language ] [ speaking in foreign language ] >> translator: before is talk about the implications that took place in egypt, to make it clear for my american audience and others, the story of egypt did not really start in january 25th. it started almost 200 years ago when the french lost a battle in pennsylvania and they wanted to punish the british. so they had to occupy egypt -- [ laughter ] so that we came to suffer because of the european conflict on the american soil.

so that is very much interconnect wlinterwhat we a -- interconnect wlad we are talking about today. the relationship between different powers in the state and then all of a sudden they found a totally different country. we didn't know really what to do. here you go. we have the colinized in front of us. what do we do with them? do we colonize their minds or recognize their bodies? unfortunately the decision of the british colonial committee decided to do both of them. and when they did that they created more confusion not only in the minds of the egyptian, but also in the culture of egypt. so the struggle really goes back all, and from that time there were three directions. one direction that was supported and developed by the european colonial power. it's the only way is to look

like europeans, act like european, even speak the european language, and that was the only option offered by those who believed in the european market. that was a very important direction in the story of egypt developing towards democracy. the second was almost the other extreme and these directions took place during the colonial era and is still until today this different directions are trying to come to a common understanding. so the first direction was, go european. look like them. the second on the other extreme that we have nothing to do with europe. let us close egypt to the egyptians and we'll do everything egyptian. the third alternative, which i personally represent and freedom and justice party represented from the time muslim brotherhood came into existence now. we do have a tradition.

needs to be respected, but at the same time we cannot ignore the european development, because europe came out of the dark ages through islamic renaissance in spain, and europeans learned a lot from the muslim experience in spain. why can't egyptians or arabs or muslims in this regard learn from the europeans, take from the europeans what we need and leave what we don't. and since then the struggle went on. nasr came to power. the struggle went on. the problem was not -- sadat came, the problem not settled. mubarak, the same thing, until january 25th. egyptians went, millions in the streets of every city in egypt. and they decided the citizens --

were not leaving. he has to leave. and him was not just a person. it was more of a system. thank god the system collapsed, but i think of the problem in egypt is not the problem of the failure of the dictator. it is the problem of culture of dictatorship. culture of oppression. so egyptians will to struggle not only with the downfall of the system, but the ideas that keep the system going. after the system collapsed, there was a refer random on march 19th. deciding a road map. what do we do? there were lots of discussions. do we go for the constitution first and then the presidency? do we make a presidency and do we do the election first? lots of ideas.

a committee was formed. came with a set of understandings, presented them in the public referendum for the egyptian people. egyptians decided to go with the road map as follows -- it's to have election for the people is simply first. election for the shore accounts is second. writing the constitution and electing a president. once you have the status structure set in, then the journey towards the changing, the culture of oppression into culture of democracy starts. until today. unfortunately, and i say unfortunately, and i mean it, it took us longer than expected. we could have done this process in a really short of time, but for those who would like to think, why did it take so long in egypt? there was an understanding, and that was part of the diegyptian

have a short memory. if we give them long time maybe they would forget they had a solution and then come back and control us again. they forgot that this is not going to be the case anymore. egyptians are determined to live in a free, democratic rule of law. honestly speaking, we suffered a lot. i was in a very situation. my lick checture was recorded b of my students, and sent to the police apparatus to be analyzed. one problem with my english. went and complained to the president of my university. they said the doctor is problematic for us. we don't know how we fire him. is he an american liberal or he is from --

then the president asks of him, why do you think he's from the muslim brotherhood? he said when he speaks in english, he said, to the students, we would like to do this homework next week. so he puts in sha hala in the middle of the english language. so you can imagine the suffering of egyptians an the egyptians are determined, all of them, i agree, with so many egyptians and the tunisian experience, that putting bread on the table takes the top priority, but many egyptians still would like to live free, even if we become hungry. and until us as a freedom and justice party move forward, do what you have to do, we will wait for the reforms, but we're happy that we're living in free society. living in a free society after years of oppression is very problematic indeed. i didn't think it would be that

difficult as a member of the parliament, because everywhere you go, people question you, why did you do that? and we were not used to this in the past. and that requires a lot of preparation. psychological preparation, intellectual preparation, and the rest of it. now the road map went as follows -- the free election, free and fair election that produced about more than 20 different parties in the egyptian parliament. although freedom and justice party got 40% of the vote, but we refused to control all the committees. the same as you do here in the congress. 51% gives you the chance to control all committees, and the egyptian experience, because it is new democracy, we really wanted the participation of each and everyone.

not each and every party, but each and every egyptian. we really were inclusive in the formation of each committee. we wanted representatives from each party, and we came and we had meetings with the different parties of how to form the different committees. after the parliament came the accounts and election. many different parties contested, the freedom and justice party got more than 50% of the votes, but we didn't think of it as majority versus minority. we're still thinking of it as an egyptian project. coming out of oppression requires that ideas, the help, of each and every one. we're very much interested in creating this balance that i spoke about at the beginning of my presentation. this balance between honoring our own culture at the same time

interacting with the european and american alternatives. creating this unique all they've i like to doll the egyptian alternative. so we're moving now into the third milestone. writing the constitution. we thought from the very beginning that this constitution does not belong to the majority, because it does not. it cannot. it's not fair. it's unislamic. to have just the majority right constitution. the majority controls the parliament. that's fine. forms the government. that's fine. because it can leave the government after few years. next election. but constitution goes longer than that. it protects the future generations of egypt. i was there when the formation of the committee, that we voted on, on march 19th, gave the people's assembly and the accounts the right to elect 100

representatives of the egyptian society. there were many options, is to make the 100 from the people's assembly and the shore accounts. all from outside of both of them. or any compilation it was open for us. so we listened to everyone. we had certain parties that said, 100% from the peoples assembly. we had other parties that said, 100% out of the people's assembly. we came clue discussithrough di because we would like to keep this pluralistic alternative in egypt with a 50/50 arrangement. 50% from within. 50% from without, and we made this, and it was great moment in the egyptian history. i remember i was there when i spoke, and i said, this is an historic moment in egypt that we agree together as the representatives of egypt freely elected by all egyptians over

65% of egyptians participated in the election. so it was a historical moment. to my surprise some liberals did not even wait for the first meeting of the constitution committee so that they can put their own alternative on table. less than 24 hours. some are them decided -- we shocked. all of egypt asked the question, why did you then accept being part of the election process? the people simply elected ud to represent them in writing the constitution n constitution. that created a lot of confusion. the details i would be happy to discuss them with you. after the election we thought that the military council in egypt is going to give the majority party the right to form the government, because the only representative party in egypt is

the people's assembly. the council, the military council, is just protecting and helping the democratic process to move forward. to our surprise, services to the people of egypt deteriorated to a warning level. populist people in egypt, our constituencies, keep bombarding us by questions, we elected you. nothing changed. where do we go from there? we demanded a vote of no confidence. for the transitional government. so that the majority parties can come together and form a. >> guest: that can serve the needs of the people. too t to the surprise of everyone, the military council refused to give the majority parties the right to form the government. and then we heard the stories that parliament maybe is old,

because it was based on illegal procedures. that disturbed lots of egyptians. that made lots of egyptians as, if the revolution is still going on. then the presidential committee became immune from being questioned after declaring the results of the election. that really is scared most of people working for democracy in egypt, and that is one reason why freedom and justice party is backing as an alternative to protect the democratic role, until it yields fruitful results to the egyptian people. then, finally comes the presidency. we expect in the coming months a major change -- major changes to happen in egypt would determine to have the egyptian society, because it is pluralistic and we

would like to reflect this pluralism not only in writing the constitution but also in all other affairs, for in egypt we don't have minorities. we don't look at minority, because they're not -- lists a number, yes, but they're part of the egyptian society. the citizens, they have the same rights as muslims and in fact we like to call them all egyptian. all -- and that is the egyptian way of looking at it. and on behalf of the freedom and justice party, we prefer a parliamentarian alternative, or a balanced way of creatinging -- that requires a lot of discussion with other parties. a balanced alternative between the parliamentarian system and a presidential system. we're not interested in bringing another pharaoh back. that's why we'd like the parliament that is elected by the people to be able to form a. >> guest: that represents the people.

that and islam is government, meaning a government, a government of god to rule over the people. that's a strange idea for islam. it was never that. we never thought of our leaders as divine in a was a european experience and imposing it in egypt is very much unfair. we believe in a civil estate. a civil estate. we also believe in an islamic reference behind. a little bit different from the tunisian experience, in this regard, because we are not discussing whether sharia is there or not. we're discussing another level of discourse. whether we put islamic principles or islamic rulings, putting islamic rulings as some parts in egypt insist would make it very difficult for egyptian people. it would make their life really difficult, and we're not interested in this. we would like to put islamic

principles or just leave it as the main source. wrap does islamic sharia for us mean? we look at what we call the macasit of the sharia, the objectives of the sharia. what do they lead to? the implication of the sharia rather than the speck dictate, and that means democracy. that means freedom. that means the rule of law. that means the basic universal principle that humanity is yielding for everywhere in the corner of -- how much more time? >> one minute. >> great. thank you. it is good that i can ask bp i still have one minute. our very challenges, there are many challenges. the military council is a challenge. everywhere in the world, almost everywhere in the world the military is getting away from politics. we would like to avoid the military industrial complex phenomena. we would like the civilians to

be able to control their lives the way they want. having a military is like having a theocracy but in a secular forward and gain both democracy as well as military ruling of the egyptian lives. then once we're settled with the parliament, the accounts and the presidency, the government on writing the constitution, we have a huge test. the problem has not started yet, bu we need to be able to change from this operation into culture of freedom where all of us can meet, agree, and disagree. we need to be able to honor our human dignity, respect our differences, because we believe that these two principles honoring our human dignity and respecting our differences are indispensable conditions for egyptian peace, for national peace, and for world at peace.

thank you. >> thank you very much. okay. we move to the two monarchies that are trying, as i said to put in place reform process from above. yesterday i was talking to minister humphrey and he said we're present a third way. not the status quo of the arab world and not the revolutions that are going on, we represent a third way where we have a monarchy, we would like to keep the monarchy, but within the monarchy we are trying to put in place a serious and a sustained reform process, and to hear about the moroccan experience and the third way, we'd like to hear from you. what is your end game? what is the future of morocco? do you think reform from above can work in the erik world or elsewhere? what is your thinking on this?

>> let me first thank you for this invitation, and i think that it's working in morocco. we are succeeded in implementing what we call the third part. which revolution and what we call the old system of political control, ignoring the democratic demand that now is emerging in the arab world. and in morocco. nobody could ignore this demand. but we can't anticipate this demand, and develop what we call reforming without losing our civility. taking into account the rule, the crucial rule of the monarchy, in leading the country towards many reforms that happened in the past decade, in

reforming the public code. there are technician of the culture. dealing with the past humorized abuses, and establishing a conciliation committee, integrated islamic movements within the political and social process. all this happened during the last decade, and the rule of the monarchy was crucial that now we are moving towards a second generation of political reforms. gradual democratic genuine reforms. how we did this. at the beginning morocco like all countries in the region, we knew the emergence of the youth we call 20 -- february 20 movements. at this movements succeed in

mobilizing parts of the civil society. parts of the political parties, and they went to the streets asking for fighting corruption and fighting t-- the king, the monarchy decide to react to this activity, and there was the march 9th speech when the king decide to open the gate for a constitutional reform, organizing elections, and providing new policies that then with political issues like identity, like the issue of good governance and linking accountability with responsibility. dealing with the issue of having elected governments. at the beginning there was some

skeptical views. skeptical views said, this will be a limited reform. this will be -- we're not going to see real changes in the -- but what's happened after, we establish a constitutional commission, and in july 1st moroccan people approve the new constitution. this was the first test of the march 9th speech. and we succeed in recognizing that our identity is so diverse, arabs, muslims, jews -- and we succeed in drafting the bill of rights, 21st articles about all major rights, that's humanity,

give up almost two or three centuries and we succeed in defining the main element and measures related to what we call good governance, transparency, integrity, respect, rule of law, whole chapter in the new constitution. the second test was the election. november 25. and it was what all was waiting to see. are we going to succeed in implementing the constitution or not? are we going to escape from the challenges of the democratic reform or not? are we going to succeed in giving the voice to the people, to make the change and to see the results of these changes? and this is what happened.

and for this reason i describe the third part as the part of the revolution of the ballad box. not the revolution of the street. november 25 elections gave to the justice and weapons party vast majority, in terms of voice. more than 1 million of the voters votes had voted for the pgd. 107 seats in the parliament. but we shouldn't ignore that only 45 persons of the moroccan society went to vote, and this we should work in implementing the constitution and widening the trust, the confidence of the public on the political process.

after this election, the king decided to eliminate the chief of the government from the -- the party that won the election. in the constitution, it's not clear that the chief of the government should be the secretary, the general secretary of the party. the king decides to enter, perhaps, democratically the constitution and to eliminate the general security of the party. [ inaudible ] and many secular, liberal, leftists, nagsists, na, they saw good thing, positive thing, and positive signal that morocco is moving towards reforming gradually, establishes

real democratic system. after we succeed in establishing the coalition that brings together leftist party and nationalist party, and also a political party with a culture [ inaudible ] nationalists also with the pgd. a coalition that until now is working 100 days past, after the nomination of the new government in january 3rd, 2012. what's happened during this process? from february 20, 2011 until now it was a long process moreover is moving towards a genuine democracy. what's the elements of this

moroccan exception? i think three factors explain what we call the moroccan exception. neither revolution, neither of the status quo. the first factor is as i mentioned earlier the rule of the monarchy. historically monarchy had rule as an action that unified the country. has religious legitimacy. that gave him the ability to make the necessity for in the -- moderate interpretation of islam. and link in modernity with our islamic references. but beside this, two things. defining the country, live in

the interpretations of religion through challenges of modernity. besides these two things. one iraqi played crucial role in presenting after independence. and even after the collapse of the soviet union has played the role in accelerating the process of emergence of what we call in 1997-1998 the democratic transition with the government. and now one monarchy is saying his was wrong. in leading the country towards more democratic reforms. the second factor is the existence of a very dynamic, active civil society.