I recently attended a seminar in which much of the discussion centered on criticism of Egypt\u2019s cultural, social, and political reality. Many participants spoke with concern, and perhaps anger, about the public embrace of closed-minded Salafi ideas, the rise of intolerance and the exclusion of those who think differently, and phenomena that suddenly become \u201ctrends,\u201d prompting people to defend them with an enthusiasm completely disproportionate to their actual value\u2014as if the collective mind sometimes finds in oversimplification, exaggeration, and superstition what it fails to find in thought, criticism, and knowledge.<\/p>\n
The discussion revisited contemporary phenomena, such as the controversy surrounding \u201cEl-Adawy,\u201d as well as earlier ones, such as the extraordinary place Sheikh Al-Shaarawy came to occupy in the popular consciousness, to the point that, for many people, criticizing some of his ideas became tantamount to attacking religion itself, rather than engaging with the ideas of a human scholar whose interpretations are open to agreement and disagreement.<\/p>\n
I listened to all of this, and I do not deny a great deal of what was being said. Yes, there has been a decline in critical thinking. Yes, superstition can spread rapidly, and extremist ideas can find platforms and audiences.<\/p>\n
But another question came to my mind: Are we witnessing something uniquely Egyptian, or are we seeing a human phenomenon that recurs across societies whenever fear combines with frustration, weak education, and the desire to find simple answers to an extraordinarily complex reality?<\/p>\n
Human history does not move in a straight line from ignorance to knowledge, from intolerance to tolerance, or from authoritarianism to freedom.<\/p>\n
It moves in waves.<\/p>\n
At times, it advances; at other times, it retreats. Enlightenment emerges, and then resistance to it appears. Reason prevails in one period, only for fear, violence, and myth to return in the next.<\/p>\n
What we may perceive as a uniquely Egyptian decline may simply be another chapter in the ancient struggle between the freedom of the human mind and the authority of closed certainty.<\/p>\n
Extreme ideas do not flourish only in societies of ignorance.<\/p>\n
Germany, which was swept up by Hitler, was not an underdeveloped society devoid of universities, philosophy, the arts, or science. It was the land of Goethe, Kant, and Beethoven, and one of the most advanced European societies in education, industry, and scientific research.<\/p>\n
And yet Nazism was able to mobilize broad segments of the population around a project based on racial superiority, exclusion, and hatred.<\/p>\n
Hitler\u2019s rise was not simply the result of ignorance. It was the product of a complex interaction between national defeat, economic crisis, fear of the future, a sense of humiliation, a sophisticated propaganda machine, and a leader who offered people a clear enemy to blame for their suffering.<\/p>\n
He did not tell them: \u201cReality is complicated and requires long-term effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the heart of his message was something closer to: \u201cYou are great, but others have conspired against you, and I alone can restore you to your former glory.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the populist formula that repeatedly appears in different forms: simplify the crisis, invent an enemy, glorify the leader, turn belonging into tribal loyalty, and relieve people of the responsibility of examining themselves.<\/p>\n
In Italy, Mussolini was not simply an eccentric orator who imposed himself upon a reluctant population. He found people receptive to his nationalist message. He benefited from traditional classes\u2019 fear of disorder and communism, from the violence of his militias, and from weak institutions\u2014until the king appointed him prime minister.<\/p>\n
He then gradually transformed the state into a fascist regime that suppressed opponents and glorified the leader.<\/p>\n
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia emerged from a very different context, but it too offered a promise of complete salvation. The promise of liberating humanity eventually became a system that monopolized truth in the name of history, class, and revolution.<\/p>\n
Lenin was not a version of Hitler or Mussolini, and the fundamental differences between the three experiences should not be erased. But the common thread is the danger of an idea that claims to possess the ultimate truth and regards those who disagree as enemies rather than citizens or fellow human beings.<\/p>\n
Religious Salafism, nationalist fascism, and revolutionary totalitarianism differ in their sources and slogans. Yet they can resemble one another in their psychological and political structure: certainty that allows no doubt; a pure past that must be restored or an ideal future that must be imposed; a chosen group; a leader, cleric, or party that claims to possess the correct interpretation; and a dissenter portrayed as a threat who must be silenced.<\/p>\n
It is easy to describe the masses as ignorant or foolish. But such a description neither explains the phenomenon nor helps us change it.<\/p>\n
Human beings do not always seek the most logical idea. Often, they seek the idea that gives them security, preserves their dignity, explains their suffering, and makes them part of a community.<\/p>\n
Critical thinking accepts uncertainty and complexity.<\/p>\n
An intolerant worldview, by contrast, offers definitive answers:<\/p>\n
This is right, and that is wrong.<\/p>\n
We are the good ones, and they are the bad ones.<\/p>\n
The past was perfect, and the present is corrupt.<\/p>\n
The problem is not us; it is an enemy waiting to strike.<\/p>\n
These answers can be psychologically comforting even when they are wrong.<\/p>\n
They relieve people of the burden of doubt and the responsibility of searching. They provide a ready-made identity and a sense of moral superiority.<\/p>\n
The tendency toward such answers grows stronger when trust in institutions weakens, hope for the future disappears, education becomes rote learning, the media becomes captive to sensationalism, and social media platforms reward the loudest voice rather than the deepest idea.<\/p>\n
In such an environment, the most rational idea does not necessarily prevail. The simplest idea does\u2014the one most capable of provoking fear or anger.<\/p>\n
But peoples are not fixed entities, nor do they carry special genes for enlightenment or intolerance.<\/p>\n
The same society that celebrates superstition can produce scientists and innovators. The same person may be conservative in one area and progressive in another.<\/p>\n
We therefore cannot reduce millions of people to a \u201ctrend,\u201d nor can we judge the future of an entire nation based on the noise of a single moment.<\/p>\n
Enlightenment is not a destination that societies reach and then remain in forever.<\/p>\n
It is an ongoing effort that requires protection, renewal, and transmission from one generation to the next.<\/p>\n
Even societies that gave birth to philosophies of freedom and human rights have, at different times, returned to racism, extreme nationalism, fear of immigrants, and hatred of those who are different.<\/p>\n
Rights that may seem self-evident today were not granted easily. They were won by people who faced imprisonment, exile, accusations of apostasy, and even death.<\/p>\n
The advocates of enlightenment were often placed in difficult positions\u2014not because their ideas were weak, but because they asked human beings to do something extraordinarily difficult:<\/p>\n
To think instead of merely repeat.<\/p>\n
To doubt instead of taking comfort in a ready-made answer.<\/p>\n
To accept the right of those who disagree to exist.<\/p>\n
And to reconsider ideas inherited from family, community, and religious or political authority.<\/p>\n
The fanatic offers immediate certainty.<\/p>\n
The advocate of enlightenment opens a question.<\/p>\n
That is why the former can seem more attractive in moments of anxiety, while the latter requires education, culture, freedom, and the psychological security that allows people to ask questions without fear.<\/p>\n
And yet, most totalitarian ideas that once appeared eternal eventually disappeared or transformed.<\/p>\n
Nazism, which filled squares and public spaces with flags, fell.<\/p>\n
Fascism, which promised to create a \u201cnew man,\u201d collapsed.<\/p>\n
Regimes that claimed to have discovered the final laws of history eventually retreated or disintegrated.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the questions raised by advocates of freedom, reason, and human dignity remained\u2014and returned in new forms.<\/p>\n
This is not a call for complacency.<\/p>\n
Extremist ideas can leave behind wars, massacres, and generations of victims even after they have disappeared.<\/p>\n
But it is a call not to confuse noise with permanence, or momentary popularity with historical victory.<\/p>\n
I told those present:<\/p>\n
I do not deny what you are describing. But I also see millions of Egyptian children under the age of sixteen, and tens of millions of young people under thirty.<\/p>\n
They are not merely demographic statistics.<\/p>\n
They are open-ended human possibilities.<\/p>\n
Within a single decade, the face of society can change if we invest in their education, culture, and ability to think and create.<\/p>\n
Among them may emerge new leaders in science, art, politics, economics, and thought\u2014provided that we do not pass our despair on to them, and do not simply tell them that society has been corrupted and reason has been defeated.<\/p>\n
The most dangerous thing an intellectual can do is allow criticism to turn into contempt for the people.<\/p>\n
Contempt for the masses does not enlighten them. It pushes them toward those who speak to their fears and anger and offer them a false sense of worth.<\/p>\n
The task of an advocate of enlightenment is not to stand above society and lecture it, but to engage in dialogue with it; to understand its language and fears; to make knowledge accessible; to connect freedom with dignity; and to make reason a means of improving life rather than a privilege with which a small elite can boast.<\/p>\n
The issue is not to attack a cleric, an artist, or a \u201ctrend\u201d and then imagine that we have triumphed on behalf of reason.<\/p>\n
The real issue is to build a citizen capable of distinguishing between faith and the exploitation of religion; between art and spectacle; between popularity and value; and between respecting a person and turning that person into a symbol beyond criticism.<\/p>\n
This cannot be achieved through sermons alone.<\/p>\n
It requires a school that respects questions, a teacher who knows how to discover children\u2019s abilities, a culture that reaches neighborhoods and villages, art that opens the imagination, media that does not underestimate its audience, and a public sphere that allows debate and disagreement.<\/p>\n
What we see today is not Egypt\u2019s final image.<\/p>\n
It is a scene in a much longer film.<\/p>\n
It may be a disturbing scene. The voices of intolerance and superstition may be loud within it. But it does not represent the entire people, nor does it determine how the story ends.<\/p>\n
History does not change only through those with the loudest voices.<\/p>\n
It also changes through quiet actions that accumulate:<\/p>\n
A child learning how to ask questions.<\/p>\n
A teacher refusing rote learning.<\/p>\n
A book opening a window.<\/p>\n
An artist stirring the emotions.<\/p>\n
A family allowing its children to disagree.<\/p>\n
An institution protecting freedom of thought.<\/p>\n
And an intellectual who refuses to lose faith in humanity.<\/p>\n
That is why I told them, and why I tell myself:<\/p>\n
Do not deny the darkness, but do not grant it the status of eternity.<\/strong><\/p>\n Do not underestimate the power of intolerance, but do not overestimate its permanence.<\/strong><\/p>\n And do not let the noise of the moment obscure the possibilities of the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n What we see is a scene in the film\u2014not its ending.<\/p>\n So do not lose hope.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently attended a seminar in which much of the discussion centered on criticism of Egypt\u2019s cultural, social, and political reality. Many participants spoke with concern, and perhaps anger, about the public embrace of closed-minded Salafi ideas, the rise of intolerance and the exclusion of those who think differently, and phenomena that suddenly become \u201ctrends,\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[280,103,272,16,197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-collective-activities-articles","category-all-articles","category-almasry-alyoum","category-articles-by-dr-badrawi","category-translated-articles"],"yoast_head":"\n