Egypt's government 'will fall'
2007-02-27 16:38
Cairo - Even as the Egyptian government cracks down on any kind of opposition, an ageing academic who has taken the helm of the faltering pro-democracy Kefaya movement insists the regime is on its last legs.
As a result, Abdel Wahab al-Messiri, 68, looks forward to using his as-yet amorphous reform movement to draw the country's disparate opposition trends - including the banned Muslim Brothers - into a common front for change.
"I am emphasising the need for a peaceful change," said the scholar of Zionism and literature.
"I think we are approaching the end to that debate, at least to the present regime, I don't think it will survive one or two more years, the end is near," he added.
It is quite an assertion to hear from a frail professor emeritus of English literature at Ain Shams University, who is better known for spending a quarter century writing an exhaustive encyclopaedia on Zionism than for his political activism.
It is especially bold considering that the 25-year-old rule of President Hosni Mubarak shows no signs of failing while Kefaya (Arabic for "enough") itself seems to have lost its momentum.
Bursting on the scene in late 2004 with a series of taboo-breaking demonstrations that for the first time condemned Mubarak directly, Kefaya seemed set to become the unifying opposition force that modern Egypt has always lacked.
Yet lately it has seemed unable to recapture its earlier vigour or direction.
New focus needed
In December, several prominent members of Kefaya - which includes activists from across the political spectrum - resigned in protest at the state of the movement.
"Last year was full of events and no real attention was paid to the organisation and the system," said Hani Anan, a prominent member of Kefaya, adding that the next few months would focus on restructuring the movement.
Younger members, however, have privately grumbled about the choice of Messiri, questioning whether an academic approaching his seventies and with little political or administrative experience can re-energise the movement.
"The problem is we did not define really our area of activity," said Messiri. "We should concentrate on two or three domestic issues, like democracy, corruption and succession."
Messiri also hopes to draw the powerful Brotherhood into his front and somehow allay both the suspicions of other secular activists as well as overcome that group's preference to go it alone.
Born in 1938, Messiri was caught up in the political ferment of the 1950s, joining first the Muslim Brotherhood and then the Communist Party.
He went on to follow the path of many of Egypt's intellectuals, eventually abandoning his secular leftist ideology for more Islamist-influenced political beliefs.