Egypt turns into an enigma

Anyone who tells you they have the pulse of the Egyptian street are either bluffing or they’re delusional. This is one of those cases where the more you know the less you understand. Foreign newspaper journalists clearly think they have a handle on the place. If you read recent reports, the entire country is ablaze with fury over the Mubarak verdict and the fact that his sons Ala’a and Gamal, along with six senior officers, were found innocent on crimes of corruption. Certainly, late yesterday evening, I heard a series of loud blasts around the Four Seasons San Stefano hotel in Alexandria which was slightly nerve-wracking. I almost choked on my pomegranate juice until I saw that the night sky was lit-up by a firework display put on by a storeowner announcing the opening of his new shop.
Yes, the usual protesting suspects are venting their anger in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square, where some have staged a sit-in, and there have been demonstrations in Suez and Alexandria. But almost all the people I’ve come across over the last few days are either indifferent to the judgment or regretful that their ailing ex-president is destined to spend the rest of his life within the walls of Tora prison. A few have even shamefacedly admitted to me that as far as they’re concerned life was better under the old regime.
That old saying, “Ask two Jews and get three opinions” is applicable to Egyptians nowadays. Leaving aside the die-hards of whatever political or religious persuasion, it seems to me that the majority are engaged in weighing their religious affiliations or faith-based identity. A number of elderly people I know are irritated by Islamists’ diktats saying they were born Muslim and resent being told how to practice their faith. One told me, “I was a Muslim before most of those Islamist leaders were even born”. I was surprised during a visit to Cairo last week to see expensively-attired Muslim ladies in coffee shops and restaurants wearing their headscarves in fashionable retro Hollywood chic, as though they were sending the message ‘We’re Muslims but not to be mistaken for those out to turn-the-clock back’.
Likewise, confusion reigns over people’s presidential choice. News of the run-off between the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party Mohamed Mursi and the former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq — Mubarak’s last prime ministerial appointee — came as a shock when the names on most lips prior to the ballot were former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and the centrist independent Islamist candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. Mursi — a rather unprepossessing individual without an ounce of personal charisma — seemed to come up out of nowhere. Shafiq’s success was also an upset when he was generally thought of as remnant of the Mubarak era or ‘faloul’. In the minds of many, the June 16/17 vote isn’t a matter of ‘may the best man win’ but rather which of this disappointing duo will reach the finishing post. A large demonstration was staged in Alexandria consisting of people furious that they had been left with a Hobson’s choice — conservative Islamist or ‘Faloul’. Nobody here wants a return to anything that smacks of the repressive old regime, especially when martyrs’ blood has been spilled for freedom.
Yet, at the same time, they fear the Muslim Brotherhood might alter the social fabric, cancel the Camp David treaty with Israel or even ignite war with the Jewish state to regain Jerusalem. Some hold to the theory that the army will never take its marching orders from the Muslim Brotherhood and might, therefore, attempt to skew the voting process or wait for a pretext to launch a surprise Nasser/Mubarak-type crackdown on Islamists.
Until the Mubarak verdict, the prize was anybody’s. Whereas Mursi enjoyed the lukewarm support from the Muslim Brotherhood’s grassroots the non-urban underprivileged and poorly educated, Shafiq was (and still is) backed by the ruling military, the Copts, the liberals and elites. But his acceptance of the Mubarak judgment, as opposed to Mursi’s vow to call a retrial were he to be elected PM, may have cost him votes from intellectuals, activists and those struggling to make up their minds.
The country’s economic condition, said to be dire, is also rather mystifying. High-rise apartment blocks are mushrooming everywhere, many replacing once-beautiful turn-of-the-century villas. Almost every week a shiny new Italian-style café opens up in Alexandria. Classy restaurants have to be booked in advance. The City Centre Mall housing Carrefour is always packed with shoppers pushing full trolleys. And, of course, as everyone knows tourists are staying away; right?
Well, in that case, why are there few seats left on next months’ flights from Cairo to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh? Why are there so few rooms available in high-end hotels along the south Sinai coast? Even in less popular or not so high profile destinations hoteliers are laughing all the way to the bank. I tried to book two rooms in the sprawling five-star Porto Sokhna Beach Resort and Spa in Ain Sokhna for relatives visiting from the UK, only to be told they didn’t have a cupboard going spare; same story at the nearby Swiss Inn which is booked through to August. Even the five super luxurious resort hotels near Mersa Matruh on the northern coast where a double room can cost upward of $ 250 have very few rooms left.
Being in Egypt is unpredictable. The future is unknowable. Perhaps that’s why so many Egyptians appear to have adopted a “live for the day” approach determined to make the most of the summer while they still can.
The country may be chaotic and volatile on all fronts, but I can’t help feeling grateful at having a front seat on the unfolding of history. And, while I eschew punditry, for what it’s worth, my gut tells me that this thriller with all its twist and turns will sooner or later have a happy ending. Egyptians are too gutsy to have it otherwise.