Egypt Says Yes to the Amendments
27% of legal voters cast their votes…75.1% approving

This is what was announced is official media last Wednesday ending a 3-month period of enormous discussions, disputes and even quarrels regarding the amendments the President of the republic proposed to 34 articles of the constitution.
What caught my attention most in this process was the multitude of paradoxes happening in Egypt in every thing that has something to do with the amendments. Yes, contradiction is the life style in my country…but this time it was over!

A country with estimated 60% illiteracy among its people, what's the point to harp on about changing parts of the constitution to enhance the democratic movement and to assure the principle of citizenship, when 3 out of every 5 citizens cant read or write let alone know what's a constitution or what the changes are about?

The big propaganda was about the Emergency law which has a story in its own. When the late Egyptian President Anwar Alsadat (we don't have former presidents, only late ones) was assassinated in 1981 an Emergency Law was put to action to hunt down the killers and since then it has been in action. When Mubarak was running for a 6th time in presidency he pledged to delete the Emergency Law once he is to be re-elected. He is re-elected but then asks the Parliament to let the law in action 2 more years due to urgent necessities.
Well, not a few were surprised by that. But many of the ruling party's big men stood for defence. Among the was Fathey Srour, the Head of the Parliament, Safwat Elsherif, the Secretary General of the Shura Council and Moufid Shehab, the Minister of Prliamentary Issues. They all defended the president saying that Egypt needs the law now..remeber, that was early 2006.
Last week on TV, Moufid Shehab, the same man, was saying that it was shame that a country can sustain an emergency law for 25 years, and it was very wise of the president to propose replacing it with anti-terrorism law….the bloody hypocrite!

Another face of contradiction was how the press dealt with the issue. We have 3 types of press; national, independent and opposition. The national papers commented on the voting day with headings like
THE PEOPLE CHOOSES DEMOCRACY
A GLORIUS DAY FOR DEMOCRACY and many of such stuff, on the other the independent (not only the opposition) press, though commenting on the same day came with titles like
THE BIG FIASCO
A DAY OD NATIONAL MOURNING
And so many of that... The funny thing was the banners business. In my country, you can always tell if there's something involving voting is taking place from the ugly site of banners. Every one hangs a banner supporting what the government says. One of which said: ' Haga Fawzeya (or another name) and her son support the amendments' Also the comments of people on the process was really expressing. Where some said they were going to for the president others said we don't know anything about any voting happening to day but it was that comment by a poor man that summarised the whole apathy of the people towards the political changes: "What constitution? Feed me first!"