Atheists in Egypt launched a campaign on Facebook last month to collect signatures for the formation of a new political party that would be comprised of atheists, secularists and liberal thinkers. The forthcoming Egyptian Secular Party would be committed to defending the freedom of belief and atheism and eliminating the country’s Islamic identity from its constitution, as it believes there is a growing need in Egypt for the separation of mosque and state.
Co-founder Mahmoud Awad explained to the media that there are four types of atheists in Egypt.
“There are those who believe in the existence of God but not in religion, the agnostics who only doubt the existence of God, the indifferent ones who do not care to know if there is a God or not, and those who neither believe in God nor in religion,” he said.
Hisham Auf, founder and spokesperson for the party, said that they are trying to collect 5,000 signatures across 10 governorates before submitting the application to the Political Parties Affairs Committee, as that is the minimum number required to have a party officially registered in Egypt.
He said now is the right time to establish a secular party because Egyptians are beginning to feel more threatened by the growing role of Al Azhar, a complex of educational facilities and research institutes, that has played an important role since the army’s removal of former president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Referring to the ideology of his party as “purely Egyptian”, Auf said, “Now is a good time to form the party, given the current differences between the Al Azhar and the Salafis on the one hand, and the differences between the Salafis and secularists on the other.… We believe Al Azhar should stay as a religious institution tasked with fatwa, preaching and jurisdiction.… Azhar’s Shiekh Ahmed al-Tayeb should not enjoy the powers he has now. He has been intervening to ban books, television shows and movies. Al Azhar has become a state within the state.”
Auf said Egyptian Secular Party would seek a modern constitution that is based on the abolition of religious parties, principle of citizenship and hope to reduce the role of Al Azhar in political life including its control over Egyptians’ thought, art, media as well as the right to civil marriage. Apart from that, the party would want to address personal status and inheritance laws, do away with religious affiliation from identity cards, abolish laws punishing the defamation of religion and endorse the freedom necessary for art and creative pursuits. Egyptian Secular Party hopes to get rid of religious education and redirect the financial support the country currently offers to Al Azhar so that secular education can be made available to all.
While Auf is aware that a large section of the Egyptian society is likely to disagree with his party’s ideologies, he wants to face that challenge and educate Egyptians about secularism, as he believes they have never properly been introduced to the idea.
He said, “Our party would adopt secularism overtly, unlike other parties that shy away from announcing their real position.… It would explain what secularism really means in order to refute the misleading definition propagated by the Islamists. We do not intend to have a majority party, but rather a party of an influential minority.”
He also explained how Egypt has been suffering under the governance of the now-ousted Muslim Brotherhood, who tried incessantly to impose a theocratic state.
“The Brotherhood was acting as if their people are God's chosen nation,” Auf said. “The conflict between the theocratic and secular state was settled ages ago in the civilized world. Religion is only inside the mosque and the church.”
The second article of the Egyptian Constitution says that Islam is the country’s official religion, Arabic its official language and the principles of Sharia Law the primary source of the country’s legislation. Auf believes these are only some of the things that Egyptian Secular Party want changed so that there is a uniform sense of equality among all citizens, with absolutely no discrimination based on religion, gender, race or colour.
While a study conducted by Gallup Institute in 2012 suggested as many as 30 percent of Egyptians identify as atheists, a report published by Dar al Ifta in 2014 claimed that Egypt has 866 atheists, Morocco 325, Tunisia 320 and Yemen 32, numbers that it said posed significant threat to religion in Arab societies.
Despite the many obstacles, Auf seemed rather optimistic about having his party registered.
“The constitution bans religious political parties, yet there are religious political parties operating. Why would the committee then ban a secular political party, established in accordance with the constitution?” he questioned.
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