Anyone who has read The Yacoubian Building, a novel published in 2002 by the Egyptian author --Alaa-al-Aswany, will regard the revolution in Egypt as long overdue. The novel’s readers will not have been astonished by the ease with which the rotting hulk of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s regime was dashed against the rocks, nor by the spirit and courage of those who engineered this extraordinary piece of history.
First things first: It is a very funny and perceptive book about the characters occupying a fashionable Cairo apartment block (which really exists) and squatting in hovels on its roof. Like the crumbling “Majestic” hotel in J. G. Farrell’s novel Troubles, about the end of British rule in southern Ireland, the eponymous apartment block was a metaphor for the state and its inhabitants are figures representative of different aspects of Mubarak’s Egypt.
I suppose that censors never have much of a sense of humor, and that irony and parody are usually beyond their intellectual grasp. However, I did find it curious that The Yacoubian Building was not banned in Egypt — or in other Arab countries — and that subsequently it was turned into a popular and widely shown film.
Al-Aswany told readers so very clearly what was wrong with modern Egypt, while demonstrating that, despite the corruption and the dead hand of the security police, Cairenes fizzed with personality and showed a feisty urban grace.
So, now that the Yacoubian state has come tumbling down, the most interesting question is not “Why did it happen?” but “Why did it not happen before?”
For years, we in the West — shame on us — talked up democracy around the world, but, despite the occasional gentle slap on the wrist of Arab despots, we accepted that there was an Arab exception to the desire for freedom and accountability. We allowed convenient cultural stereotyping to sustain what we believed was the expedient pursuit of our national interest.
While research by the Pew Centers suggested that the aspirations of families in the Middle East were similar to those elsewhere, many of us went along with the comfortable delusion that Muslim-majority societies couldn’t manage and didn’t want democracy. Did no one visit Turkey or Indonesia?
This stance conveniently avoided rows with oil dictators. Moreover, provided they were not too troublesome politically over Israel, they could earn a well-paid seat at our table. They didn’t have to like Israel, provided that they weren’t too rude about the US’ pro-Israel bias and its refusal to accept that insisting on Israel’s inalienable right to exist was not the same as allowing Israel to do whatever it wanted.
Many Arabs themselves knew what was wrong with their region. Back in the early 2000s, the UN Development Programme published two reports by Arab public servants and academics that examined the factors underlying the economic stagnation of much of the Middle East. In too many countries, they found women were marginalized (though, to be fair, not in Tunisia), education was dominated by religion and government was autocratic, unaccountable and corrupt.
Despite all the oil and gas below the desert sand, growth lagged and unemployment soared. Young men and women throughout the region found their hopes dashed and sometimes turned to militant Islam as the only alternative to a repressive state.
What happens next? Well, perhaps for a start, those of us who live in democracies will resist future suggestions that this or that country is immune to the charms of liberty, the rule of law and representative government. If there is no “Arab exception,” there is no “China exception,” either.
More immediately, we in the West should avoid the conceit that we were somehow the heroic behind-the-scenes progenitors of fundamental change in Tunisia and Egypt. Instead of talking a great game about democracy — for which we would earn Arabs’ justified contempt — we should offer with humility and generosity practical assistance in managing the change to more open societies.
The EU, for example, has been light on assisting the development of the rule of law, good policing and representative institutions in the Arab world, despite a development and political compact with its governments. For countries that want such assistance, there is quite a lot of money in the EU’s pockets for this sort of work.
We should also understand that the climate has changed in regard to the “non-process” that has failed so lamentably to deliver Middle East peace. Israel’s failure in recent years to negotiate seriously and responsibly with the Palestinians means that it will now have to consider its diplomatic options against the background of an Arab world in which governments will be obliged to listen more closely to their citizens’ views on Palestine.
The US’ military commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and others have drawn attention to the damaging impact of the US’ pro-Israel bias on its interests in some of the world’s most geopolitically sensitive regions. Maybe now they will gain the hearing that they deserve.
For all the gloom with which last year ended, the new decade has begun with a glorious example of the indefatigable courage of the human spirit. What lies ahead will not be easy, but better and more hopeful? You bet.
Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations