I had not visited Egypt in almost ten years. Landing in Cairo at the end of July was certainly one the most intriguing and moving experiences of my summer around the Mediterranean.
To my dismay, almost nothing had changed in the urban landscape of the Egyptian capital. The chaos, the crumbling infrastructure, the pervasive signs of abject poverty were especially infuriating since I was coming from Turkey, a country where almost everything looks impeccably clean and new, at least in Istanbul, central Anatolia and on the southern coast.
Indignant against this visible manifestation of the shameless cleptocracy that has pilfered Egypt’s resources during decades, I went to Tahrir Square with my family to take the pulse of the revolutionary crowd. We were welcomed by the protesters maintaining a sit-in there since July 8, mainly very young people, with a mix of quiet pride and infinite gentleness that deeply impressed my wife and my twelve-year-old daughter.
There were middle class students speaking in perfect English and working class youths greeting us effusively while trying to communicate with smiles and touching gestures of sympathy. Even the more austere bearded fundamentalists we met a few days after were scrupulously polite and eager not to show any hostility.
One of those radical Islamists inquired about my impressions of his country. I told him that the Egyptian people had mostly treated us with the same amazing kindness I had already experienced in previous trips, to which he retorted that “we are good because we are Muslims.” I asked him if it implied that my wife and I, as well as other non-Muslims in general, could never be considered as good people. “Oh no, that’s not what I meant,” he blurted with some embarrassment. Probably a good reflection of the mood prevailing in some currents of the local Salafist scene and of their evolving ideological contradictions.
Tahrir does not reflect the general mood in Egypt though. The transformative impulse coexists with a subdued disenchantment, product of the fragmentation and bickering of the main democratic forces and the growing opacity of the political process. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is committed to an October or November date for the parliamentary elections, but no one knows what measure of power the military wants to retain in the new Egypt and what level of repression they are ready to exercise against the discontent. And the relative force of the various competing political currents is still a mystery.
A few days after our visit, democracy activists were forcibly expelled from the square by the armed forces and the police, while the SCAF promoted a smear campaign against some of the more dynamic liberal and leftist groups. Around Tahrir, some passersby and local storekeepers cheered on the action of the military. I was not really surprised. Talking with taxi drivers, casual observers and other people in the street, I could often feel a deep sense of weariness, if not ideological hostility, about the Tahrir carnival. Understandably, among people who struggle daily with bread and butter issues and the chaotic harshness of Cairo’s urban life, the desire for order often prevails on any rebellious impulse.
But the revolutionary process is only six months old. If we agree with literary theorist Frederic Jameson that the postmodern sensibility is characteristic of “an age that has forgotten how to think historically,” we must acknowledge that the “revolution fatigue” of some sectors of the Egyptian population – and analogous feelings in other Arab countries – may also reflect such a postmodern impatience, fostered by consumerist habits of instant gratification that are no less powerful than in the West. The truth, though, is that the current deep process of transformation and emancipation in the Arab Middle East will be messy, painful and contradictory, and will probably last at least one decade.
Back in Paris, I recounted my Egyptian impressions to an Algerian friend just landing from a visit to her native land and slightly annoyed by the complacency of her compatriots. Some of them, she told me, took pretext of the frustrating messiness of the current evolutions in Tunisia or Egypt to justify their own political passivity.
“A lot of Arabs don’t get what is the real time frame of such huge processes,” she added. “Just think of the French revolution: it took decades and several generations of turmoil, through the Terror, the Napoleonic wars, monarchy restoration and new insurrections to achieve at least some of the ideals of 1789.” Hopefully, things will go faster and there will be less blood and tears among our Mediterranean neighbors, but many days of bitterness and confusion are still ahead.
Yes, there might be a lot of setbacks and frustrations, explained to me a young communication engineer in Cairo, but there is something no military or religious authoritarian and no recycled corrupt politician can take from the citizenry: in Tahrir Square, the people have taken the measure of their own power and the dignity that goes with it. A lot of them will never forget it.
Left at the Crossroads: Rock around the Kremlin, roll over the casbah
Left at the Crossroads: AfPak and America’s war weariness
Left at the Crossroads: The last communist Brahmins
Left at the Crossroads: Obama, Netanyahu, and the game of pretense
Left at the Crossroads: Democracy and sectarian strife in Egypt
Left at the Crossroads: Doubts and certainties in Peru’s presidential race
Left at the Crossroads: Asad’s broken promises
Left at the Crossroads: Obama’s disappointing Latin trip
Left at the Crossroads: Pakistan’s schizoid path to darkness
Left at the Crossroads: And what about Iran?
Left at the Crossroads: Revolutions and the new media
Left at the Crossroads: The tiger and the cage
Left at the Crossroads: Tunisia and the quality of Arab despair
Left at the Crossroads: Turkish paradoxes
Left at the Crossroads: The last tango in Delhi
Left at the Crossroads: Cuban reform and the international scene
Left at the Crossroads: Asian ambiguities and the new Great Game
Left at the Crossroads: Pension reform – what the French really want
Left at the Crossroads: World’s next hotspot – Kashmir
Left at the Crossroads: Ogling the poor
Left at the Crossroads: Remaking the mob in Latin America
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Globalization might already sound like a stale catchword, but the new interconnected reality it describes still has surprising tricks up its sleeves. So what do you do when you’re a leftish French writer born in Africa and living in South America, with a background in Slavic Studies, a worried fascination for emerging Asian powers, and interests ranging from classical political philosophy to Bollywood film music? Read, travel, wonder. And send scattered dispatches from modernity’s frontlines.
Marc Saint-Upéry is a French journalist and political analyst living in Ecuador since 1998. He writes about political philosophy, international relations and development issues for various French and Latin American publications and in the international magazines Le Monde Diplomatique and Nueva Sociedad. He is the author of El Sueño de Bolívar: El Desafío de las izquierdas Sudamericanas (Bolivar’s Dream: the Left’s challenge in South America).
