Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy

(Paperback)

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Two years after the Arab Spring had transformed Egypt from a dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak to a democracy under the Muslim Brotherhood, there was a military coup that saw the country return being a police state. In a paradoxical turn of events, this move away from liberalism was aided by the same influential coterie of Egyptian intellectuals and activists who had previously been leaders of civic protest under Mubarak. With contributions from experts in Middle East studies, political science, philosophy, Islamic studies, and law, amongst others, this volume represents the first thorough examination of how Egypt's liberal intellectuals emboldened the return of authoritarianism. Together they form a holistic study of liberalism and modern Egypt, addressing the restrictions placed upon liberal opposition by the structural contours of the state itself, the role of Islam and Islamic activism, as well as issues of secularism, feminism and human rights more broadly following the overthrowing of Egypt's first democratically-elected president.

Reviews

Gives useful insights into the history of liberal though and its current situation inside and outside Egypt.

* The Muslim World Book Review *

What emerges in the reading of the entire volume is a crisis of orientation, in which leading liberal voices in Egypt have seemingly embraced a very binary of secular progress versus religious reaction, while playing a major role in the divisive politics that have characterized the transitional period. This new crisis has led many secular liberals, facing the alleged threat of Brotherhoodization, to a reactionary embrace of the ancient regime. In this perspective, even if the book focuses its attention on Egypt, it begs a more universal question: how can liberalism overcome its current crisis

* Reset Doc *

I read Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism with a sigh of relief that understanding one of the most significant events in our contemporary history is in the caring and competent hands of some seminal critical thinkers. Dalia F. Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi have brought together a formidable volume challenging what they aptly call Illiberal Intelligentsia and gauge the future of the Egyptian democracy beyond and through their historic failures. What the community of critical thinkers gathered in this volume discover and discuss is no mere indictment of the Egyptian liberal intellectuals and their catastrophic failure at a crucial historic juncture, but something far more deeply troubling in the very nature of unexamined globalized liberalism. The result is a fiercely radical constellation of critical thinking indispensable for our understanding not just of Egypt and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, but in fact the very legacy of liberalism in the 21st century.

-- Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

This edited volume is an essential contribution towards understanding the current state of affairs in Egypt. The different chapters offer a sense of the underlying dynamics at work within Egyptian society (among the military, the Muslim Brotherhood, secularists and the youth). The reader is invited to consider the complexity of the situation and what it will take for Egyptian people to find their way towards freedom and justice.

-- Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Oxford

An extraordinary and wide-ranging exploration of the Arab spring's excitement and reversal in Egypt. Compulsory reading to grasp the role of Islam, secularism, authoritarianism and liberalism in contemporary Egypt.

-- Ebrahim Moosa, Professor of Islamic Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame

The question of democracy in Muslim societies has generated heated debate on the role of mainstream Islamist parties and democratization. Can they moderate their views Will they respect electoral outcomes Are they committed to political pluralism The same questions, however, have been rarely asked of liberal and secular forces who occupy the same political space. This is precisely what is unique about this book. Focusing on Egypts Arab Spring democratic transition, it examines the political behavior of Egyptian liberals during the transition period and after the 2013 military coup.In doing so, the editors and contributors make an important and exceptional contribution to understanding both the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab-Islamic world and the obstacles to democracy. It is a must read volume that challenges stereotypes and deepens our grasp of the politics and societies of the Middle East.

-- Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Denver, and author of Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies

The heroic events of January and February 2011 seemed at first to rewrite the rules of Middle Eastern politics. One of the longest ruling autocrats in the Arab World fell not to a military coup, an assassination, or violent uprising, but to the immovable presence of the people demonstrating in public. The Tahrir Revolution was liberal in the sense that its demands were for freedom, the rule of law, and social justice. Its promise was that these goals seemed to reflect a shared will uniting the secular and the Islamist, the masses and the middle class. Two short years later that promise was shattered in a supreme act of anti-political, counter-revolutionary violence. How did many Egyptian liberals, who two years earlier stood side by side with Islamists against Mubarak in Tahrir, and one year earlier voted for Morsi for President, come to side with a return to military dictatorship over constitutional politics Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism brings together many of the best scholars on Egyptian politics to answer just this question.

-- Andrew F. March, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University, and author of Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus

Author Bio

Dr Dalia Fahmy is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Long Island University. Her research examines the intellectual and political development of modern Islamist movements. She lives in New York. Daanish Faruqi is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Duke University, North Carolina.