On Jan. 14 and 15, Egyptians will decide the country’s future in the most important referendum Egypt has seen in 60 years. It may appear as a binary “yes or no” vote to a simple question: “Do you approve of the new constitution?” But appearances can be very deceiving. For the first time in recent history — no, possibly for the first time in thousands of years — Egyptians will formally be forced to choose between the past and the future.
Egypt stands at a crossroad. Behind it are decades where the formal state with its laws, media, government institutions, public services and even opposition political parties went through a slow yet persistent process of deterioration and decay. Egypt’s formal state was brought to a point where it became chronically on the verge of collapse, without formally announcing or admitting it. The decay process led to a growing failure in satisfying people’s needs. Corruption thrived and the rule of law became a theatrical show of hypocrisy that the government would selectively enact on special occasions of convenience. Failure, red tape and corruption gave rise to a myriad of parallel systems — informal systems each compensating for a gap or filling a hole that the formal state withdrew from or was unable to cover. These systems gradually meshed, cultivating their own loyalties, citizenry, culture and value system, giving birth to a sprawling “parallel state.” We may see the revolution as the moment when the “parallel state” became self-aware. It dismissed the government, sacked the president, dissolved parliament and abolished the constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood was a part of the old regime. But it was in the dark parts of the “parallel state” where it really thrived. In the “shadow state” it established its own economy, infiltrated workers' syndicates, student unions and charities, and formed a network of loyal and interdependent subjects in every arena.