Seeds of Wrath

And when, after the first free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood came into government, hundreds and thousands stepped up to the barricades again, more enraged, more disappointed, more frustrated, not wanting them, of all people. Torn in two, stirred to a wrath that claims the soul, the deaths of brothers and sisters part of the calculation, murdered, hunted down and driven out – first the army was able to get some stability back but with yet more violence, with yet more deaths. And so it stayed as it was going to be, at best a storm in a teacup. And today a former General rules the country, a representative of the military which, as guarantor of power, functions in exactly the same way as Islam.

Sooner or later any outsider, here as a guest of Egypt, will ask why the Egyptians make so little of what they have, why for years there has been daily repetition of the same mistakes. In many case the reasons are, superficially at least, quite obvious. The military and the ruling powers keep, and have always kept, the country under their control economically and socially. Many business sectors and markets are owned by a very small number of fat cats who view the core values and creation of a free, social market economy as a threat to their own positions of power. Corruption and nepotism stir up a sense of social injustice in the young, and do so to a dangerous degree. The massive bureaucracy of an overblown administrative machine gets in the way of any independent initiative. And the state education system offers inadequate preparation for anyone who is then supposed later to run it.

This paradox leaves everyone shaking their heads in bewilderment because the potential is undoubtedly there for prosperity and fairer distribution. The conditions for economic development are highly favourable. Egypt has the benefit of a huge domestic market. There are ninety million consumers to satisfy. The country lies at the interface of the surface route from Africa to Asia and the sea route from Europe through Suez to the Indian Ocean. As the largest country in the Middle East in the most strategically important location, Egypt enjoys the attention of world powers and does so very much to her own advantage. There are trade agreements with the most significant markets, Europe and North America. What is more, the country has appreciable sources of energy. While oil and gas are dwindling, energy generated by wind, water and sun are available in almost unlimited quantities. Even the supply of tourists is still nowhere near exhausted.

And it’s obvious. All the troubles of the past do mean there’s a huge price to pay in economic terms. Investors beat a hasty retreat, others were never serious in the first place. The government continues to pay out far too many subsidies and unemployment and poverty are at unacceptable levels. But the Egyptians are at the ready. They want to work, and hard. Although not all of them are particularly qualified, the motivation’s there. In most. But more than any, it’s the millions of young Egyptians who are pushing to escape the downward spiral once and for all. And besides. There is a real fear of what all today’s troubles will bring in the future. Egyptian’s population is exploding. With population growth of almost two per cent, that’s one and a half million more people to be provided for each year.

As already said, an elitist clique, notably the military, stands in the way of change and all the much needed developments. They do not want to share, and are incapable of doing so. But it would be simplistic to ascribe every problem in the country to them. The biggest of all challenges is actually the individual. More than all of these deplorably managed economic and market affairs, the people have one basic problem and that’s with themselves and their identity. The average Egyptian thinks first only of his own advancement, and that means his own and that of his family. Me, myself and I. You do what you want, I’ll make my own way. The Egyptian people do not want to be a society, and are not able to be one, either. If a clinical condition could be ascribed to Egypt, it would social paralysis from the neck down.

What cuts across all strata of society is this frightening sense of individualism. There’s no such thing as self-reflection, readiness to take responsibility or contribute to a supportive society. The mere mention of social capability and social intelligence mostly brings only questioning looks. The narcissism in this place is quite unbearable. And yet at the same time it is a matter of indifference as to how much people own or have in the bank. The usual social norms buzz with nothing more than hearsay. And yet in many places an Egyptian behaves and thinks, if he does ever think at all, without any regard for the interests and needs of those around him. Observations like this are neither arrogant nor racist. They are the reality.

It was because of these shortcomings that their little rebellion, the Arab Spring, failed. And it is significant that it did not start with Egypt. Even if the individual has no idea what should be written in an agreement with the state, every communal protest remains a short-lived awakening but with no end-point, no strategy and no objective. There are millions over millions of wishes expecting to be fulfilled.

I want dignity and prosperity but have not understood that this means giving a little. To step back and not take oneself so seriously – anyone who lives purely for the here and now, as do Egyptians, has not learnt anything, will not learn anything and so can’t organise anything. Quite apart from the fact that regular tax contributions really are an exceptionally useful way of getting a supportive society off the mark. Plenty want it but nobody wants to cough up for it.

It is quite typical of the Egyptians to go in for something which is supposed to bring rapid improvement for the individual and yet to go about it with no clear perception of the realities, with no awareness, and a naïve national emotionalism that’s almost unbridled. I want what other people have got. I can do what other people can do. I want democracy. I want it tomorrow. And if it’s not here by the day after, then I don’t want it anymore. It was this same attitude and behaviour that flipped ex-President Morsi into power. Yes! Yalla! We want the Muslim Brotherhood, we want change, out with the old regime. But sharia law, any toughening of Islamic legal provision in public life, hey, we don’t want that.

That’s why it now suits the Egyptians, as their disappointing participation in the last elections has shown, to go all huffy and stick their heads in the desert sand. All because they didn’t get what they wanted and didn’t get it yesterday, whatever it was they’d been after. Quite apart from the fact that pretty much every candidate up for election came out only with slogans in line with the government. Now it’s back, that general sense of powerlessness, the paralysis of an unnamed civil cowardice which is, in many places, veiled in a religious lethargy of Islam, characterised by humility and obedience because man, directed by God – according to his strong faith – carries no guilt for his behaviour. If God doesn’t want all that, then I can’t do anything, anyway. Really anything.

Yet again the Egyptians are in the stranglehold of the rich and powerful. Yet again military top brass are in control. And yet again, they want no redistribution of anything. A small group of players keep the people in ignorance and poverty because if they were to change anything, then they themselves would become the oppressed. That’s how it is. That’s how Egyptian society has given President Sisi and his government such a reception. He makes sure there’s peace in his own ranks so that the withdrawal into private life, mostly into a patriarchy, can take place without disturbance.

Because I can’t change anything else anyhow. That’s how Egyptians like to be governed. But there’s also this emotion which so typifies the nation, and that’s the sense of wrath, the social impact of which has not been reckoned with.

At the end of October 2015, when the Russian Metrojet Airbus came down over Sinai, there were no survivors among the two hundred and twenty four mostly Russian passengers and crew. During the flight from Sharm al Sheikh to St Petersburg a bomb exploded on board. The savages belonging to so-called Islamic State admitted responsibility. As a direct consequence of the incident, numerous international airlines stopped all flights to the popular holiday spot.

For the victims and their relatives this tragedy had its own special significance but it had a yet further destructive element. Just as Egypt’s important tourist trade had started to recoup some of the heavy losses sustained over the years, with bookings buoyant and money being spent, now the holidaymakers stayed away in their droves after the plane crash. This new disaster and its consequences point up a key problem with Egypt. The place is desperately dependent on doing business with tourists. Cash subdues wrath.

Germans are not the only Europeans to prick up their ears when there are issues in this country. They are wondering whether they can still have a fancy holiday at prices that won’t push them back into overdraft. Instead of the Lakes and Mountains coach tour, surely it’ll be OK to go back to all the fun of the Nile once the Egyptians have calmed down again. But, according to European security sources, they haven’t. Light-heartedness doesn’t look like this. And those Arabs in North Africa, they’ve always been unpredictable, ever since that funny rebellion of theirs.

And besides. The centres of tourism between the pyramids and the Red Sea, between the Mediterranean coast and the Aswan Dam are quite safe. Well, as safe as anything can be. Even in deepest Bavaria, a falling roof-tile could land on your head. These Ali Baba types and their mates have got their eye on Majorca, too. The Egyptians do loads, really loads, to protect those areas. But entirely for their own purposes. That their tourist offering needs a thorough overhaul, that fresh ideas and independent thinking are not only useful but also bring valuable income, these are all things that Egyptians still have to learn.

It’s like this. Egypt and the Middle East have, like several other classic holiday destinations, become in recent years too complicated for any restful holiday in the ideal, sophisticated eastern style. If package holidays in a particular country are being warned against, then it means there’s something wrong with that destination and, for the average German, the average Egyptian is no longer worth running up credit for. This has fatal outcomes because now, more than ever, they desperately need every incoming flight to be full. Precisely because personal prosperity is balm to the soul of every Egyptian, the bikini-clad millions must come back, even if this means more money for the national and international business cliques.

Tourists of the world, unite! Come on over and visit! Come and form your own impression! It’ll be quite different from the one created by the frenzied, irresponsible headlines spewed out everywhere by the west’s gawping tabloids. Provided you don’t come here wanting to ask, live and in real time, one of the so-called Islamic State nutcases how his Mum is; and you don’t want to go on a desert run with arms smugglers and terrorists from Libya; and you don’t try to explain the Muslim Brotherhood that paradise doesn’t exist; provided you conduct yourself as you would expect an Egyptian to if he steps into your world and your local pub, then you’ll be as safe as you can ever be anywhere in this mad world.

Any foreigner living here as a guest wonders sooner or later who, and with what kind of lifestyle, actually manages to find any enrichment. When different cultures in private life nudge up against the boundaries of tolerance, then conflicts both big and small are only too likely to result. They are often argued out quite openly and honestly even if there is no solution. Some sort of way of living together is arrived at and shapes the everyday. Egyptians are masters at this.

Anyone who knows how to get round the shortcomings, anyone perceived to bring benefits for others, will inevitably come to the fore in dealing with foreigners, given a marked aptitude for insight and a herculean ability to compromise. In shocking contrast to the practical intelligence brought by the individual, there is indecision, yes, dishonesty, on the political stage. Diplomats and politicians on both sides are mutating into hypocrites.

Since the revolt, it has been said, and still is, that the west has to make a decision once and for all. In between two poles, there’s a real dog’s breakfast. At the one extreme, a suitable realpolitik with the Egyptian government. At the other, an implementation of the constantly propagated values of a basic democracy based on freedom. This is exactly what happened when President Sisi visited Germany in June 2015. While he was welcomed by Chancellor Merkel with military honours, the President of the Bundestag and second in the state at the time, Norbert Lammert, representative of a highly regulated, democratically elected parliament, had distanced himself from Sisi well in advance.

It was just to the taste of the Egyptian leader, himself a former General, to march in to brisk military music performed by people in the smartest of military uniforms. He always liked this kind of show. The fact that behind this polite posing he had been attacked for his harassment of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the opposition, and had been asked to think just a little, from time to time, about human rights, was met with his familiar broad smile. He knew. He was needed. Egypt is needed. After all, that was what the visit was all about. Because between east and west the land of the Nile is the last, reasonably stable Islamic country in a religion which is constantly characterised by the merciless terrorism of extremist lunatics and other radical Muslims of the trouble spots of Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

In reality the visit was no more than a bit of political theatre, embarrassing at times, performed for the public by Merkel and Sisi. It was a production of meaningless babble with which one of them faced the other for the first time and which the other had to endure. In all conflicts one stays engaged as a way of sending out a sign to those watching. Of course. It is already important enough to have general agreement on defence and on fighting local and national threats but beyond that Egypt is of little significance to Germany, neither economically nor politically. But.

The actual influence of the Germans on the Egyptians was, in the past, almost always hugely overestimated. In the tradition of all Egyptian Presidents, the glowing militarist, Sisi, does not allow himself to be drawn into talking about his appearance as an insurgent in the turmoil of the troubles, and absolutely not as an Islamic male who would tolerate neither the sexual orientation of the former Foreign Secretary nor the weaponry of such a commanding woman.

Anyone who has followed Sisi’s rise will know how much the soldier in him dominates his manner. Anyone who watches Sisi knows how sharp and strategic he can be. And anyone who knows him will realise how much of an influence Islam is. All these characteristics make it very obvious how little of a democrat he is. And anyone who has had to get to know the country and the people will also know that it really does rather lack anything that could make for a free, democratically organised country, most especially mature, educated citizens. Democracy will be developed and established only in protracted and complex stages. Simply to try and import it, all wrapped up by the west, made in the image of the west, will be doomed to failure for that very reason, quit apart from another basic issue about how democratic Islamic countries can actually, fundamentally, be.

If the west, including the United States, continues to claim to have political relevance and influence in Egypt, then that really is a consciously dishonest act, a fudging of reality which it will take a lot of persistence to persuade others to believe. Sisi just accepts money. That’s all he does. Subsidies from selected areas for the Egyptian army had definitely been stopped in 2013. But millions of US dollars started to flow out of Washington again, in the age-old tradition, as did the millions of euro from Berlin for science and for schools, and all quite independently of political developments in Egypt.

So, as still seen and reported, these subsidies do not mean that Sisi has made concessions on policy or human rights. In the diplomatic tit for tat, there is simply nobody there who comes across as intelligible and who, more than anything, wants things to happen. Nobody is resolute about axing the annual bank transfers of dollars and euros if Sisi continues to refuse a dialogue about freedom and basic rights with his ideological opponents. In the long battle against Islamic militants in an unstable region, Egypt is quite simply needed too much. That alone is enough to give up on human rights and a reconciliation with Egyptian society.

Sisi is shrewd. He has given back to the Egyptians something which keeps a large part of society calm. And still does. Egyptians can be proud of their country again, maybe because the new Suez Canal was completed in record time. That certainly gives energy and importance, particularly for the dissatisfied and the protesters. Meantime the President is, above all, a man of the army. And the Egyptian army owns almost half the economic power in the land. Without the military, nothing happens. Nothing. It’s been like that for decades. Ever since the appearance of a certain General Nasser in the nineteen fifties. It would be laughable to believe that any of these gents, the Generals, would let their business dealings and influential activities be interfered with by any remotely democratic social grouping. So long as these soldiers wield such enormous power, so long as all those who can remember – whether loudly or timidly – the value system of the west, will do very well not to lose hope. This will be in itself both burden and task for the future. For decades to come, Egypt will definitely not be a democratic state.

Sisi has long since hooked himself and the country up in quite a different way. Sisi really likes entering into pacts with Russia and China because they’re good for business, all the more so with the financial world and shared values of influential Arab states. This clique of leading Gulf States, more than anything Saudi Arabia, favour an Islam they can control, moderate, direct. Together, they march in step against that form of Islamisation they can very much do without. For the same reasons given by Sisi for his constant, unbending battle against the Muslim Brotherhood, the sheikdoms are fearful that the conservative and more fundamental interpretations of the Koran recently becoming apparent will cause the future loss of reforms. Moderate Islam assures the status quo. It keeps the faithful in a state of mental immaturity.

Talking of Islam. Religion is the opiate of the masses. That’s what Marx said. Under the influence and ensnared, then. That’s how it should stay, my Egyptian friends. It isn’t right to have a go at you because of all this. To you, your religion is sacred. Full-stop. However much the mind fights against being determined by the transcendental, whether these are stories or people – peaceful Islam, like any other religion, isn’t at all a bad force for getting along with one another. So when a taxi-driver, after an accident that’s his fault, declares that it was actually Allah behind the wheel, the influence of faith on real events can at least be given some thought. Millions of Egyptians live with this idea. The problem isn’t that they believe. It’s their chronic sense of fatalism that’s so worrying.

Just one final aspect of your preparation for what has been written here about your country. I’m talking now to all my Egyptian friends. Because it is well-known how easy it is to incur your displeasure, and so as not to offend you at a moment’s notice, here is one important tip. What you might consider to be ridicule and disdain is commonly known as satire.

Sometimes satire hurts. Deliberately. But satire is no more than an exaggerated form of words that explains the management and mismanagement of society. And those who indulge in it are only trying to find a form of words which will bring about a change of the better. So, before you send out your aliens policing authority with a reprimand, do make an effort not always to want a German car, and a German car alone just because it comes from what you call Alemannia. Can you already manage a smile? Then we’ll be OK!