Egypt, America and Human Rights, Part II

Editor’s note: part one of this article appears here

The Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Faiza Abu Naga, announced at a press conference last Saturday evening (January 1) that after the January 25 revolution, over $200 million — equivalent to 1.2 billion Egyptian pounds — had entered Egypt to finance illegal political organizations, behind the backs of the government and in violation of the law. She also pointed out that even in the United States, which decried the opposition to these organizations, “political financing” is prohibited, and that a number of the foreign organizations (American and German) were operating without authorization from the government and in contravention of the law.

However, what was shocking was the speed with which the staff of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute left the country out of fear of judicial prosecution. The leaders of the affected “organizations” — more accurately Egyptian human rights “boutiques” — set up the minimum and left, but nonetheless began to attribute to themselves imaginary heroism, claiming that they were revolutionaries and the army was punishing them, and that they were martyrs paying the price for their bravery.

Anyone who examines the behavior and logic the proprietors of these rights boutiques used to defend themselves will no doubt be shocked, as there are a number of observations and questions around these leaders’ defenses and the whole situation in general. These are:

1 — That the majority of those involved are lawyers — that is, men of law — the same people who harass us about “transparency,” calling for it day and night in the faces of the government and the military council, and before them in the face of the former regime. So why do they now refuse to hold to this transparency themselves? They’re like those people the thinker Gibran Khalil Gibran described when he wrote about “the priests who preach to others but do not take advice.” The words of the poet also apply: “O teacher, were you not taught?” Their first concern was to not let money tempt them with its luster or be carried away behind a violation of the law, even if they deceived themselves with the lie of human rights, just like America deceived the whole world with this great lie. Perhaps the scandals of Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay, the details of which are known to all, are better witnesses to America’s pioneering efforts in the field of human rights violations.

2 — The boutique proprietors’ threat that they would resort to calling on the West and on international organizations, apart from depriving them of a degree of popular sympathy, did them no good. In the past they operated according to the law and with knowledge of the relevant judicial sectors, and you can’t demand interference in the work of the judiciary, inside the country or outside, as a means of preserving the “principle” of judicial independence. This principle is one that the West, and behind them the boutique proprietors, call for — or is it that this principle is flexible and relative?

3 — The West, America as well as Europe, is a firm believer in the philosophy of pragmatism, and it takes this philosophy as a guide for life. This means that they support the idea of the “profit” which comes to them — in short, that the West is not a charity that spends its money on noble humanitarian goals. Otherwise, the $200 million that was poured into Egyptian rights’ organizations or boutiques directly after the revolution would have gone first to the millions starving in Somalia .

4 — It’s natural that American and European funders have aims, even long-term and long-distance ones, especially since Egypt is so open. This is clear from what’s going on around us, from the partition of Sudan to Iraq, torn apart, its people banished, burned by the fires of sectarian strife. It’s well-known that the success of the plan to partition Sudan was a consequence of the infiltration of aid workers and their ability to enlist local workers; this is the same thing that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now Egypt’s national security is facing threats from all sides: Israel to the East; Libya in flames to the West, thanks to the work of spies; to the South, Sudan, the south of which has become a playground for Mossad. If the situation makes it clear that Egypt lacks the ability to be an actor in what is happening around it, should Egypt wait and keep silent about domestic sleeper cells, cells that will make their move at the necessary time but were actually organized after the revolution? Or must Egypt undertake to eliminate these cells, cells that are centers of evil, and mere tools of the West?

5 — Only this monopoly of boutiques are given the name of “civil society,” but in the years they’ve existed on the Egyptian stage they’ve been nearly devoid of influence. Before the January revolution they never succeeded in preventing authoritarianism or arbitrary rule, just as they failed to rein in the infernal machine of torture — they didn’t even slow it down, much less stop it. The proof of this is that the most famous cases of torture where the perpetrators were held accountable, the cases of Emad al-Kebir and Khaled Said, were broken by Al-Jazeera.

6 — The operating and organizing mechanism of these boutiques, before the revolution, began with accepting the complaints of those affected, gathering the witness testimony on the event, and presenting a statement on it to the public prosecutor’s office, which would usually end in the investigation being suspended for a number of reasons. After that, the details would be gathered into reports which would be sent along with publications about the issue or about the activities of the boutique to a funder, American or Europeans, so as to ask for assistance from the U.S. State Department. The State Department would use these to publish their periodic human rights reports, which were produced for no other reason than to put pressure on ruling regimes — not out of interest in the Arab people or their rights.

And since then, these organizations or boutiques were part of the phenomena of corruption that accompanied the former regime, and now they must choose: Either work in the light, far from foreign funding and with the transparency that they themselves demand, or else go to hell, where no one will mourn them.