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.

Behind Egypt stand past regimes that have played the game of carrot and stick to sustain control over the people, often using the Muslim Brotherhood as a scarecrow. One day, the scarecrow believed it was so mighty and scary, it flapped its wings and flew to settle on the throne of power in place of the old and dying formal state. As Egypt stands at a crossroad, if it were to look back, it would see religious extremists fighting to pull it back and force it to its knees in the hopes of erecting their dream of a glorious past, where a caliph upholds some obscure Sharia law and expands Islamist dominion over the world.

Behind Egypt also stand leading remnants of the old Hosni Mubarak regime. Once holding all the keys and taps of power and controlling the riches of the land, they became the subject of corruption charges and disappeared in the shadows hiding in their shame after the Jan. 25 Revolution. In recent weeks, some of these remnants started their attempts to make a comeback supported by media figures still loyal to Mubarak’s regime, launching a relentless smear campaign and phone tap leaks to discredit several activists and revolutionaries who had identified themselves as the “leaders” of the Jan. 25 Revolution. But even some of these activists themselves belong to the past. They still live in the same frame of mind they had during the Mubarak regime, when they would partake in small elitist protests at the steps of the press syndicate with some 20 or 30 fellow activists. They do not realize that the January 2011 uprising was a leaderless revolution of the people, a manifestation of “crowd democracy” and that millions of Egyptians no longer need their blessing to take a certain political direction, nor wait for their approval before casting a specific vote.