civil society

When we utter the word “civil society”, it come in our minds that this concept means a society separate from religion´-or-secular society, also we can think it is a non-military society and does not have a relation with the militant institutions. Besides, we think it is separate from the political life, the state and its bodies’ policies.
But this view, is considered derogative in general as it does not expand to the study of the concept and the search in its core. These believes make us tend to say that this society is a special self-isolated one which has its own rules and its own social contract, which is not true and may be this perception and concept of the civil society was patterning the intellect of the early 18th century.
On the other hand, there are many who define civil society by a group of political, economic, social and cultural, etc institutions which work in their different societies in relative separation from the state’s institutions at the aim and for many reasons including the following:
Cultural purposes: like the writers -union-s and the different cultural institutions, such as House of Wisdom in Egypt.
Social purposes: Which help the contribution to social development works.
Political purposes: such as participation in the process of internal decision making, including the political parties.
-union-ist purposes: represented in the role of -union-s in defending their members and their rights.
Thus, we find here that the civil society includes some elements which are:
First Element: Volunteerism:
This is the characteristic that distinguishes the civil society from the different formations that exist in the society and resemble it in the specialization. The basis of civil society’s work is volunteerism.
Second Element: Institutionalism:
This characteristic is considered to be the feature of any organization´-or-civilized societal formation, as institutionalism is one of the civilian societies’ features in the different political, social, economic´-or-cultural aspects of life. However, it is note worthy that the Arab societies, although seem to be institutional societies in its form, lacks in fact the institutionalism that based on liberal contract relation under the law.
Third Element: The Purpose and -function-:
This is represented on what the institutions and the major organizations established for and on, and this to guarantee their independence from the tyranny of the authority.
Fourth Element: The View to the Civil Society:
The civil society institutions´-or-the concept of the civil society should be viewed as a part of a group of concepts including citizenship, human rights, and the political, constitutional, individual, democratic and civil, etc participation.
On the other hand, some tend to define the civil society by mentioning a collection of -function-s it does and they restricted it in the following -function-s:
1- The -function- of trying to achieve group interests.
2- The -function- of intervention to resolve conflicts.
3- The working on increasing the wealth and improving the social conditions.
4- The working on producing new leaderships in the society.
5- The working on publicizing the culture of democracy and spreading it among the citizens.
In general, we cannot speak about the concept of civil society without tackling some concepts which researchers call the intellectual triangle, and cannot be separated from each other. The sides of this triangle are:
First Side: Human Rights:
Which are the rights related to humans’ existence and which allow them to live humanely and acquire their rights and different freedoms they entitled to them by just being humans.
Second Side: Democracy:
The definitions of democracy abounded and there is no sententious definition for it, these definitions include the following:
Robert Dahl defines it by “an unmatchable process for binding collective decision making ”, it is also, as George Trabolsy defines it, “a group of practices and work methods, to manage the social conflicts under legitimate institutions that guarantee peaceful alternation of power and ensure rational solving of the emergent problems”
Third Side: The Civil Society:
Which is a group of institutions resembles the state’s official institutions-;- it works independently from the official authority, in the different aspects of the political, economic, social´-or-cultural, etc life.
The Emergence and the Historic Evolution of the Civil Society in Egypt:
To tackle the civil society associations in Egypt, we should study them with regard to the immergence in more than one stage as follows:
Emergence Stage from 1821 to 1952:
Civil society associations are not new to the Egyptian society, as the first civil association in Egypt was established in 1821 which is the Greek Association in Alexandria, then it was followed by several cultural associations in the 50th including the Association of Egypt’s Institute for Egyptian Civilization Research established in 1859, then ElMaaref Association and afterwards several associations were established on religious basis like the Islamic Charity Association established in 1878 and Al Masay Charity Coptic Association established in 1881. Those associations had an important role as they were a forum for many intellectuals and a place to magnetize intellectuals who are back from missions abroad-;- they had an important role also in fighting the British colonialism which led to a conflict between the authority and those associations, and the shutting down of some of them such as Progress Lovers Association and Convention of Progress Association for disseminating the culture of freedom and brotherhood.
However, it is worth mentioning that 1919 revolution played an important role in the rise of the civil associations and the spread of their role in Egypt and that was because of the development of the political, social and cultural life and the increase of the social and political awareness. After the constitution was issued in 1923, it helped the establishment of more civil associations because it ensured several rights and freedoms, including the most important freedom and right of forming associations and it stipulated that the authority of dissolving them would be in the hands of only the judicial, and this according to Law no. 54-80 of the civil law which gave the authority of abolishing the resolutions and dissolving the associations to the judicial, the thing that helped in more freedom for the civil work organizations which increased their dissemination during that period until 1945. May be there is another explanation for the dissemination of civil work associations and the increase of their activity during that period, which is that the state was busy with military and security works that made the associations of civil work take the responsibility of trying to relief the displaced and the injured and wars victims-;- besides that social role there was a cultural role for those associations as they were concerned during that period with the identity of the Egyptian personality, whether it is Islamic, Arab, Pharaonic´-or-Mediterranean.
Stage of July Coup from 1952 to 1970 “Civil Society Relapse”:
As usual, the first thing any new authority´-or-regime, in the Arab countries, think of is tending to eradicate all its opposing powers which may cause a threat to its power, and this what exactly happened in the wake of July Coup, as the Revolutionary Command Council worked on eliminating the opposition, imposing censorship on newspaper and shackling the freedom of press. Moreover, there had been a conflict between it and one of the civil society organizations which is the Labor Movement in Kafr ElDawwar in August 1952 as more than 10,000 workers of the Spinning and Weaving Factory held a strike demanding to keep away the authoritative from the company, move the workers -union- within the factory and conduct free and fair elections for this -union-, which was an ensured right according to the slogans of the Revolutionary Command Council. However, reality proved that those were no more than slogans as the way the Revolutionary Command Council dealt proved the first conflict between itself and the societal powers, as they considered that strike to be a communist conspiracy which led to the execution and detention of many of the strike leaders and the command council explained the situation that to encourage the foreign and Egyptian capital the labor struggle should be terminated.
This was followed, in 1953, by more diminution to the civil society organizations as on January 16, 1953 the decree of dissolving the political parties was issued by the Egyptian President Gamal AbdelNasser, then followed in 1955 a decree of dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood group and establishing one political organization developed from being an editorial board then a national -union- to a socialist -union-.
Then followed more resolutions of the diminution of civil society groups as the activity of the Women -union- and the -union- of Nile Girls was suspended, furthermore, Law 348 of 1956 was issued to impose the dissolve of all the civil organizations-;- any violation to the provisions of that law was considered a crime that is subject to Penalty Code.
The Civil Society since 1971 till Now “Regaining the Nominal Dignity of Civil Society Organizations”:
As we mentioned before, civil society and civil work organizations suffered al lot from 1952 till the early 70th, but this situation changed almost radically in the beginning of the 70th and since President Sadat assumed power, as he issued two of the most important decrees in the history of civil society in Egypt, which are the decree of turning to the restricted political pluralism and the economic opening policy-;- those decrees helped increase the civil work associations and provide more opportunities for those associations to receive foreign fund. At the beginning of the 80th, the control of political Islam movements of the different trade -union-s appeared, and the number of law and defensive organizations increased in Egypt from the 80th until present.

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