Letter from Cairo: Beware the ‘S’ word

“If you don’t believe me, ask him,” he tells two citizens whose jaws are dropping in disbelief after hearing the news. “He cannot deny he is a democrat.”

“He will burn in hell,” he adds.

“We have to act quickly,” says the first man.

“Where the hell is he?” asks the second. And they both rush to hunt down the “democrat” before he “democratizes” their mini-state and drags all its citizens to their doom.

How prophetic! Quarter of a century later, this scene is reenacted in almost every part of Egypt except that the word is not the same. Now it is a new word, one of dozens that were added to the vocabulary of Egyptians after the revolution, not because they had not existed before, but rather due to their irrelevance at a time when people had no say in what kind of government is to represent them or what ideology they want to see prevail. The difference between this word and its fellow newcomers is the repulsion it elicits in the majority of Egyptians, the fear it evokes when it is brought up as a possible system of governance, and the harsh criticism directed at anyone who shows signs of supporting it.

So what does “secular” mean for most Egyptians? I am just going to state a few of the scenarios people imagine would take place in case Egypt becomes a secular country. Muslim women will be forced to take off their veils and calls for prayers will be abolished … homosexuals will be allowed to tie the knot with impunity … abortion will dethrone giving birth as the normal end to pregnancy… alcohol will replace sugarcane juice as the country’s official drink… topless foreign women will be as abundant as stray cats… extra-marital sex will be a rite of passage as compulsory as elementary education… and so on and so forth of that talk that aims at giving Muslims the impression that secularism is a return to the Jahiliyyah or rather a revival of the time when early Christians were thrown to the lions at the Coliseum.

I don’t want this to sound like a Wikipedia entry, but I feel some kind of mysterious obligation to offer an objective explanation of what the newest addition to Egyptian taboos means. Secularism, in very simple terms, is the separation between state and religion in the sense that religion shifts from the public to the private sphere so that individuals practice religious rituals pertaining to their faith, but the state does not use the rules of this faith to regulate relationships between citizens.

This entails replacing religious laws inspired by holy books with civil ones that do not favor one religion at the expense of another. Judging by its linguistic origin—the Latin “secularis” meaning “worldly,” secularism is all about running the affairs of a country in accordance with human rather than divine laws, not because the latter are rejected but rather because the former might at times be more practical. For example, in countries whose population is made up of followers of several religions—take India for example—it becomes very difficult to write a constitution derived from holy texts because in this case you will either follow the religion of the majority, which will constitute a flagrant violation of the rights of religious minorities, or you will draft different laws for different faiths, which is next to impossible to apply in any modern state.

The problem does not stop at one religion versus another but extends to different denominations of the same religion—the Sunnis in Iran or the Shiites in Bahrain being typical examples. Secularism is, therefore, meant to dissolve tensions between citizens of the same country due to affiliation to different, sometimes seemingly conflicting, religions. It is, in this sense, similar to anti-discrimination acts in several countries all over the world except that those are more comprehensive as they include race, color, and gender.

By equating secularism to atheism and all forms of what they perceive as moral disintegration, Muslim Egyptians fall into one trap with the two “democrat” slayers in the movie simply because they treat as accurate information they obtain from staunch opponents to a secular state not because it is prohibited in Islam but because it neither serves their interests nor bestows upon them the kind of power they have always dreamt of.

This information focuses on linking secularism to all behavioral patterns that are considered unacceptable in a pre-dominantly conservative society and intentionally presents secularism as a social rather than a political system so that they are made to believe that it implies an absolute disintegration of all the moral values they are so protective of.

A great deal of confusion, therefore, ensues between enforcing new social norms or making available other alternatives to the already existing ones and you are free to choose which one to follow.

The first scenario is entirely not fit for application in Egypt since a secular state does not come up with a new people neither does it push them through a mutation process that will change them from conservatives to liberals so that suddenly veiled girls will be wearing skimpy skirts or all the population will turn into gays.

The second scenario basically sets the foundations of a secular state in a way that does not disrupt the social makeup of the country nor impose on a people that have for centuries been quite religious rules that for them violate their basic beliefs. It is of course problematic in the sense that some laws are bound to stir endless controversy by virtue of having their origin in Islam like polygamy, inheritance, marriage contracts, conversion to another religion, and abortion.

Putting my personal opinion on those matters aside—I admit I do not represent the majority of Egyptian as far as those are concerned—reaching a middle ground in such sensitive issues is quite tricky and requires a great deal of patience, research, and, most importantly, a break from that self-righteous attitude that some echelons of the society have been adopting. “I am right, but you are also right,” is what secularism is about. “I am right and you are wrong, but I am allowing you to exist out of the kindness of my heart,” is what is happening now.

People should stop treating their religious beliefs as a material possession that will be stolen from them because this is not true and this is not what a secular state is about. People should also start realizing that what suits them does not necessarily suit others and that it is time that citizenship becomes the first and foremost principle that governs a country that is supposedly undergoing a real democratic transition.

When conducting awareness campaigns that aim at acquainting people with their rights as they start to take part in the political process that is to determine Egypt’s future, several of my fellow-campaigners gave me the same advice: “Do not mention the word ‘secular.’ Just say ‘civil.’ They are not as offended by it.” And I disagreed. “You know when you say ‘civil’ it implies both non-religious and non-military so that is much milder.” I still disagreed. “Then you can start explaining what it means and in the middle mention the separation between religion and state.” I did not budge. A taboo is created of anything—no matter how trivial it is—when we decide not to address it because then we would be accomplices in the criminalization of the legitimate and will be guilty of helping to keep people in the dark and therefore aiding other forces that have been doing so for a long time.

Let’s treat secularism like sex education… it feels awkward in the beginning yet makes a whole lot of difference in the end, and like the two men in the movie must have realized by now that it is the “democrat” they should follow, give it some time and the word “secular” will come out from its hiding place in the Glossary of the Big Don’ts and we will bid farewell to euphemisms for good.