in a land of little change

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with Mohamed ElBaradei at the Washington Post

Saturday, April 10, 2010; 12:15 PM Edited excerpts from interview with Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, at his villa on the Cairo-Alexandria road, April 7, 2010.

This Story: Interview with Mohamed ElBaradei: Political stirrings in a land of little change

Washington Post/Janine Zacharia: Why didn't you join the 6th of April pro-democracy demonstration in Cairo [on Tuesday]?

ElBaradei: This is a question of judgment. I will go when it makes a difference. I wouldn't go when there's a peaceful demonstration of 500 people or 1,000 people. You have to differentiate between activists and people who are leading a movement for change. At least at this stage, at this early stage, I'm trying to instill some sense of where we should be heading in the future, Egypt. It's very clear: It's a dead end street until we move into democracy. There is no other way about it. And, of course, that will impact on the Arab world, the Muslim world, everything will change, in my view at least, both internally, externally everything.

But my role is not to run in every little demonstration around Cairo or in the countryside. That's not my role.

ElBaradei: I tweeted and said it's offensive what happened yesterday. That goes everywhere now. I realize the tweets are translated in every newspaper. All the opposition newspapers have it in the next day. I did one on torture. I did one on emergency law. I did three tweets today. I discovered this is a very good way to communicate with people. I started, and will continue to use, viral videos.

ElBaradei: It's cost-benefit analysis, to go into a demonstration. I do not want to see the whole Egyptian people feel protected by my presence. They need also to feel that it is their country, it is their responsibility and they really have to fight for their freedom whether I'm there or not. There is an overexpectation of what I could do.


ElBaradei: This is a country that has been deprived of democracy since 1952. The problem is people don't know even what democracy is about, how to go about it. It's out of desperation. People have become so afraid and so pessimistic that anything could happen and that's part of the apathy you see. Everybody understands that we need to change and things are not good and we need to move to a democracy but everybody's afraid to stick his neck out or stand up and be counted or take an action. And therefore there is this desperation that somehow I'll deliver them, there would be a deliverance through me. And basically, what I'm telling them every day, I'm happy to help you. I can show you the way; I use my whatever I have, recognition, what have you, to say -- and that's what I'm doing -- that the emperor has no clothes. And I think that's what I'm doing, I'm basically finally saying the emperor has no clothes. Once everybody realizes that then we have to figure out how to dress the emperor.

ElBaradei: I do cost-benefit. I mean here again a lot of these old modes have not worked for the last 30 years. People have been going into the street. Fifty people got arrested. Another 50 somewhere else. You will see me around you when there's really a major peaceful demonstration where we can make a difference. But if the idea is just to clash with a repressive regime it doesn't advance [the agenda.] If I go into a clash with the regime, I'll go into a clash with the regime when there are circumstances that make me comfortable that it will make a difference.

WP: This sounds more like a long-term process, even more than the next 18-month election cycle?

ElBaradei: Or even a generation, frankly. Depends what you mean by change. If you mean by change of changing mindset, getting people to understand what democracy's about, how you practice it and all the implications of it -- good education, good health care, everything -- that will take, in my view will take a generation. So I take the long-term view and the short-term view. The short term is get focused on the first phase which is fair and free election, multi-party system, equal opportunity and change of the constitution.

As you saw, I said the whole way that the political system is constructed is in my view illegitimate

WP: Because NDP [the ruling National Democratic Party] dominates how political parties are established?

ElBaradei: Yes, absolutely. In no way I'm going to play this game because I will only legitimize what in my view is a completely, I call it sham, I call it farce, whatever you want to call it. I'm not going to be part of that unless everything changes. Six, or seven guarantees that exist in every democracy in the world. I'm not going to play that game. Call it by its name: It's not a democracy, it's again another manifestation of a single-party system.

But this is a short-term view. The long-term view for reform is going to take much beyond 2011.

Again people here get very excited, they think that things are going to happen overnight. "Where is your program on education, on the garbage?"

WP: The NDP hasn't put forward their platform yet either for the parliamentary elections this year.

ElBaradei: They have a program and it failed. What is the outcome? After 30 years you still have over 40 percent of people living under a $1 a day, 30 percent of the people don't read and write.

This is the outcome of their program. But what they don't understand -- and that's what I'm trying to get people to understand -- is everything starts and ends with a political system by which people are empowered, by which people are able to elect a proper parliament, independent parliament, when you have opposition, when you have a majority by which you have a government that's accountable to the parliament, by which you have change of government every four years, by which you have totally independent judiciary. None of that exists. I mean we have a democracy that's high on form but total zero in substance. It's a house of cards in my view, which has nothing to do with real democracy.

I'm trying to make people understand that you are in dead-end street, you'll continue to see the garbage in the streets, you'll continue to see the traffic unless you have a proper political system. Your economic and social development is linked to the kind of regime you have. It is no different from any authoritarian system. That message will take time to sink in.

Right now, I'm focusing on showing all the pitfalls of the system we have.

This is phase one. Secondly would be a new constitution.

ElBaradei: I was at the Coptic cathedral.

WP: They sat you next to the U.S. ambassador Margaret Scobey, right?

ElBaradei: They moved her.

The reason I went to the church -- I was coming from Vienna. On the plane I met two Coptic women. They told me, we are afraid to go to our biggest feast because remember a few months ago people were shot. They told me they were afraid to go.

The mental anguish, it shows. I said, I will go just to show these are part of Egypt, doesn't matter whether they are Copt Christians or Jews. It was also amazing that I got lots of support and lots of complaints inside the Church. They gave me a lot of written complaints. These are senior people. I had a tweet on it also. I said it's very sad when I go to the cathedral and see that people are afraid. The church is walking a very tight rope. I was not going to meet the clergy. I was going to meet people and say we are together in this.

WP: When did you conceive this idea of coming back and launching this movement for change?

ElBaradei: I haven't. It happened completely by default. I wasn't even coming home. I have lots of work to do. I go to the international part of the world, this end of the month Harvard and Fletcher [at Tufts University]. I give a couple of memorial lectures. It's difficult to shift gears from talking about the garbage here to talking about nuclear disarmament.

It really happened by default because I have all the work cut out for me. Doing consulting, sitting on boards, giving lectures. And then people started here to call on me to come and participate. That's how it started. A bunch of intellectuals and writers.

I didn't know it would come this way but I thought it an opportunity basically to say I would only consider running if 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I put it in writing. Sent it to [newspapers] and I said I would also only consider running if there is wide support for me. Because if not, I will be happy if we just reform the system.


Day immediately after, there was a coordinated vilification campaign. "Agent for Iran, agent for U.S.," "responsible for the war in Iraq," for which I got the Nobel Prize. I'm an agent for Iran, I'm an American agent. I'm anti-Islam today in al-Dustour. I'm anti-Islam. What else?

They're demonizing me. The irony is the more they do that, the more I'm becoming larger than life here, which also creates this expectation, which shows also how little people trust the system. So the more they vilify a person the person becomes more credible.

WP: Does how you are received, as someone who has come back from abroad, show actually a weakness in the system here?

ElBaradei: I think people lost complete trust in the system.

WP: Have you scuttled President Mubarak's plans to have his son Gamal succeed him, if there is such a plan?

ElBaradei: That's what people say. This idea of inheritance, succession from father to son has been dealt a heavy blow because they have been presenting themselves everywhere that the alternative to the current system is the Muslim Brotherhood and again presenting the Muslim Brotherhood as the equivalent of Bin Laden. Our friends in the West, in many ways, bought this. I consider a system that is afraid of its own people, as I tweeted now, because of this demonstration, is a system that won't have any stability. You can only have stability if you are supported by your people.

WP: That's what President Bush said.

ElBaradei: I disagreed with W on many issues but on democracy he was saying the right things.

You can't, in the 21st century, continue to live in a system where people live under martial law for 30 years. If more than five people walk together, this is against the law. You have a peaceful demonstration, this is against the law. If you want to establish a party, you have to go to the ruling party. They tell you if you are black, red or white or if you are similar to other parties. The whole thing is a farce.

WP: Should Mubarak have left the scene five years ago?

ElBaradei: I don't concern myself with personalities. I talk about policies. What I see is a country going down the drain, economically, politically and socially.

WP: What about the international community's role?

ElBaradei: If you want to be credible on human right -- freedom of speech, freedom of assembly -- you cannot just say mum's the word when the regime's a friend of yours.


Every day you see three articles on the Iranian election, was it fair, was it fixed. But I have not seen one single article talking about an election in the Arab world. How could you be credible? I said that to many of my friends in the U.S. and Europe. If you want to be credible, human rights is a global issue. You have to talk about it in a systematic way.

What I see in the Arab world, in Egypt, everywhere is increasing radicalization.

If that situation will continue you will continue to get more radicalization, not only in Egypt, throughout the Arab world. Egypt is the beacon for the rest of the Arab world.

WP: Maybe the government really is afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood turning Egypt into an Islamic state and that's why they keep the emergency law in place.

ElBaradei: You have to understand why the Muslim Brotherhood are credible and getting support: Because all the other liberal, secular political parties have been banned. And they have been credible because they are the only ones helping the people in the street, when the government was not able. Second, even if they have extremists in the group, there are also the moderates. The head of their parliamentary faction, [Muhammed Saad al] Katatni has been here twice in my home. They have 20 percent of the parliament. The other secular parties have 1 percent.

He said that we are against a religious state, we are for a civil state, and we are for democracy and we are for social justice.

WP: Then can the Muslim Brotherhood partner with you?

ElBaradei: That's what I said. I'll take him for his word as long as you work under a constitution as established in every country. If you want to have a party with a political background, you have the Christian Democrats everywhere in the world. We also know in politics if you make them a partner you moderate.

If I have, one week after I arrive here, the support of Communist Egyptian party and the Muslim Brotherhood and they were here together there is something wrong with the system.

WP: What's new now between the 2005 pro-democracy movement and today besides Twitter? The opposition is still weak. The regime is strong.

ElBaradei: I think we are getting into a black hole in terms of physics. It's very difficult to predict. What is new, I think people slightly have shed their fear but still you talk about 57 years of being afraid. Again, as you saw in the last few days and last couple of weeks, they have been cracking down on all dissidents including one publisher of a book. It's not written about me. The guy wrote a book called "ElBaradei and the Green Revolution." They arrested the publisher. They arrested another publisher. They arrested two or three people. Well, yesterday. All young educated people in these demonstrations.


They were beaten. They started to release them. But it's a policy of intimidation: "You cannot play politics. We will not allow you." I see that the regime is getting panicky. Again they continue to say among other things I'm elitist, parachuted in.

WP: Abdel-Moneim Said wrote in Al-Ahram: "Egypt is not a damsel pining for her knight to race home from Vienna on his white charger."

ElBaradei: I'm not. I'll be the first one to say I'm not.

ElBaradei: What really got them off balance was when I went to the Hussein mosque. I didn't announce it. A thousand people shouting and screaming. Then I went to Mansura. Same thing happened. These were the most modest average Egyptians.

All they know is that their life is in shambles and this is some guy who is recognized by the rest of the world as competent so let's give him a chance. That started to get the regime panicky. I don't think they know what to do and they don't know what will happen in the next 18 months, whether Mubarak, his son, or somebody else. There is a snowball effect in my call for reform.

WP: Still, at the end of the day won't whomever the NDP puts forth just win the election?

ElBaradei: That's very possible. But whether that will solve Egypt's problems, whether that will be regarded by the people of Egypt as legitimate, it's a question.

WP: Could Gamal Mubarak be a reformer?

ElBaradei: I have no idea. He could be a reformer in the economic social field, but we're never going to be a reform in the region without political change. New system based on institutions and not person-based system.

WP: Everyone wants to draft you. Mona Ebeid-Akram of the Wafd party said tell him to join us.

ElBaradei: I think the regime would love that I run. And they would love to give me 40 percent and shake my hand and say tough luck and send a message to the world, ElBaradei has run.

Unless I have an equal opportunity and massive political support I will not even touch it and I made that very clear. And I'm going to run as an independent, because these are not my parties. With due respect to all the parties, I don't accept to go through a party, which is not my party, which has gone through this superficial way of being established. This is not my concern. My concern, as I said is to reform the system. I'm not necessarily interested in running.

WP: They can't do all these things you want before the election

ElBaradei: They can do it in one month.

ElBaradei: I am quite real insofar as I go to a little village in Egypt. But I'm virtual when it comes to how I can preach change: I cannot rent an office. Not allowed to rent an office. Because we are not an approved party or approved association. I cannot raise funds. I met yesterday 10 people from the human rights groups in Egypt. What they told me, forget the law we are all illegal and we have to operate in an illegal way.

They told me forget the law.

WP: What should the U.S. do on this democracy front?

ElBaradei: The U.S. is not the holder of truth. I think everybody, north, south, west, east should say that human rights are universal and everybody should have the same basic right to live in freedom and dignity.

Of course reform has to come from within the country. It is not instant coffee. It takes time.

WP: NDP officials too say it's not instant and that they are for change.

ElBaradei: It's not instant coffee. But we're not going to wait for another 7,000 years.

But you have to take concrete steps. It is not waiting for Godot. What is happening here in Egypt we are waiting for Godot. I am not going to wait for Godot.