The New Nile-ism

Hosni Mubarak, contemporary Egypt’s fourth president, began his professional career as a pilot officer in his country’s Air Force, rising through the ranks until in 1972 he became its Commander as well as Secretary of Defense. In 1975, then-President Anwar Sadat asked this popular military leader to join his administration as Vice President of the republic. When Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by his own army officers (for his implementation of a peace accord with Israel), Mubarak – carrying support from the military he once led – became President, a post he has held for 29 years… with the help of some constitutional changes that have resulted in “rubber stamp” elections/referendums leaving Mubarak solidly in power; Mubarak has ruled all 29 years under “emergency law” – “‘Under that ‘state of emergency,’ the government has the right to imprison individuals for any period of time, and for virtually no reason, thus keeping them in prisons without trials for any period.” Wikipedia

Mubarak’s rule – a secular presence – initially crafted a balance between repression and secular tolerance of differing religious views (10% of the 80 million Egyptians are Christians, for example), but reports track at least 6 assassination attempts against this Egyptian leader. In the 1990s, particularly after Mubarak’s troops participated in the first Gulf war on the American side (rumors are rife that Egypt was well compensated for the effort), a deep schism developed with rapidly growing radical Islamist elements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (linked to one assassination attempt) and Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya; his nation’s prisons were soon overflowing with political dissidents – rumors of 20,000 individuals being “detained” surfaced. The brutality of repression escalated.

Without oil, Egypt is an over-populated economic disaster; frustration runs high throughout a mostly impoverished nation. The years of “stability” under one constant government have been labeled “stagnation” by critics. And with Mubarak’s age and health a factor (he underwent major surgery in Germany last year), the question of succession is in the wind. Reports suggest that Mubarak’s closest advisors in his National Democratic Party think the time is not ripe for his younger son, Gamal (an investment banker who has worked in London), to step in as his designated replacement, particularly in light of the suicide bombing on outside of a heavily attended New Year’s mass (of Coptic Christians) that killed 21 and inured about 100. It was an explosion that tore flesh and one that may have destroyed any validity to the claim of a stable, tolerant society promulgated by the Mubarak regime.

Riots by local Christians, claiming corruption and government failures, followed: “The fighting broke out late [January 3^rd] in the densely packed neighborhood of Shoubra, home to many of Cairo’s Christians, when a crowd of hundreds of angry protesters suddenly swelled into the thousands and surged through the winding streets. Eventually, the throng — chanting … ‘Oh Mubarak, you villain, Coptic blood is not cheap,’ … began battling with the police, who dropped their batons and shields to throw rocks and bottles back at the protesters…. It was the second time in two nights that the police in Cairo, outnumbered and overwhelmed by protesters, broke ranks and attacked the crowd. Even before the outbreak on [the evening of January 3^rd], at least 39 riot police officers, including four high-ranking officers, had been injured trying to contain the protests.” New York Times, January 4^th.

The above incidents, bad enough in their own right, are challenging the myth of Egyptian stability – the one claim that has been Mubarak’s calling card over the years. Many believe that swelling radicalism is the strongest political power in the nation, and if Mubarak were to step down now, it is these fundamentalists who would either fracture the country with massive civil strife or succeed in replacing the incumbent regime. The pressure is for Mubarak to remain in office… but the dirty little secret of failed “tolerant secularism” is now openly discussed across the population as a moribund policy that the government can no longer deny: “After the bombing and the ensuing riots, political experts, politicians, commentators, opposition leaders and average citizens said that the very steps taken by the president in the name of stability — including preservation of an emergency law that allows arrest without charge — had produced a state with weak institutions, weak political parties and a bureaucracy unable to resolve the social, political and economic problems that helped cultivate extremism.

“‘It is very clear that the government totally lost control — of everything,’ said Muhammad Aboulghar, a professor at Cairo University medical school and a liberal activist. ‘The only control they have is on the security of the president, the group around him, and few other party figures. That’s it.’” New York Times, January 6^th. As a heavily-populated secular power in the Middle East, and an Arab nation that actually entered into a peace treaty with Israel, Egypt is an overwhelming force against radical Islam and the desire of fundamentalists to create and live in a high repressive and exclusionary Islamic republic (a Sunni version of Iran). Yet Egypt is in danger of fracturing like a rock slammed by an Islamist sledgehammer; secular tolerance – increasingly a distant memory – may be its ultimate victim. The not-so-nascent war between the West, particularly the Judeo-Christian world, and radical Islam may just be witnessing the birth of the next major battlefield, one with a lot more people and the potential of becoming a game-changer of epic proportions.

I’m Peter Dekom, and in a world of whirling complexity, it is easy to miss the big clues that may actually shape our future.