Why I am boycotting the coming Egyptian elections

As an Egyptian living abroad, voting would have been one of the very few means my voice would have been significant for Egypt. Indeed, if I am not able to be physically on Tahrir square protesting for the future of my country, is there anything else than a voting ballot to have an influence? But alas, regarding to the events of the last weeks, I took the decision to boycott the Egyptian elections.

The main reason for me to boycott the elections is the growing brutality of the SCAF and the police with the Egyptian people, acting like the dictator they promised to protect us from. The transitory period should have lasted 6 months, but we are today 9months after Ferbruary 11th, and nothing changed in Egypt. There is no reform of justice, protestors are targeted with tear gas, if not with real bullets, some of them die.Freedom of speech has not improved in Egypt, where 12’000 people had to face military trials, sometimes only for emitting opinions. The regime didn’t downfall with Mubarak, it is continuing with the SCAF. If I went voting, I would feel like I am spitting on the bodies of the martyrs of Tahrir and Maspero, and all the others; indeed, it would be like approving the way the SCAF is running the country.

The other reason for me to boycott the elections is that the organization is very opaque, and we can’t be confident in it. The elections are not organized by an independant institute like were Tunisian elections and SCAF and Ministry of Interior that are today attacking the people in the streets are those who manage the process. We know nothing of the details of the monitoring and there is no independant observers. Everything is left to the random mood of the SCAF. Where is the difference with Mubarak-era elections? Why would we participate to such a mascarade?

The Armed Forces led by General Tantawi are all-powerful in Egypt and I don’t want to contribute with my voting ballot to chose their civilian puppets. Six months were more than enough for such a mighty institution to transfer the power to the people and organize fair and transparent elections. And they didn’t.

In conclusion I would just say that as a half-tunisian half-egyptian, I had the chance to vote last month for the Tunisian elections. My eyes still fill up with tears of joy thinking back of that day where Tunisian citizen could freely vote for their leaders, without any form of threat coming from the army or another institution. And even if I didn’t vote for Ennahda, the fact that they were elected by my fellow-citizens whom were given a free choice is enough for me. And that is no more no less what I wish for Egypt, my other country. Today I can be a proponent or an opponent in Tunisia. Sadly, I don’t think we can say the same about Egypt; boycotting the elections is my way of disapproving the hijack by the SCAF of the revolution made by the great people of Egypt.

Elections results: New Assembly, New Tunisia

The results for the Tunisian elections are revealed, region after region. As expected, Rached Ghannouchi’s Ennahdha is granted about 35-40% of the votes, about 16-17% for Ettakatol and 15-16% for Moncef Marzouki’s CPR. The three main political forces of the country as thus one religious party and two secular parties, in a configuration where none of them can be a majority alone. Together, they will be in charge of writing the new Constitution of Tunisia.

The severe defeat of PDP and PDM parties, traditional secular left, can be understood by the fact that among all secular parties, Tunisians favored the ones that showed an interest for Tunisians daily life problems and a will to conciliate with islamists. Indeed, PDM and PDP main campaign effort was about ‘countering ennahdha’, thus giving to Tunisians the impression of them being nothing else than parties interested in he political game more than they are in the country’s future.

The state of the things might well be the best option for Tunisia, where an equilibrum between religious and secular forces would be the best guarantee of simultaneous stability and progress. After 60years of forced secularism, a full secular power would have had a taste of continuation and a full islamist would have been at odds with the tunisian society. Also, Tunisians have been ruled in the past only by governments originating from a unique party. Tunisia is thus experiencing multipartism for the first time of its History.

One point though remains unclear: the very high scores of Hechmi Hamdi in Sidi Bouzid, the place where the revolution was born. Hechmi Hamdi, director of the London-based TV channed Al Mustaqilah, close to Ben Ali in the past and who presents himself as a moderate islamist, gained up to 90% of the votes in some polling stations. The ISIE (who organized and managed the elections) should investigate on the possibility of violation of the elections code.

We can from now forsee the new constitution that’ll come out of this Assembly: Islam will  remain religion of State, although the primary source of law won’t be Islamic law. A strong focus on Human Rights, together with a presevation of freedom of speech and opinion will be granted. The state will be hopefully bound to a stronger social role towards citizens and a better protection of the weakest people in our country. The hardest part of the work will be certainly to rethink and reform justice.

These first elections were the first step towards our new Tunisia. They were successfully held and that was our first victory over tyranny: to have not fallen into chaos. Now, we are ready to work hard to make of the New Tunisia a successful common project.

Tunisian Elections: Blue is my Finger and Free is my Voice

Today is a bright day for our beloved Tunisia. Today we show the world, and most important we show to ourselves, that we are free people. Our voting card is our weapon to defend ou freedom. Whatever the result will be, the victory for Tunisia would have been to organize fair, free and organized elections only 9 months after the end of a dictatoship. Tunisians are massicerly participating: the waiting queues are reported to be sometimes 200meters long and the ewaiting time sometimes near to 2hours.

As an expat, I voted in Geneva, in the Hotel Warwick. We were given clear instructions and besides the organizing staff there was extenal observers and I could count not less than five acredicted oubservers in the room.

On the technical side, after droping the ballot in the box, we had to soak a finger in a little bottle containing blue ink. The pictures of Tunisian citizens proudly showing their blue finger to the camera are flourishing by hundreds on the internet.  Of course, I will not resist to the pleasure to show you mine as well.

Blue is my Finger and Free is my Voice

Egyptians living abroad want their right to vote!

The following text was written for the petition I lauched for asking to the High Council of Armed Forces of Egypt to reconsider their decision of deniying the right to vote for Egyptians living abroad. If you are an Egyptian living abroad and feel concerned about the denial of your rights, feel free to sign the petition here and share it with your contacts.

Indeed, The Egypt’s Military Council, in charge of leading the country since February 11th 2011 after putting an end to 30 years of Mubarak’s autocratic regime, decided to deprive Egyptians abroad from their right to vote. The Egyptian diaspora represents 4 million people living in 139 countries. Their rights as citizens were denied to them for the very arbitrary reason of the possibility of their votes being “sold” to non-Egyptian interests. The Egyptian diaspora is fully part of Egypt, and the Egyptians living abroad are therefore asking for their rights as citizen to be respected.

To: the High Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt

We, Egyptians living abroad, consider ourselves as fully Egyptians.Our reasons for migration are very different from one person to another, and very few of us consider living outside of Egypt as a deep aspiration. For many of us, it was merely a necessity: some had to migrate to look for a better living, sometimes being simply denied the opportunity to live decently in Egypt under the 30 years of autocratic regime, some others were forced to look for a safe place for they were haunted for their subversive opinions, some even work from abroad for the improvement of their country of origin (in International Organizations for example), some were also born abroad from Egyptian parents. What we have all in common is our love for Egypt and our concern for the future of our country.

We consider the denial made to our right to vote, based on the enventuality that our votes might well be “bought” by foreign interests is not only discriminatory towards us, but is also against the principles of the New Egypt we all wish to see blossoming. Besides being based on an unjustified and subjective preconception, it also sends a strong message to Egyptians living abroad: “You are unworthy to Egypt”.

We are aware of the technical difficulty to coordinate polling stations in 139 countries, but we don’t consider it as a reason for the denial of our rights as citizens. Not only many countries offer to their diaspora the possibility to vote, thus proving it is possible, but also this would mean that a minor technical constraint is stronger than our noble principles of freedom, democracy and unity.

We urge the Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, Chairman of the High Council of Armed Forces of Egypt to consider our determination to participate to the political life of our country and to give us our right to vote, regardless of our country of residence.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

The Awakening

Today I was at the cigar store of the train station, getting a pre-paid card for my phone. The shelves were full of newspapers and magazines of all kinds, of all languages. Most of the front pages were mentioning the Egypt protests, of course. One of them immediately caught my eye, mainly because of the picture I think – the portrait of a young man, the lower part of his face hidden by his scarf. It was the « Nouvel Obs » magazine, and it was titling « De Tunis au Caire, quand le monde arabe s’éveille » (From Tunis to Cairo, when the Arab World wakens). Wakens… awakening?

Definition: awakening [əˈweɪkənɪŋ əˈweɪknɪŋ] n the start of a feeling or awareness in a person

There is no day since the beginning of the worldwide mediatic coverage of the protests in Tunisia where I didn’t hear or read somewhere this word – awakening. Everywhere, I see journalists analyzing the events as the awakening of the arab word, the arab people, the arab street, the arab whatever. And everytime I wonder the same: what is before the awakening? Sleep or unconsciousness, isn’t it? Does it mean that we were worldwidely considered as being asleep or unconscious?

Maybe am I a bit touchy; maybe I shouldn’t think that much about what is – after all – just a word. But the fact is that everytime I am confronted with ‘the awakening’, I cannot help feeling slightly angry and insulted. Don’t we refer to awakening when it comes to the development of a young child gradually getting able to walk, speak or understand abstract concepts? Those who talk about the awakening of the Arabs, without any doubt, suggest that they were in some kind of lethargy until then, that unlike the rest of the people of the world, the Arabs were lost in some extra-dimensionnal realm of irrationality, unaware of the recent progress of History. There even was frequently journalists/analysts/politicians/whatever that were clearly assuming that our « slow » progress on the path leading to political and civil awareness makes it impossible for now to consider anything else than dictatorship for us. Very seriously. And that giving to Arabs democracy too soon could lead to disasters like whole nations falling into political-religious extremism, violence, chaos. It always sounded to me like a father explaining to his to his 16 years old son why he won’t give him the keys of the car: « Don’t you realize you would be dangerous for yourself and for the others? ».

When I read about « awakening », it makes me feel the same way than when I hear anybody saying that – I am giving you here a hint on how to get me mad in less than 2 minutes – « Columbus discovered America in 1492 ». Columbus did not discover America; the people that were already living on the american continent when he reached the shore were those who did. Or like when I consult some page on Wikipedia on some random african country and that under the section « History », the history starts… the day of the colonization of the country. As if the country was created out of nothing the day an army took possession of the land.

People tend to think that what they have not yet seen or noticed, do not exist; and when it becomes visible, they sometimes don’t get to understand that it is not an « awakening ». It is just that something was screening the view to any outside observer; like the Atlantic Ocean between Columbus and America.

Arabs, we, us, are not living presently our « awakening ». They always were fully conscious, fully aware. But this is what the oppression, after all, is about: seeing everything but being forced to keep silent. Being cautious; how to be anything else than cautious when you know that in some conditions, if you speak or protest, it’s your life, or even worse, your wife’s or husband’s, or your parents’ life that is treatened. And maybe it is because this heavy, unbearable barrier between the Arabs and their freedom of speech and act, the people in our countries always felt that much concerned about the palestinian or iraqi issue: it was the only political topics they could discuss without being put in danger; and read between the lines, it was the only way they were able to criticize their governments.

I always found for example that very few Tunisians will ever tell you directly anything about politics, but always amazed how most of them have an extended ability to give practical answers to overcome the issues created by the lack of citizen rights. As if they always were acting political (not in the derogatory meaning of the word) without speaking political. And when they found the first sign of weakeness of the oppressing entity, the movement was spontaneously initiated and followed. As for Egyptians, they have always been more keen to speak than Tunisians, but when it comes to acts, as they were living in certainly what is one of the most halting conditions you would ever imagine, they were making their way through paths you would never have guessed, and I always found them unbelievabily relaxed about it; just waiting for the right time to do the right thing. And it seems now the right time has come; the tunisian revolution was the triggering factor. Egyptians didn’t wait for that day to become aware of the political spoliation of their rights; they knew it already, it is just know it is also visible to the outside world: the view is no more screened.

Will the tunisian and egyptian protests be the triggering factor to other poeple (not only in the arab world) to defeat tyranny? I hope so and I think so. But again, they won’t create the awareness in other countries, they will just be what they needed for releasing the claims.

Hopefully this would lead to the awakening into a new understanding of our History.

Am I the citizen of three countries?

Although I have three citizenships (Swiss, Tunisian, Egyptian), I used to think, all my life, that only in Switzerland my opinion mattered, through my vote, and that dictatorship in my two countries of origine, and the fact I leave abroad, made my voice mute and useless.

I remember the day I received for the first time of my life, as a 18+ swiss citizen, my materiel de vote in my mailbox, it was in 2000 and it was a popular consultation on the rise of age of retirement for women from 62 to 64, I spent days reading all I could read about the topic, too afraid to make the wrong choice. The day I went to the polling station it was odd to me, I clearly felt for the first time of my life to not only be swiss or swiss african, but to be a swiss citizen who has her contribution to bring to Switzerland.

My parents have had Swiss citizenship later than I did – I was almost 20 at that time. The first time they received the materiel de vote, with their voter cards, I remember them so perfectly, laughing and grinning like kids oppening their Christmas Gifts, and telling me it is the first time of their lives they are asked their opinion through vote. At that time my parents were more than 40, but my father, egyptian, and my mother, tunisian, had to wait to be swiss in order to vote for the first time of their lives. I remember when they asked me how to proceed to vote; after the explanation I gave them I remember my mother’s first question was “But what do you think I should vote here? Yes or No?” (and all her life long we had always the same argument about the fact that every time we had to go for voting, she wanted to know what did I vote to vote the same) and my father asking me, while looking at the voting paper, where exactly does he have to write his name – above or below the  “yes” and “no” box?

The day I realized how strange it was to be on one side citizen of one of the most democratic countries – Switzerland – and on the other side “citizen” from two of the most repressive dictatorships of arab countries – Tunisia and Egypt – was the day I voted for the first time for a Tunisian vote. It was in 2002, and we had to chose wether or not we agree to modify the Tunisian Constitution. The Constitution was restricting the president to limited number of mandates, and the ‘popular consultation’ was about rising this restriction to an unlimited number of mandates – in other words, give the constitutional right to Ben Ali to stay a lifetime president. Me and my mother, with our voting cards, went to the Tunisian Consulate and were given the voting material. I remember the voting papers, one with “Yes” written in black on a white paper, “No” written in white on a black paper, and an enveloppe – a transparent enveloppe where nothing was easier to see the color of the paper inside of it. I asked one of the staff if I could have a copy of the constitution with highlights on the parts that are to be modified, he brought me a text telling me that the concerned parts were written in red…. but he gave me a black and white photocopy of the constitution.  When I entered the voting booth, I remember putting the white “yes” paper in my pocket, the “no” black paper in the enveloppe, together with the photocopy of the constitution, in order to make it invisible through the transparent enveloppe which one I chosed. After being out of the Consulate I felt melancholic and angry of how ridiculous all this sounded. When, In november of the same year, at the annual gathering of tunisians of Geneva at the occasion of our National Day, I remember the Ambassador self-congratulating about the successful vote and how each of us can witness how fair our democratic consultation was.

Presidential Elections of 2005 and 2009 were such a mascarade, with the same transparent voting enveloppes and the red paper for Ben Ali, who was re-elected with more than 95% of votes. I went to the 2005 vote to put all the ‘alternative’ candidates papers (4 or 5, I dont remember) in the enveloppe, embended in the red paper. I didn’t even bother going to the 2009 votation, for it was too ridiculous.

I never voted for any egyptian vote or election. I remember at age of 13 or 14 a conversation with my aunt Sohir (at the age where you believe so much in your own stuff that you really look down on adults who tell you about being realistic and compromise, etc, etc), where she said “why should I want for a president a guy we don’t know when we already have one we know? One has to be satisfied or God can send you worse”. And later I never asked for my egyptian voting card, after learning from my father that his Uncle, my grand-uncle Ebrahim was a ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ Society member (“Ikhwan el Moslemine”) and that the day Nasser established their illegality my grand uncle burnt everything, every evidence he had that he was part of the Society.

Before 14th of January I never felt my voice had something any interesting elsewhere than in Switzerland, first because of our democratic system, second because of living here, while I always felt useless to Tunisia and Egypt by dictatorship, but more because of the fact of living abroad – I always felt like I had no really any existence in my two countries of origin – as if I hadn’t “deserved” the right to be called citizen. To be citizen is to vote, but also to work in and for the country, to be part of the everyday life. And without any right to vote – really vote I mean – I was nor a political citizen, nor a factual citizen. Would any of my egyptian or tunisian fellows living there consider me ever anything else than some special kind of tourist (even if I don’t feel myself to be so), coming at summer because I miss the family and the country; because there, I dont own a car, I rent it, I dont see the kids growing up continuously, I only get snapshots? And that question always, alway asked: do you prefer Switzerland or Egypt/Tunisia? How to explain that I prefer none of them, I just dont really get the point of it, as if I was asked who do you love the more, your father and your mother? That despite the fact that I have the perspective to go back live in Egypt or Tunisia (or any muslim country, especially if I get married to a non-egyptian or non-tunisian) before I have kids – for it is clear to me I want my children to be raised in a country where they are not a minorité religieuse where people ask them (as it is a growing tendency in Europe since September 2001) if they are more faithful to Europe or Islam (as if a geographical location was any comparision with a religious entity) – I always felt so far I would be a citizen of Tunisia and Egypt only the day I will be resident there.

But After 14th of January, as Ben Ali stepped down, the perspective slightly changed: in six months I will be voting for a presidential election where my voice will count, whether I live abroad or not. How would I direct my choice towards one of the other of the candidates? Of course my choices are more driven towards the ideologies I believe in and away from those I don’t – the french-like ‘laicité’ opponents like Marzouki no way I’m ever going to give my voice to any of them.  But anyway, the gap that separates me and the day-to-day life knowledge of somebody living in Tunisia, how can I fill it? And now that I see that Egypt has started to follow the Jasmin Revolution path, and that things even go much beyond all expectations, the same question is to be relevant for Egypt also? I try, of course, to do my little own contribution with what I have in hand, but from far, is it enough, is it appropriate? How would I know? I’d certainly never know but now that first time of my life I had the feeling after January the 14th that I am not only tunisian person but also a tunisian citizen, not only an egyptian person, but also an egyptian citizen, the time is really coming for me to answer to THE question: I always knew I can be without any internal conflict a swiss and a tunisian and egyptian person, that I was a muslim-european and is not afraid to raise my voice for what I believe are our rights as europeans with a strong conscience on what we believe is our philosophy and contiousness as muslims, but now I am also another kind of citizen.

Can I really be citizen of three countries? Defend three Constitutions, look after the interests of three countries, one of them being neutral, the two remaining part of a cultural block that is not neutral? Feel three times patriotic, sing three national anthems? Or am I only one citizen, one citizen of one ideology, that has the right and the chance to participate to the implementation of the so said ideology in three different countries?

My friend Anais who is swiss with peruvian origins and with whom I shared my concern gave me, as an answer, a new question, a clever one. She asked me if I could imagine defending the interests of Switzerland/Tunisia/Egypt against any other interests of another country… to wich of these countries would I be able to fight and dedicate my life. Currently I am still trying to sort out the answer – and certainly I began to write this note not to give to the reader (who anyway is certainly not that interested in my own personnal inner debates) the answer to the question, but to find out what it is.

What I know for sure is that chosing between Egypt, Tunisia and Switzerland ‘s interests would it be like chosing between my father’s, my mother’s and my adoptive mother’s interests. I would never be able to harm any of them to defend any other of them, but I will always be able to give my own soul to protect any one of them if it is in my hand to do so. I do not share my love in three for them, I have three different loves. At this point I feel very lucky that I belong to three countries that have different interests, yet not really antagonist interests – not as if I were half egyptian and half israelian for example.

And what I feel now while I am writing these lines is that the one thing that stands in the middle, that links everything together, is not that I am european or african, or swiss or tunisian or egyptian, but that I am a muslim, that knows that only my moral values can make me chose not the interests of a country or another one, but the make me chose the right thing in each situation.

And maybe now I feel for the first time of my life what it is to be part of the Umma, the muslim nation: forget your frontiers but not your moral limits, don’t fight for your country with a patriotic resolution, regardless if the cause is just or not, but fight for your country to follow an ethical path. My two green passeports and my red passeport are not my identities, they are the pacific tools given to me to allow me to act for a change where I belong. Yes I am a Swiss-Tunisian-Egyptian person, a Swiss-Tunisian-Egyptian citizen, but above all I am the carrier of values which I deeply believe are my way to give the best part of myself to the human kind.