Building a ‘new’ Egypt: challenges and opportunities
by Mehmet Özkan*

However, the main questions are still waiting for answers. What is the future of Egypt? What does having a democratic Egypt as a key player in the region mean for the West and the Middle East? What are the repercussions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? How will that play out in terms of Western influence in the region?

Many of these questions have not yet been answered adequately, and there is a rush to understand the fast-track developments. There is a booming number of conferences to evaluate the situation, in Cairo and elsewhere, mostly organized with the help of the international community. At the end of every conference, one usually gets the impression that everybody is describing the elephant, but none of them get the whole situation. There is also a sense that there are many talks, but less meaning to capture the essence of the developments.

Not only is the international community confused, so are the Egyptians themselves. For the first time in a long time, Egyptian intellectuals are very lively, talking about themselves and their future. But the main difficulty for them is being able to analyze situation rationally without getting into the emotional traps, which is usually a difficult task. So how can we make sense of what is happening in Egypt now?  And what does the future hold for Egypt?

At the societal level, there are two observations that are seemingly contradictory, but indeed feed into each other. One the one hand, there is a growing patriotism in Egypt; national pride is increasing, albeit sometimes in a chauvinistic way. On the other hand, there is a growing fear, sometimes paranoia, that perhaps they will not succeed, or, if they do succeed, that they will get something they were not looking for. This mood between optimism, high expectations and disappointment is the most widespread among Egyptians. Whether the fear or the optimism will win will become clear in time, but what is clear is that they are in a deep struggle at every level: economic, social, political and psychological.

Social change in Egypt also has repercussions for foreign relations.  It seems that revolution has brought Egypt back to square one. Egyptian foreign policy has always faced the historical problem of creating a coherent balance in its triple identity of Arab, African and European, through the Mediterranean. Since the time of Muhammad Ali Pasha, this has been an intellectual, as well as a political, challenge. In the early period of the 20th century, independence was the main concern, and the independence movement and anti-colonial discourse, coupled with Islam, was an important element in the Egyptians’ understanding of the world. It was more prominent in Egypt’s approach to the Palestinian issue, especially in the 1930s.

After Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power, this triple balance changed to favor pan-Arabism over other identities, although there was an African connection through the Non-Alignment Movement and anti-colonial discourse. However, this was nothing more than a populist discourse that produced almost nothing in concrete terms. In Anwar al-Sadat’s time, this shift started to focus more on the Western identity, slowly leaving the pan-Arabism and African elements that had also been a dominant and single-handed approach of Mubarak’s presidency.

A long-term neglect of the African dimension

Like it or not, Egypt, by virtue of its location and history, does not have the luxury of choosing one over the others, as doing so has proven to be disastrous. Current debates on sharing Nile water with various African countries (especially Ethiopia) is the direct result of a long term of neglecting the African dimension. Similarly, Egypt’s relatively small influence on Palestinian and inter-Arab issues is a direct result of neglecting the Arab dimension.

Can Egypt reconcile its triple identity in its foreign policy? It is still not clear. However, there are signs that it wants to do so. Former Foreign Minister Nabil Al-Arabi’s openings to Africa and direct engagement with Ethiopia should be seen as as much a part of this desire to reconcile the triple identity as they are a result of the urgent situation of the Nile basin.

Similarly, reaching reconciliation between the two Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah, a strong intention to open diplomatic ties with Iran and having frank talks with the Gulf partners, especially Saudi Arabia, can be interpreted as efforts to normalize Egypt’s Arab identity in foreign politics.

Without Egypt, Arabs can have neither war nor peace with regional or international rivals. Without Egypt’s involvement and encouragement in Africa, having the United Nations of Africa is just a dream. Similarly, as long as there is no active Egyptian involvement in African issues and politics, North Africa will never be an essential part of Africa in intellectual, political and economic terms. It is time for Egypt to discover for itself that there are more opportunities than football in Africa, there are more opportunities than the Palestinian burden in Arab politics and there are more benefits than American aid in healthy engagement with Western countries.

Beyond all of this, it is certain that there will be more dignity, respect, benefit and influence (and sometimes burden, too) in foreign politics once Egyptians understand that they are much more important for regional and global politics than they think.

*Mehmet Özkan is a visiting scholar at Cairo University and Ph.D. candidate at Sevilla University, Spain. He is the author of “Foreign Policy After Tahrir Revolution: (Re)-Defining the Role of Egypt in the Middle East” (Germany: LAP Lambert, 2011).