8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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On Egyptian-American relations
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed visits the US at a troubled time
I am just back from a visit to Washington and New York as a member of a delegation representing the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA). The visit revealed sensitivities in Egyptian-American relations at a time both Cairo and Washington have every interest in overcoming the misunderstandings now souring relations between them and adopting a common stand towards the growing threat of terrorism.
As members of a non-governmental organisation that is not bound by the requirements of diplomacy, the ECFA delegation was well placed to talk openly and candidly to members of Congress, State Department officials and to a variety of institutes and think-tanks, including pro- Israeli organisations in America. This allowed for meaningful exchanges of views aimed at overcoming misunderstandings and putting an end to the mutual recriminations now being exchanged by the two sides on the pages of their respective newspapers. With that in mind, the meetings were an opportunity to remind us of essentials and not let our conduct be determined by contingent events.
One key element that Washington cannot ignore or underestimate is Egypt's pivotal role in making the peace process possible. It was at Camp David I, between Carter, Sadat and Begin, that the first stone was laid for the recognition of Israel by the Arab states. It is ludicrous to see such prestigious newspapers as the Washington Post and the New York Times complain that Egypt has received $50 billion from the US since the peace treaty with Israel was signed, because, without Egypt, no peace with Israel was conceivable. The Egyptian-Israeli treaty was instrumental in putting an end to the state of belligerency in the region and is still the cornerstone of any final settlement of the Middle East problem.
It is true that Camp David II, which brought together Clinton, Arafat and Barak, failed to take the peace process any further. It is now generally accepted that Security Council Resolution 242 is to be read as meaning that peace must be exchanged for land. Camp David I accomplished that exchange as far as Egypt was concerned. Egypt regained most of Sinai under the terms of its peace accord with Israel, and Taba through international arbitration. But the exchange did not materialise when it came to the key Palestinian issue. Camp David II failed to produce formulas for translating the land-for-peace tradeoff into solutions for the critical problems of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, etc. This failure brought about the collapse of the peace process, ignited a second Palestinian Intifada and assured Sharon a landslide victory in Israel's general elections. It also led the Bush administration to distance itself from Clinton's close involvement with the peace process and to direct the thrust of its Middle East policy to Iraq. It was against the backdrop of this deteriorating situation that the terrorist attacks were launched against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, shaking America and the whole world to the core and marking the beginning of a new era in which terrorism has become a central component of the post-Cold War order.
The world was ill-prepared to cope with the sudden promotion of terrorism to the forefront of international concern, and is now facing the need for a concerted effort to counter what is now universally recognised as a threat to all humanity. It is a time for momentous decisions, a time for calm and considered moves, not for angry outbursts that threaten to divert attention from the danger we are all facing, nor for discordant perceptions and conflicting strategies that complicate matters still further.
The issue is particularly sensitive in the Middle East, where the key actors hold widely divergent views on how to deal with the new challenges. For example, Sharon regards Arafat as "the Bin Laden of the Middle East," and believes America's war against terrorism will be neither effective nor complete unless Washington targets Arafat and not only Bin Laden. On the other hand, Egypt believes that ending the stalemate on the Palestinian problem and reaching an agreement with Arafat over how to establish the Palestinian state are absolutely essential if America wants to convince Muslims and Arabs that its fight against Bin Laden is a fight against terrorism, not against the Arab and Islamic worlds. Can Israeli propaganda be countered successfully if Egypt does not overcome its misunderstandings and ambivalence with Washington?
Our visit to Washington revealed not only cracks in Egyptian-American relations but an issue that is probably even more serious: namely, the absence of any real attempt to overcome fundamental misconceptions of Islam itself. On the one hand, there is Bin Laden inveigling against the West and calling on Muslims everywhere to rise in a jihad against what he calls infidels, which in the eyes of the world is an incitement to terrorism. On the other hand, public opinion in the West, which knows very little about Islam and even less about jihad in the name of Islam, attributes all this to terrorism as well. This identification of Islam with terrorism is a very dangerous matter which needs to be addressed seriously.
It is true that Bush first described the war against terrorism as a Crusade, but immediately realised that the word was associated with historical and religious events that were best forgotten and stopped using it. But however careful he has been since, however keen to make a clear distinction between Islam and terrorism, his efforts have done little to change a widespread perception in the West that Islam is a violent religion. Indeed, many see his efforts as no more than a tactical move aimed at inducing Islamic states to join the international alliance he is trying to build up against Bin Laden, and believe that unless the Arabs and Muslims themselves take up the challenge of correcting this distorted image of Islam in the West, Western perceptions of Islam as synonymous with terrorism are unlikely to change.
What should be remembered is that we are not discussing what Islam is but how Islam is portrayed, not only in the West, but also by extremists who speak in its name. In Western societies, including American society, there has been a recent upsurge of interest in Islam. Cashing in on the trend, publishers are racing to put out as many books as they can on the subject. Unfortunately, many of these books are written by authors who are either ignorant of or opposed to Islam. This could eventually give further impetus to schools of thought like the one that subscribes to Huntington's clash of civilisations theory. It is a theory that runs counter to the present trend toward globalisation, for it presents Islam as innately incapable of coping with such a trend.
The time has come to emphasise the incredibly multiform nature of Islamic civilisation, which, like all other great civilisations, is not a monolithic whole but a living example of unity through diversity. How can a civilisation that is 14 centuries old be reduced to a recent phenomenon, a political practice that only acquired the name of terrorism a few decades ago? The proponents of Huntington's theory believe no conflict can be resolved through peaceful political means. They justify resorting to violence in the name of overcoming violence, and proceed from the assumption that civilisations other than Western civilisation are unable to adapt to modernity.
A point I have often written about and which I raised with our American interlocutors in New York and Washington is that the supposedly unipolar world order is in fact still bipolar. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union, unipolarity applies only to what is legitimate in the world system. But the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of an implosion from within rather than because of external factors. This left a vacuum that was soon filled by an anti-system terrorist pole.
This truth remained partially concealed until 11 September, when it became glaringly clear to everyone that terrorism was not a marginal, sporadic or regional phenomenon, but had become a force to contend with, a pole built into the new world order and challenging the epicentre of that order, the United States itself. In such conditions, terrorism will not disappear if it is allowed to derive its "legitimacy" from Islam. Nor will it disappear if its main spokesman, Osama Bin Laden, is successful in his bid to disqualify the United Nations and not only the United States as representatives of the new legitimacy. Indeed, in his latest video appearance, Bin Laden denounced just about everybody who chooses to remain bound by the rules of the new world order. While there may be good reasons to criticise the present world order for not being more representative of the will of the international community as a whole, it is because we still need a more just, humane and transparent world order that is more open to the aspirations of all peoples -- not because we want to destroy the system and have chaos set in instead.
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