Egyptians and the West

It is Friday morning now. I am in Berlin. Since I arrived last night, I have been glued to the TV set in my hotel room, trying to keep up with the latest developments in Egypt, waiting for Mubarak to step down.

And extremely disappointed that he did not. Probably over a million people will show up today at Tahrir Square to make it clear that what the Egyptian president announced last night was far too little and much too late. Of course, nobody knows what will happen between now and Sunday morning when you read this column. Sometimes it is really frustrating to be a columnist and not a journalist who can report from the spot, every moment of the day. As a columnist I should try to take a step back and analyze events, present an unconventional way of looking at things. That is difficult when a revolution is taking place before your eyes, knowing that what I write now might already be outdated in two days. Anyway, in an effort to bridge the gap, I decided to start reading a book I bought two years ago: “Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World” by Bruce K. Rutherford. It was a fascinating read yesterday on the flight to Berlin. I was not able to finish the book, of course, but it is really remarkable to read Rutherford’s observations and analyses, based on fieldwork in Egypt in 2006 and 2007. He is quite positive on the changes that are taking place inside Egypt, already preparing the country for the post-Mubarak era. He focuses on reformers within the regime, the business community, the Islamist movement and, very interestingly, the judiciary. According to Rutherford, these domestic forces are already pushing for liberal reforms. His advice to the US: Do not get involved too much, and leave it to these Egyptian pro-reform advocates to further strengthen the rule of law, increase private sector autonomy and improve protection of basic rights, thereby gradually moving the country form authoritarianism to democracy. Rutherford’s conclusions underline the observation by most followers of the Egyptian revolution: This uprising is home-made, by young Egyptians who are fed up with a status quo that gives them neither jobs nor rights, supported by people from all walks of life who want the same as Turks, Americans and Dutch want: a decent life in freedom for them and their children. What is happening today has deep roots in a society that won’t accept being bullied anymore in obedience to a dictator who is totally out of touch with the realities on the ground. I would advise Ali Bulaç to read the Rutherford book. My colleague on these pages last week wrote a column in which he basically accuses me of being part of the perfidious efforts of the West to impose its vision of the world on the poor Egyptians. Being cautious on the Muslim Brotherhood and having little sympathy for the Iranian model is part of that imperialist plan. Let me explain my two basis objections to such an approach. In the tradition of eastern “occidentalism,” Bulaç talks about a monolithic West to which all Westerners belong because apparently they are all of the same opinion. In that distorted way of thinking, my being Dutch puts me in the same box with, for instance, the CIA. It is true that the American clandestine service has been involved in numerous shameless attempts in the past to topple governments they did not like. But does that make every remark by an American or European suspicious or by definition untrue? It would be the same if I would accuse Bulaç of singing from the same song sheet as the Taliban or the Saudi royals for the simple reason that they are all easterners. Let’s stop using these simplistic categories. But more importantly, by giving the West such an important role, he simply denies that this revolution is made by Egyptians. They need neither the CIA nor Western intellectuals to tell them that what they are longing for is a future without secular and religious autocrats -- Western or Eastern.