasons for conflict
between humans disappear, and because I hate bigotry and
factionalism and tyranny in the name of public interest in all
its forms, I am a liberal.

Freedom to choose and make decisions is the main gateway to

responsibility. And because each decision made by a human
being by his choice alone can only be altered or corrected or
cancelled by him alone, he is accountable and willingly
responsible for it without fear or oppression or coercion. And
because one cannot succeed unless one constantly refines ones
attitudes and has the courage and daring to accept responsibility,
and because I am accustomed to being accountable for what I
am responsible for, I am a liberal.

And because the sense of responsibility whereby individuals

decide for themselves and hold themselves accountable is the
basis of democracy, and because the principle of
accountability and the theories of rights and duties will only
flourish in a society in which each and every individual
realizes that he is completely free and responsible for his
choices, then starts to debate public issues and participate
thereby rendering democracy real, and not some farce of a B-
movie, and because I am democratic, I am a liberal.

Democracy is the locomotive that pushes and develops ideas of

equality and abolishes discrimination based on religion, gender,
color, ethnicity or nationality. It stands as a barricade against
totalitarianism and despotism and discrimination and fascism in
all their forms, whether based on nationalism or religion or
even class, thereby rendering members of society equal in
40 Why I am Liberal

rights and duties. And because I believe in complete equality

and hate discrimination of all forms, I am a liberal.

A human being’s belief that he is equal to others and that

they are completely equal to him is what opens the door to
the collapse of racism and to true cultural exchange
between the peoples of the world. We are all human and we
should all be treated as humans. This cultural and civilizing
exchange propels us into a wider and more comprehensive
understanding of the different peoples and cultures of the
world and leads us into a world that is refined and civilized,
a world of cultural fusion and peace instead of one of wars,
barbarism and ethnic strife. And because openness onto the
world and not isolationism is the key to true civilization,
and because I am open onto the world, I am a liberal.

And because being inclusive supports trade between peoples

which in turn strengthens the ties between them on the solid
basis of common trade interests, and because trade has
historically been a bright spot in the dealings between nations
as opposed to the darkness of war, and because trade is the
key to renaissance and because I support relations between
nations on the basis of common trade interests, I am a liberal.

Free trade between nations lessens the people’s dependence

on the state and prevents bureaucratic and state control over
life’s details, thereby limiting the role of the state and
reducing it to its optimum size. This is a size that allows it
to do what is necessary and indispensable and rids it of the
role of censor and watchdog, of benefactor and prohibitory,
thereby allowing it to revert to its original role as an
administrative body carrying out prescribed duties. And
because I am an enemy of bureaucracy, I am a liberal.

The eradication of red tape and reducing state bureaucracy to its

optimum size is the only way to achieve transparency and
41 Why I am Liberal

facilitate supervision of the different state bodies. Transparency

allows access to information, its exchange, transfer and
discussion. This in turn facilitates the work of the media and the
press and grounds the intellectual and media environment in
facts rather than in rumors and innuendo. And because I am a
supporter of truth, I am a liberal.

And because transparency is the way to fight the corruption that

is rampant in many aspects of the state administration, and
because corruption shatters any potential accomplishment, and
because I am against corruption, I am a liberal.

Combating corruption unleashes the force of equal opportunity

and frees it from all forms of nepotism, favoritism, bribery and
monopoly and re-instates work ethics as a value that is sorely
needed now. It opens the door to social mobility and
advancement without discrimination or bias, but on the basis of
pure competence and hard work. And because I love to work
hard, I am a liberal.

Serious work restores the ethics of true competition and revives

its subjective and pragmatic foundations. Competition brings
about real protection to both consumer and producer, thereby
allowing us to effectively compete in the world, and because I
embrace challenges, I am a liberal.

Because rising to challenges creates the individual initiative

necessary for effecting significant change and development in
civilization, culture and science through history, and because
initiative whatever its motive is always the locomotive for
progress, and because I love change and hate apathy, I am a
liberal.

I am a liberal because this apathy is based on theories of a

fantasy utopia that is the biggest annihilator of creativity and
cultural and artistic mobility and also the biggest enemy of
42 Why I am Liberal

rationality. It inevitably leads to tyranny and oppression in the

name of yielding to society. And because society has to be
kept alive, mobile and creative, I categorically refuse any form
of state totalitarianism or oppression of the individual that he
would not normally accept of his own accord.

I am a liberal because individual choices will vary between

one person and the other as will personal convictions and
points of view. Therefore, the regime has to be completely
impartial where individual beliefs and issues are concerned. It
should keep personal faith, which each individual is allowed
to embrace and practice, separate from the state system. It
should not interfere, censor or mediate individual action or
belief.

I am a liberal because all the other trends of thought have

elements of prejudice in them, whether based on nationality,
religion, class, color or race. I also believe in equality for all
humanity to be applied comprehensively and indiscriminately
on all citizens within a certain nation without marginalizing or
privileging some on the basis of race, language or religion.

I am a liberal because I believe in the liberty to hold and join

political gatherings for religious groups, syndicates,
professionals and workers without threats or interference or
repression or state direction.

And finally, I am a liberal because I learn from the

experiences of others and experience is the most conclusive
proof that liberalism has absorbed the basic needs of human
beings and that other theories have failed and are now in
discord with normal human nature.
43 Why I am Liberal

Responsible Freedom

Inji Abbas Abu’l-Izz

I was born in 1882. I graduated in

2005 with a degree in Media Studies
and am now enrolled in the
Department of Radio and Television
in the Faculty of Media Studies,
Cairo University and am working on
my Master’s degree.

I work as a teaching assistant in the

Faculty of Media Studies, Modern
University of Technology and
Information. I have many activities
in the field of media and public and
civic work, the most important of
which is my participation in the
seminar that was organized by the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation in
2007. I dream of a democratic
corruption-free Egypt and of a free
civilized society.
44 Why I am Liberal

The logical answer to the question, “Why am I a liberal?” is

that I am a liberal because I believe in freedom and equality.
Yet, what are the limits of attainable freedom? Is it the
freedom of the individual, or of society, or of the nation, or of
the establishment? And what exactly is equality?

Freedom has a variety of expressions, it may mean peace or

love or co-operation or justice. Yet, the liberal conception of
freedom is often misunderstood as some define it as
prioritization of the freedom of the individual over the
freedom of others! This in spite of the fact that the freedom
every liberal believes in is “responsible freedom”, or in other
words, freedom that is countered by responsibility. Every
liberal believes in the saying, “My freedom to swing my
hands stops at my neighbor’s nose”. Liberalism therefore
takes into account the best interest of individuals within a
system or a state. Therefore, it is the duty of every individual
within the nation to be totally aware of his rights and duties
and the establishment should also absorb this. This will bring
about a balance in this reciprocal interactive and intertwined
relationship. Liberalism therefore works to propagate a
democratic atmosphere that is free and progressive. It creates a
healthy environment within which individuals can easily reach
out and communicate with others in a constructive manner.

The saying, “My freedom to swing my hands stops at my

neighbor’s nose” is not simply abstract words or prose, it is a
saying that holds within it deeply significant insight about
freedom from a liberal perspective. You are free as long as
you do no harm, and without going into the details of the
concepts of liberalism and its many principles, it is enough for
me personally as a liberal that liberalism protects my personal
freedom as it does the freedom of others.

Liberalism is often attacked because its defense of personal

liberties is perceived as a threat to the best interests of society.
45 Why I am Liberal

The response to this accusation is innate in the very concept of

liberalism. Liberalism defends my personal freedom, but this
is responsible freedom that does not infringe on the rights of
others, that does not harm others. If it is within my rights to
breathe fresh air, it is the right of smokers to have smoking
zones far away from me. If it is within my rights to elect
someone to represent me in parliament, it is the duty of the
state to guarantee to everyone the right to run for office, and
provide them all with the security and safety to do so. The
same goes for the freedom to establish political parties, and
so forth.

As a moderate liberal, I am not partial to extremism within

any school of thought and I believe that the future of this
nation and of the youth of this nation is to follow the path
of liberalism in a responsible manner and to know what is
due to them and what they owe without hiding behind the
saying, “I’m free”, unless they follow it by saying, “but I
am also responsible”.

About the principle of equality, which I have referred to

earlier, the liberal understanding of it is that it is fundamental
equality in rights and duties between individuals without
discrimination based on gender, affiliation, faith, color, and so
forth. No one is above the law and no one is to be persecuted
for his color or race, for being Muslim or Christian and there
will be no discrimination between men and women. All are
equal before the law. When the principle of equality is
realized, justice follows, as does individual liberty for all.

Although I have not sufficiently dealt with all the aspects of

liberalism, I believe that it is a school of thought that holds
within it many valuable principles the most important of
which are the principles of liberty and equality and these
two principles are a sufficient response to the title of this
book. This is why I am a liberal.
46 Why I am Liberal
47 Why I am Liberal

The Flexibility of Liberalism is the Reason

for its Continuity

Muhammad Sa’d Muhammad

I was born in January 1977, I hold a

degree in sociology from the Faculty of
Arts, the University of Alexandria
(1999) and a postgraduate diploma in
tour guiding, also from the University
of Alexandria (2003).
I started political work as an underage
member of the Wafd Party in 1993 and
I joined the Ghad Party in 2005.
I participated in the presidential
elections and was elected member of
the executive bureau of Alexandria in
2007. I have participated in a number
of events organized by the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation, the most
important of which was a trip to
Germany with a number of youths
from Arab liberal political parties to
study political and economic youth
organizations in Germany. When I
dream for Egypt, I dream of a nation
that refuses discrimination on any
basis whether religion or gender or
race. When I dream for Egypt, I dream
of a nation that is void of oppression
and corruption, a true nation for all its
people. I dream of a nation where
dreams come true.
48 Why I am Liberal

I think I am of a generation that reached maturity and

developed awareness at a time of great transformations – or
great disintegrations – in the world. The collapse of the great
wall of Berlin was not simply the demolition of a wall that
separated the two Germanies, it was the demolition of a line of
demarcation between two ideas that governed two different
worlds. The first was a world where humans are the objective
and the goal is their wellbeing and prosperity. The second was
a world where humans become a tool to achieve objectives
that transcend them, pass them over (and in all cases are never
achieved).

The demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was not simply the
demolition of a wall of stone blocks and mortar, it was the
demolition of the stones of ideology or the ideologies of the
stone age that regarded individuals as inferior and transformed
humans into a cog in the wheel of a machine that is supposedly
bound for paradise but never arrives at its destination.

The collapse of the wall was like a mercy bullet to what used
to be known as the Soviet Union – the empire that ruled the
communist bloc for seven decades. And the Soviet Union fell
when its mighty military machine and its terrible machine of
internal oppression and its vast propaganda machine were no
longer able to prop it up. They could no longer prevent the
collapse because it came from within the individual for whose
sake the Bolshevist revolution claims to have arisen. Man was
no longer able to achieve the higher goals of the group and the
state and in parallel, the group was no longer able to secure
man’s rights and reinforce his liberties.

The collapse of the Soviet Union had more than one

meaning, the most significant of which was that the state
lasts and survives as long as it maintains individual liberties
not military machines and tools of oppression.
49 Why I am Liberal

This scene shaped the universal awareness of a generation of

Egyptian liberal youths. This is the generation that was born at
the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, a
period that witnessed a series of regional and local
transformations that affected Egyptian society and attracted it
to liberalism. The most significant of these transformations
were as follows:

1. The phenomenon of Gulf money and the migration of

many of the members of the Egyptian middle classes to
these countries and their return influenced by a culture
that is more conservative and less liberal.
2. The reinforcement of religious forces that combat liberal
ideas and put them in a forced and unreal position of
opposition to religion.
3. Despite signs that the political scene might clear up
especially after the re-establishment of political parties,
these signs did not achieve the expected results and
liberal thinkers were clamped down on both by the state
and by the religious movements to the extent that some
thinkers (Farag Fouda for example) paid for there
enlightened stances with their lives.
4. Western support of Israel at the expense of the
legitimate rights of the Palestinians resulted in a state of
apprehension and rejection of all that is Western. This
included the rejection of progressive and enlightened
values and was due to the confusion between civilized
values of a universal humane nature and the political
choices of the West.
5. Although Egypt had a liberal heritage that developed
from the nineteenth century to 1952, the liberal forces that
appeared later were unable to regain their former strength.
This was due to changes in the historical and political
circumstances and to the administrative weakness of
these new movements.
50 Why I am Liberal

6. The ruling party carried out economic policies that did

not gain popular approval such as the badly planned
liquidation of the public sector and the random sale of
these assets at prices less than market value. All this was
overshadowed by increasing accusations of corruption
and was carried out under the banner of liberalism, a fact
that led to a state of confusion about the meaning of the
term.

All of the above led to the appearance of a new generation of

Egyptian liberals. This generation was burdened by the
accumulated problems of the past years yet armed with the
fruits of an information revolution – the biggest in history –
that allowed it to find out more about the progression of the
human race towards values of liberty, co-existence, tolerance,
acceptance of others, equality in rights and duties, and many
other liberal values that Egyptian society was in dire need of.
This was especially vital after the political and social arteries
of the nation had became clogged, what with the state of
isolation propelled by religion that has manifested itself lately.

The idea of liberalism first appeared at the end of the Middle

Ages under circumstances very similar to those Egypt is now
going through at the beginning of the third millennium.
Control of the heavens was in the hands of a religious
establishment and control of earth was the monopoly of
political tyrannical forces and in both cases, it was the people
who paid the price. Liberties were repressed first in the name
of religion, then in the name of the group, then in the name of
the state.

Religious and political oppression was what the whole

world had in common. In the East, caliphs used scholars of
jurisprudence to get rid of their opposition and oppress all
those who dared not to agree with them (examples range
from al-Husayn to ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr to al-Ja’d ibn
51 Why I am Liberal

Adham to Abu Hanifa to Ibn Hanbal to Ibn Rushd). In the

West, the Church allied itself with kings and feudal princes
who ruled in the name of religion and were regarded as
God’s hand on earth. Anyone who opposed or disagreed or
thought differently paid the price (examples start with the
inquisition courts and do not end with Galileo).

Historical happenstance favored the European West and its

civilizational curve was on the rise while unfortunately, the
East started to regress. In Europe, ideas started to surface
rejecting the concept of the divine right to rule and denying
the notion that God had delegated one person out of many
to rule His subjects in His name.

Theories surfaced that argue that the political conception of

government is that it is a consenting contract between two
parties both of free will. It is a variable human contract not a
sacred Godly one. It can therefore be changed, altered and
developed. This is known as the theories of the social contract.

Even more important than the concept of the social contract is

the idea that John Locke put forth, namely that of natural
rights. This is the idea that I, you, and all humanity whether
they are ruling or being ruled were born with equal rights and
that no one is above others whatever the religious, ethnic,
gender, or class differences between them. And no religious or
earthly power is allowed to strip these individuals of their
rights, which are as follows:

1. The right to life

2. The right to have faith and to express this faith freely.
3. The right to private property. Property used to be a
monopoly of the feudal classes and this enabled them
to monopolize wealth and power. Monopoly, whether
political or economic, is absolutely rejected by liberal
thought.
52 Why I am Liberal

I do not deny that a good part of these ideas has roots in our
culture. Human civilization is a continuous chain of ideas,
one adding to the other. As we have benefited from
concepts that have appeared in the West, the West has made
use of ideas that are rooted in our culture.

The major contribution of western thinkers was to

formulate these ideas and arrive at a clear concept of
individual liberty that does not allow any power, whether
religious or political, to penetrate or defile it.

Based on the concept of natural rights, came what can be

called the system of liberal values, i.e. the principles
indispensable to the realization of liberalism. To my mind,
the most important of these values is the value of diversity
or difference. According to liberalism, people are by nature
different whether in ideas or in religious, cultural, ethnic or
social background. Moreover, it argues that this diversity is
the best of human qualities because it leads to creativity,
competition and development.

A further set of basic values related to this basic value of

difference appeared. They were acceptance of the other (he
who differs with you), tolerance (accepting that the other
has a different view and has the right to express it in any
manner as long as it is peaceful), co-existence (that
different ideas can exist together without attempts by any
side to alienate or eliminate the other sides), the relativity of
truth (no opinion has a monopoly over absolute truth, truth
is relative and it differs from one to the other according to
point of view and way of thinking).

Then comes the inception of another set of values that are

related to liberal political views. They argue that all humans
have the same natural rights and this is why liberalism
believes in a state governed by laws that consider all
53 Why I am Liberal

individuals, whether rulers or ruled, as equal. Liberalism

also believes in the accountability and responsibility of the
ruler. In other words, it believes that the ruler has reached a
position of power through the free consent of the people, or
by contract from the individuals he has come to rule. He
thus rules by proxy in return for responsibility and is
therefore always in a position of accountability and is
answerable to his people. The people are allowed to review
the level of his commitment to the terms of the contract or
to the constitution. They can, by common consent, call him
to account, even remove him if he does not abide by the
terms of the contract.

And since liberalism is against monopoly, it believes in the

peaceful exchange of power through a political competition
between different ideas (through free elections in which
individuals choose a person to represent them in the
administration of public affairs or legislation of laws or
monitoring the government, i.e. in the parliament).

Economic liberalism is founded on the idea of freedom to

own coupled with freedom to compete in the market. This
only happens through the prevention of monopoly and
encouragement of competition. Liberalism argues that
competition in economics, as in politics, will raise the
efficiency of both services and goods.

Probably the thing that surprises me most about liberalism is

its amazing ability to self-critique and correct its mistakes.
While many ideas have fallen prey to rigidity, ideological
apathy and intellectual narrow-mindedness, liberalism
developed its economic performance. When the idea of letting
the market work without state interference according to its
own mechanism failed, a new liberal school of thought
appeared and called for the intervention of the state to regulate
the market and prevent monopoly, exploitation of workers and
54 Why I am Liberal

protect the rights of the individual, whether producer or

consumer. A set of laws appeared in liberal countries that
outlawed monopoly, dictated the number of working hours,
regulated wages, holidays, days off, specified quality control
for goods and set up a wide network of social security that
insured against unemployment, disability, sickness and old
age. It provided many of the privileges that the states that
claim to have arisen for the rights of workers could not
sustain.

This economic flexibility comes hand in hand with political

flexibility whereby the applications of liberalism differ
from one country to the other and from one political current
to the other. These differences enrich the concept of
liberalism without undermining it.

I was even more amazed by the respect liberalism has for

the cultural specificity of the peoples of the world. As we
mentioned, it is not against diversity, in fact it co-exists
with difference and interacts with it. Nor is it against
religion, as some people have portrayed it to be. It was
always a call for religious and cultural tolerance. It assured
every individual the right to adopt whatever suits his beliefs
without coercion or interference in his religious faith and
without this faith being the reason for any form of
discrimination or persecution.

This is why liberal tolerance of religious and sectarian

difference is the only guarantee and the ideal solution for
societies with diverse religious doctrines. This precludes the
elimination or isolation of the followers of a certain sect or
religion.

One should therefore not wonder when one finds out that
liberalism is one of the oldest ideas that appeared in the
Modern Egyptian state at the beginning of the nineteenth
55 Why I am Liberal

century. Liberalism and Egyptian character blended and

took on a new shape that was purely Egyptian. It was first
introduced to us by turbaned men of religion (and not
foreigners in hats). The inception of the Egyptian liberal
tradition came with the ideas of the Azhari Sheikh Hasan
al-‘Attar and his call to make use of what suits us of
western civilization. He was followed by another Azhari,
Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, who translated the French constitution
and was awestruck by the law that equates between all
citizens, whether rulers or subjects. Despite his reservations
about some of the aspects of European civilization, he did
not hide his admiration of the tradition of European
liberties. He was then followed by a third sheikh, originally
from Syria, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi who exposed
what he called the ‘traits of oppression’ in Arab political
thought and paid for this with his life. And finally, we
should not forget the great reformer, Sheikh Muhammad
‘Abduh and his enlightened views on reforming religious
apathy that had hindered progress for centuries.

The ‘sheikhs of the Egyptian renaissance’ or the founding

fathers of Egyptian liberalism continued to appear and their
efforts were crowned by one of the greatest of all Egyptian
revolutions, the revolt of the people of Egypt in 1919 in
demand of independence and of a constitution. This is the
revolution that produced the 1923 constitution in which
came the admission, for the first time in Egyptian history,
that the nation is the source of all power. This constitution
shaped what came to be known as the period of liberalism.
It had its flaws and they included the palace overthrowing
constitutional legitimacy and the constant interference of
the British occupation. Yet it also witnessed the peaceful
exchange of power between the different political parties
(in spite of the palace stepping in against the will of the
people), the flourishing of academic liberties and of
literature and art. During this period, Egypt produced giants
56 Why I am Liberal

in the world of literature, poetry, art, science and politics

and they were living proof that the experience was growing
in spite of certain negative aspects. Yet instead of building
on this great tradition, it was completely destroyed and
overturned after July 1952, the revolution that started a new
era with its own pros and cons. And the most negative of
these cons was the fact that it turned against the great
liberal tradition.

I think that this project is able to unleash human abilities

and talents that had broken down and rigidified under the
yoke of tyranny and political and social oppression.

This is why … I am a liberal.

57 Why I am Liberal

Chapter Two
Because I am a Human Being
58 Why I am Liberal
59 Why I am Liberal

Liberalism: A Prerequisite for Human Existence

Belal Abdullah Saber Abdul Moneim

Born in 1987, a Senior Student of the

Department of Political Science,
Faculty of Commerce, Helwan
University. I participated in a training
course held by Al-Ahram Center for
Political and Strategic Studies, and a
training session about civil society in
the American University in Cairo in
2008. I have also attended a workshop
about liberalism organized by FNF in
2009.

I dream of seeing a strategic elite leading

the society and the state in Egypt
according to liberal methodology and
principles; I dream of a people on a high
level of openness that enables it to
achieve a successful democratic
transition in Egypt, heeding as well the
uniqueness of the Egyptian milieu.
60 Why I am Liberal

In one of the workshops, I participated in lately, each of the

participants was asked at the very beginning to introduce
himself/herself in one sentence expressing his/her ideas,
objectives, or beliefs – in short, a statement expressive of that
person. At the time I introduced myself as follows: “I try to
exist.” May be this sentence summarizes my reply to the
question: Why am I a liberal?

However, speaking as such might be ambiguous, which

necessitates clarifying every meaning of existence, then the
meaning of liberalism, and finally the relationship between both.

Allow me to start first with existence. What I mean here is not

the superficial and direct sense, nor the material tangible
sense, which means that something is placed in a certain place
in a manner that is perceptible. My understanding of
existence, however, is that I am able to survive and to have
myself achieved in the way I desire and believe appropriate
for me. No real existence can ever happen without a free will.
Therefore, freedom is the foundation of any true existence.
Without the availability of this freedom, the prerequisite for
existence, we cannot speak about a true human existence,
because it will rather be illusory, and a form of nihility.

Given that we have deemed freedom the first prerequisite for

the achievement of the human existence, this freedom is only
one side of the coin. The second side, however, is represented
by subjectivity. The individual – any individual – cannot
achieve the existence of somebody else. Therefore, the
personal aspect is also important for existence to be achieved
in the full sense. To combine both the meaning of freedom
and that of subjectivity in one word, the outcome would be
“individualism.” Individualism is the free individual will of
the person through which s/he can express his/her self. In
other words, we can say that individualism and human
61 Why I am Liberal

existence in its true sense are two sides of the same coin – or
at least this is how I see them.

Thus far we talked about existence, what about liberalism

then?

Without going into much theoretical detail about the term

liberalism, we can briefly say that the conceptual environment
of this term revolves around the word freedom and the other
terms branching from it, especially the freedom of the
individual. However, that does not by extension mean self-
centeredness, nor neglecting the importance and the role of the
community. On the contrary, the freedom of the individual
here is indispensable for the best interest of the society at large
– an issue that we will revisit shortly. However, I would like
first to mention that losing one of the aforementioned
components of human existence – freedom and subjectivity –
directly leads to steering away from liberalism.

It could be said that canceling the existence of the individual

could be done in one of two ways: either vertically or
horizontally. This happens vertically when the freedom of the
individual is taken away from him/her by and for the interests
of a higher power; in that case we are swerving towards
authoritarianism or totalitarianism. This could happen
horizontally, as well, through losing the second component of
existence, namely subjectivity. This is only done to serve the
interests of other certain individuals in the society. In that case
we turn from liberalism to socialism. In other words, in the
first case the existence of the individual is crushed and
swallowed by the image of a higher existence; whereas, in the
second case, the existence of the individual is dissolved in a
larger state of existence. In both cases, existence cannot be
sensed independently.
62 Why I am Liberal

When there is no freedom, one cannot talk about

responsibility. The non-free individual cannot be asked to be
responsible. The individual is as responsible as the amount of
freedom allowed to him/her. When responsibility is achieved
to all members of the society, there will be self order and
discipline of that society. Nonetheless, when this order and
discipline are imposed by coercion, then anarchy, collapse, or
explosion, will be the ultimate fate of this society, or this
dysfunctional system. In fact, some of the communist and
totalitarian regimes, and of course the former Soviet Union,
serve us a good example.

Also, to the meaning of freedom, the concept of respecting

private property is connected. It is noteworthy in this respect
to point to a truism that some might not pay attention to: the
right to private property differs from respecting private
property. The right to ownership could exist in some of the
illiberal regimes, but sometimes there would not be sufficient
protection for this right, and the threat of confiscation or
nationalization remains to be pertinent.

Moreover, we could look at the concept of respecting private

property from an angle slightly different from the traditional
and stereotypical understanding of private property without
steering absolutely away from the meaning of freedom.
Private property is not only connected to the material objects
that an individual could own , because in that case that right
would be denied to the poor. Therefore, it could be indeed
applicable to the ownership of the self in full by the
individual, at least those of sound mind. As such, we find that
even the poorest of the poor uphold this right. Respect to
private property necessitates at least respecting the freedom of
action, and the personal freedom of any individual. It is well
known that the right to respect of private property in even that
simple sense is violated in many forms and on different levels.
This starts with the interference in the affairs of others, and up
63 Why I am Liberal

to trafficking in human beings. It is well known that personal

freedoms and respecting private property represent one of the
fundamentals of liberalism as a doctrine or as a system for the
individual and the society.

In the heart of personal freedom lies the freedom of creed,

inasmuch as the freedom of practicing religious rites lies in the
heart of public freedoms. The question, therefore, is: what is
the guarantee for spreading this general atmosphere of respect
for religious freedoms? The answer is indeed spreading a state
of tolerance in the society that enables each individual to
respect difference and creative diversity in any society. Given
the fact that tolerance is abstract in the first place, then
guaranteeing its currency in any society takes us to talking
about the civil city, which protects against the dominance of
extremism that could be practiced by any of the powerful
groups in the society over other groups.

Despite the lack of the term civil state in the history of political
thought, and despite the relative recentness of the term, still
this term and its connotations could be simply understood
through its antonym, i.e. the religion-based state. Any religion-
based state is founded on and has as major pillars religion-
based visions, claims, beliefs, and judgments of a given
predominant group. The civil state, on the other hand, is the
state of its citizens; this is why it is a democratic state.
However its democracy and civility are manifest only in the
government, and its style in dealing with the various affairs of
rule, but also this democracy is manifest in all the elements
constituting the state, in a manner that allows for preserving the
civil nature of the state, even in the case of the democratic
arrival of a political current with religious orientations to
power. The civil state, from a liberal perspective, takes a
neutral stance from all religions. Somebody could say in this
regard that communist regimes also took a unbiased stance vis-
à-vis all religions. However, this necessitates then that we
64 Why I am Liberal

distinguish positive from negative neutrality with respect to

religions.

Negative neutrality, characterizing communist regimes means

that they take a hostile position with respect to religious
freedoms, or all religions indiscriminately. Liberalism, on the
other hand – and of course the comparison here is categorically
theoretical – takes a stance supportive of religious freedoms,
and in an unbiased manner towards all religions. Thus,
religious minorities could live and survive under a liberal state
without any discrimination. In fact, not only religious
minorities enjoy equality under the civil state, but minorities at
large, and of course this is contrary to what happens in non-
civic states.

In connection to individual freedom, on the one hand, and

the civil nature of the liberal doctrine, on the other, comes
the concept of civil society as a basic for liberalism. The
civil society in its simplest sense is a social level that
liaisons between the citizen and the government. It is
capable of undertaking what the ordinary individual is
unable to. At the same time it does not make the individual
in dire need all the time to resort to the government. Thus,
the civil society, raises the capacity of the citizen to act,
through the practice of freedom and social action. At the
same time, it increases the independence of the citizen vis-
à-vis the government, which ultimately leads to expanding
the individual’s freedom, on the one hand, and the
efficiency of the society, on the other.

This freedom and dynamicity characterize both the liberal

individual and society, which give rise to what is dubbed as
the concept of competitiveness. Free competitiveness here is
the natural product of this liberal society. Thanks to
competitiveness, the society can perform its function and
fulfill its capacity to sort and elect for the best interest – i.e.
65 Why I am Liberal

election in its general sense. This is what places society in a

continuous state of renewal and self-development, which
protects the society from stagnation immobility, the charge
that is generally leveled against the capitalist and liberal
society by the Marxist theory. If Marxism claims the dialectic
and conflictual nature of society under capitalism, and given
that capitalism is the counterpart of liberalism, liberalism
under the predominance of the principles of transparency,
market economy, the respect of public freedoms and the right
to private property, and of course the rule of law, can preserve
the stability of the society, and not its rigidity. This is achieved
through opening better opportunities, so that every talented
person is able to use and exploit its capacities for his/her best
interest and the interest of the society. Therefore, the chance is
always there for progress and social movement, which
guarantees the vitality and development of the society.
Therefore, the liberal society could protect itself from the
threat of revolutions and social uprisings. Also, probably
through talking about what is called the third alternative, we
are able to see enough illustration of the capacity of liberalism
to renew itself continually.

This third road is an intermediate way, or a compromise

between liberalism and socialism, however, with a closer
affinity to liberalism. It was conceived and born from the
womb of liberal countries, in the first place. These states in
particular have been Clinton’s America, Chirac’s France, and
Schröder’s Germany. As such, this wave started in the nineties
of the past century, i.e. after the collapse of most socialist
regimes worldwide. The objective of these third alternative
policies was to overcome the problems of poverty, and class
gaps. The concept of social justice was taken from the
socialist countries and applied in liberal states, which made
these countries shoulder a larger social responsibility vis-à-vis
its citizens.
66 Why I am Liberal

Of course, there are other concepts and meanings related to

liberal understanding, such as a lifestyle for the individual
and the society, and a methodology of thinking. However,
this brief and speedy review meant to explain some of the
basic concepts connected to liberalism. One of these is the
fact that liberalism is almost the optimum manifestation of
the true and elevated meaning of human existence with its
reverence to freedom, especially that of the individual as a
prerequisite of freedom at large, and indeed for the health
and safety of any human society. I hope that through this
review I managed to answer clearly the question, “Why am
I a liberal?”
67 Why I am Liberal

A human-themed Theory

Mohamed Magdy Mohamed Ahmed Abu Zeid

I was born in August 1985. I am a

holder of Bachelor of Arts in history,
Alexandria University 2006. Being an
active member of the Egyptian El
Ghad Party since January 2006, I
served as the ex-secretary of Al Agami
Committee and currently I am the
chair of the Training and Education
Committee of the Party in Alexandria.
I also attended an IRI (International
Republican Institute) –organized
course on activation of political parties
and another course on preparing
young cadres and leaders in the
Egyptian political parties, organized
by the Egyptian Association for Legal
Awareness. I took part in a workshop
entitled "Towards a new electoral
law" organized by Al Orouba Human
Rights Association.
I dream of a sound liberal trend inside
the Egyptian society; one that stands
up against extremism currently
penetrating the society to warn of the
ensuing potential dangers and grave
consequences. I also dream of a strong
and proper political life where a real
and peaceful rotation of power exists
without monopoly, hegemony or
troubles caused by authoritarian
regimes.
68 Why I am Liberal

When you ask me "why are you liberal?" my answer would

simply be: "Because I am a human being." Then you will
wonder: "But what is the link?"

I would say that the essence of a human being is freedom; and

liberalism is the blunt expression of freedom. For it is deduced
from the natural law or 'jus naturale' conveying the basic, non
negotiable needs and requirements of human kind. Jus
naturale, in other words, is an expression of 'instinct' or rather
it is in itself the instinct human beings were endowed with.
Who on earth dislikes to live freely away from others'
interventions? Who dislikes to publicize own opinion without
being subject to confiscation, banning or prosecution? Who on
earth dislikes to be accepted as is with his/her pros and cons
the way he/she accepts people? Who dislikes having his/her
own private property, or even who accepts to have his/her
own everyday matters run without having a say in them?

I fully understand all reasons that can be set forth by any

counter argument, perhaps to object or out of despair, in this
respect: talks about restrictions, pressures, problems, troubles
…etc are endless. I may even share this opinion or agree with
the counter argument in many or few of the points put
forward, however, I would like to redraw your attention to the
significance of the content of the questions I posed earlier:
isn't it true that the like of individual freedom, of publicizing
opinions, private property and of participation in the running
of public matters are all dear concerns to human beings? They
fundamentally serve to underline respective individualism and
exclusiveness and certainly their humanism (the importance of
existence).

So, liberalism evolved from the natural law which is the

instinct in the human being. Consequently, it acts against
everything that restricts those rights; it is anti despotism,
anti exclusion, anti intellectual terrorism – and against
69 Why I am Liberal

transformation of human beings into means to reach ends.

On the contrary, liberalism preaches that a human being is
the ultimate end, "liberal thinking develops from the
imperativeness of recognizing the individual and his/her
own province where he/she is independent and can display
innovative capacity."1

To elucidate my statements-perhaps I may be asked to do so- I

would say that liberalism is based upon essential values
namely tolerance, individual freedom and the right of
ownership. Those, in my viewpoint, are too reasonable to be
rejected by a sane or a fair person. Tolerance stems from the
fact that human beings are different in gender, religion, belief,
color and language; therefore any attempt to forge a consensus
among them is certainly an illusion, an impractical or rather an
impossible matter, for those differences suggest two options:
the first is to reject one another, become engaged in rivalries,
boycotts and consequently in conflicts and wars. Examples of
this first option were the religious wars which broke out in
Europe in the middle Ages among various Christian sects, and
the Crusades between Europe (symbolizing Christianity) and
the East (symbolizing Islam) which can be dubbed 'Absolute
Wars' 2. Here it becomes very dangerous when the absolute
particularly switches to ideologies.

The second option is not only to accept one another with own
differences but to always remember that we all share a
common paramount factor, humanism, and so the sublime
goal should be to work on its progress and well being or else
destruction will prevail. "In cultural affairs, diversity is a
prerequisite of development."3

1 El Beblawy, Hazem. The Role of the State in the Economy, pp.173

2 The idea is taken from a book entitled "Owners of the Absolute Reality"
by Murad Wahba
3.Russel, Bertrand: The Authority and the Individual. Translated by: Dr.
Lotfia Ashour
70 Why I am Liberal

Being the most valuable of properties, individual freedom

reflects the exclusiveness of human beings who like to be
distinct. Hence, every human being has his/her own realm,
own values and own perspective of life. To deny human beings
their individual freedom is a denial of their basic existence, is a
kind of serving them a civil death judgment – and what a harsh
judgment this is!

As for the freedom of belief embodied in individual

freedom, it should be established that faith dwells in the
heart and scientists have not, and will never, invent a device
that can reveal one's real beliefs, for personal beliefs can
never be known but by the person oneself. Thus it follows
that under no circumstances should any discrimination be
imposed on a human being just because his/her beliefs are
different from ours or from the majority's.

Individual freedom further encompasses everything

perceived by a human being as serving his/her own welfare
so long as it does not harm or infringe upon the rights of
others nor spoils others' freedoms and lives.

Individual freedom also requires that no impediment should

exist for individuals to exercise their intellectual freedom in
whatever manner, even if their ideas seem to be dangerous to
the society or to counter the prevailing trend. Perhaps one day
those having the counter ideas may prove to be right, take for
example "practices of human carnivore, human offerings, and
human hunting vanished as a result of moral objections to the
conventional social norm."4

Pertaining to the right of ownership, it is a product of

individual freedom as "freedom requires diversity of

4 Ibid.
71 Why I am Liberal

ownerships",5 whereby private property is nature's reward

to human beings – each according to own capacity, effort
and intelligence, for their efforts to rectify and develop it.
This situation is likely to create competition among people,
which, despite the problems it entails is good in all cases
since it catalyzes the efforts, and encourages innovation.

The right of ownership is the foundation upon which

capitalism has been established. Despite the multiple
setbacks and crises it has passed through, capitalism every
time returns anew rectified and stronger than before only to
prove its flexibility and adaptability to all conditions and
circumstances.

To summarize, liberalism has two components: the

economic component, that is the market and the political
component, i.e. democracy.

But how is democracy related to liberalism? "The only

democracy that is compatible with liberal thinking is the
constitutional democracy; this means the one that puts
limits on every authority controlling a particular sphere so
as to guard individuals' funds and freedoms."

"Liberalism is a human-themed theory that draws from the

natural law. By definition it is the absence of outside
restrictions, controls on or threats against whatever action is
desired to be made. This is based on condition that individual
freedom has to be exercised within the framework of
respecting others' freedoms as well."6

As a frame that hosts the maximum positive interaction

possible among all differences, liberalism requires at least

5 El Beblawy, Hazem. The Role of the State in the Economy, pp.173

6 El Beblawy, Hazem, op. cit.
72 Why I am Liberal

agreement among all parties on the minimum. Being such it

rejects fanaticism and advocates dialogue till the last possible
dead end. In this regards it is sufficient to say that liberalism is
"a call for freedom and human rights", it is "a call for peace.
This is because history has never recorded any wars that broke
out among liberal states; liberal regimes make dialogue and
competition, not coercion or wars, their rationale".7

7 Ibid.
73 Why I am Liberal

Liberalism is the Freedom of Choice

Nany Mohamed

I was born in 1985 and I am a

holder of a B.Sc. in Business
Administration, 2006. I am a press
reporter at the Culture and Arts
Division of El-Maleh newspaper. I
took part in the conference on"
Democratic Media Personnel" and
the "Maj School" organized by the
Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth. I
also participated in some UNICEF
projects.

I dream of Egypt liberated from

slavery which, in my opinion, is
still influencing many people. I
dream that people would
understand that we will never
change unless we want to.
74 Why I am Liberal

I believe I was a liberal even before I came to realize what

liberalism is or how it is applied. Ever since I was a child, I
have always been convinced that every person is entitled to
freedom of thought and of choice. The idea that only one
person has the upper hand and is in control of all cards of the
game serves nothing but to screen and control development
and innovation. Young as I was, I used to listen and benefit as
much as possible from whatever is going on around me. I
never imagined that I would be always successful or that I
would never encounter any obstacles or impediments in my
course of life. Rather, I was always expecting failure before
success, yet, I was certain that failure is only a step along
strides of the great success.

My parents were trying to instill their experiences into my

mind lest I should fall into mistakes that might shake off my
emotions or shatter my own aspirations. However, I insisted to
have my own unique experiences because I believe that I
would definitely learn form them even if I failed to deal with
them.

I came to the conviction that I am entitled to think, love,

dream and live the way I want to; I am entitled to learn what I
prefer and to discard what I hate; to go on safe in my course of
life without being threatened. Why should I be scared because
I am a girl? Is there any difference, other than the biological
ones we were created with, between a girl and a boy? I believe
there are more mental differences between a person and
another and not between a male and a female.

As such, I started to heed that everyone else, exactly as is

the case with myself, should be entitled to everything.
Therefore, if I embrace and believe in a particular canon
and freely practice its rituals, why should I reject that there
are others who are also entitled to embrace the canon
75 Why I am Liberal

contradictory with mine and that they also have to practice

all the rituals related to that one?

After my mind used to accept only the three heavenly

religions known, by time, I came to also accept the existence
of other religious beliefs that are completely different from the
customary norms in the Egyptian society that represents me.
Having realized the essence of reality as such, I had to accept
whatever is going on around me.

In this respect, I have to affirm that the diversity of religions

and beliefs does not jeopardize peace among people. Even the
wars and fights about religion as well as the forms of religion
contempt displayed daily around us can not be attributed to
diversity. Those are rather caused by attempts of a person to
control others' minds by indoctrinating respective dogma until
such person becomes a leader. And although the leader cites
own reasons for revolting against or suppressing a particular
group, the real aim behind such action remains a secret. The
secret might be known by many people, yet it is customary not
to be mentioned.

When I was overwhelmed by a desire to have all my thoughts

named under a clear title, I found "liberalism" satisfying this
desire. Therefore I became eager to understand it properly and
to know the reasons that led to the emergence of this system
which transformed entire states.

Liberalism, as the findings of my study showed, is the

absolute freedom of an individual in all aspects of life; it is the
freedom in whatever relates to the individual, to own thoughts,
wishes and desires. It is the core around which the individual
life revolves, as is the case with the Planet Earth, where there
is no outside intervention and everybody is responsible for
oneself. It is a system that secures for everybody freedom of
choice, love, social and political participation, freedom of
76 Why I am Liberal

expression and freedom of opinion away from any restricted

imposed by some on others.

Liberalism is the path I chose to pursue ever since I was a

child without realizing or being aware that that is liberalism; it
is the freedom to choose without having my beliefs, life styles
or ideologies influenced by another. And this is how I became
liberal.
77 Why I am Liberal

Why am I Human?

Moataz Mohammed Abd-al-Hamid

Mahmoud Al-Masry

I was born in Zagazig in 1988. I

study architectural engineering in
the Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig
University. I have participated in
many of the activities of the
International foundation of iEARN
in the fields of pedagogical projects
involving the rights of children and
women. This was in collaboration
with the Ministry of Education in
the period between 2002 – 2005. I
have also participated in the seventh
Youth Summit of iEARN held in
Japan in July 2003. I was on the
organizing committee of the First
Youth Summit held in Egypt under
the auspices of Mrs. Suzanne
Mubarak in August 2004.

My dreams focus on a better future

for Egypt, which in my opinion can
only be achieved with the return of the
vote of trust between the authority
and the people, which I believe is the
principal axis of all problems in
Egypt.
78 Why I am Liberal

"I do not comprehend why you object to what I am saying!”

"That's it! I have said what I wanted to say. You will not go
to them and that is final."

"This is none of your concern! I am (free)."

This is sound logic. This man is definitely free. But the

other man does not believe so… and maybe does not even
know so.

More than 14 years ago, when I heard these words, with

which I opened my article, my perceptions had not yet been
formulated and I did not discern the idea of the existence of
authoritative powers that govern the individual.
Nevertheless, I realized from that particular moment that
one of the two men has authority over the other due to the
presence of some kind of strife. This was even more
clarified to me when I perceived a cynical smile on the face
of one of them when he heard the words "I am free."

The recurrence of similar situations on the personal level had a

noticeable influence on my realization of the imperativeness to
be free. This was a personal desire. When I used to find myself
overwhelmed and was obligated to succumb to pressures,
regardless of their reasons or sources, I inevitably felt that there
was something wrong. This is a normal feeling that would
dominate every one as we all aspire for freedom, for different
reasons and by treading different paths.

If we re-run the previous scene and review the seconds

following the cynical smile of the authoritarian side, we would
find a desperate look on the face of him who sought for
freedom. At this moment, he realized that he could not be free.
End of scene!

* * *
79 Why I am Liberal

This was the beginning and with the accumulation of events

and scenes and situations, I realized that such issues are not
that simple. Why can't each one of us obtain one's freedom?
Why can't we freely aspire for what we want whenever we
desire?

Slowly, and unintentionally I formulated an abstract perspective

of what was taking place.

There are individuals who search for values, which may be

eventually rooted in their actions, and there are hegemonic
authorities and there is strife, and at times, there may be
accord as a consequence of a contract between two parties!

The previous scene seemed to me as if the representative of

authority possessed the power of decision without any prior
agreement... and therefore there evolved a strife. Nevertheless,
I reiterate and say: Why do many repudiate a value like
freedom sometimes in exchange for the value of feeling
secure? Do you know why? Because they do not realize that
the security they aspire for is feeble and frail! And because
our values are perceived with the premise of the inverted
pyramid.

I have been trying to assimilate these complicated

relationships for 15 years. Does freedom precede security or
does security precede freedom? Or does freedom precede
ethical maxims! Each one of us is searching for a value and
we all have our contracts. Friendship is a form of contract and
so is work. Marriage, proxy and religion are also contracts. All
the previous contracts lead to reciprocal authorities. In the
midst of all this, we search for values and we do not know if
the right path is to hold on to freedom or security or, or, or !!

I will not reveal the answers to you now, as we may

disagree on that matter. Let us solve a small riddle first
80 Why I am Liberal

"You are an ordinary employee in a giant company and you

discover that there is some wangling in important financial
transactions, for example."

Tell me, what will you choose to do.

-You will report to the concerned authorities and risk

loosing your job and you may not find another job in the
near future. Your family matters will definitely be affected
because of the financial problems that will ensue.

-You will prefer to remain silent despite your realization of

the mistake you are committing. You will find this stance to
be more secure and established. You will be totally
dissociated from this issue, as you will be receiving your
monthly salary regardless of the company's fraud action!

If you opt for the first choice, then you belong to the kind
of people who search for ethical control. You believe in the
correctness of your action regardless of the ensued results.
If you choose the second option then you favor the value of
security and believe that stability is more valuable than
anything else. Some perceive that freedom as a value is
deeply rooted in both and that in both cases you are
searching for your freedom and aspiring for your salvation.

I, however, see matters from a different angle!

Freedom is neither latent nor aspired for. Freedom is the

elementary value by which you achieve other values and
not vice versa. In other words, if you want to feel secure,
you have to be free first and if you want to be reach your
ethical standards you have to undergo the process of
freedom initially and not vice versa.
81 Why I am Liberal

In both choices, we have to rephrase our behavior on the

foundation that man is free because whichever of the two
choices he adopts, is ultimately reduced to his freedom. But,
let us see … within the framework of freedom, we have to
evaluate the irrevocable contracts such as marriage and which
was, in the first place, conducted at our own free will.

Hence, there should not be any conflict … but we should

take into consideration that marriage is one of the
determinants of sheer freedom. Others will hastily choose
the second solution!

Wrong, since – from my point of view – security does not

precede freedom but vice versa as the kind of security in the
second choice is fake. You might end up with a sudden
dismissal from the company or they might even want to get
rid of you by an act of murder because of the inside
information you stumbled upon.

My freedom guarantees a more credible kind of security!

If we obtain freedom that is conditioned by the regulations of

correct contracts and that is based on the foundations of
freedom, then it is mandatory to consult the spouse on the
decision of reporting to the authorities and simultaneously to
begin a search for a new job.

Security without freedom is fake!

Ethical controls – which vary from one region to the other –

cannot be deemed as an absolute foundation as they may
destroy some of the contracts that are established on
(freedom). But if freedom is the basis then it would lead us
to sound solutions and you have the (freedom) to accept an
opinion or refute it
82 Why I am Liberal

Our freedom is the basis, not fake security or absolute

values.

Thus, why don’t we have community freedom and not

individual freedom? Because every individual has a unique
character. We are not ready-made moulds and that is why
ready-made moulds have failed. We all have our individual
merits and that is what we call integration. The community is
a group of individuals who shares a number of contracts that
can co-exist. Indeed, the contracts are the ones capable of co-
existence because they are the foundation of the establishment
of communities and states.

Even democracy began with freedom too!

That is why I am a liberal: because I do not perceive

liberalism as a doctrine or as a pre-fabricated mould but as
something authentic in human nature even if we do not realize
it, even if we deny it on ourselves and on others. We are free
and we want freedom and we deal with each other with
freedom.

Do you know why I want liberalism?

For the desperate farmer's voice to be heard after loosing all

his harvest because of the bad pesticides!

For the impoverished worker's voice to be heard after being

fired from the factory for no reason!

For the employee's voice to be heard after working for ten

hours for a monthly salary of 200 pounds!

For the young man's voice who can not secure a job and
does not know if he will ever get married or not!
83 Why I am Liberal

For the father's voice whose son died in the death ferries or
in the rubber dinghies for illegal immigration!

For the student's voice who sits with five others on one
school bench, only one bench!

For the voice of all those who aspire for an honorable and
dignified homeland.

For these governing authorities to rule with contracts not

with injustice and tyranny!

If they believe that they are free to do so, sorry, we have a

contract, and we will show them our freedom!

Our generation possesses energy more than any other

generation that had survived in the shadow of fake values
of security, in the shadow of fake values of religion and of
state. Our generation respects freedom, senses freedom and
knows that it exists but they have concealed it from us.

Liberalism is your freedom as an individual and is intrinsic

in you. Nobody is going to give it to you. Do not expect it
from anybody. Freedom is not imprisoned; it is hidden in
oblivion and in the ashes of the fire of the past.

It is liberalism that enabled me to write this article and that

persuaded you to have the desire to read it. And it is your
freedom that will enable you to like what you have read or
not.

Do you know why I changed the title of the article?

Because when I sat by myself to discern why I am a liberal,
I did not find a clear reason, I found out that I am a liberal
without any reasons.
84 Why I am Liberal

I found that I am all what I am because I am a liberal and

because I had the freedom to choose every conduct and
every step in my life.

That is why the question was altered to "Why am I a human

being"‫ ؟‬Liberalism is not to be proved. Liberalism is an
example to be followed.
85 Why I am Liberal

Chapter Three
Egyptian Liberalism
86 Why I am Liberal
87 Why I am Liberal

Because I Believe in Freedom

Ismail Al-Naggar

I was born in 1985. I graduated from

the Department of English Language,
the Faculty of Alsun, Ain Shams
University in 2007. I am currently
working as a translator in the United
Arab Emirates. I used to be a member
of one of the Egyptian political parties.
I created a blog where I used to
publish my liberal and political
writings but am currently publishing
my viewpoints on the Facebook.

I dream that Egypt becomes a

developed civil state whose citizens
enjoy freedom, welfare and peace.
88 Why I am Liberal

I am a liberal because I believe in the freedom and centrality

of the individual. All are born free and are masters of
themselves without guardianship or control or oppression or
compulsion enforced by any form of authority, be it paternal,
political, religious, intellectual, cultural, societal, or by virtue
of conservative social and religious traditions.

I am a liberal because I believe in the forceful spirit of the

individual, in taking the initiative, in the autonomy and dignity
of the individual, in freedom of expression, creativity,
convictions, legitimate profit, and unrestricted ownership and
in any other rights that establish the individual as the driving
force that moves society forward.

I am a liberal because I believe in mutual respect of

freedom; the freedom of others' ends at the threshold of my
freedom and reciprocally my freedom comes to a standstill
with the initiation of the freedom of others without any
form of abuse, restriction, oppression, repression, coercion
or obligation.

I am a liberal because I believe in individual, civic,

political, economic, and religious freedom as well as in
human rights. I perceive all these rights as crucial for each
individual and not as a grant that is bestowed by someone.

I am a liberal because I believe in freedom of expression,

creativity, change, innovation and rebellion on the statuesque. I
believe in freedom of the individuals, media, journalism, blogs
and all other forms of expressing viewpoints, consciousness,
convictions, ideology, culture, art and literature.

I am a liberal because I reject restrictions as well as all

forms of repression, oppression, compulsion and freedom
constraints under the pretext of maintaining security,
89 Why I am Liberal

stability and social peace or due to the claim of confronting

external threats. Moreover, I refuse fascist ideologies which
ostracize women or entire social classes or minorities on the
basis of religion, nationalism, ethnicity, language or culture.

I am a liberal because I believe in freedom of creativity,

innovation and expression and I object to the interference of
political and security authorities and religious bodies in
processes of creativity, art, literature or ideas. I refuse the
confiscation of creative art works with the pretense that
they tarnish the reputation of a country or touch upon
certain figures or religions or social values.

I am a liberal because I refuse the manner in which

journalists, bloggers, artists, and thinkers are suppressed
and dragged to courts and incarcerated and fined and their
awards taken back from them due to the interference of
religious as well as political authorities that speak for
security, Islam, Christianity and conservative currents.

I am a liberal because I refuse that Egypt would retrograde

after the progress it had achieved as a modern civil state for
the sake of obsolete notions and concepts that have long been
outdated. Such a recession would be deemed grave as the
Egyptian society had already made great headway, decades
ago, because of the efforts of enlightenment carried out by the
pioneers of enlightenment and innovation during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

I am a liberal because I believe in a modern civil state that is

established on the basis of citizenship, thereby rendering all
citizens equal in their rights and duties in front of the state, the
constitution and the law, regardless of religion, race, gender,
social classes, and geographical region. This should be
applicable to all issues, be they personal or public. Equal
opportunities should also prevail by virtue of applying
90 Why I am Liberal

objective criteria of justice and equality in handling all citizens

whereby everyone would enjoy equal civil and political rights.

I am a liberal because I refuse the various injustices that afflict

women in the Egyptian society such as marginalization,
objectification, discrimination in legislations, laws, social
practices which are exercised against them like harassment,
circumcision, early marriage and enforced marriage. Other
practices include deprivation of education and work and other
harmful practices under the pretext of religion, traditions,
customs, women protection from herself and from others.

I am a liberal because I agonize for the sufferings of

religious minorities such as the persecution of the Bahaiis
in Egypt and their deprivation of all their civic, political,
social and service rights to the extent of being hampered in
the issuance of their national identity cards, their birth and
death certificates, their military papers and their bank
credentials. Such encumbrances have paralyzed their lives
and have doubled their distresses.

I am a liberal because I refuse the prejudice that Christians

suffer from when assigned public posts as well as the
discrimination that befalls them in legislations and legal
proceedings in addition to the restrictions in the construction
of churches. I also refuse the fact that the Shiites, the Quran
followers, the atheists and the non-believers are being
persecuted by authorities of politics, security and legislation as
well as by religious currents and all the individuals of the
society.

I am a liberal because I believe in the total separation

between religious beliefs and the state with regards to
legislations and regulations. I refuse the interference of the
men of religion, legislation and economics except in their
91 Why I am Liberal

capacity as ordinary citizens who enjoy no special merits

and are not distinguished from other citizens.

I am a liberal who believes in the necessity of the existence of

a liberal system to run the state affairs, a system which
guarantees the non-monopolization of authority, which guards
democracy and political multiplicity under the umbrella of a
constitutional regime that allows peaceful exchange of power
among various civil parties competing in transparent and
honest parliament and presidential elections.

I am a liberal because I believe in the constitution which

restricts the authorities of the government, curbs its
interference in the lives of the individuals, balances between
authorities, protects the autonomy of law, defends individual,
civil, political and economic liberties, preserves human rights,
aspires to achieve basic legal equality among one and all
without discrimination on the basis of religion, gender or
social class.

I am a liberal because I believe in intellectual pluralism and in

the diversity of political, intellectual and civil currents. I also
believe in the rights of all political, intellectual and civil rights
(non-religious, non-sectarian, non-military, non-discriminatory,
non-violent) to set up parties, co-operatives, groups, civil
organizations without any political or bureaucratic restrictions.

I am a liberal because I refuse monopoly of authority on the

part of a particular party. I refuse forgery, bureaucracy,
nepotism as well as political and administrative corruption. I
believe in reformation, change and the establishment of the
principles of questioning, transparency, governance, and the
sound management of financial, economic and natural
resources.
92 Why I am Liberal

I am a liberal because I refuse the emergency law which stifles

liberties as well as political and partisan life in Egypt.
Moreover, I refuse the fact that human rights are violated in
police stations and prisons. I refuse manipulation of the
constitution and the law and customization of laws which
violate and restrict liberties so as to hinder the proper practice
of the law and to discriminate against protestors and
minorities.

I am a liberal because I believe in the right to participate in

demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins, civil seditions, assembly,
and protests without breaching security, the system or
public and private property. I believe in all other forms of
expression of opinion within the framework of
collaborating with concerned organizing bodies.

I am a liberal because I believe that equal opportunities

should be available for all individuals to enjoy social,
economic and political escalation, each according to one's
abilities, skills and experience regardless of any subjective
criteria. This could be realized when everybody is equal
before the law and no one enjoys any privileges according
to class, ethnicity, sect or kind.

I am a liberal because I believe that a civil society with its

organizations and movements should have a vital and effectual
role in society and should guide society towards change,
development of concepts, values and notions, awareness of
human rights, enhancement of human resources, spread of
education and culture, attentiveness to the value of reason,
creativity and innovation, individual initiative and assistance of
marginalized groups that are deprived of privileges.

I am a liberal because I believe in economic freedom in the

light of new economies. I also believe in the necessity to
conclude economic reformations in Egypt with transparency.
93 Why I am Liberal

It is also obligatory to pass new economic and administrative

legislations to transform Egypt into a state that attracts
national, Arab and foreign investments as well as provide a
healthy environment for investments. Furthermore, I also
believe that we should benefit from other success stories
which have managed to subvert administrative corruption and
have overcome bureaucracy and other policies and practices
that drive back investors from the Egyptian market.

I am a liberal because liberalism has surpassed all other

totalitarian ideologies which focused on group rights and on
sanctifying the role of the state and its intervention in the life
of the individual for the benefit of the community to realize
economic egalitarianism. Under the pretext of establishing
such a false and enforced equality, individual, political, civil
and economic rights of the individual were pulverized and
have hence proved incapable of reforming the lives of human
beings.

I am a liberal because the principles, notions and features of

liberalism are capable of leading the world due to its relative
flexibility as it is not a rigid prescription of specific doses and
strict ratios which can neither be increased nor decreased.
Liberalism can adapt to all societies by means of
concentrating on reform and development.

I am a liberal because liberalism is a collection of principles,

ideas and concepts that are characterized by tolerance and that
do not take a prejudiced stance from other ideologies, notions
or persons. This is contrary to other ideologies which assume
a hostile position to other systems. An example of such
ideologies would be capitalism whereby complete social
classes such as the rich, entrepreneurs, religious people, non-
religious people, in addition to religious ethnic and cultural
minorities were deemed ideological adversaries.
94 Why I am Liberal

I am a liberal because I believe in national values and in the

Egyptian national state that comprises all Egyptians who
belong to various geographical settings, religions, trends,
ideological convictions, dialects, social classes without any
subjective discrimination among all Egyptians. Hence, equal
opportunities of empowerment would prevail as well as social,
economic, and political escalation without any form of
discrimination, ostracism or marginalization.
95 Why I am Liberal

Liberalism: A Complete System of Human

Values for the Development of Society

Diana Ahmad Fouad Yussuf

Born in August 1985, a graduate of

the Faculty of Law, English Section,
Alexandria University. An attorney-
at-law, a member of the Liberal
Lawyers Union and Secretary of the
Woman’s Committee in the Union.
Participated in a training seminar
held by FNF in Germany, titled “The
Role of Government Organizations
and Political Parties in Politics and
the Civil Society.”

I hope that the liberal current in

Egypt reaches a high level of
development and progress, both
politically and on the level of human
beings, to be enabled of becoming the
only logical alternative to the current
regime in Egypt.
96 Why I am Liberal

I have frequently asked myself about this question, and

usually I would end up with posing the question: Why am I
liberal? The reason is that I have never thought before about
the meaning of being liberal, or to be a believer in liberal
thought. I grew up in a liberal family. All the values, concepts,
and ideas posed by liberals in Egypt, were doomed to turn into
controversies. These to me are undeniable facts. I was truly
motivated to search for the advantages of believing in
liberalism due to one of the questions posed by a friend
affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood. He asked simply, “you
say that liberalism calls for democracy and human rights; so
what? All other liberal currents promote democracy and
human rights; liberalism is not really special, except that it is a
western name fitted to describe a national problem.”

Out of the aforementioned comment, I started my search for

the objective of liberalism. Is it merely a solution to the
political and social crisis experienced by the Egyptian society
at the time being, i.e. only a reaction; or is the issue in essence
deeper than that?

Liberalism in essence is a lifestyle for the individual, a

continuity of the society, and cherishes the value of freedom
as a major cause for development. Liberalism is not just an
idea that developed to face a certain crisis then, be it political,
economic, or social, only to provide Utopian solutions to bring
the society out of its crisis. Indeed, it is a means for building
and establishing society on a foundation of respect for
freedom, and of belief in the value thereof, in order to take
individuals to a stage where they are able to deal with all sorts
of crises and to reach logical solutions springing from the
unique nature and needs of that specific society. Liberalism is
a means for creating a society capable of setting creative
solutions to the problems thereof enabling it to overcome
these problems, and not an ideology that seeks to have
97 Why I am Liberal

preconceived solutions for problems not yet created only to

make the solution part of the problem.

The issue of liberalism in the first place is not about forcing

citizens to go to the polling stations, nor to introduce them to
exhausted ideas about the importance of human rights or the
benefits of market freedom. The major issue of liberalism is
the creation of a free human being, really aware of his/her
political rights in the state, his/her importance as an individual
in the society, and of the ability of his/her vote to achieve
change. The citizen in that will not be coerced to vote, but will
rather vote out of his/her own volition, giving the vote to the
person deserving it, irrespective of difference in ethnicity,
religion, or color. Liberalism, in spreading the awareness of the
importance of freedom, opens the way before the emergence of
the principle of equal opportunity. All the citizens are equal
human beings before the law, with the same rights and duties,
and who have access to the path of democracy based on their
complete and full awareness thereof. The question is not about
introducing the citizen to democracy, but about creating a
democratic citizen essentially seeking democracy.

Liberalism as an idea with a political dimension seeks to

manage the society through the creation of a democratic
climate that aims at the circulation of power as a means for
running the country. In that it is different from other political
currents, with very simple, but very powerful and profound,
terms, “accepting the other.” The difference of the other has
an advantage that can be accepted and dealt with, and even
utilized. In fact, liberalism is not an ideology that has certain
specifications for accepting its believers, which leads it into
being molded into a hard cast. It rather elevates itself above
the level of ideologies, I can even say that it is good as a
means for managing ideologies given the superiority it
affiliates to the principle of freedom and the value it attaches
to the “other.” As such, it could be said that in dealing with
98 Why I am Liberal

liberalism from that perspective, it would be freed from the

captivity if comparison with other currents present in the
Egyptian society. It is a value before being a political slogan.
However, it is reduction to an ideology competing with other
ideologies in the Egyptian society, or to a political slogan of a
party or an organization, precluded it from having its natural
right in prominence. In fact, to a great extent it has become an
overused term, and may be even a sarcastic term by the
Egyptian populace.

As for the relationship between liberalism and human rights,

liberalism advocates human rights based on the concept of the
freedom of the individual and the equality of all citizens
before the law, without any difference because of religion,
color, or race. All the citizens are human beings with rights
and duties, and all are members of a society that was created
to provide them with contentment and order in return for their
social responsibility vis-à-vis one another and the society.
Liberalism in its call for human rights does not limit such
rights to a group and not the other, on the basis that one is
more qualified to enjoy such rights and not the other.
Liberalism does not give the honorable citizen the right to the
safety of his/her body from aggression and torture, while
depriving the thief from that right, only because s/he was
driven by certain circumstances to become delinquent, and is
punished accordingly. Moreover, liberalism, and on the basis
of freedom and equality does not deprive any citizen from
joining any job because of religion, ethnicity, or color. It
guarantees the right of the weakest or the poorest to having
access to the full rights thereof, simply because poverty or
vulnerability is not a logical justification for isolating any
citizen in the community.

Furthermore, liberalism in its call for human rights does not

basically call for bridging a gap that has been created
inadvertently in the values and concepts of society, thus
99 Why I am Liberal

leading to an unprecedented state of a lack of moral and

human rights-oriented values. Contrarily, it aims, through its
reformist message, to create a social awareness of the true
nature of human rights through the bringing up of an
individual believing in human rights as indisputable, and
capable of defending these rights, given that the stripping
thereof severely violates his/ her very human nature.

Liberalism does not acknowledge the rights of the majority at

the expense of depriving the minorities such rights, be they
religious or ethnic minorities. It acknowledges the rights of all
within a framework of equality before law and God. In that
liberalism preserves the community from disintegration,
armed conflicts, and civil rights, which all end up in the
violation of the rights of a group at the expense of others. It
also differs from other political currents, and other reform
movements in the Egyptian society, because it rejects any
exclusion: the Muslim is not different than the Christian, Jew,
or Bahaai. All are entitled to the same rights within the
community of the rule of law. Moreover, there is no advantage
to the inhabitants of Upper or Lower Egypt over the
inhabitants of Nubia with their dark skin, or the inhabitants of
Sinai with their Arab origin; they are all Egyptian citizens and
human beings with equal rights and duties.

Given the aforementioned picture, it becomes clear that

liberalism, with the superiority it accords to the value of
individual and the value of his/her freedom and humanity,
contributes in a positive manner to the reform of the
communities that suffer the aggravation of social problems,
including Egypt, which is currently witnessing an
unprecedented state of deterioration in the area of human rights.
Liberalism, as such, does not offer a limited solution, but rather
a complete system of human values that helps develop the
society, and salvage it from the swamp of racism and ferocity.
Liberalism in educating the citizen with his/her human rights
100 Why I am Liberal

allows for building a community on solid basis that can stand

even the toughest circumstances. In preparing this distinguished
human being, liberalism paves the way towards preparing a
human being with the capacity of working in politics to manage
his/her society, and capable of working in economics to
manage his/her life.

As for the economic dimension of liberalism, it is the one part

that raises many attacks and that brought about much
criticism, because it demands the freedom of the market,
which is thought by some to mean “let the rich become richer,
and leave the poor to face their destiny8.”

But is liberalism really a ferocious economic system that aims

at expanding the wealth of the rich and seizing the livelihoods
of the poor? Is the main cause of the harsh economic problems
that we are facing in the Egyptian society rooted in the
policies of liberating the market?

It is noteworthy that this pegging of all the continued

economic crises faced in the Egyptian society on liberal
thought is a misconception of the economic liberalism that
arose from the mistaken application of liberal policies in
economics.

Liberalism in principle seeks to have an open market where

competition takes place based on the principle of equal
opportunity, which calls for just competition, and the
relegation of monopolistic policies that lead to diverting the
path of wealth, and the destruction of the hopes and ambitions
of many projects. It is observed that that the economic liberal
problem is manifest due to the mechanisms of application,

8 Dr. Rifaat Lakkousha, Liberalism and the Egyptian Society: The Crisis
and the Guide, p.10,11.
101 Why I am Liberal

which have a negative effect on the people’s impressions

about economic liberalism.

Liberalism totally respects the right of individuals to property,

and in that it does not distinguish between rich and poor. On
the contrary, the preservation of the property of the poor is one
of the main tenets of economic liberalism, and in that it
contributes to increasing the incomes of the poor through
increasing the rhythm of growth at high rates9.

Liberalism in its call for the market freedom admits the right
of all individuals to integration into the new economic system.
In that it rejects exclusion, and preserves its continued
principle of accepting the other different person. This different
other is entitled to enter the market, legitimate competition,
and increasing the wealth thereof, as long as s/he deserves
such.

The most important thing at the moment is not introducing the

society to economic liberal policies, but the method of
applying such policies. The freedom of the market, the right of
individuals to equal opportunity, and legitimate competition
do not happen under a system of corruption that is very strong
and powerful extending to the ruling regime itself. Moreover,
corruption cannot be overcome except through independent
judiciary that is very strong and neutral. It is noteworthy that
all such conditions are not part of the current Egyptian society.
Thus, ultimately the crisis of liberalism in the economy arises
by and large from the mechanisms of application, and not
from the nature of the liberal system

Given the aforementioned I tried to explain the main cause

that made me adopt liberal thought, and believe in it as an
appropriate solution to all the complex problems facing the

9 Ibid.
102 Why I am Liberal

Egyptian society, be it on the political, economic, or social

levels. On the political level liberalism believes in the
inevitability of creating a democratic system based on the
circulation of power through a multiple party system. On the
social level liberalism believes in the importance of creating a
society that holds dearly human rights. On the economic level,
liberalism calls for reforming the economy through the
freedom of the market in a framework of transparency and
under the umbrella of the law. I hope I was successful in
giving a sound and objective interpretation of such concepts. I
also hope that this article managed to transfer the true concept
of liberal thought to the Egyptian citizen, and that this article
becomes a step, though simple, towards doing justice to the
liberalism unfairly misjudged and underappreciated in and by
the Egyptian society.
103 Why I am Liberal

Liberal Solutions for the Crises

of the Egyptian Society

Shady Mohamed Hussein Al-Rakhawy

I was born in 1987. I graduated from

the Faculty of Engineering, al-
Mansoura University. I am a member in
the Democratic Front Party. I enrolled
in the training course which was
organized by the Youth Organization of
the Democratic Front Party sponsored
by Friedrich Naumann Foundation in
al-Mansoura in December 2007. I also
joined a cultural seminar on "Political
Liberalism and the Concept of the Civil
State" under the sponsorship of
Friedrich Naumann Foundation in al-
Mansoura in June 2008.

I wish I would have an effective

presence towards the Egyptian
political forces, which will positively
influence the process of the democratic
transition and which will ultimately
serve the best interests of the public.
104 Why I am Liberal

My early preparatory education was in a private school funded

and managed by a group of the Leaders of the Muslim
Brotherhood. For their educational policy, the administrators
of this school adopted two concepts:

First: The rote learning of the Holy Quran without any

interpretation.

Second: The reliance on conspiracy theory while analyzing

the political and social phenomena, to prove that they are
the only defenders of religion and the guards of the gate of
salvation. Their ancestors –who were professional at
politicizing religion- aimed at misrepresenting the idea of
the civil state claiming that liberalism as a concept rejects
any religious authority. They also spread the idea asserting
that those who call for the separation between the religious
authority and the civil one are actually rejecting religion
and are against Islam which is regarded as both a state and
a religion. Consequently, and in addition to the decline of
the liberal currents on the cultural and political levels, the
word liberal is often regarded by many as unusual. This is
because they believed that rejecting such a divine system
and replacing it with another man-made system is bizarre.
They thought that this man-made system will not be able to
elevate its laws to the level of the religious entity, whether
that substitution is under the name of liberalism or any
other name.

In fact, the definition of liberalism as "the necessity of

identifying the pattern of the relationship between the
individual, the society and the state, which helps secure the
inner balance of an individual as a human being, and the outer
balance as an effective member of society” necessitates the
separation between the religious and civil authorities. This
springs from the desire to protect religion from the influence
of the state, given that religion is considered as the main moral
105 Why I am Liberal

reformer which guarantees the mental and spiritual stability of

an individual. This definition also longs for protecting the
public from the officials who hide their crises and unsound
choices under the garbs of religion.

History links the idea of politicizing religion to major

humanitarian tragedies. For example, Papal Europe
witnessed inspection courts and Catholic-Protestant wars.
The Islamic East had also seen wars between the keepers of
the Holy Quran and those who followed profit hood. One
may see men who superficially adhere to the laws of
Shari’a without knowing its real essence; they allege a false
religious authority in order to gain other powers. Another
group also appeared calling for the illegitimacy of rebelling
against the ruler, and that liberalism is infidelity.

There are also those who seek to stigmatize others with being
infidel to prove their divine right of determining the fate of the
nation. They believe that the Islamic Sharia is the principal
constitution of humanity, in other words, those who don't
believe in Islam are considered out-laws. This concept formed
the intellectual basis of irresponsible processes of sectarian
agitation. Hence, since that for every action there must be a
reaction, such processes had an effect on the Coptic, the thing
that consequently led to the chronicle Muslim-Coptic crisis.
They also resulted in converting the idea of citizenship from
being one of the main features of the Egyptian personality to
being a controversial issue. A third group started trading with
simple people's faiths under the slogan of 'Islam is the
Solution'. Since that Islam may be explained in various ways
according to the interpreter, thus those people use Islam as per
their needs.

I, as an Egyptian think that the separation between liberalism

and other authorities guarantees the integrity of political life
which depends on transparency and the refusal of misleading.
106 Why I am Liberal

For me, liberalism is not an ideology, in other words it is not

established on firm bases. In fact liberalism regulates the
relationships between the individual, the society and the state
within the frame of the natural laws of things. The role of
liberals emerges in the process of revealing these laws and
reforming the updates made by the society within its frame.
Therefore, a liberal society believes in the natural
development of the systems, individuals and institutions, and
it rejects revolutionary violence which usually exceeds the
actual reality and tries to impose ready-made ideologies. As a
result, the society moves back to pre-start stage, and the
revolutionary violence may lead to the dissolution of the
internal front because it does not always divide authority
according to law. So, revolutionary systems usually glorify the
individual leader regarding him as the man of fates, resulting
in destroying the democratic life and threatening the freedom
of individuals.

Why do I believe that liberalism is a beneficial idea for my

future and for the futures of Egyptian youths? I met two
Coptic friends, and while talking with one of them, I
noticed that he had some issues towards the word 'Allahu
Akbar' (Allah is the greatest), he even refused the fact that
it is written on the Egyptian flag in some films. His
explanation was 'Egypt is not only for Muslims'. On the
other hand, I overheard my other friend singing 'Allahu
Akbar' without any conservation. That difference between
their interpretation of the ideas of freedom and belonging
grabbed my attention.

The first one is naturally an introvert and believes that his

affiliation should be only to the church. The other is open-
minded and tolerant, wishing for Egypt to be a civil state. By
analyzing the crisis, I found that it was the ultimate outcome
of political, social, economical, and cultural conditions which
had all accumulated because official leaderships abandoned
107 Why I am Liberal

the idea of civil state, and due to the absence of liberal values,
top among which is: freedom, tolerance, equality and the rule
of law.

Liberal freedom guarantees the inner balance of the individual

as a human being, admitting that every individual has his own
vital area in which he can practice his choices and rights,
making him responsible for his role in society and considering
public affairs as his own private affairs. Therefore, he would
be willing to exert a part of his effort to serve public affairs.
So, the individual call is not a selfish one which imposes
isolationism on the people leading to their separation away
from the society and the state. On the contrary, it rejects social
marginalization and it encourages the individual to be more
flexible, and to work on developing his skills and learning
how to express them. This will create pluralism in the
different fields of life. One may notice that the public opinion
favors electing the best for the benefit of the public. On the
other hand, on the political level, individualism is considered
as a means of creating political pluralism. This is one of the
pillars of the democratic life, and it paves the way for the
circulation of power. The comprehensive concept of the State
–comprising institutions and individuals – regards the
individual freedom as the basis of the sovereignty of the state
as the individual is the one who protects the earth and the
institutions. There were many people who built palaces, but
couldn't defend them, and they were well-recognized by
history.

The role of the state (the state of institutions) and the civil
society organizations revolves mainly around developing the
skills of an individual through the educational and media
systems, enabling him/her to practice rights and duties without
anarchy and passiveness.
108 Why I am Liberal

This takes us to the issue of the rule of law. Law is the

framework within which the relationships between individuals
are regulated in the way that one's freedom does not
overwhelm others' freedom. Since the nation is the source of
powers, therefore law gains its power from the fact that it
expresses the will of the nation, We are all aware of the means
used by the Egyptian constitution to assure that the Islamic
Sharia is the source of legislation which is the total opposite of
reality, For example, law does not apply the provisions of
flagellation and hand amputation. We also recognize that the
executive power represented by the senior statesmen longs for
having control on judiciary through the ministries and the
councils that oppose the real essence of liberal thinking which
is based on the separation of powers. We can also remember
the way the last constitutional amendments had passed with
the negligence of the citizens and of the political forces. All
what was said previously and more made the idea of the rule
of law merely ink on paper.

I reiterate the necessity of the independence of the judiciary

away from the executive power as that will provide
guaranteed monitoring in order to protect the state and its
control. It also guards individual rights from the outstripping
of the executive officials, it keenly defines the responsibilities
of individuals, and it achieves equality not on the terms of
social and financial levels (this is practically impossible due to
the difference between the relative advantages of individuals).
The principle of equity is represented in the chances and the
rights of self-determination since that this system does not
include advantages that make some individuals and categories
more prominent than the other. On the contrary, opportunities
must be granted to everyone, and the standard of distinction
should be measured according to the individual exquisiteness.
This is all offered by the independent judiciary and the
controlling law.
109 Why I am Liberal

• The Egyptian identity and the concept of civil state:

I previously dealt with the role of the political Islamization

in deforming the idea of affiliation. Actually, the entity of
the state was driven by government leaderships away from
its citizens; hence, those citizens started searching for an
alternative entity where neither the security of the state nor
the emergency laws exist.

Because the state with its police-like intervention precluded

the practice of politics in its legitimate places (parties,
unions, and legislative bodies…) politics moved to
illegitimate places (mosques and churches). So, we were
surprised with a Muslim citizen claiming that Islam does
not include patriotism, and another Coptic one who feels
that he only and mainly belongs to the church.

• The Circulation of Power:

Experience proved that circulation of power is deemed one of

the fundamental guarantees for the smooth progress of the
democratic process because it motivates political leaders,
regardless of their political identities, to enhance their skills. It
also allows them to form parliamentary blocs which, via their
public work, would endeavor to secure a majority of votes to
enable them to assume the seat of power. In addition, any kind
of change within the milieu of the ruling elite would generate
the energy of creativity which would in turn work towards the
enhancement of the political process. On the other hand, a laid
back lax authority surrounds itself with a number of corrupt
officials whose sole concern is to keep their authorial
positions. In addition, they also need to fill the gap that is
created by the non-legitimateness; hence, they resort to police
coercion which is thereby an aggression on individual
freedom. It also intensifies institutional corruption which in
110 Why I am Liberal

turn aggravates poverty and social marginalization as the

ruling elite favors their supporters at the account of the others.

Finally, institutional corruption engulfs the sovereignty of the

state which results in diminishing the role of the civil society
whose liability is to preserve state sovereignty. Consequently,
the role of individual is equally diminished, hence prevails a
culture of passiveness and vulgarity.

An active role of Human Rights Organizations, Civil Society

Organizations, Opposition Parties and the Independent Press:

Egyptian law warrants a monitoring system on ministries,

governmental institutions, and top officials, via the mandates
granted to the Members of Parliament (Early Day Motions
and Cross-Examinations), and through specialized bodies,
such as the Central Authority for Auditing, and the
Administrative Control Organization. However, this does not
rule out the role played by the Civil Society, the independent
press, and the political parties (that do not stand in opposition
only for the sake of opposition, but out of its rejection of
corruption and passivity) in guarding the sovereignty of the
state. The flabby authority could indeed impose its hegemony
over these bodies, under the protection of the top officials.
This makes the control only formal and purposeless.
Moreover, the government seeks to make the people’s control
marginal. This is done by forming a supportive parliamentary
majority. The responsible leaderships might take arbitrary
measures against the mischievous members who are able to
make it to the Parliament. At this stage the aforementioned
bodies, as well as the independent judiciary, formulate an
independent free framework that protects the sovereignty of
the state, on the one hand, and on the other invests the
individual powers positively.
111 Why I am Liberal

• Market Economies:

Private ownership is deemed the biggest incentive to motivate

the mechanism of the market within a competitive framework
which eventually leads to increase in production. The right of
ownership is considered an intrinsic guarantee for freedom
because it assures the distribution of wealth on the basis of self
capabilities. It also opens the door to competition amongst
individuals which is considered a fundamental motivator for
creativity. On the contrary, concentration of wealth in the
hands of the public sector, which is responsible for the
running of the government, is a gateway to repression of
liberties and a decrease in the level of incomes because it
slows down the wheel of production and does not warrant
equitable distribution. Such a situation would practically lead
to what is termed as "state capitalism" or in other words,
wealth is concentrated in the hands of high handed authority.

At this stage, legislations do not present a sufficient guarantee

for social justice because authority, wealth and legislations are
all issues that are in the grip of a despotic government whilst,
legislations, within the framework of a free market, are
considered a pivotal mechanism in justice as wealth is in the
hands of those who believe in the authority of the state.

Dr. Refaat Lakousha highlights the following points with

regards to the role of the state:

• Providing subsidization to the poor to alleviate their

burdens and to apply the principle of social equality.
When the state offers discounted land lots to encourage
investment or when it removes taxes on imported goods
to support factory owners, it is equally responsible to
support the poor in the same manner that it has
supported the others.
112 Why I am Liberal

• Fighting monopolization and concentration of wealth

which eventually lead to bankruptcy of small investors,
shrinkage of the market and raising of prices beyond the
limitations of honest competitions.
• Organizing co-existence between various patterns of
production which would support the notion of
competitiveness. For example, imposing laws for
supermarkets to close at a certain time with the exemption
small shop owners to encourage them to compete and
develop.

With the above mentioned criteria the society can be able to

self-amend its crises. If this is to be applied to the crisis of
citizenship, the essentials of a civil state are capable of
subverting the fundamentals which initiated the crisis such as
politicicizing religion and social marginalization. Market
economies can offer a solution to poverty and unemployment
and such other issues that have degraded the Egyptians to
inhumane standards of impoverishment and emptiness. This
has consequently created a negative atmosphere in the
Egyptian society, an atmosphere that could very easily self
ignite. Finally, we are liberals because Egypt deserves to be
on equal footing with the developed nations.
113 Why I am Liberal

He Who Differs from Me Is not against Me

Mariam Murad ‘Ali

I was born in 1987, I am in my final

year in Faculty of Pharmacology,
Cairo University.

I have been a member of the

Democratic Front Party since July
2007. I am also a member of the
Central Bureau of the Youth
Organization and of the Supreme
Council of the party. I have attended a
number of cultural days sponsored by
the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

I wish that liberalism may change

from words discussed on paper to
acts that are accomplished and
spread in the Egyptian street, a
street that I feel is now ready to
accept a strong liberal current.
Therefore we liberals have to be
effectively present in the field and
bring our ideas to the man of the
street who has been exploited by the
religious current. We can now build,
with our liberal movement, another
Egypt, the Egypt we all wish for.
114 Why I am Liberal

I am a liberal because I am a free person and long to live in

a free nation. But wait a minute. We should have no
problem with the word freedom. We should not have to
confront taboos every time the word liberty is mentioned. I
am a liberal. This means I am in search of freedom in its
positive sense.

For me, to be free is to express, to object, to choose who

rules me, to say no. To be free is for my voice to be
represented without falsification. My freedom is in my
identity as a girl who is legally competent, not half a
human. This is the liberty God gave me and that society
wants to take away from me. My liberty is in generally
being free to choose.

I am a liberal because I believe in freedom of faith and I am

convinced that it is not within my rights to interfere in
others’ faith or force them to adopt mine. This is a right
God has granted every human being, even before we started
to claim it. I am a liberal because I believe in a civic state
founded on equality regardless of gender, color or religion.

I believe that the law should be applied to everyone

indiscriminately. I am a liberal because I do not care to ask
everyone I deal with about their religion and on that basis
decide how I will treat them. I am a liberal because I believe
that religion is for God and it is not for me to place myself in
His place and judge people according to their beliefs.

I am a liberal because I do not hate someone because he is

in some way different from me. I believe that, in life,
difference is the norm. People cannot be carbon copies of
each other. I am a liberal because I dream of a better future
for my country and it is my conviction that liberalism is a
very suitable means of achieving it. Nevertheless I am not
against other ideas, even if they are in opposition to
115 Why I am Liberal

liberalism because to be liberal is to accept others, even if

they do not always accept this.

I am a liberal because I like to think without restrictions and

because I believe that no nation ever progressed by
memorizing by heart or copying without thinking. On the
contrary, cramming and copying put us on the path to
regression and ignorance. This is why freedom of thought
always leads to creativity and through history, all geniuses had
a different way of thinking. They were free thinkers and
created through rebelling against prevalent thought.

I am a liberal because liberalism does not compel me to

think in a certain manner or seek to forcefully convince me
of a certain idea with the threat that if I do not embrace it I
will no longer be a liberal. On the contrary, liberalism helps
me construct the idea and believe in it, not the other way
round. I think before I am convinced and the path to
conviction is through my brain and my brain alone.

I am a liberal because liberalism has taught me that he who

differs from me is not against me and that the other,
however he is, should not be an outcast. I am a liberal
because liberalism prevents others from being judgmental
about my ideas and does not allow me to be judgmental
either, however shocking other peoples ideas are to me.
Because liberalism taught me that thinking rectifies
thoughts and if my ideas are not correct today, rational
thinking will contribute to correcting them tomorrow.
Threats and intimidation will not change ideas.

I am a liberal because ideas are free. They have wings and

no one can prevent them from reaching people. I am a
liberal because liberalism has taught me to accept opposing
views that differ from my own. I am a liberal because
liberalism is a way of life and by adopting it I am a better
116 Why I am Liberal

person. This is why I hope to see Egypt become a liberal

nation, to witness a society that is able to accept all its
children in all their hues.
117 Why I am Liberal

Chapter Four
Private Experiences
118 Why I am Liberal
119 Why I am Liberal

A Moment of Freedom

Hany Al-Khayyat

I was born in 1978, and I graduated

as a civil engineer. I participated in
many courses and conferences held
by various organizations of civil
society working in the field of
democracy and human rights. I am a
former assistant secretary of the
political education secretariat of the
Ghad Party, and then I worked as a
general secretary for youth in the
Democratic Front Party. My primary
focus is no longer on politics, as I am
now more oriented towards civil
society activities. I am currently
director of the Egyptian Vision
Center. I hope that Egypt becomes a
liberal state.
120 Why I am Liberal

Why am I a liberal? Dear reader, I think that you are

expecting me to narrate the reasons which made me a
liberal, and to talk about the advantages of liberalism and so
forth. Instead, let me first take you on an interesting and
exciting journey, let me tell you the story of a distinguished
young Egyptian man, then we will continue our discussion
about liberalism.

He was like any other ordinary Egyptian boy who had just
finished a school day. Although this day was boring, he
managed to have some innocent fun with his school mates.
Going back home and as he was going up the stairs he was
expecting the same scenario and reactions of everyday. He
will find his mother receiving him with a big warm hug,
and he, as always, will squirm out of her arms and run to
the kitchen to have a taste of the food that his mother has
made. She will chide him. Then he will wait for his father
to return from work. These were all traditions and customs
that he had been grown accustomed to. But this particular
day was different from all other days; as he was getting
closer to his home he felt a strange sudden grip that
squeezed his heart telling him that something bad had
happened. That feeling was ascertained when he went up
the stairs to find his neighbors receiving him with a sad
compassionate look, and his mother waiting for him with a
pale face and eyes filled with tears. Then someone told him
that his father had passed away. He received the news in
silent shock and showed no reaction. He felt as if his soul
had been ripped from his body turning him into a person
devoid of passions and feelings.

After a few days of mourning, he felt deep inside that nothing

was the same anymore. After tasting the bitterness of grief at
such an early age, he was no longer like any other child. He
had become alone in life, and he now had to find his way by
himself. He began to develop a different perspective of life
121 Why I am Liberal

with the hope that this would distinguish him from others.
Because when someone decides to be different, this 'someone'
has to choose either to be distinguished or to be a nobody.
When he was asked the common question "What do you want
to be when you grow up?" he spontaneously answered "a
businessman or a scientist". This would shock the asker who
was expecting to hear the traditional answer which was a
doctor or an engineer. His innocent self told him that being a
scientist or a businessman is not enough, hence, he found what
he desired and aimed for in the tales of the prophets and the
memoirs of great politicians who changed the course of
human life for the better. He knew deep inside that he was a
distinguished person who wasn't born to be a member of a
herd.

He did not accept the ready-made cliches of life and of the

meaning of things. He wanted to find his own definitions of
everything around him, and he managed to reach that through
exploring his father's library where he found hundreds of
books. He excitingly read most of the books there, and every
time he finished a book, he discussed and argued its issues
with those older than him. He didn't approve of any
information without searching for its origin, thereby improving
his ability to understand life through critical thinking, and
raising within him the sense of self-criticism.

Years passed and the young child turned into a young man.
Because of his frequent and continuous reading habit, he
managed to have access to a wider and more different world.
He knew that the world was much wider than the limited
world of friends and family. He wanted to explore this
interesting world, so he decided to bring it to him by getting to
know more of the foreigners who lived in his neighborhood.
They were many and of different nationalities. The closer he
came in contact to their lives, the more he found that this
world was full of a variety of cultures and beliefs. From them
122 Why I am Liberal

he learned that no matter how much he disagrees with

someone, he has to take this 'someone' the way he is, and not
to oblige the other to follow his own beliefs. Because
eventually we are all human beings, we all have the right to
disagree, and we cannot all be the same carbon copy, or else
the world will be a very boring place.

A sense of responsibility was born within him, both

towards himself and his society. Although he was proud of
being a free individual, he knew that he did not live in an
isolated island, and he was very well acquainted with his
role towards his family and his homeland. He engaged
himself extensively in public work, not aiming for fame or
money, but aiming for contributing to reform as much as he
could. Joining the Liberal Party was not surprising, since
the principles of liberalism were the closest to his own life
and principles. In the party, he learned that fighting for
freedom did not mean fighting for his own freedom only,
but for the freedom of his country and its people. He came
to hold within the folds of his heart his own dream; the
dream of living in a democratic country where the people
can choose their officials freely, and that those officials are
monitored and held accountable if they commit any errors.
He dreamt of country that does not differentiate between its
sons and daughters – where all Egyptians are equal before
the law and the constitution and the government. Christians,
Muslims, Nubians, Upper Egyptians or Sinai Bedouins are
all the same. There is no difference between them.

He dreamt of a country in which each and every individual

can honestly and clearly express his opinion through free
media. He dreamt of citizens constructing their own future
and their country's future. This would be done through
science, planning and hard work, and not through apathy
and superstition. He dreamt many dreams and worked hard
to make them come true. Dreams are made to be achieved
123 Why I am Liberal

and experienced in reality, not to live and die in our

imagination.

Did you like the story? I know that the end was unexpected,
even the hero of this story still does not know its end; only
God knows it. The hero is now sitting in his office to write
this article in order to express his opinion and to reveal a
part of his life.

Let us resume our talk about liberalism and continue writing

the article. As you have seen, liberalism is not just a concept
that we call for in seminars and forums - or in articles.
Liberalism as I see it is in the morals and personal traits that
we exhibit in our daily life. It is our own perspective of life.
However, do not be astounded to see someone calling for
liberalism while he himself is far from being one. You may
also see someone hailing for respecting women and at the
same time this 'someone' exploits women (sexually,
financially, or emotionally). There is also he who calls for
democracy while he is an extreme dictator in all aspects of
life; in his work and with his family. You may also notice that
when someone finds that you are disagreeing with him, he
will exert a lot of effort to restrain you because he believes
that he and only he has the monopoly over 'absolute truth' and
any other opinion must be silenced. This is all because of the
fact that his ideas about liberalism are imprisoned in his mind
and have not had the chance to penetrate to his heart and soul
in order to form a harmonic mix.

We now get to the part where we ask ourselves, when will

liberalism start constructing the future of Egypt and other
countries of the region so that our world is more developed,
peaceful, refined and more consistent with the civilized
world?
124 Why I am Liberal
125 Why I am Liberal

I Adopted Liberalism Long

before Knowing the Term

Doaa Atif Al-Attar

I was born in May 1989, in Kafr El-

Zayat in El-Gharbiyya Governorate.
I am currently studying media in the
Faculty of Arts. I created the blog
"kalimaty" (my word) and the blog
"awqatna el-helwa" (Our nice times)
and have also participated in the
campaign of "Arousa min gheir
shabka" (a bride without a wedding
gold gift) on the Facebook which
calls for the repeal of exaggerated
marriage costs.

Because I have adopted a liberal

direction, I do not feel the need to
belong to a specific party or to
specific ideas.
126 Why I am Liberal

I did not know the meaning of liberalism, or what does it

mean to be liberal except after I had joined college.
Astonishingly enough, I came to realize that I had been a
liberal without being aware of it. In other words, my thoughts
and principles were liberal and I did not know that this is the
so-called liberalism. When I became familiar with the concept
of liberalism and its ideas and principles, I discovered that
they matched my ideas and principles, and since then and I
have been telling every body that I am a liberal.

The question now is: What are the ideas which I had
adopted and which made me become a liberal? To answer
this question, we should initially ask ourselves: Why did
God give me the faculty of reason?

God gave me the faculty of reason to distinguish between

what is harmful and what is beneficial and what is good and
what is evil and then you have to choose. You alone have
the ability to discern and nobody else. You have the
responsibility to choose not somebody else. God did not
confine reason to a particular person but it was a gift to one
and all. Therefore each of us will be held accountable for
one's behavior and it is not deemed right that someone
would think for me or to decide what I should be.

I am responsible for my mind therefore, I am accountable

for my behavior, hence I should endure the consequences.
Out of such a conviction, I did not want any one to make
my decisions for me and that is why in Thanawiyya 'amma
(high school) I decided which college I wanted to join.

I fervently wished to enroll in the Faculty of Arts, the

department of Media and Mass Communication and I did.
However, I had to endure a lot of pressures to join colleges
127 Why I am Liberal

which stipulated higher grades and were thus deemed better

such as the faculties of Education and Science and others. I
always contemplated the following queries:

Who is going to join the faculty, me or them?

Who is going to fail, me or them?

As long as I will not be harming anyone by the realization

of my wish, it is thereby nobody's right to dictate his desire
upon me. This was my principle. Since you possess a mind
of your own, then you have to think, choose, decide. Do not
let anyone make your decisions. The same applies to
religion. I have always believed that there is no compulsion
in religion: these are our teachings.

In secondary school I had a friend named Mary. Mary was a

true friend. Mary was gifted with some noble qualities which I
had not encountered in some Muslims. We never ever
discussed religion as I was convinced that this was personal
freedom. I wouldn't like to impose my religion on her nor
would I like her to do so to me. I incessantly enjoyed our
conversations and I never felt that I should draw away from
her or shun her on grounds of her Christian faith. This had
been my perspective long before realizing that these were the
selfsame principles of liberalism. When I joined college, and
got to know the connotation of liberalism, I discovered that it
signifies freedom of the individual and liberalization of the
three hegemonic shackles (politics, economy and culture). In
addition, liberalism acclimatizes to the values of each society
as it differs from a conservative Eastern society to an open-
minded Western one. Hence, liberalism is not a blind
emulation of the West but it is freedom that is compatible with
the principles and values of the society. What I also got to
know was that the principle tenet of liberal philosophy focuses
128 Why I am Liberal

on the individual and that liberalism revolves around the

philosophy of life as a whole.

This is liberalism; if this is applied to Egypt, various problems

will emerge. Our problem in Egypt is that success is
personified. We are always in need of a leader to follow and
not a leader whom we choose, whom we share decisions with.
If the leader disappears, the whole society collapses. If the
President is not present, the institution is destroyed and if the
head of state dies, defeat will befall us and the enemies will
triumph. We all think with the mind of one person or to be
more precise, we cease to think and we let him think for us.

The problem in Egypt is that liberalism, democracy and

freedom are mere formalities and are devoid of any
substance. Each leader wants to be in complete control,
leaving no room for discussion or argument; no space to
choose what is more befitting. The real calamity lies in the
fact that the people are indifferent. The people are pleased
not to take over the responsibility and they search for a
leader to bear their burdens and then to point the finger of
blame at instead of blaming themselves. This, of course, is
the secret of our underdevelopment as opposed to the
developed countries.

A good example of this is Obama who couldn't have come into

power in a country that does not recognize democracy. If you
scrutinize the principles of liberalism you will realize that it
withholds the solution to many of our problems. You will
decide who will rule you and you will be contributing to the
process of decision making. At the end of the day, you will
find that you are actually ruling yourself. As a result, a
generation that is capable of thinking, choosing, assuming
responsibility will be born. Away from hegemony, dictatorship
and discrimination, individuals will project their own ideas and
129 Why I am Liberal

simultaneously there will respect each other. In my opinion,

liberalism in short is:

- Think and do not let someone else think for you.

- Make your decisions and do not let someone else
decide for you.
- Endure the outcomes of your mistakes and do not
blame others.
- Since you will think and decide and endure the
outcomes of your mistakes, do not coerce any one
and do not think or decide for any one as at the end
of the day every one is accountable for one's self and
actions.
130 Why I am Liberal
131 Why I am Liberal

I Was a Radical Islamist but Am Now a Liberal

Walid Zamil Za’ir Lilu

I was born in 1987, I hold a degree in law

from the University of Baghdad (2001-2). I
am the head of the Unit for Legal Affairs
and Political Entities in the Independent
High Delegation for Elections.
I participated in the session held by the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for some of
the members of National Transitional
Association from the 7th to the 11th of
October, 2005 on the topic of Iraqi
constitutional settlement in the Jordanian
capital. I also participated in the session held
by the Foundation for a number of members
of the Iraqi Parliament on options for
diversity and types of federal systems from
the 20th to the 24th of July, 2006 in the
Jordanian capital. I participated in the
training course held by the National
Democratic Institute for International Affairs
in co-operation with the International
Foundation for Electoral Systems about
political entities, dealing with them,
registration procedure and ratification in the
period between 12 and 17 January in Irbil,
Kurdistan, Iraq.
I aspire to establish a political party with a
wide popular base that seeks to spread liberal
concepts and establish a state of law in Iraq,
my country, a country that has a diversity of
ethnicities, factions and religions. I also wish
to hold workshops for Iraqi youth for the
propagation and reinforcement of liberal
thought.
132 Why I am Liberal

In recent times, calls have increased for the restriction of the

interference of religion in the running of the state and for
reducing the influence of men of religion in the decision-
making process and in legislation of laws that govern the lives
of humans. These calls came in response to the dire results of
involving men of religion in the administration of the state and
elevating them to positions of power that facilitated the
control of religious traditions over politics. Consequently,
limitations to the freedom of individuals to practice their
everyday rights increased. I refer here to religious extremism
and not to tolerant religious practice that is void of constraints
of bigotry. I refer to a religion that is closer to the pre-Islamic
traditions of Jahiliyya that limited individual rights to the
extent of denying women the right to live as can be seen in the
pre-Islamic practice of burying girls alive. On the other hand,
the Islam that is tolerant and open-minded and void of bigotry
has the same aims that liberals of the world call for because
unlimited freedom is chaos and the springboard for this
discussion is the idea that responsible liberty should be
practiced with awareness and discipline within the framework
of the law. We can therefore start with putting forth a
definition for liberalism, and it is as follows:

Liberalism is to respect a state based on justice and laws

and to limit the power of the state and to free humans from
enslavement to fellow humans and to encourage free
markets. So how could I, as a Muslim, not be a liberal?

As for the concept and properties of liberty as they appear in

the reference books, they can be summarized as follows;

Concept and Properties:

The word liberalism comes from the Latin liber meaning free.
Current liberalism is a belief system or a movement of social
and political awareness within society that aims to free
133 Why I am Liberal

humans as individuals and as a group from authoritative

limitations in politics, economics and culture. Liberalism
varies according to the manners and values of the society that
adopts it. It is therefore different in Western societies than in
Eastern societies that are more conservative. Furthermore,
liberalism is both a political and economic doctrine. This
means that it is a philosophy based on the independence of the
individual and on a commitment to personal liberties and the
protection of political and civic liberties and supporting
democratic parliamentary systems and social reforms. Liberal
philosophy is based on the idea of the individual as tangible
being. Steering clear of theorizing and abstraction, it
formulates a philosophy of life that revolves around this
individual and from values that define thought and behavior
together. A human being is born to this life as a free individual
with the right to live. And from the right to life and liberty
come a series of related rights such as the right to choose, or to
live the life that he desires, not that others desire for him, and
the right to express himself in different ways, and the right to
search for the meaning of life according to his convictions not
according to convictions dictated upon him. In short,
liberalism is no more and no less that the right of the
individual – the human being – to live free in this world with
the free will to choose. The afterlife is left to a higher power.

Liberty and freedom are the cornerstones of liberal thought

and it is the one concept that all liberal theorists, such as
Hobbes or Locke or Bentham agree on, even if they then
diverge in results. For example, Hobbes was politically
inclined to authoritarianism but his social philosophy (even
his political authoritarianism) was based on the right to liberty
and to choice. Bentham was prone to utilitarianism but this too
stemmed from a reading of the primary motives for human
individual behavior. The ultimate result was always freedom
and free choice. Concerning the relationship between
liberalism and morals or liberalism and religion, liberalism is
134 Why I am Liberal

not concerned with human behavior as long as it does not

overstep the individual bounds of private rights and liberties
but it becomes extremely strict beyond these bounds. Moral
lassitude is your private business but harming others with your
immorality – getting drunk and driving a car or accosting a
girl in the street for example, is no longer your private affair.
Whether you are religious or an atheist, this too is your affair.

Properties of Liberalism:

Liberalism is the opposite of radicalism and as such it has

no sacred liberal reference that is untouchable. This is
because should it sanctify any of its symbols to the extent
that he become its mouthpiece or one of its books so that it
becomes its one and only reference, it will no longer be
liberalism. It will be one of those isolationist self-referential
schools of thought.

The reference of liberalism is in the vast open space where

human based values reside; values such as the liberty, dignity
and individuality of the human being. Liberalism multiplies
with the multiplication of liberals and each is his own
reference to his own brand of liberalism. The history of
liberalism is charged with a variety of liberal experiences and
cultural products that revolve around liberal values. All of
these are liberal references but not one of them is a binding
reference. And if one of them becomes, or tries to become,
binding, it is dropped from the corpus of liberalism.

Liberalism is based on a belief in individuality based on

freedom of thought, tolerance, respect for human dignity,
acknowledgement of man’s right to live, and consideration
that equality is the basis of co-operation and respect between
individuals. Equality guarantees liberty and the state should
play no role in social relations or economic activities unless it
135 Why I am Liberal

needs to correct a misbalance in the interests of the individual

or of society.

Liberalism is also based on the consecration of the rule of the

people through public vote which is an expression of the will
of the people. It also believes in ridding society of corruption,
separation of legislative, legal and executive powers, and
constantly revising these three authorities to guarantee
individual liberties and to restrict special privileges. Finally, it
believes in the practice of sovereignty outside these bodies of
authority so that they are truly representative of the will of the
people.

Conclusion:

The above arguments and evidence have been put forth to

explain the concept of liberalism, its qualities and advantages.

I would now like to explain the reasons that converted me

from religious radicalism to liberal theory as a basis for
governance, why I became a liberal after I was an ardent
enthusiast for the religious theory of governance and the idea
of religion as a basis for rule. I believed that religion should be
a reference for all issues of life in all its fields. I now do not
absolutely reject religion as a theory for government but I use
liberal theory of government to spring from my religious
affiliation and belief system and convert it to a paradigm to
aspire to. This is due to the following reasons:

1. State of Righteousness and Law

The concept of liberalism is nothing new. One of its

fundamental tenets is based in Jewish belief and Ancient
Greek thought. This is the belief that there is a ‘supreme law’
to which all, including the ruler, is accountable. Islam
preserved and consolidated this idea within the belief system
136 Why I am Liberal

of the group by reiterating that rulers are not the supreme

source of authority and that they too yield to the rule of law.

Liberalism does not mean the absence of rules and laws. It is a

call for all to be equally subject to the same rules and
regulations so that no one is above the law. A state based on
righteousness and law determines the difference between
democracy and dictatorship. A society that does not consecrate
righteousness and law and allows the ruling elite to make a
mockery of the law for their personal gain and impose a certain
way of life on their people is a society closer to communism
and fascism and has nothing to do with Islam.

2. The Limited Role of the State

The state of righteousness and law calls for equality between

the ruler and those he rules. And since rulers are in command
of potential tools of subjugation (legislation of laws, control
over the army and police forces), it is necessary that their
authority is limited. If those who govern are granted limitless
powers this opens the doors wide for rulers to exploit the
institutions of the state for their personal interests.

The state, as represented by its rulers, is an institution through

which citizens delegate power to their ruler. Its legitimacy and
powers are derived from the people. And because the state is a
powerful institution that possesses tools of intimidation, the
real danger lies in its reins being handed over to the wrong
people, who will then convert these tools of intimidation into
weapons directed against the people not utilized for their best
interest. To prevent the absolute domination of the state, its
powers have to be limited. Normally, this is only possible by
means of an effective constitution that clearly delineates the
duties of the rulers and restricts their executive power through
monitoring and accountability to other powers (legislative and
legal).
137 Why I am Liberal

Furthermore, Islam as a religion never recognized the

concept of a central religious authority. On the contrary,
believers are free to make their own decisions based on the
knowledge they possess. What we can learn from Islam is
that he who is in power must let the people be free in
making their decisions and not force them to abide by the
whims of the minority should they happen to head the state.

3. Individual Freedom

The limited role of the state means that the individuals are free
to act in whichever way they see appropriate with the
stipulation that they do not aggress on the freedom of the
other. The freedom of the individual ends with the initiation of
the freedom of others. In this context, liberal thought deems
the individual as the main constituent and nucleus of the
society. A society is simply a group of individuals exerting
efforts to achieve their interests and accomplish their needs.
Since an individual is free to join any social entity or be
affiliated to any cause, he must also be free to separate from
this entity or forfeit that cause whenever he pleases. An
individual must never be coerced to belong to any social entity
or to yield to the will of any group. Such thought conforms to
the principles of Islam which liberated humans from slavery
and to surrender to God Almighty only. Therefore, depriving
an individual of the freedom to choose contradicts with the
spirit of Islam as in turn it contradicts with the will of the
creator.

Therefore, every individual should care for the dignity of the

other regardless of his origin, religion or gender. In other
words, differences among individuals must be respected.
Every individual has duties and rights such as his duty to
respect the other and the duty of the other to show mutual
respect. What is more important is that the principle of
respecting individual freedom dictates the non-intervention of
138 Why I am Liberal

the state in the private lives of the individuals so long as they

do not overstep on the freedom of the other.

4. Free Market

It is well known that the liberals protect the free market

system. Nevertheless, the reasons for their position is often
misunderstood. Some people accuse liberals of their
indifference towards the discrepancy between the poor and the
rich. These are of course false accusations. Liberals support
the free market system because it is the only economic system
that respects the dignity of the individuals. Deprivation of the
individual from his right to choose, even in the field of
economy, is a denial of the individual's dignity and self
determination.

Some support the idea that the state is responsible for ensuring
equality in the society. By assuming so, they commit an
ethical as well as a practical mistake. As a Muslim, I believe
that God created us equal. Even if the notion of enforcing
economic equality is ethically attractive, experiments have
proved that the intervention of the state to impose equality has
actually widened the economic gap between individuals. I
wonder how politicians assume that the answer to the failure
of the state to establish economic equality is more intervention
under the pretext of the role of the sponsor state.

Is it appropriate to think of a concept by the name of

'special' Iraqi liberalism?

Four years have passed since the exchange of power in

Iraq. This experience can be characterized by being a
'special' kind of democracy; one which differs from many
democracies in the world. Therefore, a national researcher
should initially research the various types of democracy
139 Why I am Liberal

that are practiced in the world then explain the special Iraqi
democracy.

Democracy and liberalism are often confused with each

other despite the fact that there are many types of
liberalisms that are being practiced in the world especially
in Western Europe and the States. It should also be noted
that liberalism and rightist thinking are also intermixed. I
also pose these questions with the intention of identifying
these terms in a manner which would facilitate the process
of awareness for the Iraqi people.

Logical assumptions postulate that contradictions are mutually

exclusive. This connotes that the judgments of Islam are fixed
and non-negotiable. Hence, if someone tries to modify a term
of a Latin origin to Arabic and suggests the term democracy
for the Arabic word Shura (consultation, advice), it is deemed
incorrect. Shura is not democracy. But this is an area which
needs further investigation and could be discussed in another
research. There might be some common ground between
Islam as an integrated doctrine of life and democracy as a
method of government. The similarities can be illustrated in
the fact that Islam concurs with the principles of Human
Rights that are agreed upon internationally. Nevertheless,
there are many points of differences as well. Where are the
discrepancies between Islam and democracy? Yes.
Democracy is based on elections whereby a group is selected
to rule and run a whole society according to the rules and laws
that are agreed upon. Democracy is also guided by the items
of the constitution that have been approved of by all the
individuals of the nation. But the verses of the Holy Quran
cannot be voted upon as they are constant and invariable and
cannot be interpreted by a politician who is not well-versed in
possessory arts and studies as well as in Arabic language,
history, Hadith (Prophet Muhammad's sayings), biographies
and other linguistic nuances and religious details that only
140 Why I am Liberal

specialists would be aware of. In Islam, if a problem arises,

regardless of the fact whether it is an everyday problem or a
jurisprudential one, they resort to the religious authority to air
his views and take a decision without voting or discussion.

This opinion could be amended or altered but only at the

hands of another more learned scientist or after the demise of
the authority who issued the fatwa (opinion). Democracy
plays another game as a decision that is taken by an elected
government can be disputed even though the governing body
has the right to make that decision. When the people decide
that the decision does not conform to their will, they engage in
demonstrations to enforce a change in the decision. After
pressure, and by the means of proper democratic methods,
approved by the constitution, the government may withdraw
its decision. In case the government insists on its decision,
despite the will of the people, the people do not forget and
attempt to change the government in the next elections by
voting for another government.

On the other hand, it is impossible to demonstrate against a

fatwa. This is unheard of in the history of Islam. Some
might claim that the fatwa was unanimously approved
when it was passed and that is accepted by one and all. Yes,
this is true because the common man does not have the
right to protest as the only means to protest is for him to
become another religious authority. This is a simple
example of contradictions. And there are many other
examples that may be more dangerous as they may define
the security of a whole nation and may lead to the
destruction or the satisfaction of the people.

In a nutshell, in the case of democracy, the society has the

right to intervene in the issues of everyday life more than in
the case of Islamic rule whereby the most significant issues
141 Why I am Liberal

are in the control of religious authorities and the role of the

individual, as an individual and as part of a group, is denied.

The Iraqi people are looking for liberalism that would

guarantee them justice and security because they have
suffered from the political parties that had governed the
country the four previous years. The Iraqi people also fear
Western terms that would subject them to the accusation of
being affiliated to the West. They also fear certain concepts
that seem contradictory to patriotism if judged within the
parameters of received and enforced upbringing that prevailed
during the age of 'no-system' that is now dead and buried.
These concepts include colonialism, treason, atheist West and
so forth. Such issues place them in the deadlock of accepting
new changes, even though the Iraqi people are desperate for
change after the suffering and affliction they have underwent.

Iraqi liberalism will address the individuals and the

essentiality of living a life of dignity without being exploited
by the parties and the government. The people are waiting and
sacrificing and are receiving nothing but hunger and thirst and
slow and sudden deaths. The reason is the disputes over power
and authority for the sake of material, glutted gain. But
apparently, they who have tasted authority and who were bent
on usurping the resources of their country are never satiated
but always covet for more.

Liberalism is a Western European concept that caters for the

needs of the individual in every sense of the word. It also
targets to liberalize the individual from all forms of
exploitation. Liberalism does not differentiate between one
nation and the other, between one religion and the other,
between a doctrine and another. Liberalism is indifferent to
any personal conviction of an individual. On the contrary,
liberalism supports individuals to choose the religion of their
choice and the nationalism of their preference. Liberal
142 Why I am Liberal

thinking aims to minimize government authority. It cares for

economy to enhance individuals regardless of their particular
denominations or affiliations.
143 Why I am Liberal

It is my Liberalism

Mohammed Maher

I was born in Cairo in 1983. Graduated

from the Faculty of Commerce in 2004. I
changed my career to the field of journalism
and media after completing the training
program set up by the newspaper "Watany"
(My homeland) to train journalists and
prepare public opinion leaders. I am
currently a journalist in "al-Mal"
newspaper and am responsible for the
section of ethnic and religious minorities
(Political Reform Page) . Together with a
group of friends, we are working on the
establishment of an organization entitled
"The Dream of Democracy" (A liberal
Egyptian dream). I am a member of the
Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth (EULY)

I have participated in a number of civil

community activities such as a workshop
organized in October 2008 in Ismailia by the
Egyptian Union of Youth in collaboration
with Friedrich Naumann Foundation
entitled "How to develop liberalism in the
Egyptian community". I also participated in
a workshop launched by the International
Republican Institute to re-enforce potentials
of political parties in Jordan
.
I dream that Egypt regains its liberal
position to assume its natural position as
an illuminating, liberating and democratic
force in the region.
144 Why I am Liberal

What does liberalism mean to me? How did I become a

liberal? Why am I a liberal in the first place? Many questions
came to my mind as I was attempting to answer the principal
question of the competition (Why am I a liberal?). The many
answers and various ideas which saturated my mind for a short
while made me resolve not to participate in the competition
mainly because time was tight despite my eagerness to
participate since I was informed of the competition .

Nevertheless, I got enthusiastic and I took a sip of some dark

tea and went down memory lane to recollect some ideas to put
them on paper.

In order to recall my memories chronologically I first posed

the question (Since when did I become a liberal?). I chose to
believe that I am still a novice in the field of liberalism and
that my liberalism was formed on the basis of a variety of
accumulated experiences and diverse readings in addition to
being more inclined ideologically towards the right and not
towards the left. Moreover, from a general perspective, I was
more biased towards individual freedom, which did not,
nevertheless, mature enough except after liberal ideology was
more established in my mind as I myself got more mature .

My twenty-six year old mind underwent some relatively

limited experiences in the ideological swamps of Islamic
politics as I had been more inclined towards this
ideological path. Being a greenhorn in the world of
politics, I was attracted to the idea of poetic justice
which Islam aspires to realize. I had no doubt, then, that
Islamic Utopia is a dream that could be achieved if
specific circumstances would prevail.

I was influenced by certain Islamic writings that were flavored

with Arabdom. Gradually, my intellectual inclinations began to
sway with the occurrence of successive events. With the
145 Why I am Liberal

collapse of the two World Trade Towers in New York in

September 2001, I was no longer convinced with the validity
of the solutions presented by proponents of religious theories.
My deeply rooted conviction was that all radical forces were
simply fertile land for breeding forces of extremism and
tyranny and that the tree of religion only bears fruits of
violence, killing and even slaughtering in some cases.

I, then, underwent a complete metamorphosis with regards to

my intellectual denomination as I crossed over from the
heaven of idealism to the hell of realism. With realism, only
harsh, materialistic, ruthless and pragmatic solutions would be
feasible. The whole issue then becomes straightforward as it
does not require intellectual complications of any kind.
Interests become the yardstick whereby if they swerve to the
right, commitment to that wing becomes a mandatory
obligation and free markets become a desirable practice. In
case, the needle is more inclined to the left, the role of the state
in economy becomes more enhanced to the point of being a
sacred duty. Nevertheless, with the passage of time, I have not
yet assimilated the notion that the rules of the game would be
limited to such narrow pragmatic dimensions.

At that time, I had not been quite familiar with liberalism. I

had only heard that it was a notorious term that was
incessantly used a synonym to decadence and chaos in most
of the speeches and media messages. The Western liberal
model was presented as a heretic, dissolute and debauched
example that is not governed by customs or traditions or even
religious ethics. That was what I had heard then.

However, the natural and vehement inclination towards a

belief in individual freedom and all its attributions of freedom
of thought, of religious denomination, of beliefs, of the right to
receive information, of the right to physical integrity etc.
played a pivotal role in formulating my liberal stance later on;
146 Why I am Liberal

I was always committed to individual interests as opposed to

what was termed as interests of the community or the people.
This was based on the simplest liberal precept, as I later
realized, that instinctive freedom cannot be usurped or
screened under any circumstances or in any context and that
the value of freedom transcends all other values hence it was
prioritized on my agenda of ideological concerns.

Why am I a liberal?

• Since a very tender age, I was convinced that my only

point of reference should be my mind and that the value
of freedom of choice is the sanctum sanctorum that
could not be desecrated under any pretext. I then
realized that my notions conform to those of liberalism
as liberalism does not impose a rigid strict intellectual
pattern that is engrossed by theories and thereby
overrides the basic human value of choice. On the
contrary, liberalism endeavors to formulate and develop
awareness of the individual without being committed to
immutable ideological frameworks. I later read a quote
of Keynes which supported my perspective in which he
maintains that he is a liberal in the context that he is
open to all thoughts and does not abide by specific
preconceived intellectual methodologies.
• I believe in pluralism which is advocated and preserved
by liberalism. I have always wondered about the reasons
for which we were created different. I was overwhelmed
by this question and was engulfed into deep philosophical
levels until I became ascertained that difference in
ideologies and beliefs and all other kinds of differences
are basically an affluence of human wealth that must be
preserved and enhanced. I have always envisioned that a
garden which withholds a variety of flowers with different
colors and fragrances is noticeably more exquisite than
one with one kind of flower. In my opinion, pluralism is
147 Why I am Liberal

the foremost fort of liberalism and that is all the reason

more why I am a liberal.
• I do not deny that I was awed by the history of the Wafd
Party which represented a cornerstone in crystallizing my
liberal character. I was more convinced that Egypt was
better off under the sweeping popularity of the Wafd Party
before the Free Officers assumed the seat of power and
Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, along with a
group of venturesome others, usurped authority. The
liberal experiment in Egypt collapsed interminably (or at
least until the moment). My abhorrence of the system that
was set up by Nasser increased and his troops still reign
until the very day.
• In addition to what has been stated, I have always had
rebellious predilections to step out of the circles of taboos
that are imposed by society. These taboos, which may be
political, ethical or religious, are based on a number of
stereotypical notions, which prevail in the society. In
reality, liberalism and liberal ideas are my only protective
shield, which I use in my attempt to penetrate these circles
to refute their allegations with the aid of logical proofs and
rational substantiations. Liberalism is against stereotypes
and repression of individual freedom under the pretext of
these mentioned taboos.

I have resolved to be a liberal as long as I live. I apologize

for my generalization and absolutism which do not conform
with the notions of liberalism, therefore, my liberalism
enforces me to say that I will be a liberal until other ideas
and concepts emerge which deserve to be followed.

ِAnd that is why I am a liberal.

148 Why I am Liberal
149 Why I am Liberal

I Chose Liberalism because I am a Woman.

Hend Hassan

I was born in 1979. I obtained a Diploma

in Advanced Industries in 1998 and I am
currently studying Mass Communication
in Cairo University.

I am a journalist in an independent
newspaper called "Sawaysiyya" published
in the Governorate of Suez. I also write
scripts.

I hope that in the future, the Egyptian

people would appreciate the value of
freedom and would completely realize that
progress is intricately related to political,
intellectual, religious and economic
freedom. I do not believe that that would
occur without the presence of media
organizations and strong liberal parties
that would support and propagate liberal
ideology amongst the different sectors of
the nation. Hence, I dream of the existence
of such parties and organizations that
would patiently toil and exert great effort
because the mission of changing mistaken
ideologies that have long been embedded
in minds is one of the hardest missions
ever.
150 Why I am Liberal

I have always known, ever since I was a young girl, that

when human beings die, they end up in one of two places;
either heaven or hell and that one's deeds determine one's
eternal destination.

In other words, a human being is free and is capable of

choice. He enjoys the utmost liberty to do whatever he
desires without coercion, in any manner he pleases, or else
how will God assess our doings had we been enforced to
commit them against our own will.

Later on, the concept of freedom began to crystallize in my

mind and gradually its characteristics started to get more
defined. I discovered the existence of the other, he who
opposes me in my beliefs, my religion, my political
inclinations, my habits, ideologies and perspectives. As a
matter of fact, despite being my antithesis, I am expected to
respect his religious, ideological and political preferences in
the same manner that I would expect him to respect my
religious, ideological and political preferences. However
wide the gap of differences is, it should not affect the
mutual relationship of amiability, friendship and respect
that we both share.

However, accepting the other with open-mindedness is not a

trait of many people. Unfortunately, it is a trait that only a few
are blessed with. Otherwise, the vast majority is governed by
exaggerated extremism and fanaticism, which ranges from
fanaticism in religious and ideological convictions on one
hand to extremism in customs and traditions on the other. In
fact, being a fanatic does not end at demeaning and ignoring
the other but it has reached the limit of accusing him of
blasphemy and of killing him.
151 Why I am Liberal

In the eyes of those people, one is enslaved by one's

religion, ideology or even traditions, even if those
convictions are awkward and worn out. They are also
convinced that their inherited cultural and religious lore are
non-negotiable invariables which man must accept without
debating or discussing or refuting or reconsidering. If
religious and intellectual fanaticism continues its hegemony
over society, we will all become cattle that will only be led
by the truncheon; be it the truncheon of religion or that of
political despotism, the outcome is the same: Man's liberty
will be violated and his freewill and ability of choice will
be held back.

For these reasons, I opted for liberalism where a human being

remains capable of choice, where ideas are not dictated upon
you. I chose liberalism whereby no one could judge me or my
religion and then accuse me of blasphemy and sentence me to
death.

I chose liberalism because I believe in freedom of thought and

that the ability to imagine is our sole path to creativity. We
cannot be creative on paper nor in laboratories so long as our
minds are manacled by what society calls taboos or wrongs.
We can never be inspired if we are always confronted by the
turbaned sheikhs who constantly accuse us of defying the
Omnipotent despite the fact that there isn't any common
ground between God's will and power and the humble
attempts of man to comprehend the world and to develop his
life.

I chose liberalism because I am a woman:

I am a woman who has been fated to live within Arab

communities, which only recognize a woman as a creature
born out of the womb of Satan, the child of the devil. She is
152 Why I am Liberal

the path to sin. She represents sensuality, temptation,

distress and suffering which afflict the father who has to
endure with patience until another man who is doomed to
take over the burden arrives, namely a husband. Hence,
such a woman should be hid and should be concealed under
a black robe with a tape on her mouth and a blindfold on
her eyes. She should be buried in her house so that the
society avoids her evilness.

As if women are not free creatures created by God with the

right to determine their will and to make their decisions!

I chose liberalism because I am a woman who lives in a

society laden with guardians, be they fathers or brothers or
husbands or sons. Men, and only men, in this society,
specify how much liberty is to be granted to women; a
society where every Tom, Dick and Harry project their
views regarding women who only have to succumb and
obey. We live in a society where men enjoy the liberty of
committing mistakes whilst women do not have the leisure
to choose between two correct alternatives.

I chose liberalism because I am a human being with a

female gender.

I chose liberalism because I believe in a civil state where

the sanctity of religion is preserved in the mosques and
churches and temples while civil rights and citizenship are
preserved by laws that are set by the state; constant laws
that are clear and unambiguous thereby leaving no room for
personal clarifications rendered by turbaned sheikhs or
bearded men, laws that view all citizens as equal without
any discrimination and that protect all their rights.
153 Why I am Liberal

I chose liberalism because I fear that one day I would wake

up to find that those bearded fanatics who call themselves
the 'Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention
of Vice' have crossed the sea to invade our country and to
drive us with the whip and cudgel.
154 Why I am Liberal
155 Why I am Liberal

So that Mariam Loves her Country

Shihab Abd Al-Magid Wagih

I was born in February 1984, I

graduated in May 2008 with a BSc
in engineering from the University of
Helwan. I am an electro-mechanic
engineer in Degla Group for Real-
Estate Investment. I am a founding
member of al-Gabha Party and am
the head of the Free Youth Front,
the youth wing of the party. I am a
member of the executive bureau of
the party and a liberal activist.

I would like to thank everyone who

taught me to accept the other and
understand him. I dream of a world
in which everyone accepts each other
and dream of a world where
everyone accepts each other and
know the fact that they differ and
compete enriches them and builds
them a better future.
156 Why I am Liberal

I did not know her but the innocence and sweetness that lit
up her features were unmistakable. I was in one of these
endlessly argumentative debate circles about the Camp
David treaty and about peace, and to be honest, like many
others, I was not paying much attention to the subject under
discussion until it was her turn to speak. Her accent was
obvious Palestinian, and this was in keeping with the Arab
features of her face. “My name is Mariam. I am a Christian
Palestinian from Gaza”. This is how she started her
comment. She did not join the ongoing competition for
‘most powerful empty slogan”. Instead, she told her story
with the utmost honesty and love. She, like all the people of
Gaza, had suffered under Israeli occupation. She was
persecuted for no reason other than the fact that she was an
Arab Christian living under the shadow of an occupation
that had usurped her freedom and her land. And when a
new hope shone thanks to her struggle and the struggle of
her brethren, a new system of self-rule came as a result of a
democratic process. It was a government that represented
the dictatorship of the majority and it wished to force her to
wear the hijab, a choice she respected but did not embrace,
and it wished to prevent her from listening publicly to the
hymns she loved, and if they were sung out loud, the police
of the majority could attack her. Just one example of the
many infractions of liberty that are committed in the name
of democracy. Mariam was the victim of a democracy that
was not liberal.

My dear reader, before you start to insult and curse Mariam

and the writer of these words, and start saying that before
the freedom of the individual comes the liberation of the
land, and that for the sake of the nation sacrifices should be
made willingly, and that Mariam’s right to practice her faith
freely is nothing compared to the quest for a nation that is
whole not fractured, I ask you to imagine with me
Mariam’s future within the current conditions.
157 Why I am Liberal

Do you think that Mariam, as part of the minority, will love

a nation that does not love her? Do you think she will hold
on to her sense of belonging to a nation that rejects her and
does not acknowledge her rights? Will she resist the
temptation of the monies of the invader and his promises of
freedom? Will a weak and crumbling nation campaigning
abroad for its freedom be able to stand firm when its
minority is persecuted within?

Let us apply this example to Egypt. Egypt is a nation whose

true majority is a large group of ethnic, sectarian and
ideological minorities. Imagine with me what would happen if
the majority of one faction took control and forced its beliefs
on everyone and privileged its race over all others, will the
sense of belonging survive? Will peace survive? Will the
nation survive?

This is why I am a liberal. I am a liberal because I believe

that the state was not established so that it may force its
views on the inhabitants of the country. It was established
to respect their rights and their liberties.

I am a liberal because I do not believe in a state that feeds

you, teaches you, employs you according to its whim and
within the limitations of a capacity which will stay limited
because of a deficiency in enthusiasm and passion for work.
How could we expect a person to be enthusiastic for work
when he sees that those who work and those who do not are
equally rewarded?

I am a liberal because I believe in a ruling majority that

respects the rights of the minority. I am a liberal because I
believe that competition is the only way to a better life as
long as it is governed by law. Political competition brings
the best candidate to power and economic competition
brings the cheapest best quality product to the citizen.
158 Why I am Liberal

I am a liberal because I refuse monopoly over power,

economics or truth.

I am a liberal because I believe in a state based on law, not

on a state founded on one person or one idea. I am a liberal
because I believe in a world that develops and does not stop
at one rigid ideology whatever its name and liberalism by
nature is the opposite of rigid ideology.

I am a liberal because I believe in the integration of the

world and in its co-operation through free trade and cultural
links.

I am a liberal because I believe that only the rule of law can

provide citizens with a good life and that only equal
opportunity can achieve the best results.

I am a liberal because I want Mariam to love her homeland

and to build it hand in hand with her brethren of different
religions and ideas.