Egyptian Analyst Discusses Need to Bridge Egypt’s Religious and Secular Public Spheres

In an op-ed in Al-Ahram, Ibrahim El-Houdaiby discusses the emergence and role of the  two public spheres fostered by the Mubarak’s regime: the religious and secular-liberal spheres.  He notes that these spheres, which had minimal diversity and relatively exclusive, had little influence on the regime’s policies.  Rather, Mubarak chose which sphere’s rhetoric to employ to justify his policies.  El-Houdaiby also discusses how these regimes changed over time and calls on members of both spheres to reconcile.  ”Ousting Mubarak’s regime means the emergence of an all-inclusive polity that reflects societal diversities. That in turn requires the emergence of an inclusive public sphere — one that transforms reconciliatory efforts into a mainstream movement,” he says.  He closes by stating that failure to reconcile will “jeopardise long-term national stability for the sake of short-term electoral success.”