More and more Egyptians are beginning to recognise the reality that the choice before them is not between Islam and Democracy, but between Democracy and Despotism.

I WAS in Cairo in the days running up to the second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak. I felt an overwhelming sense of wanting to bring order to the country. I dreamt of buying all the jet sprays in the world to spring clean the buildings. I wanted to buy all the brooms and sweep clean the streets. I wanted to drag traffic policemen to junctions, traffic lights and roundabouts to bring some order to the choking traffic.

Then I thought, ahh..., let’s just send Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad or Lee Kuan Yew and in five years, Cairo will be spick and span and a five-year development plan will be in place and the whole country will be focused on growth, job-creation and poverty eradication. And they will make it happen.

While the Egyptians I met remain hopeful that in the long term things will get better, in the short term there is little that gives them hope. From taxi drivers to shop keepers, waiters, academics, and activists I met, young and old, everyone is disappointed that two years after the overthrow of Mubarak, things are not only not getting better; they are getting worse.

Growth is under 2%, unemployment rose to almost 13% last year, and estimated at 25% or more among the youth. One academic estimated that about 40% of Egyptians in the cities and about 78% in the rural areas live on less than two dollars a day and depend on state subsidies on bread, cooking oil, sugar, tea and rice to survive.

The Egyptian pound has slid to its lowest value in seven years and the price of food and goods is rising, fuelling inflation. More Egyptians are expected to drop below the poverty line. Tourism, a major pillar of the Egyptian economy, has slowed down to a trickle. Except for a few European backpackers, I saw no busloads of American or European tourists that usually crowd the pyramids.

So what is wrong?

It’s politics, stupid! Only seven months into office and President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are haemorrhaging support. The country is deeply polarised. The ballot box brought to power patriarchs and autocrats, not democrats. There is no iota of trust between President Morsi and his government on the one side and all other forces reigned against their rule – youths, the old elites, secularists, democrats, disillusioned Islamists, and Coptic Christians.

The youths who spearheaded the revolution that overthrew Mubarak believe the newly-elected Islamists have betrayed the ideals of the revolution and its call for “bread, freedom and social-justice”.

The women who were at the frontline of the revolution, united in the demand for change, are now sidelined and can barely make their voices and issues heard, lost in the jostle for power among men.

President Morsi is accused of ramming through a new Constitution and elections in quick time as he knew his Freedom and Justice party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, would gain the most from the ballot box as they were the best organised on the ground.

Instead of concentrating on reform, he and his party are accused of trying to grab power through a “brotherhoodisation” process, replacing officials in ministries, government departments and the judiciary with its political apparatchiks.

The Sunday I was there, imams at the Endowment Ministry staged a protest, accusing the minister of trying to replace officials with Muslim Brotherhood members. The ministry, of course, rejected this accusation, stating that the new regulation would only terminate the services of those whose contracts had ended. The imam would not be fooled.

The secular opposition alliance, the National Salvation Front, alleged that Morsi and his Freedom and Justice party have lost their legitimacy to rule and should step down. In turn, they are being accused of mobilising the streets in an attempt to overthrow a democratically-elected government.

The youths remain angry and defiant, determined that the revolution will not be stolen by the Islamists. They still occupy Tahrir Square, often paralysing downtown traffic. They still have the power to mobilise hundreds of thousands of young people into the streets in the major cities, in defiance of states of emergency, curfews, tear gas and water cannons. They did not risk their lives to get rid of one dictator, only to allow for another dictatorship in the making, they charged.

Women’s rights activists are fearful of the misogynistic medieval rhetoric from Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist Members of Parliament to reverse the few gains they have made under what remains a discriminatory Muslim family law.

While the country is collapsing, they find it mind-boggling that their newly-elected political leaders are hell-bent on debating how best to make life more miserable for women by attempts to lift the official ban on female genital mutilation, to reduce the marriage age for girls from 18 to nine and to claw back the gains women have made in custody and divorce rights.

I tried to get a discussion going on the government’s or the Opposition’s development plans. I tried to search for a debate on these issues in the newspapers.

What do these political leaders have to offer to the people in one year, two years, five years? What are their promises on the economy, education, health, agriculture, poverty eradication?

Where is the road map to bread on the table, freedom and social justice that the youth who make up 60% of the population are crying out for?

What percentage of the budget goes to social services, poverty eradication, and what percentage to defence, and to debt servicing?

My friends don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the naiveté of my questioning. Everyone is caught up in the grab for power that neither Morsi nor the opposition National Salvation Front is interested in trying to win public support by offering serious policy choices for a better future.

Or even to build public confidence that politics in the post-Mubarak era would not be a zero-sum game.

Or even to do the immediate to win support by getting rubbish collected, streets swept and policemen in place to untangle the unbearable traffic gridlock.

And in the latest round of demonstrations to mark the second anniversary of the revolution, two youth groups have emerged publicly calling for violent public protests as the only language the Muslim Brotherhood would understand. They are now willing to die for the goals of the revolution.

There are fears that should the Islamists unleash their mob to meet violence with violence, the Egyptian state would plunge into deeper chaos.

Amid this downward spiral, Al-Azhar, and its Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with moral authority to bring all sides together. Where President Morsi failed in getting the opposition to the dialogue table, the Grand Imam, regarded as a progressive scholar in the midst of turbulence of politicised Islam, brought the leaders of all the major political parties, Islamists, secularists, and key revolutionary youth leaders together to condemn the violence and pledge support for a national dialogue to end the political crisis. He felt only a national dialogue would constitute a “guarantee against the monopolisation of power which leads to tyranny.”

But with the latest round of violence and widespread anger over the live picture of a man stripped naked, beaten and dragged into an armoured vehicle, this attempt at reconciliation and national dialogue might just turn out to be stillborn. No one, not least the youths in the streets, seem to be in the mood for compromise at this stage.

Governments and dictators can be overthrown within weeks. But building a functioning democracy after decades of authoritarian rule is no easy task.

My Egyptian friends are determined to be optimistic. They are confident that Egypt would not return to the days of dictatorship. People have lost their fear and will never be silent or silenced any more, not by a President, not by a General, not by an Islamist. Thus the bitter fight over the constitution, the election laws, and the spoils of victory. And the determination to use the streets if democratic elections did not bring the change they prayed for.

But building a democracy is also about building trust, a civic culture of debate, respect for differences, embracing diversity and pluralism, and a willingness to compromise for the common good. This is a long and difficult struggle in a country that had never experienced any form of democratic governance – from the Pharonic period to the monarchy, to socialism, to secular authoritarianism and now Islamism.

Egypt is too big and too important to fail in this struggle for democracy in the Arab world. Ever the optimist, I have faith in the people of Egypt who are dead tired of decades of misrule and impoverishment, but not tired enough to allow their revolution to be hijacked.

Their revolution that overthrew Mubarak will not be lost in the way the Iranians lost their revolution and found they had replaced a dictatorship ruled by a Shah to one ruled by Ayatollahs.

The choice before the Egyptians is not between Islam and Democracy, but between Democracy and Despotism. More and more Egyptians are beginning to recognise this reality; and this gives me hope.

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