Issue No. 595
Opinion
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18 - 24 July 2002 Issue No. 595 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
What if?
Conditionals are not conducive to informed political opinion if only because talking politics requires an understanding of the relentlessness of the historical process. No real benefits can ever accrue from the "what if" exercise. It leads nowhere concrete, and can all too often turn into little more than an exercise in wishful thinking. But it can have its uses, even if they are only to suggest a range of possible alternatives. Sometimes it is tempting to take the plunge. So here we go: What if democracy had triumphed in 1954?Had that happened it is likely that Egypt and Arab and African countries would have experienced neither individual rule nor emergency laws. The tendency of rulers to remain in power until they die would not have become the norm, nor would the populace have been left to idly speculate on the possible future of the governments under which they live, or the possible forms of government that they might prefer.
Human rights abuses -- from torture to deprivation of individual freedoms -- would not have spread to such a distressing extent. The 1967 defeat would not have occurred, nor would the consequent conflict between military and political authority. Sinai, the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would not have been lost.
The lives of Arab peoples and the shape of the Arab-Israeli conflict would have been radically different had democracy triumphed in Egypt in 1954.
This week's Soapbox speaker is the editor-in-chief of Al-Wafd.
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