Mustafa Akyol - Turkish Author and Journalist; Dina Wahba - Egyptian Feminist and Political Activist HARDtalk

And is now on BBC News, it is time Welcome to HARDtalk. Heinz Stephen

Sackur. Islam is the solution. One year ago, the Egyptian Muslim

Brotherhood Creda looked like a winning political formula. The

Islamists have been removed from power by the army and millions of

Egyptians see that as a cause for celebration. Meanwhile, the moderate

Islamist rulers of Turkey had been faced with unprecedented protests.

Into media as well, moderate Islam is on the defensive -- political

Islam is on the defensive. We had an Egyptian fat -- feminist,

Dina Wahba. Is political Islam welcome to you both. I want to begin

by touring some of the lessons from recent events in Egypt. Dina Wahba,

I wanted to start with you. Do you think that one of the key lessons we

have seen in Egypt but the failing dash the failure of political Islam?

ITMA bit sceptical about that. Events in the era -- in the area are

unfolding quickly. We cannot draw conclusions just yet. -- I am a bit

sceptical. Political Islam is still in Egypt in politics. The Al-Nour

party for example. To be clear about events in recent days, since the

bloodshed with more than 50 people killed in clashes between The

Brotherhood and police, the Al-Nour party wants no part of the

government. Their position is very shaky. They work on a programme and

asked if they withdrew from the negotiations and did they tried to

explain why they are in and then they are out and then why they

are... Of their position is shaky at the moment. They are still there and

they still have conditions. They have a say in who the new Prime

Minister may be. They say that they can enter into consideration. They

vetoed Mohamed ElBaradei. That is why he did not come full. The reason

I turned to you first and asked about political Islam is because you

have been very active on the liberal secular side of this Egyptian

political argument. It is interesting and important to tease

out whether you without the spec is regard what happened with the

toppling of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood

government as a true or not. Would you describe it as a two? -- coup.

Since the 30th of June, the Western commentators have been keen on

finding a testable definition of what happened. But to be simple.

it a coup? I don't know want to call it. Because you don't know what it

is? Know that is because millions of people were on the streets. If we

say it is a coup, we will millions of people. It is as if the army came

one day and decided to oust Mohamed Morsi. I don't thank you can argue

that there were 30 million people on the street. Even if there was mass

support for the army, does not mean that it was not a coup. Just because

people supported, it does not make it not a coup. The number was not

mine. It is coming from Western media outlets. If you wanted to call

it a coup, call it a coup. If you want to call it a popular supported

coup, then call it that. Someone said who cares. It does not matter

what you call it. As long as the people supported. Well, I care. It

is obviously a coup. People were on the streets. If that were the only

thing, we would not call it a coup. When a general comes to the state

and says that the President is arrested and then kill some

supporters, it is a military one. We have suffered military coups in the

past. In Turkey. That will not help Egypt. The question here, or you

have asked if political Islam is failing in Egypt. My question is

whether it is the secular liberals who are failing by standing behind a

military coup. I do find myself as a -- I do find myself as a liberal

Muslim which means that I am a Muslim who has faith in Islam but I

have faith in Liberal politics. I think that Egyptian so-called

liberals are not making themselves or Egypt a favour by interrupting

the democratic process. Not allowing an Islamist party to govern, pushing

them outside of the game and maybe further radicalising them. I think

that you are giving the secular opposition to much credit by saying

that the secular opposition is the one who ousted or stood by the army

to oust President more the. -- president Mohamed Morsi. They stood

by. The capture -- you have captured the central point by referring to a

writer who just wrote after the coup, I will use that word, that the

leftist and liberals who once allied with the Islamists against the old

Hosni Mubarak regime and are now ally in with elements of the old

regime against the Islamists. There is a fundamental hypocrisy in that,

isn't there a? I would not call it a hypocrisy. In every democracy, in

every country in the world, alliances change depending on

circumstances. There are things called principles? One of the

principles you appeared to be fighting for in the January

revolution of 2011 was that Egypt should never again be governed by

the military or by an authoritarian regime which frankly was corrupt and

was illustrative only of this commitment to maintaining the deep

state. It is not run by the military. It will not defended the

military. This is something that 18 Western media have been doing. They

have been putting the secular left or the secular right and anyone who

is against the laws of brotherhood, pushing them into defending the

military. We are not defending the military. The military are not

ruling. We have a civilian president. He is the head of the

Constitutional Court and now the acting President. The army is

working with a broad Coalition of political Islam, of secular left,

and they are working with us all. The real power lies, surely, with

the Defence Minister and the military chief. He is surely the

real power? We have a plan for the interim transition. Which will

unfold over many months and in the meantime, just as we saw with the

supreme command of the armed forces before, we see it again. The

military is in control. I love how we have a glass ball and we can see

into the future. For now, we have indicated that the army is working

with other people. We are worried, of course, because we do not have a

very good history but we will keep maintaining our concern. We will be

very keen. Mustafa Akyol, I wonder if you are convinced by the message

which is coming from the Liberal, secular political organisations in

Egypt. That in the end, they support the toppling of the Muslim

Brotherhood because that was necessary to defend the unfolding

democratic revolution? Do you buy that? That is wrong. It is a

contradiction in terms. When you speak of democracy, you speak of a

system in which political power is taken in elections and the

electorate are allowed to rule for a certain period. In principle, it is

wrong. It is also wrong pragmatically because the whole idea

in the Middle East that you should have a political system which will

include everyone even the most dogmatic people like the. I am not a

big fan of airline. I have concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood as

well. -- Salafists. Including them in the game and instituting

concessions dash that is what democracy is. When you call in the

military when you feel that they are not powerful enough, that is

immaturity. We have seen this in Turkey as well. It did not help. It

will not help Egyptian liberals. They should have allowed the Muslim

Brotherhood. These should have protested, no doubt. When they

started supporting the coup and as others said themselves, will

lobbying for the coup, they made a military mistake. Mohammed L Barrett

I came out and said that they had the right to run in the next

election. -- Mohamed ElBaradei. There are hundreds of activists who

have been arrested. Sympathetic television stations have been taken

off air. There in Egypt today. I can say that we justify this. I can say

that we accept it. If anything, we call for an independent

investigation of what happened in front of the security guard incident

and the killings. We need to know why certain people were arrested and

if they are implicated in any sort of insight into violence. Let me ask

you something. That was an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters

in Cairo during the night of the coup. Did the Egyptian

revolutionaries announced that? course we'd announced that. We

denounce all violent. Not all of them? I am not speaking for all

revolutionaries. I must come to a point that was mentioned here about

how we are defining textbook definitions of democracy that we

should have waited until Mohamed Morsi finished his four years. I'm

not looking at the secular opposition, I took about millions of

people who took to the streets. should tell everyone that you are a

founding member of the social Democratic party which is a very

small party in Egypt. You and your Coalition won in the last

parliamentary elections was in single figures. The Muslim

Brotherhood one 105 out of 180. You do not command much support in your

own country. I am not talking about the party at

the moment. I took about one person out of millions who took to the

streets. I am to be about the fundamentals of democracy. One of

the few moors and brotherhood people have not been arrested, he said the

other day that the Constitution was created by the vote of the Egyptian

people. -- you moors on brotherhood people.

I take your point completely. It is very hard for so many people who

stick like classic definitions of democracy to be defined with a

certain realities. Since the revolution. The Egyptian people have

been defying classical definitions of political science, of democracy,

as if democracy is only about a ballot boxes and it is obsession

with ballot boxes and it is a disregard of exclusion of minorities

and exclusion of women and all of what we have suffered, what the

people have suffered during the one-year the Muslim Brotherhood

rule. It is fascinating how the Western media and Western

commentators... Can I say something here? We are seeing in the Middle

East today and especially in Egypt a tension between liberalism as a

political philosophy and democracy as a political system will not see

the point of the Liberals. They are complaining about illiberal

democracy. There will be a party that is elected that is illiberal,

and oppresses women. The solution is not to call for the military to over

three them and put them to a more extreme position. The solution is to

work through the democratic system and to find coalitions and build a

dialogue with your opponent. Tunisia is not doing that badly. The party

in Tunisia which is the most liberal leaning Islamist party is in a

government with coalitions with secular parties. The media -- the

leader of Tunisia Huay see as an Islamic Liberal and it's a smack he

has been on this programme and he told me not so long ago that what

his -- what he wanted to see was a long-term Coalition between him and

parties of modernisation. believes that can produce a

consensus. He also believes in freedom, he believes that democracy

cannot be imposed. Political Islam, like Marxism, can vary a lot between

parties. It has on the one hand violent groups like al Kite. And on

the other hand people like that who are liberal thinkers and say that

while Islam inspires their politics, they have a sense of rights and

freedom. We should allow Islamic groups to be in the system and how

this conversation. Yes we should force them to become more

democratic, but we can't use the military to push them back to their

cultural ghetto, which will only make the more extreme. I have to say

that I agree with you on that. I am not talking about my party, but my

personal view. I believe we should stick to the Democratic process. I

am saying that when we took to the streets on the 30th of June, and I

was taken by the sheer number of people demonstrating and wanting to

get out, and I felt at that moment that if all of those people want one

thing, who am I, even as an Egyptian, to defy the will of those

people? I want abroad in this debate. Let's think a little bit

about the book you've written, Islam without. It is an interesting thing,

because you say that liberalism and is Lum are not necessarily

contradictory. Exactly.But look at Turkey, your own country, and the

way we have seen over the last few months a growing disaffection,

particularly by big cities, with V -- 's are so-called motor and

Islamist groups. -- modern. present political Islam on the

political stage is a good question. Maybe the President has a more

liberal stance on a lot of these issues, I would show him as a

demonstration of a Muslim Democrat. But the problem with Turkey is that

the governing party actually had a liberal record in the past ten

years, with minority reforms and suchlike, but we are now seeing

problems. I would say that these problems are not coming from Islam.

They are problems coming from the dynamics of power. They have been in

power for ten years with no rival. That creates a sort of

overconfidence and I think we see that problem in the governing

mentality. What about Sharia, is on a claw. In the end, can you have

genuine freedom and individual liberty in a society and also

Sharia, which some in that country might want. Can you have that?

should be voluntary, like in the UK, where you have little Sharia courts

that people can go to when they want to. If you want to follow a certain

tradition you can do that. But if you want to make it the law the

land. Imposed by the state.That's right, that is a problem, because

you will impose your Sharia. Is their national consensus on some

legal issues? Yes. In Egypt, polling on Sharia in the last few weeks has

found extraordinarily high support. 74% of Egyptians say that they would

like to see their nation governed by Sharia law. 88% say they believe

that apostasy should be punishable by death in Egypt. Those are such

big majorities. Isn't there something that says, Democrats have

to accept that that is the overwhelming will of the people.

That is interesting because there is also resonance with a I would like

to make. First of all, it depends on how you define Sharia. For some

Egyptians Sharia might be related to personal status, it might not mean

cutting off hands. We were governed by Sharia for many years and it did

not mean you cut peoples hands off. So you can live with a specifically

Egyptian form of Sharia. Yes. But the point is that what happened on

the 30th of June really deconstructed the idea that there

was this imagination that all the people in the region need is

religion. All the political Islam leaders, it was not a failure of

political Islam so much as a failure of the idea that people can be

fuelled by religion alone. People want other elements in their lives.

Not even saying that we are religious governments or claiming

that Islam is the solution. That is true, but isn't one of the

weaknesses of the opposition that after just one year in power you are

saying they had failed. And they had failed not just because you claim

there were subverting democratic rights, but also because you said

they just weren't delivering for the poor, basic services. But frankly,

if every time a government somewhere in the world was deemed to be

failing to deliver on their promises, that was seen as a

legitimate reason to topple it, no government in the world would be

safe. Any government in the world should be safe to do whatever it

wants for however many years of its people? But we are now talking about

a subjective analysis of whether the government is competent. If a large

number of people in the country decide that the government is

incompetent and takes to the streets... This grassroots democracy

is a new notion of democracy and it really scares so many people in

Western democracies. It really challenges the core of democracy.

They make a point here about Sharia, that you raise. It is certain that

some aspects of Sharia clash with individual and human rights. That is

something that should be reformed if it is every implement it in a

society we can call free. But I would not be supportive of a

democratic imposition of a ban on apostasy, for example. That would be

democratic but quite illiberal, and I would be against that. You are a

significant voice within the Muslim community, arguing that there is a

way to bring together the Islamic identity and a liberal individualist

identity. But I see very few other Muslims rallying to your cause. You

are an intellectual, you have a sophisticated argument, but most

people in Egypt and Turkey and around the Muslim world are not

following your path. It is hard to say that. In my book I show how some

of these liberal ideas in Turkey are being embraced by a conservative use

who believe in Islam but also on the individual liberties being respected

by the State. John Locke was alone as well, where he thought of liberal

ideas within a Christian environment. If you start quoting

John Locke to many people in Cairo or Damascus, you are going to lose

your audience. Exactly, that's why not quoting John Locke. I am quoting

mediaeval Islamic scholars made similar arguments that Muslims

forgot about. We need to have equivalent of this for is lamb, --

Islam, like what John Locke did for Christianity. We need a similar

thing that is is one -- Islamic inspired. We don't need a coup to

overthrow the democratically elected government. I agree that we need an

Islamist form of liberalism, but I am very sceptical about the idea

that we know exactly what the people want based on a certain survey. I

have problems with these statistics and the sheer numbers, but also,

believing that we think that we know that the majority of the worldview,

we thought that we knew that everyone wants the Muslim