Almost two years ago, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice delivered a lecture at the
American University in Cairo that came to
symbolize the Bush administration's unprecedented
agenda of democracy promotion in the Middle East.
The Egyptian government, she told her audience of
students and activists, must respect the rule of
law and the will of its citizens, and move -
albeit gradually - toward greater democracy.
Last week, the secretary returned to
Egypt, but this time there was no mention of
democracy or even of a hint of criticism at the
growing repression since her
last visit. Instead, Rice heaped praise on the
country's autocratic rulers for their support of
US foreign policy in the region. "Stability, not
democracy" is once again America's priority in the
Middle East.
Truth be told, the Bush
administration's democracy agenda never went
beyond nice words, so its demise will change
little on the ground in Egypt, or the Arab world
more broadly. But I wonder if, instead of
parlaying with the country's geriatric autocrats,
Rice could have met the young Egyptians I spent
time with only a few weeks before her visit, would
she have so easily betrayed their dreams, and with
them what little goodwill the average Egyptian
still has toward the United States?
If she
had taken the time to watch the the videos I was
shown by Egyptian friends (which are now
circulating on the Internet) of a young bus
driver, Imad el-Kabir, being sodomized with a
broomstick by the police, or the still-nameless
woman beaten while suspended upside down between
two chairs, could Rice have stood next to Egyptian
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and thanked him
for his government's help "on issues of common
interest"?
If she could have spent an hour
with the members of the burgeoning heavy-metal
scene, many of whose members are sons (or
daughters) of generals and diplomats, would she
understand why these children of the elite have
given up on the hope of political change? Why some
are so scared that they won't even allow me to
publish the names of the bands for fear the
mukhabarat, or security services, might
think they have political implications? Would the
billions of dollars the United States bestows on
Egypt each year in payment for its government's
half-hearted support for the US military and
diplomatic adventures still seem worth it?
If she had met with Egypt's leading
bloggers, or activists with the Kefaya ("Enough!"
in Arabic) movement, she would have learned of the
"pinpoint violence" deployed by the government to
silence political opposition and censor the
Internet, even as President Hosni Mubarak brags
about the new wired cities he's building in the
desert for Egypt's elite. Would Rice still
consider Egypt a model for progress and stability
in the Middle East?
I could have
introduced her to the head of the Muslim
Brotherhood's Cairo branch, who would have
explained that Sayid Qutb, the Salafis and
al-Azhar led the Brotherhood astray from its
cultured beginnings, and argued that "what we need
to combat the militants is more freedom of speech,
more trained judges, more human rights". Or
invited her to coffee with the editor of the
Brotherhood's website, 20 years his junior, who
declared, "If I fight just for myself and my
rights, then I'll never get them. Only if and when
I'm ready to fight for everyone's rights can I
hope to have my full rights as a religious Muslim
in Egypt."
Then again, he might have asked
the secretary for her help to confront the regime,
"not to impose sharia or wage jihad against the
West or Israel, but to bring real democracy and
social justice to Egypt". So perhaps it's better
she didn't meet him.
Most of all, I wish
Rice could have joined me for my late-night chat
at the home of Shady and Nour, the teenage sons of
jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour, who is
still rotting in prison despite (or perhaps
because of) the tepid show of support for him by
the US State Department. The two boys have dealt
with the ordeal of their father's arrest, trial
and imprisonment by forming one of the best
up-and-coming metal bands in Egypt. "It helps us
deal with the anger since our father's arrest, and
to convert it to useful forms."
The
government warned the senior Nour that it might
arrest Shady and Nour as Satanists - in 1997 well
over 100 musicians and fans were arrested under
similar charges - if he wasn't more cooperative.
The reason they are so threatening is that Shady
and Nour represent a powerful alternative
identity, and through it, future for Egypt - at
once fully Egyptian, Arab and Muslim (unlike most
metalheads the world over, they are openly
religious), yet fully engaged and comfortable with
Western, and specifically American, culture and
ideals.
I wish Rice could have seen the
face of their mother, Gamilla, when I met her at 3
in the morning as she returned home, exhausted but
defiant, from another long night researching a
story on government corruption. If the secretary
understood how Gamilla splits her time among
fighting for her husband's release, fighting
corruption as an investigative journalist, and
videotaping her sons' concerts from the mosh pit,
I wonder if she'd be so quick to authorize the
next $2 billion in aid to the Mubarak government.
It's a good thing she didn't meet her either.
In her public remarks at the end of her
trip, Rice once again declared that the United
States "greatly values ... [the] important
strategic relationship" with Egypt, and even
thanked Mubarak "for spending so much time with
me". Such craven coddling of one of the world's
oldest and most authoritarian regimes while Ayman
Nour, Imad el-Kabir and untold other Egyptians
remain behind bars is morally unconscionable. And
it confirms al-Qaeda's argument that the US
continues to care not a wit about the human and
political rights of ordinary Muslims.
In
his cave somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border, Osama bin Laden is surely smiling.
Mark LeVine is professor of
modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic
studies, University of California-Irvine, and
author of Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the
Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oneworld, 2005).
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