"Islamicisation" of Egypt continues unabated as injustices still flourish

VIOLENCE by Muslim extremists might have diminished in Egypt, but the "Islamicisation" of Egyptian society continues unabated. Fundamentalists believe they could achieve an Islamic republic through peaceful means, and secular Egyptians fear they may be right.

The outward signs are everywhere: Egyptian men knock their foreheads on the ground when they pray. The deliberate bruising is regarded as a sign of piety. Well known actresses have renounced careers to take up the veil.

Camelia Al Arabi, a pretty Egyptian television anchor woman, quit her job when she starting wearing an Islamic headscarf two years ago. She now wears the niqab, a sack like covering that hides everything but the eyes. Rich Egyptians have rushed to contribute money to the orphanage she founded, and her Islamic classes are all the rage among Egyptian ladies in designer headscarves.

For millions of poor Egyptians the trappings of Islam signify rejection of the western orientated, would be secular regime. "You wear niqab or grow a beard because you are crushed by the system," Mr Magdi Hussein, the Islamist editor of As Shaab newspaper said. "It is an act of defiance."

The government's attitude is inconsistent. President Hosni Mubarak has convinced Washington that he is a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism. The wives of the speaker of parliament and prime minister have been persuaded to give up the headscarves they wore before their husbands took office.

In recent weeks, the government banned drouss by unlicensed preachers these extremely popular Islamic lessons had recently sprung up around the country.

But at the same time Mr Mubarak relies on the ultra conservative clergy of Al Azhar, Egypt's 1,000 year old seat of religious learning, to prove his government's Islamic credentials. "The government is trying to appropriate the spokesmanship for Islam," Dr Saad Eddin Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Khaldoun Social Research Centre, said. "They don't want to abdicate the religious public space to the Islamists, so they assert themselves as legitimate spokesmen for Islam. Sometimes they are inconsistent, and they play into the hands of the Islamists."

Government run television is flooded with religious programming. Sheikhs are allowed to brand secular intellectuals as "apostates" - tantamount to a public call for their assassination. Al Azhar decides what books can be published what films can be screened and what legislation is enacted.

The university sometimes seems even more powerful than the pharaonic presidency Mrs Mubarak recently sponsored a draft law that would have allowed Muslim women to divorce when their husbands take a second wife (men are allowed to have four wives under Islam) - but the imam of Al Azhar doomed the legislation with his negative opinion.

Before he was driven out for "heretical" ideas about Islamic theology, Mr Ahmed Sobhi Mansur was a professor at Al Azhar for 14 years. His friend, the writer Farag Foda, was assassinated in 1992 after a group of sheikhs from Al Azhar declared him an apostate.

"The regime is very strong in dealing with fanatics with machine guns," Mr Mansur said. "But it is very weak in dealing with the sheikhs ... People breathe in fundamentalism through the air. Many secular people are promoting fundamentalism without realising it, for example when they say `So what if women cover their faces? So what if women stay at home?' This is the result of brainwashing."

The return to Islam began with Israel's devastating victory over the Arabs in the 1967 war. "People lost all sense of direction," Mr Hussein Ahmed Amin, a retired Egyptian ambassador and professor at the American University of Cairo said. "They lost faith in Arab nationalism, in socialism, in Nasser's rule. We had every imaginable system over the past 100 years. Nothing worked, so people said why not try the only thing we haven't tried yet - Islam?" Saudi Arabia played a role millions of Egyptians work in the kingdom, and Saudi sheikhs donate large amounts of money to Egyptian Islamists. Finally, Egypt's poor educational system left a vacuum which fundamentalist preachers stepped into.

The "Islamicisation" of Egypt was the result of social inequities, and he fears violence will resume unless this injustice is righted. "The lower middle class is increasingly dissatisfied and bitter.

"They are joining the ranks of the fundamentalists. It is very difficult to suppress such a movement. Many times the government said terrorism was over. It only went underground before coming back. Unless the economic situation improves for vast sectors of Egyptian society - instead of merely enriching the rich - this problem Will be there. The government is not doing enough to correct this awful situation, and the lower classes will continue to try to overthrow the regime."