Rules and Laws in Egypt - Case Study Example

Name: Course: Date: Professor: Introduction Egypt is among the most popular countries in the Middle East and Africa. The nation is known for its huge population thus it is ranked position fifteen worldwide; as the most populated country. More than eighty million people live around the fertile areas of the nation such as the banks of river Nile whereas the rest occupy large regions of the famous desert of Sahara. An approximated half the total population of Egyptians reside in the urban areas which are densely populated. The country can be used as an appropriate example of nations with the longest histories of a modern society since it has been inhabited for centuries. It has a number of features and cultures that are evidence of its ancient existence. For instance, the major monuments of the country such as The Great Sphinx and Giza pyramid were built during the ancient civilization. Furthermore, the economy of the nation diversified in the region with sectors such as agriculture, tourism and services industry being among the top revenue generators. The country is pointed out among those who have had many conflicts in history. Most of the conflicts are as a result of greed, hatred and religious beliefs and values in the nation. These conflicts are depicted as wars, at individual level, religious level, societal level and international levels. In addition, the conflicts are linked to various international relations theories such as disruption being the cause of conflicts; a disturbance in the balance of authority and power. Egypt is a middle power nation. It has a significant political, cultural and a military influence in various regions. Some of the North African countries, the Middle East nations and the entire Muslim community depend on Egypt for a number of factors. In addition, the country has many rules and laws in position that are meant to govern and control the entire nation. The legal system of the country is fully based on the civil and Islamic laws (specifically Napoleonic Codes). Moreover, there is a general judicial review which is done by the Supreme Court. The review is meant to accept the compulsory global justice from International Courts but only when reservations are provided. The Islam jurisprudence is a key source of the nation’s legislation since the Sharia Courts are run and operated under the license provided by the Ministry of Justice. Sharia Courts governs the family, marriages and personal status, child custody and divorces in the Muslim community. The country’s constitution was signed in the year 2012 by President Morsi immediately after its approval by the Assembly and passed in a referendum. The referendum had about thirty percent participation from the country’s entire population, with sixty four percent of the people who voted supporting the referendum. The 2012 constitution replaced the earlier 2011 proposed constitution in an adopted revolution (HAGEN 2011). Furthermore, the penal code of the nation, from the constitution, is quite unique as it has included the Blasphemy Law. The current court system has a provision for death penalty against absent person. A number of Canadians and Americans were charged in courts of law and sentenced to death in the year 2012. The roots of conflicts in Egypt can be traced back to the earlier days or rather previous regimes where rulers used dictatorship means to achieve their goals. Civilians have suffered under this style of leadership which denied them their democratic rights. All these alongside inequality in the society led to rapture of regular wars and revolutions in the country. In addition, the ancient leaders were using laws which favoured a single group of people (Islamist). This implies that other races and religions were discriminated in the State. This paper is going to discuss a number of conflicts in Egypt, the causes or rather the roots of conflicts, the nation’s rules and laws from the ancient to the present. In addition, it will compare the country’s rules with other Islamic communities or rather countries alongside an international relations theory that can be applicable in understanding the conflicts. Rules and Laws in Egypt Egypt, a country with strong Islamic roots has various rules and laws that govern the people. These rules range from the religious point of view to the human rights’ perspective. A number of the rules can be traced from the ancient days of the World Wars whereas other rules have been created recently to cater for the transforming society or rather community. Even though there have been several conflicts in the country that led to wars, these rules and laws were still and are still in place to protect and regulate the citizens’ and government’s activities (Irving 1997). To start with, the Islamic religion cannot be taken out of the game when it comes to creation and implementation of rules. For instance, Article 1 in the declaration proves this by stating that Islamic Sharia is the nation’s major source of legislation and thus the famous Sunni University that is located in Al-Azhar is deemed as an extremely crucial player in political activities. It is quite clear that if the laws of a country are based on the base or rather the foundation of the Islamic Sharia there will never be any squares when it comes to equality of the citizens of the nation. Considering the Christians and secular Egyptians, there is will hardly be an equal ground whenever they are found to have committed any crime. Additionally, this declaration calls for an even and independent judicial system. The law justly states that any immunity of an administrative action from the judicial supervision is prohibited. On the other hand, Article 19 states that the military judiciary system is a totally independent organ that insulates the military from any probable oversight. The official immunity from supervision contradicts the following article which states that the military is owned by the civilians. In addition, Article 22 states that a national council that deals with defence is always established by the president. The council’s duty is to consider a number of issues that are related to the overall security of the country and budgeting for the Armed Forces. This can only be possible if the president is elected democratically and not appointed into power. Such a step will establish the public oversight of the military thus deny it the rights to fully make its own decisions and manage its own budgets. Right from the beginning, Egypt has had a number of rules and laws. Critically analysing these laws, they all declare that all the citizens have an equal right before the law. This rule guarantees that the nation will award equal protection and opportunities that are much far from discriminations which are based on religion, gender, beliefs, origin and language. It further vows to protect the private property by putting boundaries and limits to detainments and reckless arrests. Besides, the lives of citizens are fully protected by the nation’s law. For instance, confidential and private features in the daily living of Egyptians such as telephone calls, correspondence of mails and other communication media are strictly governed. Thus, there is no unauthorized confiscations, display and viewing of a person’s private information except through the judicial order or warranty (UN Report 2012). Egypt is a nation that fully supports freedom of speech. Article 7 of the nation’s laws guarantees freedom of speech within the limits provided in the law. This is termed as an aspect that would modify the problems reflecting the interests of the people in power. Moreover, the law guarantees for the freedom of press and seriously prohibits censorships in the nation, except the case of emergencies and during conflicts or wars. This will give room for the powerful military forces to dictate the public opinions whenever it is considered a necessity in the national security. Initially, the country was under a dictatorship style of leadership but right now it is said to be a democratic State. The law allows people to assemble in places of their choice freely and without prior notice to the authorities. Article 10 prohibits any security officer from attending private gatherings. In addition, it protects the rights of association with parties, unions and syndicates and at the same time bans the associations that are considered hostile to the society. This declaration does not ban the groups or parties that are created on the basis of religion, sex and origin. Thus, there is room for full participation of other religions, apart from the Islamists, in the nation’s politics. Application of the Theory The international relations theory that is associated with conflicts in Egypt states that any disturbance in the balance of authority and power is a major cause of friction in the society. This theory focuses on both the individual conflict levels and the societal conflict levels. Egypt is a nation that has been experiencing so many conflicts since the major wars of the world came to an end. Conflicts in the society occur due to various aspects in the nature of human beings. The nature of man portrays a violent creature that is bound to inflict harm to his own race. Moreover, greed at the same time comes in and appears to be a vital feature of the human nature. This determines the actions taken by human beings in order to be more powerful than their rivals in the society. The big question here is “Can the nature of mankind really reflect on the nature of a group or the entire society?” Moreover, the theory of determinism has some weight in tracing the roots of conflicts in a society. The theory is all about the events, choices and people morality being the complete determinants of several causes of conflicts in Egypt. The implication of this theory is that conflicts are out of human control and thus they man cannot be held responsible for every conflict that arises in the society. This theory, in connection with conflicts is not considered an appropriate one for the causes of conflicts in Egypt (UN Report 2012). Various societies possess diverse characteristics when the causes of conflicts are considered. The features and natures of societies, governments and economies are believed to be the major causes of conflicts in communities. From the liberal perspective, conflicts in Egypt are as a result of autocratic communities where an individual possesses endless and unlimited powers. Initially, Egypt was under a dictatorial style of leadership where the president had unlimited power. Races, religions and communities were intimidated for decades. The liberals in the nations opposed this kind of leadership for some time but the autocrat never gave them an opportunity to air their views. For instance, the previous rules and laws never had the provision for freedom of speech; no one was allowed to come out and communicate his or her mind. The ancient rules and laws in Egypt oppressed the citizens. The laws were made and implemented by leaders who appointed themselves into power. Moreover, these leaders never allowed any amendments in their proposed laws that were supposed to govern the nation. Even though the laws were not favouring of other races, religions and civilians in the country, the people never had a right to suggest or rather vote in a person who could fairly represent and lead them (Oliver & Myers 1998). In addition, discrimination of other races and religions was prevalent in the ancient Egypt. Christians and non-Arabs never had an opportunity to practice their democratic rights since the laws had no provisions for that. Islamic religion cannot be accused of such cruel laws, but the leaders and their advisers can. Civilians were ever in the streets, either because of war or a revolution. Thus, it is clear from the above that Egypt experienced conflicts in nineteenth century and some part of twentieth because of poor leadership. Democracy in any nation or rather any society is vital since people get to express their demands, views, opinions and expectation of a given regime. Justification Conflicts in Egypt are depicted in form of revolutions, wars, riots and demonstration. This is a nation where various parties point fingers to other for initiating a certain conflict. For instance, Leninists will always blame capitalists whereas the capitalists will always blame the communist as the initiators of conflicts in the society. It is obvious that democrats never engage into conflicts with other democrats, they always fight the non-democrats in the society (Korotayev & Zinkina 2011). Therefore, from the liberal theory of the international relations, we can justify that humankind is an extremely peaceful and peace loving race. Conflicting societies should follow this feature. However, this characteristic does not protect them from being attacked by the non-democratic communities. The logical summing up of this theory is that all the democratic societies are good whereas all the autocratic societies are deemed to be evil. Conflicts in the Egyptian community are justifiable. For instance, civilians engage in revolutions so as to oppose a law or rather a rule that oppresses them. The ancient Egypt had a number of conflicts due to poor leadership. People were never comfortable with the rules that clearly showed biasness in the society. The Islamic religion was the only predominant group in across the nation. Other religions never had the opportunity to gather and worship the God. In such circumstances, a demonstration for the sake of worshiping rights is justified. Moreover, in situations where the rights of associations, parties and other relevant groups are violated and no one is in a position to offer a significant solution to the issue, most likely a conflict will arise. In favour of the violated rights, conflicts such as riots are justified in this context. This is the only way to communicate the needs of the people since peaceful negotiations are totally ignored. The conflicts are for the good of the majority. Conclusion To sum up, Egypt is a renowned nation globally. It is an Arab country that has recently transformed into democracy. Initially, Egypt was under t a dictatorial style of leadership where the president was entitled to unlimited power. Various groups across the state were disadvantaged simply because of race, religion and gender. The president had the powers to create and amend the nation’s laws without the citizens’ approval. These were the times when chaos filled the atmosphere. The rates of brutal deaths were high since the people never had an opportunity to enjoy their democratic rights. Strikes, wars, demonstrations and riots were common in the country. For a change, the citizens Egypt alongside other parties that were fighting for democracy joined hands in order to kick out dictatorship. This was possible and took place within a short period of time as many the people were tired of oppression. Reforms were the plea of many Egyptians. This gave way to development and amendment of the new constitution in the year 2012 which came along with new rules and laws in the country. The laws considered every citizen of the nation since they were developed on a democratic ground. Egyptians are now enjoying their peace and freedom alongside other factors as provided in the constitution. References HAGEN, E. 2011. Egypt Not A Refugee Heaven. Ahram Online. Available from: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/14661. Gourevicth, P. 2001. International relations: Theories. International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioural Sciences. Goldstone, J. 2001. "Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory", Annual Review of Political Science. Goodwin, J. 1991. No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p.5. Irving E. F. 1997. A History of Mass Communication: Six Information Revolutions, Focal Press, ISBN 0240802543, p. xv Korotayev, A. & Zinkina, V. J. 2011. Egyptian Revolution: a Demographic Structural Analysis Middle East studies online journal.Availableat:http://www.eumed.net/entelequia/pdf/2011/e13a09.pdf. Oliver, P.E. & Myers, J. 1998. Diffusion Models of Cycles of Protest as a Theory of Social Movements, Montreal, Congress of the international, Sociological Association, Montreal. Roger, B. 2006. Tocqueville's Road Map: Methodology, Liberalism, Revolution, and Despotism, Lexington Books, ISBN 0739116657, p.86 Sirowy, L., Inkeles, A., 1990. The Effects of Democracy on Economic Growth and Inequality: a Review. Studies in Comparative International Development 25, 126–157. Sharp, J.M. 2013. Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations. Middle East Affairs Tilly, C. 1995. ''European Revolutions, 1492-1992, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 0631199039. UN report, 2012. Political Unrest in the Arab World Shakes up Regional Economy Availableat:http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2012 wesp_pr_westasia_en.pdf United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), 2012. Available at: http://www.unescap.org/stat/nl/nl-Q3-2012.asp Read More