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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 June 1999 Issue No. 433 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 June 1999 Issue No. 433
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Books Living Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters An unexpected stumbling block
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
Next Tuesday, an inaugural ceremony will be held to launch the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA). It will be attended by Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, who will deliver a major address on Egypt's foreign policy, as well as by foreign ambassadors accredited to Cairo and many other distinguished guests. Despite the somewhat official format of the ceremony, however, the ECFA is not affiliated to the Foreign Ministry, but is an independent body registered as an NGO with the Ministry of Social Affairs. It aspires neither to support official policy nor to oppose it, but, rather, to represent civil society in its various constituent elements, outside the scope of Egypt's state institutions, and with a perspective on Egypt's foreign relations that will be shaped by the deliberations of its members.
The ECFA has no credentials to call itself a representative body or an organ which speaks in the name of any official institution. Its members are not elected, nor mandated by any official body to speak in its name. They are recruited by the founding members according to distinct criteria which ensure, first, that membership of the ECFA is balanced between various segments of Egyptian society concerned with foreign policy (retired diplomats, retired military figures, intellectuals, media personalities, representatives of civil and professional groups, businessmen), and, second, that every member has some experience with, or personal involvement in, foreign policy issues. This diversity is expected to generate a dynamic process, an animated and enriching exchange of views that will allow the ECFA to become more representative as its activities intensify, its membership increases and its performance becomes open to public scrutiny and follow-up.
A great deal of thought has gone into the composition of the ECFA's membership structure. To avoid any ambivalence over funding, its founding members decided to restrict membership to Egyptians only. In regard to all the other qualifications for membership, the widest possible diversity is welcome. The nationality restriction by no means implies a denial of Egypt's Arab identity, but aims at immunising the ECFA against any charges of partisanship in its deliberations and recommendations. Accordingly, its resources will be derived from the subscriptions of its Egyptian members and, eventually, from donations by Egyptian citizens and institutions.
This then is a brief outline of the procedural aspects of the ECFA. Moving on to the substantive issues, it is necessary first to explain why such a council should exist at all. In today's complex and profoundly changing world, the foreign policy of any country, including Egypt, must be seen as a forest and not only as individual trees. By their very nature, official organs of the state are required to give priority to immediate over long-term considerations, and to take urgent, action-oriented decisions. This is particularly true of the Foreign Ministry. Here arises the need for an unofficial, 'non-responsible', body with expertise and deep links with civil society that is free to contemplate matters outside the constraints of time or tactical considerations. Moreover, in the absence of such a body, we deprive ourselves of a platform from which representatives of interest groups can air their disapproval and differences, allowing discontent to be expressed through dialogue and healthy openness and transparency rather than through insidious means, illicit forms of pressure and other undesirable channels.
The ECFA is neither a political party nor a syndicate; it is a forum in which representatives of a wide spectrum of different and often discordant points of view come together to discuss and, perhaps, resolve their differences. Its raison d'être is to make such dialogue possible, hopefully in a civilised manner, even when differences are not resolved. The proposals of the Council can either be endorsed by the state or rejected and dismissed. There is no obligation on the Council to adopt state policies, nor on the state to adopt Council proposals. This formula is a practical application of the democratic process at its best.
There are a number of foreign policy issues on which representatives of civil society are particularly interested in having a say: for example, the replacement of the UN Security Council by NATO as the authority which decides how key global issues are to be resolved, as has been the case in Kosovo; or whether the Palestinian claim to an independent state can be reduced to a simple declaration not bolstered by the prerogatives of sovereignty. Other issues include how Egypt is to deal with its controversy with the EU over its exports of potatoes, or the issue of growing water scarcity in the Middle East, and the danger it caries of sparking new wars in the region, with very different alliances and confrontation lines from those which marked the Arab-Israeli conflict. As potable water becomes more and more scarce, its value is bound to increase -- all the more so in a world where market values prevail over all others. How to reconcile the pricing of water with the traditions of a hydraulic society going back to the time of the Pharaohs, a society famously described by Herodotus as the gift of the Nile? How to face the decline in the price of oil, which, as a basic element of Arab welfare, should continue to be priced reasonably high?
These are examples of the foreign policy issues which interest important segments of civil society. And, as civil society organisations seek answers to these questions, they relieve the state of the need to express its position in embarrassingly blunt terms.
However, the creation of the ECFA has raised a critical problem: it comes up against the recent law on NGOs and civil associations, which stipulates in Article 11 that any political or trade union activity should be restricted to political parties and syndicates. As a civil association registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs, the ECFA is subject to the above-mentioned restrictions.
It could be argued that the political character of the Council's activity is closer to politics as taught at Cairo's Faculty of Economy and Political Science than to politics as practiced by political parties, in the sense that political issues are approached by the ECFA in a scientific, objective and even-handed manner, not in terms of confrontational stands. This argument, however, is a specious one, for politics, like freedom, must be seen as an indivisible whole. It cannot be claimed that politics exists when it is exercised in a partisan, confrontational mode but not when it is exercised in an even-handed, objective mode. This is obvious from all the above examples of problems the ECFA is likely to include on its agenda: Egypt is against NATO replacing the Security Council; it is for a Palestinian state enjoying sovereign prerogatives; it has a definite attitude on the potato dispute with Europe; it has (or should have) its own approach to the water scarcity problem, even if that approach appears incompatible with the current trend to give the laws of the market precedence over all other considerations, for Egypt is against pricing water, despite its scarcity, and in favour of raising the price of oil, despite its abundance!
The state has welcomed the creation of the ECFA and sees it as a very positive contribution to greater civil society involvement in foreign affairs problems related directly or indirectly to Egypt's welfare. Still, the problem remains of how to accomplish the aims and ambitions of the Council and foil attempts by those who, inside or outside Egypt, would like to clip its wings by invoking the provisions of the recently enacted law on civil associations.
