Like at Pesach, when we relate the Israelites' exodus from Pharaoh's bondage, there are four questions that demand answers when contemplating recent events in Egypt.
By MICHAEL WIDLANSKIElBaradei and Morsi390(photo credit: Reuters)
The world does not really know it, but it is having a Jewish moment—a bit like the Passover seder, where, between morsels of dry matza and sweet wine, one also digests the lessons of getting into and getting out of the slavery of Egypt.So like the Passover seder, let's ask a few questions:1. Why did modern Egyptians unseat their Islamist pharaoh, counter-acting the Islamist Winter that masqueraded as an Arab Spring?2. Why and how are the modern Egyptians different from the other Arab and largely Muslim communities that have been enslaved by Muslim leaders who spout democracy but practice intolerance?3. Are there any Egyptian leaders who can lead crisis-ridden Egypt to a promised land of new opportunity?4. What lessons can well-meaning Western leaders, who believed in "Islamic democracy", learn from the experience?Since the start of the last century, new nations in the Arab-Islamic sphere have wrestled with their national and religious identity as they emerged from the Ottoman Empire and the traces of pre-national tribalism.Some countries, like Afghanistan, were never really countries. They were legal fictions in which eight or ten ethnic groups or tribes continued to fight with each other. Some of that is still visible in Lebanon, Libya and even in Syria.But in Egypt, there was less tribal fractionalizing. Sunni Muslims were more than 90% of the population, with a strong native Coptic Christian minority that had roots going back to the time of Jesus.Meanwhile, Egypt's national identity was particularly strong, and a national consciousness had taken root. Napoleon wrote a letter to the Egyptians in 1798 that began with the words "O ye Egyptians," but the wily Napoleon was really only exploiting the fact that Egyptians already had a strong self-image.This fact emerges in daily conversations with Egyptians, who often laugh at other Arabs, including the wealthy Saudi, Qatari and Kuwaiti princes who like to go to Egypt to cool off at the beach in Alexandria or gamble at the casinos on the Nile."We were kings of the world when they were still eating the turds of their camels," observed a bawaab – an Egyptian doorman as he swept the dust in front of the Ahly Sports Club in Cairo. His disdain for "those other Arabs" and his pride in his Egyptian identity were typical of many Egyptian citizens.To this day, Egyptian money celebrates Egypt's pharaonic grandeur with pictures of pyramids and pharaohs on Egyptian currency.Egypt was the first Arab community that modernized, set up printing presses and government gazettes, largely as a result of the Napoleonic period from 1798-1801, and it became a center for Arab media and publishing.As the most populous Arab country, Egypt was the natural leader of the emerging community that is called "The Arab World," and Cairo was the home of the Arab League.Egypt's charismatic leader, Gamal Abdul-Nasser became the unchallenged voice of pan-Arab nationalism — a secular doctrine tinged with socialistic economic policies that promised to yank the Arabs into modernity while ridding them of their colonialist enemies such as Britain, France, the United States and especially Israel.Even though the doctrines of pan-Arabism failed to conquer Egyptian poverty or Israel's military, many Egyptians have been molded by the experience, and they retain an unusually strong self-image as Arabs, and as leaders of the Arabs.Under Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, Egypt largely buried its Arabness and its leadership role, imploding into an additional 20 billion dollars of national debt in one year, while driving away the life's blood of foreign tourists with their dollars, francs and yen.Morsi and his colleagues succeeded in undoing the painfully slow economic progress achieved under Hosni Mubarak and Anwar Sadat — two leaders who opened Egypt to Western reforms and economic influence and were at peace with Israel.Egyptians may not have loved Mubarak and Sadat, but they took pride in the French-built subway in Cairo and US-made battle tanks in the army.Mubarak and Sadat had their pseudo-pharaonic moments, such as Mubarak's idea of naming his own son as successor; but in reality, neither Sadat nor Mubarak wanted to enslave Egyptians to a personality cult or a tyrannical religious or political dogma.The Muslim Brothers, working through now-deposed-President Morsi had a different idea. They felt they could pretend to be democrats, gain power and turn Egypt into an Islamist state. They believed, as Bernard Lewis once joked, in "one man, one vote, one time only."Other Arab and Islamic nation states have seen that pattern and lived to regret it. Look at Iran or Sudan. When Egyptians saw their new pharaoh and his court of Islamist advisors, even many who berated Hosni Mubarak for corruption started yearning for almost anyone, even Mubarak, to replace Morsi.The chances are, however, that it will take quite a while for a good and acceptable leader to re-emerge. The current caretaker leaders such as Mohammed ElBaradei, the former arms control official, do not really have the leadership qualities, and it may be that Egypt will fall back again on someone with a strong security background. There are many lessons for Western leaders, but two stand out:1. The doctrines of Arab nationalism and Islamist pseudo-democracy are hardly success stories, and it is a good bet they will fail;2. Betting tangible assets on a particular Arab or Islamic leader (the PLO's Arafat or Abbas, Turkey's Erdogan or Syria's Assad) is not a good bet because Arab-Islamic politics are so unsure, so unstable, so unpredictable. Demanding great concessions in favor of such leaders—ceding the Golan Heights, the West Bank or Gaza for the latest Arab political star is also unwise.When one hears UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon or US President Barack Obama regret the ousting of the Brotherhood one understands that they have missed this "teachable moment."Dr. Michael Widlanski, an expert on Arab politics and communications, did post-graduate research in Egypt. He is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, published by Threshold/Simon and Schuster. A former reporter, correspondent and editor, respectively at The New York Times, Cox Newspapers and The Jerusalem Post, he was Strategic Affairs Advisor in Israel's Ministry of Public Security and teaches at Bar Ilan University.
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