BY all accounts this month’s UN General Assembly gathering looks like it will be the mother of all world meetings. The typical crowds, long hours of speeches, tons of papers and hundreds of resolutions and the most important aspect of meeting buddies from all over the globe will all be there as usual, but still there will be some differences.
A new face of the Middle East will surface.
Those interested will listen, watch, interact, exchange and try to find out whether a new Middle East is emerging, or it is the same old one with its frustrations and inability to face up to problems of nation building that eventually turn into anti-Western feelings to vent its wrath.
Egypt’s new President Muhammad Mursi and probably his counterparts from Tunisia and Libya will attract some of the world attention. They represent part of the region, where new forces, mainly Islamists, are ascending to power. Actually their mere presence makes a new turn since previous rulers of these countries avoided the UN meetings for years except for the 2009 session attended by Muammar Qaddafi, whose country chaired the meeting then and where he grasped that opportunity to use 100 minutes to address the world from its top podium.
Already Mursi went a step ahead to advance his image by granting some interviews and arranged for media coverage addressing some of the issues important mainly to the American audience.
What is interesting in his New York Times interview are three things: His assertion that it is up to Washington to repair its relations with the region and revitalize its bilateral relations with Egypt; that his country will not be hostile to the West, but will not be compliant either and that the West needs to respect the Arab world culture and history. And finally Mursi pointed out that honoring the Camp David peace treaty with Israel goes both ways as it means also a commitment to Palestinian self-rule.
The UN forum is a talk show, not a good place for serious exchanges between states, but it is important as a means to send a message. But regardless of how significant that message or how many people actually listen to it, enduring impact needs more than sending messages.
What President Mursi was asking for in effect was a restructuring of relationship between Egypt and the United States, or for that matter between the Arab world and the West.
For such a review to be fruitful, work has to start at home. Dealing with the outside world does not depend on how just is the cause or how eloquently speeches are delivered, but on how any nation can pull its resources together, existence of a strong legitimacy that governs the relationship between the rulers and their citizens. And that is the starting point, where Egypt needs to concentrate.
Given its position, weight and influence, Egypt has its prints throughout the history of the region. Though military coups of young officers started in Syria and Iraq, but it was when Egyptian Free Officers took power back in 1952 that it became an Arab phenomenon that hit other regions too.
It was when Egypt adopted economic policies giving bigger role to the public sectors that the experiment mushroomed all over the region.
Now with a new legitimacy answerable to people, the new leadership inherits the tough job of getting people to know that with the new system comes responsibility to work diligently to build new Egypt. Nobody will shoulder that responsibility except Egyptians themselves and no one will respect Arab history and culture unless the Arab themselves become a force to reckon with.
Despite the loud voices of politics it is the economy in the end that dictates things on ground. With its growing population, growing dependence on imports, especially wheat, to feed its people, there is too much at stake.
Ideas on the need to group the resources of the region for the benefit of the peoples in the region have been running around and debated for decades. And it is time to have a fresh look at them given new hopes and challenges facing the region.
— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
