Ayoon Wa Azan (The President Is Learning on the Job)

The problem about the post of president of a country is that there is no school that trains a leader to become president. Instead, a president is elected and then goes on to learn on the job. In democratic countries, no sooner than a president graduates the school of presidency by practice that he leaves the post, only to be succeeded by another “novice”. President Mohamed Mursi is learning on the job now. One of the first lessons he learned was that he should not promise what he cannot deliver. Indeed, in the first one hundred days, none of his promises about reducing bread or fuel prices were achieved, or those concerning reducing traffic jams, improving public cleanliness, or enhancing security, as crime increased and terrorism attacks in northern Sinai intensified. I spent two days in Cairo, between Jeddah and Manama, since I found it more convenient to travel to London westward and then fly to Bahrain eastward. I saw many Egyptian friends and Arab visitors, and I tried to find things in the new administration that would encourage optimism. To be sure, I did not go there to criticize and add to the woes of the Egyptians, and I found that the margin for democratic practice has increased greatly, with opinions and counter opinions expressed every day in all media outlets. The Egyptian lady who wished her husband would take her to an expensive place thus ended up being taken to a gas station instead. At any rate, the most important issue preoccupying the Egyptians these days is the new constitution and the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting it, amid allegations that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis dominate this assembly, with threats made to certain members and parties to push them to withdraw. Here, I cannot find anything that the Egyptians did not shed light on time after time when it comes to the subject of the constitution, so I will tackle the so-called “Million-Man March To Defend Sharia” in Tahrir Square last Friday. I saw the protest from the offices of Al-Hayat which are located near the square, and it brought together several Islamist parties and movements that want Sharia to be enforced, but the Muslim Brotherhood was not present. I am trying to avoid making any criticisms or attacks so that I do not exacerbate the woes of the Egyptians, which are indeed many as I mentioned earlier. But I just want to say that every protest in Egypt today claims to be “million-strong”, although Tahrir Square cannot accommodate a million protesters. In fact, this means that the early protests against the regime of Hosni Mubarak following the January 25 uprising in 2011 definitely did not comprise a million Egyptians. I went to a dinner of “[Mubarak] holdovers” with around 30 friends, including four former ministers. A knowledgeable friend told me that the area of Tahrir Square is no bigger than 50 to 60 thousand square meters, and that each square meter cannot accommodate more than three demonstrators. So if the whole square is to be filled without any platforms for speakers or television or so forth, the total number of demonstrators cannot exceed 200,000 at best. This is while my own estimate is that the pro-Sharia “million-strong” march comprised a few thousand people, in the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood. I hope that the Muslim Brotherhood administration will surprise us by achieving an economic miracle. If the promises made by the president were not achieved in a hundred days, then maybe they will be in a thousand or three thousand days, before a revolution of the hungry erupts against the revolution, that is. For the second, or third time, I will not criticize here. The silver lining I found for the Egyptians, who should not complain, is that no matter how bad things get for them, they are still better off than the Syrians these days. I thus prefer to conclude with remarks about the [Arabic] language which will not provoke anyone. [...] In the end, I will let Dr. Mohamed Mursi try to treat Egypt’s ailments, and I wish him all success. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.