Following the recent brutal attacks by the Egyptian armed forces on peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square and neighbouring streets on 19 December, Egyptian actor Nabil El-Halafawy announced an initiative aimed at solving the political crisis. He spread his ideas on Twitter for others to read, adjust and criticise.

“I hope my proposal gets adopted by authorities and political powers,” he says. “Right after the ousting of former president Mubarak, on 11 February, we as Egyptians wanted to save Egypt,” Halafawy describes. “Unfortunately, today we eagerly must put Egypt into the Intensive Care Unit, but unity is a must among us, in order to do so,” he says.

Halafawy expects the violence to continue to reoccur and says: “Although the incidents today are handled, they will occur again and again; it will be beyond control and Egypt will burn out completely. Therefore it is time to grant every political force in Egypt its needs.” By political forces Halafawy means the public and protestors, the Muslim Brotherhood, remnants of the Mubarak regime, army forces, and police forces.

In his initiative, Halafawy addresses the Muslim Brotherhood first. He suggests that the Brotherhood continue with the parliamentary elections process, which they are winning by majority. Their political party, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), should then be assigned the task of forming of a new government and working with an elected president who does not belong to any religious movement or group; taking into account that the reason behind the Brotherhood’s popularity is because of their social services and not religion.

Here, their commitment should be to the chronic problems of the nation and achieving the goals the people of the revolution rose for: bread, freedom and social justice, “not to lead the nation into endless and much more dangerous battles — I mean religious differences,” he said.

They should ally with the other political parties and approve the “Selmi Document,” following its amendment, as requested by all political parties.  Such a move would ease tensions and calm the anxiety and fears of liberals.

Second, the armed forces: all political parties should sign the abovementioned document, which includes the special situation of the armed forces and its budget (and this happens in most developed countries) after the amendments, which provides for discussion of its affairs and its budget in the Committee for National Defence in the People’s Assembly.

Based on that, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) should issue a decree to abolish the Shura Council and head on with presidential elections. Furthermore, the presidency should be temporarily assigned to the speaker of parliament. "In all cases, the armed forces would remain at the disposal of the executive power to protect the security of the homeland as part of its duties until the police forces restore their position," Halafawy says.

Third, "there will be no return of investment, tourism, or any achievement without the return of security," Halafawy believes. Therefore he asks all in the public and media to get rid of the “complexity of the state police,” as he calls it. Meanwhile, the police forces should put all its effort into securing the nation and eliminating all sources of violence and disruption, by law, in parallel with the respect of human rights and the dignity of all citizens. Any violator of these rights should be put on trial.

Fourth, the remnants of the Mubarak regime, known among Egyptians as the feloul, should adopt the South African post-revolution experience. Halafawy suggests “openness and forgiveness”. He recommends allowing those whose hands were not bloodied to confess to their transgressions in the previous era and return unlawful gains. In return such persons would be exempted from prosecution and would distance themselves from the political scene for a short period of time at least.

Last but not least, the public and the revolutionaries: “I brought them in one point together for their united cause: bread, freedom and social justice,” Halafawy says, “which will be achieved, God willing, following the implementation of the previous points.”

“I advise the youth of Egypt to form a coalition headed by any leader from the Kefaya Movement for its long history in political activity,” he suggests. This entity will be a political bloc bringing together political parties and the current youth movements that began the revolution. It should speak on behalf of the revolutionaries and work to achieve the goals of the revolution and abolish the gap between them and rest of the public, which arose because of many errors.

“It should be an opposition and undertake coordination in order to achieve representation in the most powerful in all institutions of the state later,” he says. “We seriously also need to stop the sit-ins and strikes for at least one year during which a law for protests and proper sit-ins is declared, as is the case in democratic and developed countries,” Halafawy advises. 

“As citizens, we all should work with maximum capacity for the advancement of the country and compensate for the past period of bleeding to achieve the dream that shone before us after the revolution,” Halafawy says.

Ending his initiative, Halafawy underlines giving back to the injured of the Egyptian uprising and the families of martyrs. Furthermore, “in order to achieve social justice, as a first step, we should accelerate the application of the maximum and minimum wage,” he says. He adds in this context a proposal to collect street children in boarding schools of the armed forces, to develop them academically and militarily.

Nabil El-Halafawy asked that his original Arabic document be linked this piece, and is eager to hear people's comments and ideas: http://twitlonger.com/show/eqne0a