:00:15. > :00:22.And is now on BBC News, it is time Welcome to HARDtalk. Heinz Stephen
:00:22. > :00:25.Sackur. Islam is the solution. One year ago, the Egyptian Muslim
:00:25. > :00:28.Brotherhood Creda looked like a winning political formula. The
:00:28. > :00:34.Islamists have been removed from power by the army and millions of
:00:34. > :00:38.Egyptians see that as a cause for celebration. Meanwhile, the moderate
:00:38. > :00:43.Islamist rulers of Turkey had been faced with unprecedented protests.
:00:43. > :00:48.Into media as well, moderate Islam is on the defensive -- political
:00:48. > :00:58.Islam is on the defensive. We had an Egyptian fat -- feminist,
:00:58. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:27.Dina Wahba. Is political Islam welcome to you both. I want to begin
:01:27. > :01:31.by touring some of the lessons from recent events in Egypt. Dina Wahba,
:01:31. > :01:38.I wanted to start with you. Do you think that one of the key lessons we
:01:38. > :01:44.have seen in Egypt but the failing dash the failure of political Islam?
:01:44. > :01:49.ITMA bit sceptical about that. Events in the era -- in the area are
:01:49. > :01:54.unfolding quickly. We cannot draw conclusions just yet. -- I am a bit
:01:54. > :02:01.sceptical. Political Islam is still in Egypt in politics. The Al-Nour
:02:01. > :02:05.party for example. To be clear about events in recent days, since the
:02:05. > :02:08.bloodshed with more than 50 people killed in clashes between The
:02:08. > :02:18.Brotherhood and police, the Al-Nour party wants no part of the
:02:18. > :02:22.government. Their position is very shaky. They work on a programme and
:02:22. > :02:29.asked if they withdrew from the negotiations and did they tried to
:02:29. > :02:33.explain why they are in and then they are out and then why they
:02:33. > :02:37.are... Of their position is shaky at the moment. They are still there and
:02:37. > :02:43.they still have conditions. They have a say in who the new Prime
:02:43. > :02:47.Minister may be. They say that they can enter into consideration. They
:02:47. > :02:52.vetoed Mohamed ElBaradei. That is why he did not come full. The reason
:02:52. > :02:55.I turned to you first and asked about political Islam is because you
:02:55. > :03:00.have been very active on the liberal secular side of this Egyptian
:03:00. > :03:07.political argument. It is interesting and important to tease
:03:07. > :03:10.out whether you without the spec is regard what happened with the
:03:10. > :03:20.toppling of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood
:03:20. > :03:22.
:03:22. > :03:27.government as a true or not. Would you describe it as a two? -- coup.
:03:27. > :03:32.Since the 30th of June, the Western commentators have been keen on
:03:32. > :03:39.finding a testable definition of what happened. But to be simple.
:03:39. > :03:44.it a coup? I don't know want to call it. Because you don't know what it
:03:44. > :03:50.is? Know that is because millions of people were on the streets. If we
:03:50. > :03:55.say it is a coup, we will millions of people. It is as if the army came
:03:55. > :03:59.one day and decided to oust Mohamed Morsi. I don't thank you can argue
:03:59. > :04:04.that there were 30 million people on the street. Even if there was mass
:04:04. > :04:12.support for the army, does not mean that it was not a coup. Just because
:04:12. > :04:17.people supported, it does not make it not a coup. The number was not
:04:17. > :04:22.mine. It is coming from Western media outlets. If you wanted to call
:04:22. > :04:28.it a coup, call it a coup. If you want to call it a popular supported
:04:28. > :04:32.coup, then call it that. Someone said who cares. It does not matter
:04:32. > :04:38.what you call it. As long as the people supported. Well, I care. It
:04:38. > :04:42.is obviously a coup. People were on the streets. If that were the only
:04:42. > :04:47.thing, we would not call it a coup. When a general comes to the state
:04:47. > :04:51.and says that the President is arrested and then kill some
:04:51. > :04:59.supporters, it is a military one. We have suffered military coups in the
:04:59. > :05:02.past. In Turkey. That will not help Egypt. The question here, or you
:05:02. > :05:06.have asked if political Islam is failing in Egypt. My question is
:05:06. > :05:11.whether it is the secular liberals who are failing by standing behind a
:05:11. > :05:15.military coup. I do find myself as a -- I do find myself as a liberal
:05:15. > :05:20.Muslim which means that I am a Muslim who has faith in Islam but I
:05:20. > :05:24.have faith in Liberal politics. I think that Egyptian so-called
:05:24. > :05:29.liberals are not making themselves or Egypt a favour by interrupting
:05:30. > :05:34.the democratic process. Not allowing an Islamist party to govern, pushing
:05:34. > :05:37.them outside of the game and maybe further radicalising them. I think
:05:37. > :05:42.that you are giving the secular opposition to much credit by saying
:05:42. > :05:46.that the secular opposition is the one who ousted or stood by the army
:05:46. > :05:52.to oust President more the. -- president Mohamed Morsi. They stood
:05:52. > :05:58.by. The capture -- you have captured the central point by referring to a
:05:58. > :06:04.writer who just wrote after the coup, I will use that word, that the
:06:04. > :06:08.leftist and liberals who once allied with the Islamists against the old
:06:08. > :06:13.Hosni Mubarak regime and are now ally in with elements of the old
:06:13. > :06:18.regime against the Islamists. There is a fundamental hypocrisy in that,
:06:18. > :06:21.isn't there a? I would not call it a hypocrisy. In every democracy, in
:06:21. > :06:27.every country in the world, alliances change depending on
:06:27. > :06:30.circumstances. There are things called principles? One of the
:06:30. > :06:34.principles you appeared to be fighting for in the January
:06:34. > :06:39.revolution of 2011 was that Egypt should never again be governed by
:06:39. > :06:41.the military or by an authoritarian regime which frankly was corrupt and
:06:41. > :06:48.was illustrative only of this commitment to maintaining the deep
:06:48. > :06:53.state. It is not run by the military. It will not defended the
:06:53. > :06:58.military. This is something that 18 Western media have been doing. They
:06:58. > :07:02.have been putting the secular left or the secular right and anyone who
:07:02. > :07:06.is against the laws of brotherhood, pushing them into defending the
:07:06. > :07:13.military. We are not defending the military. The military are not
:07:13. > :07:17.ruling. We have a civilian president. He is the head of the
:07:17. > :07:22.Constitutional Court and now the acting President. The army is
:07:22. > :07:29.working with a broad Coalition of political Islam, of secular left,
:07:29. > :07:35.and they are working with us all. The real power lies, surely, with
:07:35. > :07:41.the Defence Minister and the military chief. He is surely the
:07:41. > :07:45.real power? We have a plan for the interim transition. Which will
:07:45. > :07:49.unfold over many months and in the meantime, just as we saw with the
:07:49. > :07:54.supreme command of the armed forces before, we see it again. The
:07:54. > :07:59.military is in control. I love how we have a glass ball and we can see
:07:59. > :08:06.into the future. For now, we have indicated that the army is working
:08:06. > :08:14.with other people. We are worried, of course, because we do not have a
:08:14. > :08:23.very good history but we will keep maintaining our concern. We will be
:08:23. > :08:25.very keen. Mustafa Akyol, I wonder if you are convinced by the message
:08:25. > :08:30.which is coming from the Liberal, secular political organisations in
:08:31. > :08:35.Egypt. That in the end, they support the toppling of the Muslim
:08:35. > :08:42.Brotherhood because that was necessary to defend the unfolding
:08:42. > :08:47.democratic revolution? Do you buy that? That is wrong. It is a
:08:47. > :08:51.contradiction in terms. When you speak of democracy, you speak of a
:08:51. > :08:55.system in which political power is taken in elections and the
:08:55. > :09:00.electorate are allowed to rule for a certain period. In principle, it is
:09:00. > :09:04.wrong. It is also wrong pragmatically because the whole idea
:09:04. > :09:09.in the Middle East that you should have a political system which will
:09:09. > :09:13.include everyone even the most dogmatic people like the. I am not a
:09:13. > :09:20.big fan of airline. I have concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood as
:09:20. > :09:24.well. -- Salafists. Including them in the game and instituting
:09:24. > :09:27.concessions dash that is what democracy is. When you call in the
:09:27. > :09:32.military when you feel that they are not powerful enough, that is
:09:32. > :09:35.immaturity. We have seen this in Turkey as well. It did not help. It
:09:35. > :09:40.will not help Egyptian liberals. They should have allowed the Muslim
:09:40. > :09:43.Brotherhood. These should have protested, no doubt. When they
:09:43. > :09:50.started supporting the coup and as others said themselves, will
:09:50. > :09:53.lobbying for the coup, they made a military mistake. Mohammed L Barrett
:09:53. > :09:58.I came out and said that they had the right to run in the next
:09:58. > :10:01.election. -- Mohamed ElBaradei. There are hundreds of activists who
:10:01. > :10:11.have been arrested. Sympathetic television stations have been taken
:10:11. > :10:19.
:10:19. > :10:23.off air. There in Egypt today. I can say that we justify this. I can say
:10:23. > :10:26.that we accept it. If anything, we call for an independent
:10:26. > :10:33.investigation of what happened in front of the security guard incident
:10:33. > :10:37.and the killings. We need to know why certain people were arrested and
:10:37. > :10:41.if they are implicated in any sort of insight into violence. Let me ask
:10:41. > :10:45.you something. That was an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters
:10:45. > :10:49.in Cairo during the night of the coup. Did the Egyptian
:10:49. > :10:56.revolutionaries announced that? course we'd announced that. We
:10:56. > :11:01.denounce all violent. Not all of them? I am not speaking for all
:11:02. > :11:04.revolutionaries. I must come to a point that was mentioned here about
:11:04. > :11:09.how we are defining textbook definitions of democracy that we
:11:09. > :11:12.should have waited until Mohamed Morsi finished his four years. I'm
:11:12. > :11:18.not looking at the secular opposition, I took about millions of
:11:18. > :11:21.people who took to the streets. should tell everyone that you are a
:11:21. > :11:25.founding member of the social Democratic party which is a very
:11:25. > :11:29.small party in Egypt. You and your Coalition won in the last
:11:29. > :11:35.parliamentary elections was in single figures. The Muslim
:11:35. > :11:45.Brotherhood one 105 out of 180. You do not command much support in your
:11:45. > :11:51.
:11:51. > :11:56.own country. I am not talking about the party at
:11:56. > :12:00.the moment. I took about one person out of millions who took to the
:12:00. > :12:05.streets. I am to be about the fundamentals of democracy. One of
:12:05. > :12:08.the few moors and brotherhood people have not been arrested, he said the
:12:08. > :12:13.other day that the Constitution was created by the vote of the Egyptian
:12:13. > :12:18.people. -- you moors on brotherhood people.
:12:18. > :12:23.I take your point completely. It is very hard for so many people who
:12:23. > :12:29.stick like classic definitions of democracy to be defined with a
:12:29. > :12:35.certain realities. Since the revolution. The Egyptian people have
:12:35. > :12:38.been defying classical definitions of political science, of democracy,
:12:38. > :12:44.as if democracy is only about a ballot boxes and it is obsession
:12:44. > :12:48.with ballot boxes and it is a disregard of exclusion of minorities
:12:48. > :12:53.and exclusion of women and all of what we have suffered, what the
:12:53. > :12:57.people have suffered during the one-year the Muslim Brotherhood
:12:57. > :13:02.rule. It is fascinating how the Western media and Western
:13:02. > :13:08.commentators... Can I say something here? We are seeing in the Middle
:13:08. > :13:12.East today and especially in Egypt a tension between liberalism as a
:13:12. > :13:14.political philosophy and democracy as a political system will not see
:13:14. > :13:21.the point of the Liberals. They are complaining about illiberal
:13:21. > :13:26.democracy. There will be a party that is elected that is illiberal,
:13:26. > :13:30.and oppresses women. The solution is not to call for the military to over
:13:30. > :13:34.three them and put them to a more extreme position. The solution is to
:13:34. > :13:40.work through the democratic system and to find coalitions and build a
:13:40. > :13:45.dialogue with your opponent. Tunisia is not doing that badly. The party
:13:45. > :13:49.in Tunisia which is the most liberal leaning Islamist party is in a
:13:49. > :13:53.government with coalitions with secular parties. The media -- the
:13:53. > :13:58.leader of Tunisia Huay see as an Islamic Liberal and it's a smack he
:13:58. > :14:06.has been on this programme and he told me not so long ago that what
:14:06. > :14:16.his -- what he wanted to see was a long-term Coalition between him and
:14:16. > :14:22.parties of modernisation. believes that can produce a
:14:22. > :14:30.consensus. He also believes in freedom, he believes that democracy
:14:30. > :14:36.cannot be imposed. Political Islam, like Marxism, can vary a lot between
:14:36. > :14:41.parties. It has on the one hand violent groups like al Kite. And on
:14:42. > :14:48.the other hand people like that who are liberal thinkers and say that
:14:48. > :14:56.while Islam inspires their politics, they have a sense of rights and
:14:56. > :15:01.freedom. We should allow Islamic groups to be in the system and how
:15:01. > :15:06.this conversation. Yes we should force them to become more
:15:06. > :15:10.democratic, but we can't use the military to push them back to their
:15:10. > :15:16.cultural ghetto, which will only make the more extreme. I have to say
:15:16. > :15:20.that I agree with you on that. I am not talking about my party, but my
:15:20. > :15:27.personal view. I believe we should stick to the Democratic process. I
:15:27. > :15:31.am saying that when we took to the streets on the 30th of June, and I
:15:31. > :15:36.was taken by the sheer number of people demonstrating and wanting to
:15:36. > :15:42.get out, and I felt at that moment that if all of those people want one
:15:42. > :15:49.thing, who am I, even as an Egyptian, to defy the will of those
:15:49. > :15:57.people? I want abroad in this debate. Let's think a little bit
:15:57. > :16:02.about the book you've written, Islam without. It is an interesting thing,
:16:03. > :16:12.because you say that liberalism and is Lum are not necessarily
:16:12. > :16:17.contradictory. Exactly.But look at Turkey, your own country, and the
:16:17. > :16:27.way we have seen over the last few months a growing disaffection,
:16:27. > :16:29.
:16:29. > :16:39.particularly by big cities, with V -- 's are so-called motor and
:16:39. > :16:47.
:16:47. > :16:54.Islamist groups. -- modern. present political Islam on the
:16:54. > :17:00.political stage is a good question. Maybe the President has a more
:17:00. > :17:03.liberal stance on a lot of these issues, I would show him as a
:17:03. > :17:09.demonstration of a Muslim Democrat. But the problem with Turkey is that
:17:09. > :17:15.the governing party actually had a liberal record in the past ten
:17:15. > :17:21.years, with minority reforms and suchlike, but we are now seeing
:17:21. > :17:25.problems. I would say that these problems are not coming from Islam.
:17:25. > :17:28.They are problems coming from the dynamics of power. They have been in
:17:29. > :17:34.power for ten years with no rival. That creates a sort of
:17:34. > :17:43.overconfidence and I think we see that problem in the governing
:17:43. > :17:47.mentality. What about Sharia, is on a claw. In the end, can you have
:17:47. > :17:55.genuine freedom and individual liberty in a society and also
:17:55. > :17:59.Sharia, which some in that country might want. Can you have that?
:17:59. > :18:05.should be voluntary, like in the UK, where you have little Sharia courts
:18:05. > :18:08.that people can go to when they want to. If you want to follow a certain
:18:08. > :18:16.tradition you can do that. But if you want to make it the law the
:18:16. > :18:22.land. Imposed by the state.That's right, that is a problem, because
:18:23. > :18:31.you will impose your Sharia. Is their national consensus on some
:18:31. > :18:36.legal issues? Yes. In Egypt, polling on Sharia in the last few weeks has
:18:36. > :18:42.found extraordinarily high support. 74% of Egyptians say that they would
:18:42. > :18:47.like to see their nation governed by Sharia law. 88% say they believe
:18:47. > :18:53.that apostasy should be punishable by death in Egypt. Those are such
:18:53. > :18:58.big majorities. Isn't there something that says, Democrats have
:18:58. > :19:02.to accept that that is the overwhelming will of the people.
:19:02. > :19:07.That is interesting because there is also resonance with a I would like
:19:07. > :19:13.to make. First of all, it depends on how you define Sharia. For some
:19:13. > :19:22.Egyptians Sharia might be related to personal status, it might not mean
:19:22. > :19:28.cutting off hands. We were governed by Sharia for many years and it did
:19:28. > :19:35.not mean you cut peoples hands off. So you can live with a specifically
:19:35. > :19:38.Egyptian form of Sharia. Yes. But the point is that what happened on
:19:39. > :19:45.the 30th of June really deconstructed the idea that there
:19:45. > :19:54.was this imagination that all the people in the region need is
:19:54. > :19:58.religion. All the political Islam leaders, it was not a failure of
:19:58. > :20:04.political Islam so much as a failure of the idea that people can be
:20:04. > :20:08.fuelled by religion alone. People want other elements in their lives.
:20:08. > :20:14.Not even saying that we are religious governments or claiming
:20:14. > :20:20.that Islam is the solution. That is true, but isn't one of the
:20:20. > :20:23.weaknesses of the opposition that after just one year in power you are
:20:23. > :20:27.saying they had failed. And they had failed not just because you claim
:20:27. > :20:31.there were subverting democratic rights, but also because you said
:20:32. > :20:35.they just weren't delivering for the poor, basic services. But frankly,
:20:35. > :20:38.if every time a government somewhere in the world was deemed to be
:20:38. > :20:42.failing to deliver on their promises, that was seen as a
:20:42. > :20:51.legitimate reason to topple it, no government in the world would be
:20:51. > :20:58.safe. Any government in the world should be safe to do whatever it
:20:58. > :21:03.wants for however many years of its people? But we are now talking about
:21:03. > :21:06.a subjective analysis of whether the government is competent. If a large
:21:06. > :21:11.number of people in the country decide that the government is
:21:12. > :21:16.incompetent and takes to the streets... This grassroots democracy
:21:16. > :21:23.is a new notion of democracy and it really scares so many people in
:21:23. > :21:27.Western democracies. It really challenges the core of democracy.
:21:27. > :21:37.They make a point here about Sharia, that you raise. It is certain that
:21:37. > :21:40.some aspects of Sharia clash with individual and human rights. That is
:21:40. > :21:45.something that should be reformed if it is every implement it in a
:21:45. > :21:55.society we can call free. But I would not be supportive of a
:21:55. > :21:56.
:21:56. > :22:01.democratic imposition of a ban on apostasy, for example. That would be
:22:01. > :22:05.democratic but quite illiberal, and I would be against that. You are a
:22:05. > :22:09.significant voice within the Muslim community, arguing that there is a
:22:09. > :22:16.way to bring together the Islamic identity and a liberal individualist
:22:16. > :22:20.identity. But I see very few other Muslims rallying to your cause. You
:22:20. > :22:23.are an intellectual, you have a sophisticated argument, but most
:22:23. > :22:30.people in Egypt and Turkey and around the Muslim world are not
:22:31. > :22:36.following your path. It is hard to say that. In my book I show how some
:22:36. > :22:42.of these liberal ideas in Turkey are being embraced by a conservative use
:22:42. > :22:47.who believe in Islam but also on the individual liberties being respected
:22:47. > :22:52.by the State. John Locke was alone as well, where he thought of liberal
:22:52. > :23:01.ideas within a Christian environment. If you start quoting
:23:01. > :23:08.John Locke to many people in Cairo or Damascus, you are going to lose
:23:08. > :23:13.your audience. Exactly, that's why not quoting John Locke. I am quoting
:23:13. > :23:23.mediaeval Islamic scholars made similar arguments that Muslims
:23:23. > :23:26.
:23:26. > :23:30.forgot about. We need to have equivalent of this for is lamb, --
:23:30. > :23:40.Islam, like what John Locke did for Christianity. We need a similar
:23:40. > :23:48.
:23:48. > :23:54.thing that is is one -- Islamic inspired. We don't need a coup to
:23:54. > :23:58.overthrow the democratically elected government. I agree that we need an
:23:58. > :24:04.Islamist form of liberalism, but I am very sceptical about the idea
:24:04. > :24:09.that we know exactly what the people want based on a certain survey. I
:24:09. > :24:12.have problems with these statistics and the sheer numbers, but also,
:24:12. > :24:17.believing that we think that we know that the majority of the worldview,
:24:17. > :24:20.we thought that we knew that everyone wants the Muslim