Minister and Consoler: The Man Who Wants to Fix Egyptian Society

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/profile-mohammed-el-mahdi-seeks-to-reconcile-divided-egypt-a-952934.html



Mohammed el-Mahdi is Egypt's new minister for reconciliation. He's fighting to create a new country, even as society fragments. It's an uphill task in a land where the military is expanding its power and younger generations are digging their heels in for a fight.

Minister and Consoler: The Man Who Wants to Fix Egyptian Society
By Ralf Hoppe and Daniel Steinvorth in Cairo
February 13, 2014 – 05:44 PM

The events outside the safety of his high-windowed office are unfolding rapidly. Helicopters have been shot down in Sinai. Islamist terrorists have killed a senior government official outside of his home. There are car bombings, police raids and arrests.

Just pulling out a camera downtown can be enough to get arrested -- or be cursed and beaten by a hysterical mob thinking they had found a spy. Security at major hotels has been expanded to the point that they look like fortresses. Three years after the revolution, anger, frustration and fear reign in Egypt.

Mohammed el-Mahdi, a slender, short and respectably dressed man, sits behind his polished desk. His office is as big as a ballroom and is packed with golden chairs, Louis XVI tables and crème colored Fauteuils. He wears gold cuff links and a dark blue blazer that he doesn't unbutton even when he sits. He's 77 years old and works every day for 10 to 11 hours. No wonder he looks a little tired.

Fixing Egypt

El-Mahdi is Egypt's minister for reconciliation. Earlier, he served as a justice on Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court. He was also a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for four years and had a stint as a legal advisor at the United Nations in Geneva. His job today is to bring peace to Egypt, a country still teetering on the brink.