To rule the 'Mother' of the Middle East
The newly-elected leader has already taken his oath of office, given his inaugural speech and made his move into the presidential palace. Egypt's new head of state is in control.
What may it all portend for the future of the most populous and traditionally most pivotal nation in the Middle East, fondly known as Mother of the World? Will the generals, albeit behind the scenes, remain Egypt's rulers as they had been for exactly 60 years, or will they return to their barracks and let a civilian government run the country's political life?
It would have seemed, a mere year or two ago, that it was patently insane to imagine that a candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood would rise to prominence as Egypt's president, chosen by a querulous electorate, to be sure, but chosen freely by them nevertheless.
Its path to vindication was arduous and punishing, for it took this long outcast group well over eight decades to become the ascendant force in Egyptian politics. And, like it or not, we have to see that ascendancy not only as a political revolution but as a cultural one as well. Lest we forget, the presidential election that saw the emergence of Muhammad Mursi as the new head of state was, after all, the first truly free one in the country's modern history, and the man elected by the people to lead them does not hail from the corrupt social elite or the powerful military, both imbued with a sense of entitlement to govern, but from the very bosom of Egyptian culture.
Was the ascent of the Brotherhood inevitable, perhaps even predictable? It is doubtful that our putative astuteness as political commentators would've extended that far, but it was certain that something had to give. The sense was palpable, however, that Egypt had become a country beyond redemption.
When Anwar Sadat took power, he presided over a regime that, hyperbole aside, harked back to Mamluke rule in its stolid, repressive ways. Dissidents were hunted down and incarcerated, and the economy was tilted in favor of an eccentric type of free market, known as infitah, the fruits of which benefited a relative few while the vast majority of Egyptians contended with hardship.
And the less said here about Hosni Mubarak's long reign the better. Suffice it to say that by Feb. 11, as the uprising went nationwide, with millions of Egyptians pouring into the streets all over the country to demand the "Pharoah ouster," all it took was a 41-word announcement on state television to declare the president's resignation.
But is it really an end to that ancient regime? Will the generals step aside and let a civilian administration oversee, as is customary in a genuine democracy, the running of the country's economy, its foreign policy, its educational and judiciary systems, its defense budget, its national security, and the rest of it? Beyond access to a crystal ball, it is difficult to predict any of that, given Egypt's current social and political polarizations.
But one thing is plain: There is a new order in Egypt led by, as folk rhetoric would have it, a man of the people. He may not appear, at first blush, a sophisticated individual with a sophisticated grasp of world affairs, but he is seemingly an ordinary man well qualified to speak to his people, to speak about them and from them.
Following a plot to assassinate him in 1955, Nasser cracked down so hard on the Brotherhood, arresting thousands of its members, that the movement appeared permanently crushed. As six of its leaders were led to the scaffold that year, one hollered a curse at the military junta, predicting that his group "shall in the future triumph, with the will of God."
Yes, we ask again, who would have conjured up, a mere year or two ago, not only the image of a resurgent Brotherhood morphing into the major player in Egyptian political life, but the image, trenchant in its inherent symbolism, of one of its members chosen as the first democratically elected president of Egypt?
We do this man honor, also, if we recognize how heavy is the burden of his job.
Email: [email protected]
