The crisis over the Egyptian constitution triggered by President Mohamed
Morsy's adoption of sweeping powers is just the latest chapter in a
long-running ideological struggle in the Middle East.
FULL STORY
|
UNREST EXPLAINED
December 14, 2012 -- Updated 1259 GMT (2059 HKT)
Egyptian protests over Mohamed Morsy's decrees is the latest in a long-evolving Mideast ideological conflict.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Drive to institutionalize states of Muslim world was priority for most parties in early 1900s
- For years constitutions were not social contracts, but a code imposed on people
- Constitutional reforms were considered a priority in all the Arab Spring countries
Editor's note: Read more from Mustafa Al-Arab at CNNArabic.com.
(CNN) -- The crisis over the Egyptian constitution
triggered by President Mohamed Morsy's adoption of sweeping powers is
just the latest chapter in a long-standing ideological struggle in the
Middle East.
Morsy, the Muslim
Brotherhood candidate who came to power after the 2011 Arab Spring
revolution that deposed long-time Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, says
he needs the new powers "to speed reform." His rivals say it is all
motivated by the Brotherhood's Islamist agenda for controlling the
country.
Morsy is not the first --
and given the upheavals of the Arabic Spring, is unlikely to be the
last -- Muslim leader to seek a constitutional way to create functioning
state institutions in a region where the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
led more often to tyranny or puppet regimes than strong democratic
states.
The drive to
institutionalize the states of the Muslim world was the primary
objective for most political parties in the region in the early 20th
century.
Muslim intellectuals,
shocked by the tyranny and the deterioration of their nations -
especially when compared to the rapid advance of the West both
politically and militarily - tried to reverse the course by political
means.
However, they soon found
out that confronting the old establishment would require more radical
approaches. In 1907, a constitutional revolution was declared in Shiite
Persia, and a year later Muslims, Christians and Jews marched in
Istanbul -- triggering in 1908 what was called "the second
constitutional era." The events that followed eventually led to the
dissolution of the Sunni Ottoman Empire.
A decade later, the
Ottoman Empire found itself in an unprecedented situation, defeated and
occupied by the Western allies of Britain, France, Russia and Italy. The
young Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, led a national movement,
fought the allies and the sultan, then pushed for constitutional changes
by which the last Ottoman sultan, Mohamed VI, would be a spiritual
leader, or "khalifa", without any governing or symbolic authority.
For the first time in the
history of the Muslim world, representatives of the people controlled
the state. Mohamed VI was later expelled from Turkey, and by 1924 the
Caliphate system was abolished.
This groundbreaking event left the Muslim world in both religious and political chaos.
At the time when the
Allies were establishing new states for old peoples in the region,
scholars and clerics from Morocco to India went into extensive
discussions about the vague future of the Muslim "nation." Their task
was not easy - even Ataturk had his own fatwa, or religious edict, to
legitimize his deeds, issued by "pro-modernization" clerics.
Divided about the ways
to adapt to change, the most prominent Muslim clerics in 1926 decided to
accept an invitation from King Fuad of Egypt to submit a plan for the
future.
The king thought that
the conclusion of the conference would see him anointed as the new
"khalifa" of all Muslims, but his dream vanished. Many Egyptian clerics
refused the idea of having a khalifa in a country under British
occupation, and the liberal parties were keen to remind Fuad about the
1923 constitution which he had issued himself in the wake of the huge
changes, hundreds of miles away, in Turkey.
The conference in Cairo
may not have been fruitful but it was decisive in reshaping the
ideological map in the region. On one hand there was Sheikh Rachid Rida,
an influential cleric from what is now known as Lebanon, who led the
call to re-establish the Caliphate system. On the other side stood the
clerics of north Africa, spearheaded by Sheikh Abdulhamid ben Badis from
Algeria and Abdulkarim Alkhattabi from Morocco, who both praised
Ataturk for his strong leadership, which they believed would benefit the
Muslim nation.
Amid confusion across
the Islamic world over about the proper source of power, the legitimate
ruler and the true nature of constitutions, Hasan Al Banna -- one of
Sheikh Rachid Rida's most loyal followers - in 1928 formed the first
version of what would later be known as the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
In one of his letters, Al-Banna stated he was moving in the direction
of establishing the movement in response to what he called the fall of
the Caliphate system. He later came up with one of his movement's most
famous slogans: the "Quran is Our Constitution".
Much has changed in the
region during the last nine decades, but not the enigmatic nature of
constitutionalism in this part of the world. Numerous coups, wars and
crises strangled or mutated any attempt to modernize the local states --
and old "dictators", whether they were army generals or liberals or
leftists, continued to manipulate the laws.
Constitutions were not
social contracts, but rather a code of conduct imposed on the people.
"Subjects" were never transformed into "citizens", and basic rights were
"boons" granted by the rulers and could be easily revoked.
Constitutions had become just another tool in the hands of dictators.
During that time, most
Islamic mainstream movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood,
acknowledged the need for having fundamental principles to run the
political process - an easily drawn conclusion, given the decades of
oppression to which the movements were subjected.
But the movement
couldn't overcome the critical duality of "Quran is Our Constitution."
How could a divine script be protected by manmade principles and yet
overpower them at the same time?
It is not a coincidence
that constitutional reforms were considered a priority in all the Arab
Spring countries -- and that popular Islamic movements in countries such
as Tunisia and Egypt have the upper hand in redrawing laws.
Muslim Brotherhood
branches in North Africa, especially Tunisia, were able to make use of
the heritage of sheikhs Ben Badis and Alkhattabi, and quickly abandoned
the call for a Sharia-based constitution. For them, the Turkish model
led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to deal with constitutional problems is a
better option.
The task doesn't look as
easy for Morsy and the Brotherhood in Egypt. He is surrounded by
Salafist hardliners who are trying to outflank him on the far right as
the country's "true representatives" of Islam; and on the other side is a
coalition of liberal and national movements, including members of
Mubarak's old party, who are "united in opposition to the vague 'Islamic
Project,'" according to opposition coordinator Mohammad ElBaradei.
One can argue that
Morsy's constitutional decree unleashed a crisis, and that the draft is
far from being perfect, especially for women and minorities.
It might be a mistake,
but it is a political one made by the first freely-elected Egyptian
president. The most important thing to observe in this "spring" is that
those who were labelled as "radicals" for decades are moving towards
finding a constitutional frame for the internal political struggle.
But those who are
watching the scene from the West should keep in mind that the
constitutional evolution in Europe was a slower and equally messy
process. COPY http://edition.cnn.com/
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário