 Now, I believe we're going to take some questions from the audience. I think those are going to be collected. I think you write them down and pass them to your left, and those will come to me. But as someone that's researched for 15 years in the Middle East, you cannot understand what it's like to go to Egypt now, because before the revolution started in 2011, I would have to go to all these guys' offices individually to talk to them and hear their points of view. So the fact that we can get everybody on the same page, on the same stage, talking and interacting is really something that, while it doesn't look like it's a major feat, is a tremendous feat when you consider the days of Hosni Mubarak and what that regime looked like. But since we're in America, there's many questions I would like to ask, but since we're in America, and I tend to have a bit of a pulse on what people think sometimes here, I guess I'm going to ask a sort of less Egyptianized question and a more provocative question. So there's this old argument that when it comes to democracy, the Arab world was somehow exceptional or it just couldn't stick, maybe something culturally, maybe it's because of economic development, whatever. And when the uprisings and revolutions started to happen around the region, many of us in the academy who have been arguing against this position for a long time, breathed the sigh of relief and said, well, obviously people want democracy, so this culture and this area is not resistant. But the fact of the matter is that if one watches the news of Egypt in the United States, it looks very messy because we don't get to see the small achievements that happen that you guys see. We see people in the streets fighting, we see tear gas and apparently we keep shipping tear gas over there, which is very nice of us. Thank you. You're welcome. But so what this is doing, though, right, is when you get people who are very busy in their lives and live in the United States and they see the news, their first reaction is like, wait a second. Was this worth it? Like, look at this mess that's created, right? Maybe we should support stability, which is always code for authoritarianism in the Middle East. So how would you respond to that question being posed by an American audience? Is democracy something that just doesn't work in your country or? I'm sure we're going to all agree on this. Go ahead, please. Okay. That is a cross-ideological question. Yes. I believe one can offer a cross-ideological answer as well. Let me start by saying that I believe public opinion trends in Egypt do document that process of disenchantment, but continue to document that Egyptians are eager to have dignity, social justice and freedom in their country. So while people are becoming increasingly disenchanted with what politics and politicians are offering, they continue to uphold the major demands which they put forward in January 2011. I believe the same can be said about Tunisia to move beyond Egypt to an extent. Now, the trouble is not in what we are going through because those processes are bound to be messy. Democratic transition is never a neat and a well-defined process. And we just have to go back to what was unfolding in the 1990s in Eastern European countries or later in the decade of the 1990s in the Balkans or in Latin American countries or in different African Asian countries to realize that democratic transitions are always messy and they entail a great deal of power struggle and they entail a great deal of polarized environments and they entail a great deal of failure in building consensus. In some places it took two parliamentary cycles. In fact, if you go back to Eastern European countries and revisit what happened, majority parties, I'm not saying it to tease Dr. Amr al-Ragh or Sami, but in reality in many Eastern European countries, parties which were elected in majority positions in parliaments were voted out later on after two parliamentary cycles and never made it again. That's true. That's what you're thinking about. So I'm saying never made it again. So those processes are messy and sometimes violence happens as well. Now, so let's please put Egypt, Tunisia. Libya is a bit of an exceptional case, right? As you mentioned, Josh, because of foreign interference, but let's put the two cases where we did have or continue to have ongoing revolutions and democratic transitions. Let's put them in context of comparable citizens' democratic revolutions in Eastern European countries and elsewhere. You will get a picture as much as it's painful, as much as it's tiring. We are not odd. We are not, once again, an exceptional case. And so the question of compatibility between our societies and democracy is to my mind not a question and should be pushed aside. No, we can make it and hopefully we will make it. Secondly, let me say that here I once again become Egypt specific. We are in a country where we have had a long history of stable state institutions. State institutions have been stable, but have been autocratic in terms of how they approached the electorate, how they approached and reached out to citizens, networks of patrimonialism, networks of loyalty going in a straight and one-sided direction all the way to the president. The president ruled Egypt since 1952 as an uncontested center of power, center of gravity. So we have had, yes, stable state institutions and to an extent that stability was promoted by external actors in different phases. However, that was an autocratic stability. An autocratic stability at the end of the day never delivers to people's needs and demands. So, yes, it's messy. Yes, it's a violent environment to an extent. Yes, it's not that easy to convince Egyptians to stick to the democratic process. We have that disenchantment. But once again, that is the only way we have to go forward. We've got to democratize. We've got to build a system which respects rule of law and rotation of power and it will take time just as it took time everywhere at least. I think that sounds great. And since that was a cross ideological question, I'm going to ask another one, but I'm going to direct it to Dr. Elshar Ruggie. Again, watching the news on the TV, reading the New York Times, these sorts of things. We read about women being repressed, women not being represented. As an Egyptian woman, what would you like to tell an American audience about this process of women's participation and inclusion in the country? First, before I get into that, I would like to quickly say when it comes to your first question, Dr. Elshar, about whether it's worth it and the messy things people see on TV around the world, I would actually refer to Professor Gordon Wood who actually talked to us yesterday a lot about the American Revolution and how messy it was for years before things settled. So I think that this is an important thing to put in perspective. And the second thing is Egypt has always had, by the way, before the Revolution, people were saying around the world, especially Western academics, were saying, you know, Egypt is never a revolt, which is not true. The first revolt in Egypt's history was during the pharaohs when those who were building the pyramids were actually protesting their low wages. And so the first protest in our history was even against a pharaoh. So that's when it comes to women, I think that women in this room will know exactly what I'm talking about when I say that, you know, preparing for the revolution or during the struggle until the revolution, women were not just part, were not just part of, were not just partners. Women were actually sometimes leaders, sometimes instigators, sometimes actually protectors in the national movement of Egypt. During the revolution or the 18 days of toppling Mubarak, women were all over the place. Actually, I don't know if you can, if you have already seen the video that came out one week before the revolution by one of our young women who actually was saying to men, she was actually playing on the patriarchal ideas and telling men, if you really think that we women have to be protected, come down to Tahrir Square to protect us because I'm going and you need to protect me. And so this is what I mean by instigators as well. But it's the same sad story all around the world. Once it comes to now, this is over. Once it comes now to sharing power, women are immediately marginalized. And this is the story of women in the United States. It's the story of women in Egypt, and it's the story all around the world. And the struggle for women rights is a is a is a long struggle. I I cannot empathize enough with women here in the United States with the fair pay, an equal pay resolution that has never passed. And for me, I was in the constitutional assembly that wrote the Constitution. And I worked very hard and fought very hard for women rights. And I was defeated. And I must tell you that I was defeated by by the liberals and by all other trends. And at that point, I told all my colleagues, then I told them when it comes to women rights, there is no such thing as Muslim brothers and liberals. All of you guys are men. And this is actually what happened during the Constitutional Assembly on women issues. And I'm going to write my testimony on what happened on this issue, because people, women in Egypt and women around the world need to know what happened. And I was doing this. I I hate saying I, but I was it was only me as a as a as a woman in the leadership position. I was deputy secretary general. Dr. Raam was my boss. And you can imagine it's a it's a it's a 19 member leadership in which I was the only woman. And they were sometimes shutting me off and I never allowed them to shut me off. And so the in other words, the struggle for women rights is is an ongoing struggle in Egypt, just as everywhere else. But to me, the problem for Egypt is that we have women organizations, but we do not have a women movement. And that's the problem. Great. Thank you very much. OK, our sort of leading vote getter in terms of the questions that were posed really have to do with the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muslims Islam, generally, and how that interacts with the Coptic Christian minority. General numbers put it at 90 percent Muslims in Egypt and 10 percent Christians, although there is some debate about that. And so the questions generally say religious institutions are inherently non-democratic. How can democracy flourish in a Muslim country or any religious state? What about Christian rights under the Muslim Brotherhood? What are their rights? Please comment on the treatment of Coptic Christians in Cairo. How about the Muslim Brotherhood change its name to something more inclusive? That would be a start. So, Dr. Doran. Excellent. How about the Muslim Christian Brotherhood? That would be it. OK. Change your name. OK. Generally speaking, I think it's how does Islam work with democracy? How does the Muslim Brotherhood work with democracy? And of course, the role of the minorities. We have a little bit of a problem because in many countries that that governance was made in the name of Islam, the real Islamic values were not really applied the way they should have been. And this gave the impression to a lot of people in the world that there is a contradiction between the basic values of Islam and the values of the modernity and democracy. And in our opinion, in the Muslim Brotherhood and definitely in the party, is that actually there is very little, very little differences between the basic values of Islam and the basic values of modernity and democracy. When it comes to people's governance, for example, the choice of the ruler of the people in both disciplines stems from the people, not by an authority of God or anybody else. As a matter of fact, this is by far more superior than a more or less secular regime that used to be before the Egyptian Revolution, that was based on dictatorship. Which one is closer to the standards of modern values? When it comes to, the reference just refers to minorities and stuff like that. Yes, in numbers, Christians in Egypt constitute about 10 percent of the population, plus or minus. But nevertheless, as citizens, they are not minority. When it comes to religion, yes, there are a few Christians than fewer than the Muslims. But in terms of citizenship, we do not really acknowledge any difference between Muslims and Christians and Jews and anybody else when it comes to practicing citizenship. And this is reflected, for example, in the new constitution. There is no reference whatsoever to the world minority in the constitution. We talk about citizens, rights of citizens. You cannot discriminate between citizens or any basis, whether religion, whether gender, whatever. So in terms of what we hope that happens as freedom and justice party, we are basing our model based on the basics of Islam. We hope to prove to the whole world that there is no real contradiction with between the two systems. As a matter of fact, I don't want to say that Islamic values are consistent with modern values. What I want to say is that the modern values are consistent with the Islamic values, because actually the Islamic values preceded the and they came long time before that. The problem is that they in the modern time, the modern history, they were not applied in the right context. And we hope to develop the systems, the disciplines, the modern institutions that will prove to the whole world that this is a viable system that can really make a difference and can achieve progress and can do the best thing for the citizens, whether Muslims, Christians, men, women, whatever. Dr. Darragh, that's really good. Freedom and Justice Party, you can never change that. It's like military officers are putting on suits. No, so that's a joke from yesterday. I'd like to push back just a little bit. Just recently in Egypt, there's become a small movement that has emerged in the newspapers saying that no, actually the state does have a problem with Muslims and Christians because on the back of the National ID card, which is similar to a sort of driver's license in this country, it identifies you if you're Muslim or Christian. So would the Freedom and Justice Party support having that removed like some people are calling for? There is a reason for that and that was not developed by the Freedom and Justice Party. I understand. And the reason for that is that there are legislations that differentiate in terms of marriage, for example. You cannot have a Christian man marrying a Muslim woman, OK? So, you know, things like that, things like inheritance and stuff like that. So this is related to some matters related to the personal affairs and marriage laws and things like that. But when it comes to citizenship in terms of joining any job or practicing politics or being in any position, this does not prevent anybody. I'm not saying that in reality, this does not happen. Yes, there are problems. Some people are not doing what I think. What I'm saying is that we, as a party, at least, we are postponing and we are going to postpone and we are going to push for full rights of every citizen in Egypt. Great. Thanks. Now I'm going to push back. I have two more questions. One I'm going to direct to Dr. Hanzali. There was a question about the boycott, the opposition boycott. And specifically it said, can you please speak on the opposition strategy of boycotting the upcoming elections? Is this a good idea? Is this a good idea for democracy? And please be brief, because I got a question for Dr. Sammy after that. Right. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Dr. Sammy. Josh, allow me to go one one step backward to address the question of equal citizenship rights because in transparency and I believe in objectivity, there are different issues which need to be tackled. I'm not going to take you into details of different discussions which continue to be going on in Egypt with regard to whether the existing constitution, the constitution of 2012 does offer equal citizenship rights and does organize a relationship between religion and the state in a way which is conducive to a modern state or not. We have ongoing discussions. I believe that there are some articles in the constitution of 2012 which are problematic with regard to putting the religious establishment, the official religious establishment, the Islamic religious establishment represented by Azhar Institution to an extent over the legislative branch of government when it comes to legislating in relation to issues pertaining to Islamic laws. And there are other issues which are quite problematic with regard to equal citizenship rights. I believe that is a discussion which continues to be fought in Egypt and it should not be undermined in what we are presenting to you outside of Egypt. Secondly, there are issues which I would identify as discriminatory practices and those discriminatory practices, and I believe Dr. Amdar Agh will not disagree, need to be tackled at two levels at least. At the legal level, we have some laws which need to be fixed. We need a unified law for building places of worship to grant equal religious freedoms for all Egyptians. We need to look at how to issue an anti-discrimination law penalizing discriminatory measures and we have to fix the environment which has been conducive to discrimination for a long time. And finally, questions of sectarian violence needs to be tackled by taking the principle of rule of law seriously. So I'm not saying and Josh, you asked a question about the ID, Egyptian IDs and the reference in Egyptian IDs, personal IDs to religious affiliation. In fact, in the People's Assembly 2011-2012 and we had six months of operation and then we were dissolved by a court ruling. I did introduce an amendment to take off the reference to religious affiliation from personal IDs in Egypt and of course it was voted down. It was voted down by the majority of freedom and justice and different religious right wing parties. It remains an issue because even symbolically it matters. I mean, for marriage issues, you need the birth certificate and in your birth certificate, people are defined in terms of the religious affiliation. We do not have to have it on our IDs if we are going to push forward more of an equal citizenship rights-based environment and more of a citizenship-based environment in which really what matters is whether we are citizens or not. On the question of boycott, boycott is never, in general, is never a good strategy. Political parties are established to compete, are established to contest elections, to participate in elections and should be eager to govern. And politicians by nature do not like to be sidelined, do not like to sit in front of TV sets and watch political dynamics as they unfold. They would like to be a part of it. So boycott is never a good strategy and there are conditions. However, there are conditions under which boycott might be a viable strategy for some time. And one of those conditions is related to whether the rules of the game are democratic or undemocratic. Once again, I do not like to take you into the details of Egyptian questions, but we have real arguments about whether the constitutional and legal conditions of the political game are just democratic or lack democracy and lack the just nature. When opposition parties, as of now, the National Salvation Front, which I belong to, put forward boycotting the parliamentary elections as a strategy, it's meant as a conditional and conditioned strategy. We are hoping that the rules of the game will be just and will be fixed before we reach the parliamentary elections and therefore we can participate. But once again, participation at any cost, which is here in the US, maybe what is always being pushed forward by the administration and by political Washington in general, is not simply a viable alternative if you do not have just rules for the political game. Let me remind Egypt experts here and the panel of the elections of 2010 in which boycott was maybe one of the most viable strategies ever put forward by the Egyptian opposition and that paved the way for the revolution of 2011. So it depends on what kind of composition of rules and arrangements we are looking at. Thank you very much. Dr. Elshar Bagi had an intervention. She wanted to make, so the floor is yours. Oh, thank you. I would like to say a couple of things. The first one is definitely just as the equal rights of women is an ongoing struggle. It's also the same for equal citizenship for my fellow Christian Egyptians. And this is a matter that we have to all face and we should not be in a state of denial. The second thing I wanted to talk about is the question that Josh have just read from here about the institutions, that the religious institutions and how undemocratic they are. And I would like to say to all of you, guess what? The religious institution in Egypt, which is Al-Azhar that is the Al-Azhar University and Al-Azhar as the establishment, the religious institution of Egypt. Guess what? Liberals in Egypt every now and then run to Al-Azhar and ask them to come and play politics, to come and solve their political problems for them. Well, when this happened first before the writing of the constitution, I was strongly against it. And I wrote two articles strongly against inviting Al-Azhar to be part of the Egyptian political work. And I was, of course, I was bashed, I was attacked by all sides. Now, Al-Azhar was invited to write a political document for Egypt, then was invited to write a political document on women, then was invited, lately Al-Azhar invited everybody to go and have a dialogue and everybody went. And during or inside the constitutional assembly, I was strongly against this Al-Azhar article, but you know what? You have to watch out for what you are doing. If you are actually going to Al-Azhar and asking the religious institution to write you political documents, do not weep when Al-Azhar says I need to be on board as the article of the constitution was. So in other words, things sometimes do not sound like what they sound because there are, I was involved during the writing of this article, I was strongly against it and in the end, it passed because both sides wanted it. So this is the first point that I wanted to make. And then I would add, guess what again? Al-Baradi, who is a liberal and he's a very famous internationally, has just called for any dialogue to be under the, or under those spices of both Al-Azhar and the Egyptian church. You know, you need to watch what you're looking for because if you're asking for that, do not come and complain when Al-Azhar takes a position on politics. Thank you. Thank you very much. I had a very easy question for Dr. Ataya. Which was essentially, in five years, what does the future of Egypt look like politically and economically? Very easy. Very easy. I think he also wanted to make a brief comment and so he will have the last word. Okay, thank you. I have to comment on several questions you asked it about Muslim Brotherhood and how can they become or practice democracy? Actually, Muslim Brotherhood was the only institution practicing democracy all over the 60 years of Mubarak and Masar and Sadeh. Why? Because all the institution is democratically elected. Democratically elected. The Supreme guidance, the Guiding Office, the offices working in municipalities, the Shura Council, which is our parliament everywhere. Every district, we have elections. I joined Muslim Brotherhood in 1996 and since then, I was practicing democracy and I didn't practice democracy in Egypt, only in, yet, I practiced it only in Muslim Brotherhood. Guess what, too? Muslims practiced democracy before the world knew what is democracy. We had Shura 1400 years ago and Shura is democracy. Consultation. Yes, we practiced elections 1400 years ago. So Islam and Islamic groups or Islamic parties like freedom and justice is not with a conflict with democracy. I practiced democracy. I practiced elections in freedom just party. In this one and a half year, more than four times, which never happened in any other party, four times in one, in 18 months' elections. So we are not only theoretically with democracy, no, we are practicing democracy. Fantastic. Doctor. I'll go ahead. This is about democracy, about the question about Christians and the rights of Christians in Egypt. Actually, Egypt has Christians and Muslim 1400 years ago and we never heard that there is a problem between Muslim and Christian. We never heard that my neighbor is Christian or my neighbor is Muslim. Dr. Samarian, who is the vice president of our party, of course he is Muslim. Some of his cousins are Christians because his grandfather was Muslim and was Christian and converted. So this is normal in Egypt. The former regime tried to make it a problem. Christians did face a problem. Yes, Christians did and still having or facing problems in Egypt. Also Muslims. So the problems wasn't only going to Christians because they are Christians, no. We all faced the same problems. We all faced the same discrimination. We all were slaves in our country and this is why we went to this revolution to free ourselves, to free the country. So what will happen after five years, as you ask Josh, I am very, very optimistic. I am not optimistic like Dr. Amr. I am super optimistic. Even more optimistic than that. Yes, even more optimistic. I think Egypt, I hope Egypt, I work for this and I'm sure all our colleagues will work together for this. Egypt in five years will take the leadership of the region. Egypt in five years will have restructures and strong economy, inshallah. Not the one of the best yet, but we'll go to the ranked economies in Zol, inshallah, in less than 10 years. Democracy will be well established. I hope we will be in a very, very better shape in five years, inshallah. Thank you very much. Dr. Hamzawi wants the last word. Yes. No, it's simply an, I play the A for being differentiated when we address how liberal politicians and party stand vis-a-vis two major issues in Egyptian politics. One, the role of the army and two, the role of religious establishment. There are some liberal voices, so-called liberal voices in Egypt which call on the army to interfere and you know that I have always been in a very upfront manner against it and it's completely undemocratically spirited and it goes against respecting the will of the population and taking democratic procedures and mechanisms seriously. Even evoking the image of the army as a last savior or the army will fix it is wrong and is undemocratically spirited. Secondly, with regard to the religious establishment, I believe in Azhar and the church have a role to play in social issues. I went the last time to Azhar in a debate about renouncing violence and in front of the grand Imam of the Azhar, the head of the Azhar establishment, I said that the Azhar should not interfere in politics in any manner and it was on the record and I said it and I stick by that opinion that it's definitely wrong to call on the Azhar or to call on religious institutions to interfere but it was not liberal parties or leftist parties which wrote and enshrined in the constitution article four which stipulates that the legislative branch of government consults with the Azhar when it legislates in relation to religious matters and now in reality... But why would... Sorry, I'm... No, let me finish my sentence. Why would the renouncing of violence be in the Azhar? Well, let me finish my sentence. Not a single MP with article four in reality when we have a house of representatives and since it's mandated and stipulated to consult with the Azhar, not a single MP can stand up and say I'm against the Azhar's consultation. We are putting MPs in a very dangerous and tough situation to legislate for the country and therefore article four, which came about by the constituent assembly which left the constitution, which I boycotted, the Edbahaid Dean boycotted and other liberal politicians and liberal leftist politicians boycotted, it came into being. Finally, why does renouncing violence have to be in the Azhar? It can be in the Azhar, it can be anywhere else but when it comes to legislative or executive business, the Azhar as well as the church, as well as the army have to be pushed aside. They have nothing to do with the civilian management of politics unless we would like to once again reinvent the wheel and push each back to unpleasant times. Thank you. Yes. Okay, okay. Because I simply do not understand why people would go to the Azhar to renounce violence. This is a political issue and should be tackled by politicians without the Azhar and I have been, as I said, very strongly against this Azhar article but once one more point, now in the liberal left, the liberal left parties are actually calling on the Azhar to say its word on the Sukuk. Yes. The bonds. Which is actually the implementation, the implementation of article four. Only some. Yes, of course. Of course. Say some liberal politicians, I do not belong to them. And it's wrong. You don't, but. Unfortunately, unfortunately, we're going to dinner where I think the conversation is going to continue. Unfortunately, you can't come with us. Thank you for spending an extra nine minutes with us and thank you all for coming. Sorry.