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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.
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