"The example of Turkey shows that a lay state and a Muslim society are compatible"
A Radical among the Muslims

Emma Bonino has been living for several months in Egypt. It is difficult to imagine a Western woman, without any family, living in an Arab country. And if the woman concerned is a Radical, she might well be accused of masochism. We asked her, via e-mail, what her life is like in Cairo and whether she has had to forget her Radical views.
Do the battles of your Italian party seem less relevant when seen from Cairo?
They seem neither less relevant nor less distant. There is a direct line, a transnational line, which links the battles of the Radicals in Italy and what I and other Radicals are trying to do elsewhere in the world. Those who fight to promote – to globalise – the Rule of Law generally encounter two situations: countries in which democracy is under development or is still to be built, and countries (increasingly numerous) characterised by “real democracy", where the rules of democracy are solemnly proclaimed by laws which are then nonchalantly ignored. This is the case in Italy, where hundreds of "pro-legality activists" have to take part in extreme non-violent actions such as the hunger strike which Marco Pannella has been conducting for fifty days – including seven days without taking any liquids – before the general public realises that the Constitutional Court and the Parliament have been operating for years without a plenum, that the conflict of interests has not been solved, that our judicial system is condemned almost on a daily basis by the Strasbourg Court. Here, it’s the same battle for me as those poor wretches who are fighting in Italy.

So you manage to be "Radical" even in Egypt?
I wouldn’t have lived for months in Cairo if I hadn’t managed to remain "Radical", in other words to remain myself. True, the deeper I go into this new situation, the more I realise that the only common denominator, the only question that involves the whole Arab world - varied though it may be – is that of democracy, of the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed. Because whatever we think of the current Arab leaders and their actions, the main problem is that there are no mechanisms or institutions in any of these countries that allow the people to choose or to change their leaders: in Saudi Arabia, for example, there are never any elections. Not to mention the countries where there is no way for the will of the people to be expressed and where a change of leadership is simply impossible because it is not contemplated in the legislation. While it is evident everywhere that the people want to be able to determine or at least to influence the political decisions of their governments.

What aspect of freedom do you most miss in Cairo?
Cairo is an old cosmopolitan metropolis, a bit run-down, with widespread signs of fundamentalism, but it is used to welcoming and respecting foreigners and their customs. I have chosen freely to live in a society in which an unmarried middle-aged woman without a well-defined job or role is a rare creature. But this doesn’t mean that any of my fundamental freedoms is threatened. I miss the habits that a free woman enjoys every day in Rome or anywhere else in Europe, of course, in contact with my friends and fellow Radicals. But this is a "sacrifice" which I had reckoned for. And in any case I can "recoup" during the periods I spend in Europe, in Rome or at the European Parliament.

To what extent does Islam affect the development, or the underdevelopment, of a country?

Islam is one of the world’s religions. And as long as a religion governs the conscience of the individual or of a group of individuals (however vast) who join together to apply the precepts they believe in, we can have no objections. Like other religions, later than other religions, in fact, since it is the youngest of the great religious, monotheistic or otherwise, Islam has had to come to terms with the modern state, which is almost always lay. Because it is in the lay nature of the state that the only possible guarantee of religious freedom and equality for all citizens lies. Though it is also true that no religion resists the temptation to shape the states it sees being born: this can be seen in the history of Christianity, especially Catholicism, in the difficult relationship between the Israeli democracy and the ultra-Orthodox Jews, or in the birth of Hindu political fundamentalism in present-day India. Equally strong, within the ruling classes, is the temptation to "lean on" religion to gather consensus, also for electoral purposes, nonchalantly confusing believers with electors.
The trouble begins when religion and politics – which should remain separate - are mixed up and used instrumentally: which is what is happening now above all in the Islam world. And things get even worse when this pernicious mixture of politics and religion, in the name of an impracticable "return to the original Islam", offers miraculous solutions and cathartic acts of violence to entire population trapped by poverty and/or by ruling classes who are often corrupt, inefficient and authoritarian. It is this complicity between Islam and politics that blocks the normal evolution and modernisation of many Islamic societies: oppressed paradoxically both by fundamentalist regimes, conservative by definition, and by regimes that fight the fundamentalists and use this alibi to justify maintaining authoritarian regimes, closed to any form of democracy and assumption of personal responsibility. And as the Indian Nobel laureate for economics Amartya Sen says, the full exercise of the individual rights and liberties is an essential ingredient of the development of nations.
What is the situation in Egypt?
The situation in Egypt is difficult to decipher, because it is characterised by a sort of peaceful (though extremely paralysing!) coexistence between the state powers, generally lay and authoritarian, and the fundamentalist powers, founded on the widespread control over society. Having said that, you only have to look at Turkey to see that a modern lay state and a Muslim society are compatible.

On what issues could or should the West exert most pressure?
Despite the winds of globalisation and the increasing interdependence among all the countries of the earth, helped by a fairly dense network of international bodies and organisations, the principle of the sovereignty of states and the prerogatives that derive from this principle enjoy excellent health. What I mean is that the international community can only intervene in the domestic affairs of a country when there is a violation of international law, made up of agreements and treaties which have been signed freely. The European Union and Egypt are tied by a pact of political and economic partnership based on the respect - by both parties - of the values of our community: full civil rights; representative democracy; and the Rule of Law. This allows Europe to exert pressure of varying degrees of force (including, in theory, the suspension of the agreement), especially in the field of civil rights: from the political use of the judicial system to the correctness of electoral procedures. This is not an easy exercise, because as Egypt (which has high-quality human and political resources) and the other partners of the Community complain, it is a one-way process, with we Europeans giving lessons in democracy to the whole world. On the other hand Europe cannot renounce the constant defence of the values and principles it considers to be sacrosanct and universal and which appear – to paraphrase Churchill on democracy – as the fairest and most bearable institutional system so far invented by man. In Egypt, moreover, there is no lack of supporters of legality and democracy, and it is above all up to them to change things.

What will you do once you have learnt Arabic?

I studied Languages at university and I know from experience that languages are precious instruments of knowledge, unpredictable passports to real life. I don’t know what level of Arabic I will manage to reach (my aim is at least to be able to read the newspapers and listen to the radio and TV news), nor do I know to what extent this new instrument will influence the only work project I have been pursuing for many years now: the concrete promotion of human rights, democracy and the Rule of Law wherever it is necessary. This is the raison d’être of the Transnational Radical Party. True, I would never have started to learn Arabic if I were not completely convinced that the European political world, especially in Mediterranean Europe, has an urgent need to understand our Arab friends, and more generally the Islamic world, which goes well beyond the confines of the Arab language and culture.
As European Commissioner you denounced the situation in Afghanistan long before 11 September and before the international community acted. But no-one listened.
From the moment the whole Afghan population was taken hostage in 1996-97 by the armed fundamentalist sect of the Talebans and subjected to an absurd Islamic regime, responsible for crimes against humanity such as the segregation of the female population, I declared that it was the responsibility of the international community to liberate the Afghan people and stop their torturers with every possible means, including the use of force. On the basis of the same principle that would make us call in any part of the world for the intervention of the police to put an end to the repetition of a crime. Moreover, it was not only the fundamental rights of the Afghan people that were at stake. I realised this when I visited Kabul in September 1997 in my capacity as European Commissioner for humanitarian aid. It was an eventful visit, as you may remember, during which I was arrested and expelled by the Talebans together with the delegation that was accompanying me.
You then returned to Brussels.
Where I wrote, in my report to the European Union, that the illegal Afghan regime should be neutralised, both to restore the rights and the dignity of the female population and to make sure that Afghanistan - a country that is a crossroads for international energy supplies, the main world producer of opium, where the proliferation of training camps for international terrorist was already underway - was not left in the hands of a bunch of fanatics. And at the time no-one had really focused on the guiding role played in Kabul by Al Qaida, the terrorist multinational founded by Osama Bin Laden!
So you would justify the military intervention?
Having complained for years that the world was standing by as the Talebans ran rage, I naturally believe that the military intervention carried out after 11 September to destroy the Taleban-Al Qaida alliance was legitimate, in fact it should have been decided long before. I have some objections, on the other hand, to the Realpolitik criteria ("my enemy’s enemy is my friend") adopted by the Bush administration to put together the so-called global anti-terrorist alliance. You only have to look at the recent history of Afghanistan to realise the danger of forming alliances with unacceptable regimes simply to speed up the achievement of a short-term goals. In the past it was the war against communism, now it is the war against Islamic terrorism: why didn’t my report to the European Union go down well among the major Western governments (though it did help to prevent the international recognition of the Taleban regime)? Because there were some people in the West who, relying on allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, thought it was more “realistic" to settle for an Afghanistan "stabilised" by the tyranny of the Taleban regime than to continue to wait for more acceptable political and military forces. Only to be woken up abruptly on 11 September 2001.