Observations On the New Constitution of Egypt

         Observations on  The New Constitution of Egypt

     The draft document begins with a very wordy preamble expressing eleven principles.  The first is that the people are the source of all equality and equal opportunities are established for all citizens, that democracy is a system of government providing for among other things, the peaceful transfer of power, recognizing that the dignity of the individual and that women must be "appreciated", freedom of opinion,  expression and creativity, that equality and equal opportunities are established for all citizens The sixth principle calls for an independent judiciary.  Seventh notes the importance of national unity and adds "the rights and freedoms of all citizens shall be protected without discrimination".   The eighth principle notes the place of the Armed Forces in not being involved in political affairs and the ninth, the role of the police.
     Principle number ten is a statement calling for Arab unity and the need for Egypt to be part of the Muslim world and eleven is an extension of a dedication to Egypt's intellectual and cultural role, again with an emphasis on Islamic institutions including the national church and Al-Azhar University and Islamic Sharia. 
     The constitution follows in five parts.  Notable in Part I[The State and Society]  is Article 2, stating that Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic its official language. Principles of Islamic Sharia are the principal source of legislation.

 Freedom of thought and opinion is guaranteed but by article 44, Insult or abuse  of all religious messengers and prophets shall be prohibited. Article 82 says the legislative power shall consist of the House of Representatives and the Shuria Council. Article 85 provides for a 350 member House of Representatives and Article 128 for 150 member Sharia Council
[of which the president shall appoint 15]..
     An opinion on this document must recognize that the document is a translation, but that said, the two points of weakness must be these: 1.) As others have pointed out, the draft constitution guarantees equality before the law, but does not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender, sex, religion and origin. 2.) There is no separation of church and state, and therefore the guarantee of rights of women is very much in question regardless of the provisions.

Profiles in Cowardice

    The meaning of the closure of the General Motors Fuel Cell Research Center in Honeoye Falls is that once again as a nation, and as a community, we have failed to rally the political forces necessary to free our dependence on foreign oil.  The decision says, we will again fold to the forces of Big Oil over the logical alternative—hydrogen fuel.  The fuel cell powered automobile technology will be sequestered back to the home headquarters in Detroit, never to be heard from again.  What a lost opportunity!  What a study in “profiles in cowardice” on the part of our local leaders.  From Senator Alessi, whose district includes Honeoye Falls, to Danny Wegman and UR President Seligman, our  Governor Cuomo, and our US senators Gellibrand and Schumer, the story is one of failure of leadership.  All the more tragic is the failure of our federal government, which as a consequence of the bailout owns 25% of the stock in General Motors, to exert any effort what-so-ever.
   They did not wish to stand and fight.  Too bad.  We could have started building solar-hydrogen stations fueled by cheap solar panls and water, and in the process lessened foreign oil depencency, improved the greening of the environment, and moved forward with the solution to unemployment  in a major way. We could have been the fulcrum toward correcting our international accounts deficit.  We could have made the argument for natural gasfracking moot.  But history is repeating itself, is it not?  We could have had the Hadron Super Collider and world class high energy physics technology locate in Wayne County twenty years ago, but we again had no leadership.  In the end it is we the people who failed ourselves.

 

 

AFTER-THOUGHTS OF 9-11

The perfidious attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was a tragedy, exceeded only by the tragedy of our response. Why was the response a greater tragedy? Because it cost us 6,400 dead American soldiers and 45,000 military personal wounded--some severly and forever, and cost 6 trillion dollars. It caused civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan of 300,000 known (probably twice that), and it did not clearly define who was behind and funded Al Quida nor was there an under standing of the extent of support of world Islam behind the Jihad warriors. It made George W. Bush a wartime president rather than defining the attack as a crime against humanity--against civilization. We are yet to obtain all the facts about the information known to the CIA, military intelligence and the president's briefings prior to 9-11. The final tragedy has been a destruction of clear thinking.