In the coming few days, even months, we will be facing a huge challenge. This challenge is not confronting the Islamic Current, but confronting terrorism. These terrorists will not hesitate to do anything including bombing, killing, or even assassination in return getting back the ruling power. Here is a question: did a terrorist group govern us? Do Egyptians trust terrorists to rule Egypt, and if so why and how did we allow that to happen?
We have numerous challenges in the next coming days. The first challenge is facing the terrorist group, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Gamaa Islamia, especially after they threatened all Egyptians with bombs, fires and assassinations. We have all read these threats the past few days. From my perspective, we have to face these threats in one of two ways.
First, we must face them by making arrests to anyone who is calling or doing violence. This means that we have to create a huge campaign through security officials. We have to be tough on terrorism with harsh punishments. Threats of violence cannot be tolerated.
The second way is to contain the Muslim Brotherhood and Gamaa Islamia in political reconciliation. By this way, we can control the violence and involve those groups in the political process, which will lead the country to go back to a state of peace. Avoiding these groups will cause a lot of troubles for Egypt and its future. It is not right to completely ignore a group of people even though they may have different ideas about how a country is to be run.
The second challenge we face is the future. The future here means, how should political processes go? I mean specifically the constitution, the presidential elections, and parliamentary elections.
The constitution needs to be put together quickly, and it needs to satisfactorily express all voices in all groups. This should be the basis that we build upon. The constitution should contain all ideas from different attitudes, and try to compromise from every side to reach a good constitution. All people in society should vote with this proposed constitution, not against. Also, this vote shouldn’t be one or two thirds; it needs to be at least ninety five percent support.
The second is the presidential elections. After putting together a supported constitution that outlines the rules of the presidential elections, we should move fast in the election process because we need a president. We need a real president that all Egyptians can feel he/she voted for them, so they think “This is My President.” A president that can talk to all Egyptians, not just a part. A president that can control all the community. A president that can give hope to the Egyptians for the future.
The third is parliament elections should express all categories in the Egyptian community. We should see Liberalists, Islamists, Leftists, Copts, Women, Nubes, and Sinai’s in the parliament. By this way, we know that all groups of people will be represented in the new coming parliament.
These challenges are vital for the Egyptians and for Egypt. We will enver be able to achieve these challenges without going to the upcoming demonstrations and fighting for our country. We need to say to the Islamists, “You put us in a choice: Islamists or Egypt. We will choose Egypt”
