What Egypt’s Tantawi ought to do so as to mobilise pan-Arab euphoria
The immortal French general Napoleon Bonaparte would view Egypt’s ruling military brass with contempt.
The man who hijacked the great French revolution in the 18th century and used it to stamp his mark on history would be bemused by today’s Egyptian generals.
Make no mistake, Napoleon’s disdain would not be about the Egyptian military’s counter-revolutionary steps, clumsy as they are. In truth, Napoleon was no revolutionary.
What he grasped instinctively was what ideals of the revolution to appropriate and which to dump so as to further the glory of France, and primarily that of himself.
Any comparison between Napoleon, a dynamo who was in his 20s when he rose to power, and the 77-year-old Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who is Egypt’s de facto overlord, is outright absurd.
One was a towering military figure and statesman, the other a tired gerontocrat steeped in an ossified Middle-Eastern bureaucracy. Yet both found themselves in the eye of an epochal revolution.
The Spring has since turned into a mud heap. In Libya, militias with no direction roam the country. Syria is virtually in civil war mode. And the never-ending Tahrir Square rallies in Cairo have become a circus.
France was in an analogous situation of total confusion after the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy. Until Napoleon seized his moment.
Tantawi’s gambit is to stop the Islamists. This he has done with zeal. His military circle has forced the dissolution of the Islamist-controlled parliament elected last year.
He will determine who will oversee the writing of a new Constitution. The newly-elected President Mohammed Mursi is nothing but a figurehead.
Order, stability, loathing of revolutionary excess – these are Tantawi’s hallmarks. On that, Napoleon would applaud. But then, what next?
Were Tantawi half the creative operator Napoleon was, he would not go wrong if he started with a standard SWOT analysis. First, he must remember Egypt is the Arab world’s centre of gravity.
Where it goes, the rest follow. In order to command the attention of every Egyptian and every Arab wherever they are, Tantawi should have been the first, once Hosni Mubarak was safely pushed aside, to revoke the 1979 treaty with Israel.
Napoleon, were he in Tantawi’s situation, would have done that, not because of anything personal against Israel and its American sponsors, but to mobilise pan-Arab euphoria.
Let’s get one thing in perspective. The 1979 treaty is a highly emotive matter for Arabs. That was the reason Anwar Sadat, who signed it, got assassinated.
To date, the only other Arab state to have signed a treaty with Israel is Jordan, and for purely existential reasons.
Tantawi and his military colleagues have done well from the treaty because of US largesse and the cessation of periodic Israeli military humiliations, but that came at the price of robbing Egypt of its natural leadership role in the Arab world.
Tantawi’s unease with Islamists is something many people understand. Still, Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood has won a place in Arab hearts for its charitable works in Egypt and Palestine despite being persecuted by the powers that be.
That is the other vital thing Tantawi should have appropriated from the Islamists. That would actually strengthen his hand in his justified hostility toward Al Qaeda-type elements.
Ultimately, Tantawi should have, from early on, taken a fulsome stand for democracy in the entire Arab world. Autocratic monarchies abound, and where not, you see hereditary presidencies like in Syria.
Reactionary regimes like Saudi Arabia – where it’s a crime for women to drive – must be brought up into the 21st century.
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INTERVIEW: On Wednesday morning, my house help taped an interview being screened on Citizen TV with William Ruto which I viewed later.
Among other things, it was a telling replay of the ICC demons the man is struggling with and the happenings of 2007/8.
On his comments about the Kiambaa church atrocity, the less said the better. When he learns never to trivialise matters of this scope, the truth shall set him free.
