So for any of you following Egyptian politics by virtue of your Egyptianness, location or general association with me, you will know that our presidential elections are coming up. Now, the candidates are as follows: Mobarak (President for my mother's entire lifetime), Mini-Mobarak (Egyptian euphemism for Mobarak's son, whose accession to the presidency will surely bring the term 'monarchy' to a whole new totalitarian level.. what's that now? You say we don't have a monarchy? Oh, we will.), and El Baradei (Former UN Chief of the Atomic Agency and 12 year resident of countries where the grass is surely greener). There has also been a little bit of noise about Ayman Noor, the poor soul who thought he could run in fairly democratic elections the last time we attempted those, but found himself in prison for a couple of years.
I assure you that Egyptians care about the elections, they really do - for one reason: money. Those who have it want to keep it and those who don't, live in hope that political change will automatically translate into a financial trickle down. So on one hand, you have the majority with a cumulatively louder voice and on the other, you have the minority with a cumulatively more influential reach. So who wins if they both oppose each other in their choices? With El Baradei, it seems like this division has been slightly blurred, with the majority supporting the concept of a breath of fresh air and the minority supporting a man who has lived in countries where they vacation to get away from commonplace Egyptians. In short, El Baradei has become a symbol of hope for the poor and a symbol of privilege for the rich.
Those who vex me in particular, are the middle class (you can argue all you want, but they exist). The middle class I refer to are those who are well-educated, well-read and seek to broaden their horizons despite their limited financial means. They don't vacation in Europe and America, but they follow American politics and European soccer championships..the people sort of caught in the middle. They seem to be in a state of complete rejection of El Baradei - why you ask? Because 'he doesn't know Egypt or the people of Egypt'. Blogger and amusing political activist Wael Abbas argues, 'he doesn't have a past in activism or politics in Egypt....he's not Lenin coming back to Russia after the Revolution or Mandela coming out of prison. So I don't think the support for him is well grounded. What I believe is that some people are clinging to straws. They are sinking and they are clinging to something that they think might help their lives.'
Are they? I mean traditional logic dictates that El Baradei has lived abroad in what Egyptians deem as 'civilized' nations where he has been part of enforcing the rule of law, where he has paid taxes, stopped at red traffic lights, parked in parking zones, thrown his garbage in garbage disposals, respected his neighbor and kept his community clean. The thinking goes that he can come and enforce all those great civilized European tendencies in our anarchic nation and BOOM - problem solved. It's like self-inflicted imperialism. But isn't that how everyone thinks? Go abroad, learn new skills and bring them home to boost development, economic growth and intellectual stimulation? So why the rejection? Why is El Baradei, Nobel Prize Laureate, UN Chief of the Atomic Agency for 12 years, primary negotiator with Iran on its nuclear program, not good enough for Egypt? Why do we doubt his decades of experience? I am puzzled. Could he be worse than what we already have? Who is our alternative? The pseudo-monarchist?
I have lived abroad more than than I have back home, and in smaller and more trivial situations I have felt what it was like to be rejected simply by virtue of my foreign-ness. But is there ever a point where we learn to reconcile the two notions where we say yes, send our kids abroad to learn and work and bring those skills home but no, you are not fit to govern our country for the exact same reason we sent you abroad to begin with? How does that work? Where do you draw the line? Yes to the foreigners or no? This schizophrenic approach to the amount of influence we want the West to have over our country is historically justified, but we could be on the brink of change, a time when new approaches may be a potential solution and cannot be merely rejected on the basis that they have yet to manifest themselves with our people.
El Baradei has amassed an extensive amount of support from the people, however, he still has several legislative impediments to his ability to formally run for office. Regardless, the concept is still on the table, do we hold his foreign diplomacy against him and to what end and with what alternative? Or do we swallow our pride and admit that there may be a chance that this man, devoid of any political ties to Egypt, may be more fit to rule than Mobarak, the man who fought for our nation and then let it go?
B
No comments:
Post a Comment