Thoughts on Egypt
It’s a sign of our extraordinary times that you could—and without
appearing remotely stupid--feel at once good and bad about Egypt.
The frantic twists and turns of revolt jerk you between dread
and anticipation. Adding to the frenzy are the many meanings that accompany
every event and the many implications that haunt each one of them. There are those who suspect that Egypt
is not in genuine flux and that this is all part of an elaborate show by the
old guard to reclaim the initiative. The more plausible explanation is
that it is, and what in fact we are experiencing is the tension borne out of a
country on the edge which hasn’t quite made up its mind to jump.
Some would call this the inevitable tug of war between
revolution and counterrevolution. That’s another easy one, neatly pitting two forces
against one another and giving each its slogans and stark colors. The endless
barrage of rumors, the intrigue that hovers like a mist over Tahrir, the many
cards the SCAF is still holding close to its heart, the barely concealed eagerness
of the Muslim Brotherhood to deal, the erratic temperament of the rebels, the
it-could-be-this and then again it-could-be-that quality of the general political
discourse… all these, they say, are the unmistakable symptoms of a stuttering
revolt and a tenacious “deep state” reinforcing its dikes.
“Whatever!” as
an Egyptian friend of mine has recently fallen into the habit of repeating like
a mantra.
There is, of course, a very heated conversation going on in Egypt,
but it is not between protagonists standing on opposite sides of the divide,
but between the yearnings and dreams and fears and hopes that keep jumping
camps, blurring the lines between enemies and friends and wreaking havoc even
within the soul itself. Messy situations are the stuff of revolutionary tumult,
one is tempted to surmise, but there is more to it than that. This is a furious
people, no doubt, fed up with much of the past but very tentatively feeling
their way forward.
This is indeed the changing face of Egypt, and its children
haven’t quite decided how much of the new they want to take on and how much of the old they need to hold
onto. There is nothing assuredly upbeat about this picture, but the visage is
beautiful all the same. Egypt is in pain, traumatized, angry, and unusually
defiant but still not free from its old masters’ embrace. That’s the idea,
conspiracy talk might persuade you, and who wants to argue with ghosts and shadows? Anyone
watching Egypt closely will see the keen turn of the pen of a people
reimagining a future once deemed foreordained.
I was in Cairo last week, right after
the first round of the presidential elections. The results tickle and unnerve. Most
pundits, not surprisingly, are churning out the easiest takes: the fast one that
might have been pulled on the Egyptian voter, leading to a run off between
Mubarak—yes, Mubarak!--and the Muslim Brotherhood, the same two old geezers
that have dominated state and society for the last 40 years. Politics as usual,
the evidence screams, is alive and well on the Nile. Even if you were generous
enough to consider the MB’s strides as genuinely “subversive,” the stubborn
continuities in the political scene seem to mock the pace and depth of the
revolution. At first look, the choice today appears as ugly as it was before January
2011: “Despotism in the name of the state
versus despotism in the name of religion,” as leftist candidate Hamdin Sabbahi
aptly described
it.
And yet, as muddied as the results were,
intriguingly they do still tell tales about that changing face of Egypt. In its
simplest version, the unfolding setting is of a perky if harried nation that
has moved on and a pummeled status quo (the MB included) trying very hard to
reconstitute the many shattered pieces of itself.
The politics, by turns volatile and
predictable, fascinates. Discussions with friends and colleagues are like
miniature impressions
of a much larger patchwork. One boycotted the entire process; another struggled
between candidates till the very last second, while her “capitalist” parents went
with socialist Khaled Ali; a third voted for Sabbahi but will void the ballot
in the final round; a fourth voted the same but will go for Ahmad Shafiq this
time around… All are bona fide members of the Square, two are longstanding activists...--voters
freely strolling up and down the electoral map.
Remarkably, while the elections’ many perceived flaws have
further undercut the struggling legitimacy of the political system, they have
nowhere touched the deeper trends revealed by these same elections. And,
paradoxically, all that went wrong and right about the vote bodes equally bad
for the two players that stand behind Shafiq and Mohammad Mursi, the first round’s
two winners.
While the SCAF has to brace itself now for possibly yet another
resurrection of Tahrir Square, made more likely by the latest court verdicts
that essentially acquitted the security apparatus, the Muslim Brotherhood has
to contend with results
that brought in Mursi
first and last. Around 25% of a low 46% voter turnout and 10% of total eligible
votes is a lousy return on an 80-year old investment. This after a grueling campaign
as well that dragged God himself down into the muck of the political arena.
This unimpressive
performance may not have immediate connotations for the MB’s ability to keep
racking up political positions like so many trophies, but it does say plenty
about the kind of influence it will be able to wield through those pulpits.
It might be
sometime before we can fully discern the vote’s significance for the crucial
question of Islam and identity that has harangued us Arabs for the better part
of the 20th century. But at this palpably low level of enthusiasm for
the Brothers and their plans--a revelation that is but one of many pointing to the
challenges unleashed by the emerging political climate—we can more forcefully
caution against the rush of ill-considered warnings about Islamism overtaking
Arab life.
The primacy of
Islam is settled, the argument has it, even among vociferous secularists. There
are no ifs anymore in this contested
realm, just the hows. One school of
thought, different branches. One heaven, different floors. One hydra, different
heads. One solution, different applications. The same plate, different recipes…
But, in fact,
for years now, there have been clear signs
that Arab identity—no less than
the Iranian one--is infinitely more capacious than Islamism would like it to
be. As Professor Assef Bayat argues, post-Islamist currents within many
Islamist movements or regimes are in their essence a response to societies’
insistence on pushing the boundaries. In describing post-Islamism as both a
condition and a project, Bayat proposes that its aspiration is “to turn the
underlying principles of Islamism on its head by emphasizing rights instead of
duties, plurality in place of a singular authoritative voice, historicity
rather than fixed scriptures, and the future instead of the past.“ In other
words, it promises the end of the Islamist experiment itself.
Presidential
contender Abd al Muni’m Abu al Fotouh, dubbed a post-Islamist by many of his
admirers, often declares that Islam has won as part of his message that it is
time to close the file on Islam’s place in public life. In long evolving landscapes
now finally accommodating and possibly nurturing a much more vibrant kind of participatory
politics, we will have the chance to find out what Islam has won exactly. But the
Egyptian election results tell us that, far from being over, the real debate
over the matter of identity has just begun.
