The situation that has prevailed in Egypt for past half century, if not more, has seen suffocating security measures, considerable police powers and limited accountability of the country’s enforcement agencies. The 30 year long ‘emergency’ laws that became the norm under Mubarak allowed the already considerable powers to expand, emboldened the police and security to take the law into their own hands and created an environment which eroded the populations’ basic rights to account, speak and practice Islam.

The world’s attention has focussed on Egypt’s Coptic Christians after a bomb exploded outside a Church in Alexandria killing 21 people and injuring 70 more.  The attack sparked clashes between Egyptian police and Copts protesting against government inaction in protecting their community and places of worship. “Now it’s between Christians and the government, not between Muslims and Christians,” shrieked one Christian woman as several hundred young men clashed with helmeted riot police in the street outside the targeted church hours after the blast. 

The word ‘extreme’ only takes on meaning when defined against some benchmark. ‘Extreme’ weather is a serious departure from a normal, expected climate; extremely hot or cold water is defined as such when compared against, say, lukewarm. The word is relative and defined in relation to some ‘norm’. Ideas are not different.

It is now routine to talk of a Muslim world in crisis. But an end to the misery appears no closer. Despite experimenting with numerous models and indeed being the subject of recent experiments with liberalism, the autocracy, dictatorships, growing dissent and instability appear no closer resolved. Problems are deep rooted; some even talk of a Middle Eastern ‘exceptionalism’ to describe the region’s apparent inability to move forward. Fresh ideas and approaches are needed if we are to overcome the status quo.

Atempts to liberalise Islam date back to the early 19th Century. After over a century and half, governments, policymakers and some western commentators are still eager to push an agenda that has a history of failure.