EDSN Inaugural Meeting

By Jennye Greene

The inaugural meeting of the Egyptian Democracy Support Network (EDSN) was convened in Alexandria on the 22-23 October. It represented an unprecedented act of cooperation between Egyptian and foreign NGOs in a drive to further Egypt's democratic opening. Senior officials from the National Endowment for Democracy, The British Foreign Office, Freedom House and the Italian Parliament among others sat down at the table with Egyptian grassroots organizations to found a transnational coalition. Though plagued by numerous calculated and conniving disruptions from both within the ranks of the invitees and without, they persevered, hammering out the details of the founding document and signing their new organization into existence.

Recent events in Egypt have breathed new life into a long dormant and heavily suppressed civil society. The mobilizations of Kefaya, the success of election monitoring projects, and the formation of the United National Front for Change all testify to the stirrings of an important pro-democracy movement and the gradual weakening of the Mubarak regime's iron-grip on civic activity. It is this context that the need for international support became increasingly apparent and the seven domestic organizations at the EDSN called on their foreign counterparts to step in and help bridge the gap. Though it might appear a distasteful move to a handful of people that still claim “Egypt for the Egyptians,” this meeting called for Egyptian civil society to “swallow its pride” and ask for assistance. Specifically, the international partners agreed to provide help in a technical and financial capacity, aid in the lobbying of foreign governments, and to sign joint declarations when they deemed appropriate. According to Dr. Saad, it is becoming increasingly important to shatter the regime's quasimonopoly position as a window to the outside world. That is to say that the Egyptian government should not be the one providing the bulk of the information to the international community. Likewise, they should not be the primary channel though which international assistance must flow.

The EDSN will be composed of two distinct organizational structures that will nevertheless remain in close contact with one another. Domestic members have formed themselves into a task force that identifies the needs of civil society groups and monitors the current political atmosphere while the international component will remain more loosely organized as a network. The two components will interact via a website, monthly reports sent out by the secretariat as well as semi-annual meetings for all that wish to attend. Furthermore, membership will hopefully continue to expand and remain open to any organization or individual that wishes to join acting in good faith.

This first meeting of the EDSN already experienced some of the pitfalls of leaving its doors wide open.Asituation developed just after Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim's opening remarks in which he outlined the origin of the idea for this network, it's democratic and cooperative nature, and emphasized that all groups should feel welcome to contribute their input. Ironically, after setting this tone of “Two heads are better than one,” an uninvited guest stood up and began to vehemently attack the very premise of the meeting, calling everyone imperialist agents. He would not desist from his tirade and within minutes had overturned the conference table, rushed to aggress the members of the panel and launched a glass into a nearby wall. Several other (also uninvited) men joined him in his rampage and the meeting was effectively brought to a halt. Neither the hotel security nor the local police would restrain him let alone evict him from the premises. Worse, the offenders were then permitted to hold a press conference in the very room that had been booked for the EDSN meeting. Meanwhile, outside the hotel, a crowd had gathered and they were told that the meeting was linked to the inter-communal violence that had erupted in Alexandria the previous day. The general consensus is that these perpetrators were sent either by the State Security apparatus or the NDP.

But on a more positive note, the meeting was successfully resumed a few hours later. In the session dedicated to discussing the role of the international participants, a number of interesting interventions were made that stood in stark contrast to the events earlier that day. Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment noted that the American government is increasingly interested in listening to what the Egyptian people have to say in order that they can know what sort of change to push for, or what will most effectively complement the efforts already underway. Other participants showed interest in framing the assistance in terms of supply and demand, with Egyptian civil society on the demanding side and the international partners stepping in to supply whatever has been demanded. Mensur Akgun of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation commented on the striking similarities between Egypt's current situation and that of Turkey during its political opening, a process that was greatly supported by Turkey's close connections with the European Union. All of the participants, however, were careful to emphasize that foreign support would in no way be dictated from outside. Rather it would, in the words of Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, help to pry open more political and civil space for Egyptians to fill in as they saw fit.

The last session of the conference presented a cross-section of perspectives from arguably three of the most important forces for the future shaping of Egyptian democracy: Islamist movements, grassroots protest movements, and the organizations involved in the monitoring of the political process. Gamal al-Banna spoke of the similarities between the values of Islam and democracy (justice, equality, and freedom) and argued that any incompatibility between the two was purely superficial. Islam makes no provision for governance structures, only guidelines for governance. Thus the two may work together to create a system that avoids many of the pitfalls of Western-style representative democracy. He went on to say The only power that the State cannot conquer is Islam. Egypt for thousands of years has been a land of religion. The fact that Islam is the most important element here makes it such that if democracy wants to enter, it must make itself conform to Islam.Donot expect that Egyptian democracy will be the same as American democracy.

From within the leadership of the Kefaya protest movement, Hanna Grace spoke about the importance of Kefaya's recent mobilizations. 1) They broke illusion that the regime can get away with anything. 2) As a result, people's fear of the security forces diminished and they began taking to the streets in larger numbers and in more politically symbolic locales. 3) This was the first truly pluralistic and civil protest movement. 4) It formed for the first time a coalition between different elements of the political spectrum. And, 5) it incorporated the Copts in significant numbers to participate in civil society activity outside their churches.

Lastly, the head of the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring, Sherif Mansour, gave a presentation on the accomplishments of the organization, highlighting the amount of progress they had made in the short time between the spring referendum and the upcoming parliamentary elections where they will employ some 5,000 monitors. The success of this and previous operations is witnessed by the fact that official government estimates of turnout have been subsequently revised downward. The challenge that lies ahead is how to keep the monitors, many of them college-aged, engaged in politics beyond the elections.