Picture it: Newark Liberty International Airport, March 2005. Kamran (he’s six-four and shaves his head, if that helps) and I are hanging about, having just flown in from Austin. We are waiting for the late night departure to Paris, where we will connect to Cairo, and I have had a completely unsatisfying meal at the airport’s Kentucky Fried Taco Hut or somesuch. Miss Anderson Cooper is on the CNN Airport Network (if you haven’t had the pleasure, you’re not missing anything) reporting live from Place des Martyrs in Beirut, where 25,000 angry Lebanese have gathered to demand the pullout of Syrian troops in the wake of that country’s suspected involvement in the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Miss Cooper declares this a populist victory for the region: the beginning of a new chapter. Democracy, he assures us, is on the march in the Middle East.
Kamran, who grew up in Iran around the time of the revolution, and I, who am a completely cynical bastard (tell me you haven’t noticed), look at each other and roll our eyes. What democracy, we wonder out loud, and where exactly is it supposed to be going?
A few months later, Condoleeeeza Rice arrived in Cairo where she met with President Hosni Mubarak (who does not use Grecian Formula 44), and pressed him to “move toward democracy.” I was in Egypt in the summer of 2005 for an extended period, and no one was buying it. What surprised me, since my recollection was of the mid-90s when people just rolled their eyes, shrugged their shoulders and muttered “allahu ‘alam (God knows)” when asked about the nature of public political participation, was that people were actually expressing their lack of faith in the supposedly open-to-competition presidential election scheduled for the fall. In 1995, I watched people go through the motions as the ruling National Democratic Party managed to score a completely unsurprising victory amidst widespread stories of election fraud. Everyone treated it as no big deal – another cross (pardon the Christian-related pun) one had to bear as part of public life.
I hate being right when I’m being pessimistic. Unfortunately, I feel completely justified in expressing surprise two summers ago, because the Egyptians’ newfound confidence in expressing disappointment and frustration with their octagenarian president and his transparent plans to put his son in power once he steps down (or dies in office) has started meeting with resistance.
As I mentioned in an aside a couple of days ago, a judge in Alexandria has taken it upon himself to compile a list of 21 Web sites that he finds objectionable based on their content (specifically, that it’s “insulting to the president” or to the state — legally, there’s not much of a difference between the two). Two Web sites that I follow regularly, The Arabist and 3arabawy, have reported on the latest salvos in the new battle of popular expression versus the thought police in Egypt. They’re not pretty, and the news isn’t encouraging. Last month, an Egyptian blogger was imprisoned for the dual crimes of insulting Islam and President Mubarak in his blog, and, although the case is under appeal, no one seems to be holding their breath that the case being overturned is an imminent possibility.
Egypt receives $2 billion in aid from the U.S. every year, second only to Israel in the amount of scheduled foreign aid, and yet the Bush regime smiles and turns a blind eye because we consider it more acceptable to have a “friendly, secular government” in power in Egypt than to deal with even a moderate Islamist government (because it’s very clear that if government controls on democracy were to magically vanish the Islamists would take power in Egypt). After all, Washington doesn’t like that ‘Islamist’ word. Sounds too much like ‘terrorist’ in most halls of government, the military, and every church in America. Plus, there’s still some people around (Henry Kissinger, clearly enjoying the fruits of his contract with Satan) who remember the Iranian revolution as a “loss” for the United States. After all, Egyptians talk a funny language and practice a weird religion (even the Christians), so no one here particularly minds if they get tortured.
After all of these years, I still find it amazing that our government can be so hypocritical. How can we support democracy in Iraq and yet continue to support repressive regimes elsewhere in the region? And things are getting worse, not better – read the State Department’s Human Rights Report on Egypt — the one that Cairo jumped out of its way to denounce even before the ink was dry. It’s rather sobering. (And then, just for fun, read the one on Saudi Arabia.)
I, of course, take the issue of what’s happening in Egypt to heart because of my own personal interests. I’m sure there are other places in the world where things are worse (Burma, perhaps?), but maybe not on the receiving end of so much foreign aid. We have a leash we could actually yank, and we won’t do it. I could give Washington the benefit of the doubt and say that this is probably because the average Egyptian would feel the effects long before the ruling class, but somehow I doubt that there’s that much foresight involved. After all, it’s much more beneficial for American PR to have Condi posing in her fuck-me boots in the Oriental Hall at AUC and talking about Egypt as a beacon of democratic hope and island of stability … the same language Carter used about Iran in the late 1970s.
Anyway. I’m not really going anywhere with this post at this point, I’m just venting (the two glasses of wine helped). But I’ll give the same answer to anyone who wants to know which side I’m on–Republican or Democrat–when it comes to the issue of foreign policy toward Egypt. My children, when it comes to this issue, I’m on the Egyptians’ side. Just like when it comes to what we’re doing in Iraq, I’m on the Iraqis’ side – remember how we were supposed to be making life better for them?
I think that maybe — just maybe — our fearless leader in Washington has forgotten that this was all supposed to be about someone else. And maybe, for those of us who live in this country, it’s time for us to remind him and all the other folks in Washington who we’re really supposed to be serving. We may have forgotten, but the Egyptians haven’t. The Iraqis haven’t. And if we won’t wake up, they’re gonna remind us. And we’re not going to be happy about it.
And that, dear readers, is enough drunken rambling from yours truly. Happy Wednesday.
