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Religious Freedom
The climate for Egypt's largest religious minority, Coptic
Christians, remained difficult. In February 2008, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favor of twelve defendants seeking to return to Christianity after previously converting to Islam, but ruled that their national ID cards should indicate that they "used to be Muslim," which ensures continued hardship and discrimination against the converts.
Other religious minorities, including the Qur'anists, an offshoot of Sunni Islam, and Baha'is, continue to be the targets of discrimination. Baha'is are not allowed to build houses of worship or practice their faith publicly.
The government continues to stall on the passage of a national uniform law on construction of houses of worship that would remedy the hardship Copts face in building or repairing their churches. Copts - who represent about five per cent of the population -- continue to suffer from discrimination in public employment and are underrepresented in high leadership positions. And Coptic history continues to be conspicuously absent from educational textbooks.
Don't you wonder why Charlie Rose failed to challenge so many of Mubarak's answers? Like "Democracy is there in Egypt." Or "There is freedom of speech." Or "I respond to the demands of the people." Or "We are doing reforms based on the demands of the people." Or "We have a human rights commission...There have been many sentences against people who have breached human rights."
I think the Washington Post had it just about right when it said in an editorial on the eve of the Mubarak-Obama meeting, "Middle East 'realists,' who seem to abound in the new administration, argue that Mr. Mubarak's help is needed to deliver an Israeli-Palestinian settlement and to contain pro-Iranian radical groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. But it's likely that they, like many U.S. policymakers before them, will be disappointed by the
disparity between Mr. Mubarak's words and actions. For several years now, the Egyptian regime has been promising Washington that it will broker an end to the rift between Hamas and the more moderate Palestinian Authority, end the smuggling of weapons to militants in Gaza and obtain the release of an Israeli soldier held hostage since 2006. It has failed on all three counts."
WAPO concluded: "No amount of coddling by Mr. Obama is likely to change the behavior of Mr. Mubarak, who has 28 years of experience in deflecting U.S. initiatives...If Mr. Obama focuses his attention today on Mr. Mubarak and his dubious diplomatic contributions -- as opposed to the Egyptian people and their
legitimate demands for political change -- the president will ignore the lessons of history."
I hope Obama will not ignore the lessons of history. I hope he will not be so focused on Egypt's potential to help with the Israeli-Palestinian debacle that he will put Mubarak's widespread repression on a back burner somewhere. I am not proposing a
do-over of the blunt-force-trauma approach of George W. Bush. I am suggesting that our aid dollars give us considerable leverage; yet there is a sense that Mubarak now thinks we need him more than he needs us.
That's a betrayal of hundreds of very courageous Egyptian advocates for human rights and good governance who put their lives and livelihoods on the line every day. The least our president should do is recognize their existence, their sacrifice, and their contributions to "change we can believe in."
We ignore them at our peril. Because, if participative democracy ever comes to Egypt, it will be these men and women who will drive it.
Meanwhile, as Krugman wrote, ""There's a point at which realism shades over into weakness."
The author served as a State Department and USAID consultant in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. He lived in Cairo for several years.
