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BITTERNESS OF EXILE

Egypt Today - December 2009 As his homeland heads toward national elections, sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim looks to history for a hint at the future by Ali El-Bahnasawy It is a sunny day in the small town of Madison, New Jersey, but Saad Eddin Ibrahim is wearing layers of clothes to protect his shivering body. The sociology professor leans heavily on his cane as he makes his way toward the Drew University building, accompanied by a young student carrying files and books for him. The five stairs into the building seem to take a lot out of this larger-than-life human rights activist, and he has to catch his breath while greeting me. Self-imposed exile in the United States was not Ibrahim’s goal. In June 2000 he was arrested by State Security and charged with illegally receiving funds from abroad and defaming Egypt’s reputation. The government alleged that Ibrahim, as head of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Study (IKCDS), exchanged information with a German organization that misrepresented treatment of Coptic Christians in Egypt, which the prosecution said damaged the country’s reputation. His trial in State Security Court lasted about a year, during which time Ibrahim and some of his IKCDS colleagues were detained. The court’s ruling shocked many observers: Ibrahim was sentenced to seven years in prison. In February 2002, the Court of Cassation, the nation’s highest appeals court, overturned the sentence, citing violations of the defendants’ rights, coercion of witnesses, faulty application of the law and other errors. Within weeks, Ibrahim was retried by the State Security Court on the same charges and convicted again; the Court of Cassation again overturned the ruling. After a third review, the Court of Cassation in March 2003 issued a final ruling clearing Ibrahim of all charges. During his 21 months in prison, Ibrahim, a naturalized US citizen, became a cause célèbre of democracy activists in the West. Ibrahim claims he was subjected to sleep deprivation and other forms of abuse. After his release, he says, it took four surgeries before he was able to walk again. Since 2003, other lawsuits and criminal cases have been brought against him, mainly focusing on IKCDS activities that allegedly defamed the government. In March 2008, Ibrahim was convicted in absentia and sentenced to three years of prison time and hard labor for a 2007 opinion piece critical of the government, published in The Washington Post. That sentence was overturned in May 2009. More cases against him are still pending. Ibrahim, now in his late 60s, could not imagine going back to jail. It is more than a matter of principle; it is a matter of his health. “I was nearly paralyzed, moving in a wheelchair out of the prison gates,” Ibrahim says. For the activist and his family, there was no choice. He flew to Qatar as a political exile in 2007, then to Turkey and finally to his adopted country. Over the past two years, he has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia and now Drew University, lecturing about social and political forces in the Middle East. Today, Ibrahim has ordered pizza and drinks for a make-up class with his students, after he canceled their earlier meeting for a trip to Doha and Kuwait. They are discussing Hamas and Hezbollah as religious militants in the Middle East, and arguing about the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters. After class, we head to his clean but sparsely decorated apartment. Although his body is frail, Ibrahim’s voice is animated when he speaks about his life abroad, Egyptian politics and the role of an intellectual. Edited excerpts: Professor Ibrahim, are you planning to stay in the United States over the next few months or go back to Egypt? I have one of two choices: Either to go to Egypt on a suicide mission or to head back to the Middle East and be close to Egypt. I have an open invitation from Istanbul University, where I taught once, as well as Doha and Beirut. I can teach in those universities. What are the chances of you going on that “suicide mission?” I personally want to do it. It is the lawyers and the family who are against the idea. They say, “The government is not to be trusted.” As long as there are complaints against me with the Prosecutor General’s Office, and cases still in court, they may arrest me and put me in detention. I don’t know when those complaints may stop. I can’t control them. That’s why I thought, I should go back and let whatever happen be. Have you seen any signs that the government has forgiven you so that you can come back? No, there are no signs. Although I have asked them many times to give me assurances that I can come and live peacefully, they have not done so. Is it difficult to live here? It is very tough emotionally to stay here alone. Yet, I am like the one who when asked on his birthday how he feels, says, “I’m good compared to the alternative, which is to be dead.” I’m good compared to the alternative, which is prison. Especially with my medical condition, which deteriorated in jail. Why is your family not with you? I didn’t want to ruin their lives. My wife still has work to do at the American University in Cairo. I didn’t want to ruin her career. It is enough that one life is ruined. Did you expect more objections from people when you were jailed? I never expected anything like that. In a society that is governed by fear, you can’t know the people’s real reaction. Since my problems started with the government, I decided that it would be very difficult to gauge the public’s opinion on any matter. We don’t have public polls, free media or [independent] courts to take action against the state. You meet people and most of them express their sympathy for what you do and that’s it. So, I learned not to expect anything from anyone. Do you find that depressing? No. When I was studying here in America during the sixties, there was a magazine called Minority of One published by a guy who criticized the American war in Vietnam. Ten years later, everyone followed his ideas. You do what your conscience tells you to do, no matter how many people side with you or against you. This is what every real intellectual should do. Why do people in Egypt not get involved in politics? I disagree that they don’t. This is what the intellectuals and the middle class want to think, but those intellectuals and middle class people don’t do anything. They just talk in salons. In reality, politics is about demands and needs, and people protest when they lack those needs. The important thing during those protests for basic needs is the role of the leader. A leader’s role is to tell the people that all those separate protests and related problems have a common root. To tell the people that the ruling elite [] has been there for a very long time and it has became corrupt. This is what we need: an opposition leader who gathers all these [issues] and creates one [cause]. When this happens, it will be a revolution. People in Egypt don’t want violence — not just in Egypt only, but in the Middle East. They want a peaceful gradual change. The government, if they have [] some sincerity, should accommodate this legitimate desire. However, the government’s disregard for the people’s desire for democracy will make violent change an inevitable choice, which is something I don’t wish for the country. History says the demonstrations that started peacefully before the 1952 Revolution turned to throwing stones and then assassinations. The Egyptian people have done it before and are capable of doing so again. Do you think that people’s protest for better salaries and food may lead to something bigger? Why not? The American Revolution started because of tea. The French revolution started with the search for bread. All revolutions start with the urgent needs such as food. Why not? Things start with a search for a personal, family or group need, then it develops. Later, a leader appears who can transform those protests and demonstrations into concrete political action. The governing party claims that the media is getting more freedom and women will be represented better in Parliament. Do you think the country is getting more democratic? Until now, no. I don’t see any real signs [of change]. Those who talk to me from Egypt, who are faithful to democracy, they consider what the government is doing as cosmetic. The roots of democracy are, for example, in an independent legal system that assigns judges to courts without political interference. Or in the elections that are free and equally accessible by everyone. But the 2005 amendments to the Constitution made the election process a comic one, as if it is tailored to one or two individuals in Egypt. What do you think about opposition parties pushing outgoing UN International Atomic Energy Agency chief and Nobel Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa as their presidential nominees? What do you think of claims that they don’t have enough experience? Did [President Hosni] Mubarak have any experience when he became president? No, but he has remained in power for 30 years. The argument of experience is not valid. Someone like ElBaradei or Judge Hesham Bastawisy both have 10 times the experience of Gamal Mubarak. [ElBaradei] has vast international expertise, and [Bastawisy] is the vice chairman of the Appeals Court, so his hands are always full with the people’s problems. Do you think the other possible candidates mentioned these days are capable of leading the people? All of them can. I believe that ElBaradei or Bastawisy, if they find a sincere movement from the people, they will lead them. Just like Saad Zaghloul, he was not a politician. He was a judge just like Bastawisy, a respectable man. People asked Zaghloul to lead them, and when he found them sincere, he did. Have you encouraged any of them to go for the presidency? I will meet Bastawisy on my trip to Kuwait soon, and I will encourage him to do so. I will send the same support to ElBaradei and [Nobel prize winning chemist] Ahmed Zewail as well. The governing party always says that things are getting better and asks citizens for patience. Do you think it is a legitimate request? Are people rushing into change? You must be joking to ask such a question. After 28 years, you tell me people are rushing the change? Do you want them to wait another 28 years? It is more important to know how to distribute the results of economic growth rather than achieving the growth itself. In an August opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, you say that the Obama administration supports the status quo in Egypt, while George W. Bush pushed for democratic change. Why has the Obama administration changed tactics, in your opinion? First, the new administration is still working on their foreign policy strategy. Second, Obama’s administration needs some countries for certain objectives that serve their goals. Relations with Egypt are tied to both the Palestinian and the Iranian issues. So, Obama’s administration has found that the Mubarak government is a natural ally to the United States in the Middle East; it is a stable government and more importantly a friendly one. Ex-President Bush though, pursued more democratic reform in Egypt during his second presidency, not the first, because he found that the Egyptian government promises and does not deliver. So, the Egyptian government actually benefits from keeping everything the same as it is, domestically and regionally. This is why the Egyptian government does not seriously seek a solution for the Israeli-Arab conflict: they don’t want it to get worse, but they don’t want it to be solved. The Egyptian government thrives on the role of mediator in that conflict. If this conflict is solved, the assistance and the international support for the Egyptian government will disappear. Do you expect the US administration to press Egypt on democratic reform soon? I expect this to happen later. History tells us that Egypt is the cornerstone for the whole region to move toward more democratic reform. Any delay in Egypt delays the whole region. Do you think Obama would support Gamal Mubarak as the next president to further US interests? What I know is that the American administration does not want to interfere in that issue in any fashion. They have said to everyone who has asked, including me, “We will not interfere in that. We understand that this is something internal, and we will leave it to the domestic discussions.” If you do come back to Egypt, will you rest and keep a low profile, or speak up as you did before? Mostly I will exercise the same [rights] as before, though maybe the methodology and effort will change because of my health. And what did I do in the past? I wrote [articles] and spoke up. I did not fight with anyone. As an intellectual and activist, I own only my brain, pen and voice to say what I think is right. Of course I will use those weapons to voice my opinion to all listening ears. Those who don’t want to hear me, my voice will be there [calling after them]. And if no one wants to listen, I will speak to the birds and animals and let them hear my voice to satisfy my conscience.

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