Define Outreach In Human Services

Democracy 101 for Egypt

Tonight’s class at the School for Politics, in the Egyptian Democratic Academy (EDA), focuses on socialism versus liberalism and the meaning of a civil state. The students are men and woman in their 20s or beyond, who’ve arrived at the end of their work or university day to spend the next four hours on a balcony turned classroom. The heat is only occasionally broken by a single rotating fan, and the noise from the traffic below is relentless. But no one seems to mind, and all eyes are on Esraa Nouh, the 25-year-old teacher. She wants to know: what have her students heard about liberalism?

“No connection to religion,” a woman responds.

It’s the first lesson in a crash course in civics: four days covering a semester’s worth of material: basic political ideologies, the definition of a constitution, direct versus representative democracy, presidential versus parliamentary-led government, Egyptian political trends and more. In breakout groups, students draft their own constitutions and advocate for different political visions.

Esraa walks the class through the early highlights of liberalism—from the Greek origins of the word to John Locke. She teaches the historical context of the oppression by the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther. She explains, “Liberalism challenged a power that happened to wear religious clothing,” clarifying that liberalism did not challenge religion itself. She wants to debunk the popular idea in Egypt that to be a liberal is to be against religion.

The students are engaged—it’s impossible not to be. Dressed in a hijab and black Converse high-tops, Esraa exudes hope and boundless charisma that belie her tiny size. Though she is still in training to be a doctor, traveling to a hospital well outside Cairo several times a week, she ends nearly every day at EDA. Her father was a not-so-junior member of the Muslim Brotherhood who spent many years in Mubarak’s prisons. In the year before the revolution, Esraa came up through the classes of EDA’s Rocna Liberali, or Liberal Corner, a sort of book group for Egyptians teaching themselves about alternatives to dictatorship, theocratic states or military rule. She believes strongly in Egypt’s future, liberalism and John Stuart Mill.

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