Why a Democratic Egypt Should Trump all Fears

A democratic Egypt would put back muscle into the peace process. While no Egyptian, civilian or solider, wants war with Israel – did you hear otherwise from the voices in Tahrir? – they also do not want their government to give the Israelis a carte blanche for hawkish policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The 1979 peace treaty enabled Israel to withdraw its soldiers from Sinai in 1982, with recovery in the defence budget, it consequently made it possible for the Likud party to send the Israeli Defence Forces on a bloody invasion of Lebanon soon after. Moreover, peace with Egypt also enabled the intensification of settlement activity in the West Bank.

Israeli officials found that Arab leaders were easier to negotiate with, as the Arab autocrat was not predisposed to concerns about constituencies or looming elections. As such, Mubarak’s complicity in the Gaza War was the logical outcome.

For far too long, successive Israeli governments exploited Mubarak’s obsession with stability and his reliance on the US. Stability is not mutually exclusive with a more assertive peace-making stance on Egypt’s behalf.

Soft Power

Egyptians are eager to reassert their soft power over the Arab world; a power that was severely undermined by Mubarak over the years, and received a death-knell following Mubarak’s indirect involvement in the Gaza war.

If Egypt is transformed into a democratic state, the implications for the Arab world would be great. When Egypt sneezes, the Arab world catches a cold.

The domino theory of democracy promotion was justifiably discredited under President George W. Bush. Yet there can be some applicability to the democratisation in the Arab world when the locus of activity is viewed as indigenous.

Tunisia sparked off the uprisings in the Arab world, yet Egypt stole the show with its dramatic strength of people power, and has given impetus to other uprisings in the region, with pre-emptive government responses that range from Jordan’s sacking of the cabinet to Kuwait’s offering of free food.

One can hark back to the 1950s and see a raw example of Egypt’s influence on display, with the then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser policies arousing Arab citizens against Arab monarchies and Pro-Western regimes, with some successful outcomes. This should not have to be some neo-Pan Arab nationalist resurgence, but an acknowledgement of the fact that Egypt’s image is channelled through the mediums of social, religious, cultural and the popular arts. This can be seen from Arab world developments taking their cues from their counterparts in Egypt down to Lebanese pop singers adopting Egyptian accents.

Just like Brazil’s soft power over Latin America, and India over South Asia, it would be in the international community’s interest for Egypt to be seen as a pluralistic multi-party state to its Arab neighbours who might follow the path of democratisation. Obama’s choice of Cairo for his 2009 speech to the Muslim World was no accident.

It has just begun