ElBaradei to Ezzedine Choukri: Stop Being Paranoid!
In 4 years of Donald Trump being in white house, their were 1200 books published about him, that’s like a book every single day, covering every single aspect of his administration, policy, campaign, business, background, family, childhood and more. including tons of information from people around him, within administration, within campaign, within family among other sources.
For us in Egypt, we don’t have a one single book revealing the most asked questions regarding black holes and gaps in narratives of two big revolutions, January 25th 2011 and June 30th 2013. What happened inside Mubarak’s House in his last days of his presidency? Was there a secret deal between SCAF and Muslim brotherhood after Mubarak got ousted? Who was behind “Battle of Camel” موقعة الجمل? How the orders of violent raids upon Rab3aa sit-in were given and by whom?
Politicians who were in close ties with presidential establishment, government, opposition parties, they never spoke, giving that lots of them had access to information at that point.
One of them has spoken recently, revealing important information about how weak and scattered was the “Civil Wing” inside the government and presidential establishment after June 30th.
That was Diplomat, Academic and Novelist Dr. Ezzedine Choukri Fishere.
During a recent interview by journalist Mohammad Abu Al Ghait, Ezzedine opened his information closet and spoke about very sensitive details including his relationship with iconic figure “Mohamed ElBaradei” who once called the father of the revolution. Choukri told “Podcast Eleven- بودكاست حداشر” lots of details, i’ll highlight some of it in the following points:
(1) After 30/6 and during the events of the Rab’a sit-in, Dr. Al-Beblawy and Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din suggested to form a committee to help monitor the democratic path of the state, and to ensure that the state/government delivers its commitments regarding democratic transformation, such as protecting freedom of opinion / freedom of expression / national reconciliation … etc. So that the committee monitors the government, and helps it to adhere to these standards and pledges.
(2) It was proposed that the committee consist of 5 people, 2 from the Presidency establishment (Dr. Mustafa Hegazy and the legal advisor to the interim president), 2 from the Government (Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din and Munir Fakhry Abdel Nour), and a fifth person from outside The government represents the non-governmental civil movement, and this person was: Ezzedine Choukri.
(3) Ezzedine Choukri talks about his experience with the committee, which is supposed to represent the national democratic front and whose members are all supposed to come from very progressive and liberal backgrounds. He reveals that there were no coordination at all between this committee members, nor between it and Dr. ElBaradei, who was at the time a “vice president of the republic”, says that despite the presence of ElBaradei, Ziad, Hijazi, and Beblawy, for example, in the government, no coordination of any kind would take place. ElBaradei and Hijazi had their offices in the presidential palace separated by one corridor, but neither of them speaks, or coordinates or connects with each other in order to form a united policy making role, that transform people aspirations into effective policies.
4) Ezzedine Choukri, at the request of ElBaradei, helped the latter to form and arrange his office in the presidency. At that time, Choukri was in Egypt and returned from abroad for this task, and when he discovered the chaos of lack of coordination, he advised ElBaradei: You need a phone call every morning between you and Dr. Al-Beblawy, a long call for coordination. You need a weekly meeting with the Minister of Defense. You need a weekly meeting is required with the rest of the representatives of the civil movement, but nothing of this happened at all, ElBaradei dismissed all of those advices.
5) Ezzedine Choukri was seeing — and he said this to ElBaradei — that the 30/6 partnership between the civilian movement and the military institution is very difficult, but it can succeed. On the condition that the civil current in the government keeps pressure all the time, asks for demands all the time, remains connected to its public bases all the time, and leads coordination between parties, gatherings, initiatives, organizations and coalitions in order to form a force that can pressure, maneuver and negotiate with the Minister of Defense. But -Again- any of this didn’t happen, there were no coordination, there were no state of mobilization, even a very important organization like the Salvation Front itself, disintegrated.
6) More than that, There were very strange fights during the prime minister’s meetings with the cabinet, ministers representing the civil front were argue over the legitimacy of “Demonstration Law”, Mounir Fakhry said that the Demonstration Law does not have any problem of any kind, and in France there is a similar law, Dr. Mustafa Hijazi said the same thing, only one minister from the civil movement had opposed, and was described ad “Traitor”.
The passing of the infamous “Demonstration Law”, was the beginning of the rapid collapse of the democratic transition after January 25 / June 30.
7) Ezzedine Choukri said that he talked a lot with Dr. ElBaradei about the fate of Rab’a sit-in, asked ElBaradei to be set a strategy to deal with the situation, including negotiating with the Muslim Brotherhood leaders who were in prison at such time to reach an agreement, because if the sit-in was to break-up, it would be break-up by violence, in the manner in which government security forces is used to in these circumstances and there will a huge problem, ElBaradei said: No, it is impossible, it will not happen, and it will not be broken by violence. and he used to think that Ezzedine is very exaggerated and very delusional, and he always said: You are a paranoid, Ezz, and you live inside your novel — the novel of the باب الخروج, Exit Door — and you must come out. Ezz El-Din tried with him 3 times in 3 different situations, and that was always the answer.
8) Ezz El-Din’s assessment of Dr. El-Baradei, that he is a man of thought and a man of conscience, but he is not a political leader, meaning that the one that his conscience dictates to him will work without consulting anyone, and without communicating with the rules of his audience and his supporters.
