Forget the war drama of Libya for a moment.
The real show — the more important one, in the long run — is playing out in Egypt, the epicenter of the Arab world, where the adrenaline of revolt is fading to the nitty-gritty of building democracy, said an Omaha college professor whose specialty puts him in the thick of it.
“Egypt really is the linchpin” of this winter surprise — the Arab Revolution, as some call it — “a transformative moment in the Middle East, the end of the American order,” said John Calvert, a Creighton University historian who specializes in the roots of radical Islamism.
Much of the future remains murky. How far will the revolts spread? What other rulers will be unseated? Can the power that citizens seize in the streets be translated into functioning democracies? But one basic seems clear, Calvert said: Rulers in the region never again can take people’s support for granted.
The Egyptians’ Feb. 11 overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and his police state “is one of the great moments of our time,” Calvert said. “And a nonviolent revolution — my God!”
Although Americans are historically wired to sympathize with fellow democrats and dictator dumpers, the political landscape taking shape across the Middle East will be more complicated for the United States to deal with, regardless of what kind of governments emerge.
No longer can Washington maintain a web of stability just by influencing a few friendly Arab rulers, Calvert said. Instead it “must accommodate to the new reality” of awakened populations.
“They’re writing the story now,” he said. “We’re in the backseat.”
Acknowledging the uncertainties, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a U.N. speech two weeks ago, proposed a guideline: “Political participation must be open to all people across the spectrum who reject violence, uphold equality and agree to play by the rules of democracy.”
President Obama, though he couldn’t have foreseen the current upheaval, offered a similar invitation in a 2009 speech to the Muslim world, calling for “a new beginning” and saying no inherent conflict exists between Islam and democratic politics.
That address was delivered from Egypt’s capital — an acknowledgment of the lead role that country, the Arab world’s most populous, has played in culture and politics for centuries.
Nothing guarantees that Egypt’s emerging political system will be copied elsewhere, but it will carry powerful influence as an example of what’s possible, Calvert said.
It will have to be built in a nation that, because of its police-state past, is almost devoid of civil society — the voluntary groups Americans are so familiar with, from social clubs to church councils to trade unions and Neighborhood Watches — which political theorists see as the glue of a democracy. Among the big forces to watch in Egypt, Calvert said:
» Islamist sentiment. Western fear of an Iran-style theocracy “is nonsense,” Calvert said, because Egyptians are too secular. Although the Muslim Brotherhood — the world’s oldest Islamist group — is Egypt’s best-organized opposition force, it’s badly divided between a conservative old guard and pragmatic youth wing and also has pledged itself to working within democracy. Best guess, Calvert said: It might win 25 percent of the vote in an election today.
Calvert noted that al-Qaida — the loudest Islamist voice for the overthrow of Arab rulers — practically sat out this revolution. He said Osama bin Laden’s network, apparently caught flat-footed, is now more likely to eye the chaos of Libya than the democratic ferment of Egypt.
» The military. Although it abandoned Mubarak, it didn’t abandon its extensive holdings in the Egyptian economy — a sort of “Military Inc.” that produces electronics, household appliances, clothing and food.
Military-civilian relations will be one of the stickiest, most unpredictable matters in the writing of a new constitution, Calvert said. One inspiration, he said, might be Turkey, an Islamic-flavored democracy where the army remains in the background, seeing itself as society’s savior in case of emergency.
» Youths. Though unorganized, they are the steam of the revolt, because Egypt is a demographic pyramid: skinny at the aged top but wide at the 15- to 30-year-old bottom. This mass of youths — well-educated and Internet savvy, yet grossly underemployed and too poor to marry in a society that doesn’t permit dating — will drive change, Calvert said.
They recognize that economic reform won’t be fast, he said, but, unlike their parents, they no longer accept ruling-class contempt for the populace and unquestioning deference to U.S. interests.
» Women. Although the West often perceives Muslim women “as passive, beaten-down creatures who have no impact in the political field,” in Egypt they have a history of working within opposition movements to improve their rights, Calvert said.
In the 1919 revolution, for instance, Egyptian women followed feminist Huda Sharawi into the streets to protest both British occupation and the patriarchy. In the latest uprising, they were among the strategists and protesters.
On the other hand, Calvert said, women also recognize that powerful conservative forces oppose them. Hundreds who marched last week to celebrate International Women’s Day and demand an end to rampant sexual harassment were chased from Tahrir Square by men demanding that they go home to their families.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1140, roger.buddenberg@owh.com
