Every political thinker has a list of priorities which he tries to serve through his writings. My main priority is building an internally strong Egypt, that is, a healthy society characterized by a broad-based and dynamic middle class, economic stability, modern education and a general cultural climate in synch with the age. Of course, moving with the times should never be at the expense of an awareness of and pride in our history, but a sense of history must not be allowed to degenerate into a love affair with the past. Those who have different priorities on their list, be they pan-Arab or otherwise, should realize that none of their priorities stands a chance except in the context of an internally strong, stable and flourishing Egypt. This applies just as much to those who dream of a successful pan-Arab project as it does to those who aspire to see Egypt play a prominent role on the regional or intemational stage. These are dreams that can only come true if Egypt is stable and strong on the domestic front. In fact, building a strong and stable society is a prerequisite for the attainment of any of Egypt’s aspirations and ambitions, whatever they may be.

    Despite my boundless admiration for Mohamed Ali, who is generally recognized by scholars and historians to be the founder of modern Egypt, I have no doubt that his preoccupation with matters that distracted him from his main project, which was to build a strong Egypt, led to a series of disastrous setbacks that were to have long-term ramifications. Had Mohamed Ali focused his main efforts on building a strong and stable society, Egypt would have been in a position to play the pivotal role for which it is uniquely qualified by the factors of history and geography. Unfortunately, the pattern of squandering our efforts in other than what should be our main priority, which is to deploy all our resources to build the strong foundations of a modem society, has been repeated in Egypt’s recent history with equally disastrous consequences.

    Many factors tempt Egypt to play a role beyond its own borders. The real problem is not that it succumbs to the temptation but that it does so before completing its sacred mission to build itself up as a strong, stable and thriving society. It is not by casting its eyes outside its borders that Egypt, or any country for that matter, can hope to take a short cut to development. External ventures undertaken in the absence of a solid internal structure can only result first, in the failure of such ventures and, second, in slowing down the process of building a strong and stable internal front.

    My view has always been that our primary mission and the main task confronting us is to mobilize all our resources and focus all our efforts in the direction of building a country that is internally strong, modern, successful, thriving and stable, and that is, furthermore, at peace with its past and its present. The only way this can be done is through a campaign to instill, cultivate, diffuse and propagate the values of progress in society, at the level of the leadership and by means of an educational institution whose primary task will be to instill those values in the minds and consciences of our young people. Parallel with this, there must be a radical change in the religious discourse of this country, whether Muslim or Christian, which is one of the two main elements by which public opinion in Egypt is formed, the other being the mass media.

    In the meantime, many of us are wallowing in nostalgia. Some dream of pre-1952 Egypt as an ideal to strive for, others of Egypt as it was under Nasser and others still of what it was in the days of Sadat. But while we certainly want a middle class of the quality that existed in pre­-revolutionary Egypt, we certainly do not want it to be the same in terms of quantity. Before 1952, only a tiny minority of Egyptians belonged to the middle class; the vast majority belonged to a downtrodden lower class that lived in conditions of abject poverty and squalor. From Egypt of the fifties and sixties we want to recapture the “big dream” which saw the emergence of a broad middle class but we want a middle class standing on solid economic and cultural foundations. From the Sadat years, we want to recapture a climate in which rationality and debate prevailed most, if not all, of the time. I write these words in the conviction that condemning others is an extremely negative process that can only further polarize society rather than bring about the desired reconciliation between the different trends which make it up. Such a reconciliation can only be effected through a comprehensive project to propagate the values of progress in society. This is the only way we can look objectively to the era of Mohamed Ali and see its positive and negative aspects. It is also the only way we can objectively assess the eras which followed it, without downplaying or exaggerating their negative or positive aspects to serve whatever viewpoint we wish to advocate. Only in a cultural and educational climate that succeeds in planting the values of progress can this be possible.

    The biggest challenge facing Egypt is its middle class, which is undergoing such structural economic, educational and cultural changes as to make it difficult for anyone to try and define what the middle class means in Egypt today. The progress of any society depends not on the existence of an upper class but on the quality, type, size and level of its middle class, which depend in turn on the extent to which that class subscribes to the values of progress.

    In short, Egypt’s economic and social problems can only be solved in a general climate governed by the values of progress. Then and only then can Egypt embark on a role beyond its borders, a role no one can stop it from playing because all the givens of history, geography and culture attest that Egypt is the only Arab and Middle Eastern country that is qualified for the role of 'regional leader' But before aspiring to any such role, Egypt must first put its own house in order.