Issue No. 596
Opinion
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25 - 31 July 2002 Issue No. 596 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Historical surprises
23 July; 11 September: which of the two dates is more likely to shape our future, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
Last Tuesday marked the 50th anniversary of Egypt's 1952 Revolution. As we celebrate the event, we would do well to ask what remains of it in the present, particularly after 11 September. Is there a relationship between the two events? History, after all, never moves in a straight line, which is why predicting the future is so difficult and why history is full of surprises.
Neither event was foreseen. Both came as a complete surprise. In the case of the revolution, it was no secret that there was simmering discontent in the ranks of the Egyptian military, especially after the defeat of the Arab armies in the 1948 Palestine War. But nobody could have foreseen that the discontent would boil over and lead to the overthrow of the monarchy, the proclamation of a republic and the introduction of fundamental changes to the structure of the state and the orientations of Egyptian society. That could not have been predicted beforehand.
And, while it is true that terrorism is not a new phenomenon, nobody could have foreseen the events of 11 September, 2001. The degree of imagination, planning and precision that went into the operations launched that day was as shocking as the operations themselves. Even if they failed to reach their main target, the White House, the terrorists succeeded in shaking the very foundations of the new world order which, until then, was seen as unipolar, by putting terrorism forward as a counter-pole, standing on an equal footing with the most powerful state on earth.
23 July 1952 and 11 September 2001 are dates that will be remembered in history as dramatic moments marking a turning point in the course of events, one at the regional level, the other at the global level. What happened on those two days underscored the difficulty of predicting how history will unfold and made it clear that the future can be anticipated only in the most general terms, and not with any degree of precision.
Moreover, the events that took place on both dates are related, in one way or another, to the Palestinian problem, the issue that stands at the heart of the longest-standing conflict in modern history. While even the confrontation between capitalism and communism has lost much of its intensity, the Palestinian problem continues to defy all attempts to resolve it and has acquired even more intractable dimensions in the recent period. There is no doubt that the failures of the first Palestinian war encouraged the Free Officers to seize power in Egypt; there is also no doubt that the failure to resolve the Palestinian problem by political means spawned radical Palestinian groups whose fedayeen actions served as a model for Bin Laden and his Qa'eda organisation.
But there are also differences between the two events. The 23 July Revolution was a "white", peaceful, revolution. The transition of power occurred with practically no bloodshed, even if subsequent developments betrayed violent political and social tensions. In stark contrast, the 11 September event killed over 3000 people in New York alone.
But what needs to be scrutinised in particular is how the changes which occurred in the world system over the half century separating the two events have affected their features. The Egyptian revolution was launched in a global context informed by two main sets of contradictions: first, between the capitalist and communist worlds; second, within the Western camp, between the rising power of the US and the declining power of the European colonial states, mainly Great Britain and France. The July Revolution benefited from both these sets of contradictions: from American ambition to inherit Britain's status as the dominant power in the Middle East, and from the Soviet Unions' determination to weaken the Western powers throughout the region. These contradictions constituted the backdrop against which the Suez War was played out in the wake of Nasser's nationalisation of the International Suez Canal Company in 1956. Egypt did not emerge from the tripartite aggression launched against it later that same year with a military victory, but with an outstanding diplomatic victory that changed the course of history.
The terrorist attacks of 11 September were launched in a very different context. The Soviet Union had disappeared as a counter-pole to the United States, as had the contradiction between the old colonial powers and the United States. But even if the two traditional sets of contradictions had disappeared, the United States had not yet managed to impose its hegemony over the whole world or to establish itself as the unchallenged world pole. The lack of parity engendered by this process unleashed an unprecedented terrorist wave that the whole world witnessed with the collapse of the World Trade Centre.
The main contradiction is now between the world's sole remaining superpower, the United States, and terrorism. The sanguine belief that the collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of history and that such contradictions as still existed were subsumed into the new, unipolar world order, was belied by the devastating attacks on New York and Washington. To talk of unipolarity is to focus on only one part of the equation, not the entire equation. It applies only if the part of the equation we focus on is the one within the legitimacy of the system. If we re-introduce what lies outside its legitimacy, notably, the terrorism factor, the system restores its bipolar nature. But a bipolar world system, one of whose poles lies outside the system's legitimacy, is very different from the bipolar world system that existed in the past, when both poles were recognised as operating within the legitimacy of the system.
In the bipolar system which held before the breakdown of the Soviet Union the confrontation between the two poles was in a confrontation between two blocs of states: the Western bloc and the Eastern bloc. The July Revolution was launched in a state which enjoyed only partial sovereignty, because Britain still maintained a military presence in part of its territory, namely, the Suez Canal zone. The nationalisation of the Suez Canal was Nasser's greatest feat. As soon as Egypt restored its sovereignty over its entire territory, Nasser issued the nationalisation decree. He was acting within the legitimacy of the sovereign national state.
But now the basic confrontation is between one superpower and terrorism. Terrorism has no specific haven. It does not operate in the context of a world system based on the sovereign state. It succeeded in striking a devastating blow against the last remaining superpower on earth. This calls for a new definition of how to identify the enemy.
The enemy is now terrorism. It is an enemy that is difficult to define, not only because terrorists have no fixed place of abode but also because terrorism itself is a confused notion with a variety of interpretations. To lump terrorists together into a monolithic whole is to invest them with a juristic personality at a time no precise definition of the phenomenon exists. Moreover, once this perception is in place, it necessarily divests the notion of state sovereignty of its inviolable nature. When fighting terrorism takes precedence over respecting state sovereignty this undermines a world system that is still based on the co-existence of nation-states with sovereign prerogatives. Intervention in the internal affairs of any given state is therefore possible if an international party (how to define the latter is another problem) decides that intervention is necessary to combat terrorist organisations. It also gives parties with personal scores to settle a licence to kill in the name of fighting terrorists. The latest outrage was Wednesday's air attack on a Gaza neighbourhood which killed the head of Hamas's military wing, Salah Shehada, his family and 14 innocent Palestinians.
The 23 July Revolution raised the slogans of social justice and equal opportunities for all. It put social freedom before political freedom, that is, improve the conditions of those who represent "quantity" even at the expense of those who represent "quality". Today, the war against terrorism favours a social philosophy which gives precedence to "quality" over "quantity"; the elites over the man in the street; those more able to accumulate profits over those keen to develop social solidarity. These are the very opposite of the values put forward by the July Revolution.
And who is it that are seen as friends in the post-11 September world? They are people like Sharon, a man determined to liquidate the Palestinian entity as part of his so-called war against terrorism; people who accept the establishment of a unipolar world order unconditionally; people who see in the elimination of the 23 July legacy the point of departure for a new beginning.
It is difficult to predict the future. But given the choice between the values upheld by the 23 July Revolution, whatever its failures in practice, whatever its serious shortcomings (including its devastating defeat in 1967), on the one hand, and the values of globalisation, which give priority to liquidating terrorists physically over liquidating aberrations in the world system that are responsible for the proliferation of terrorism, on the other, I would unhesitatingly choose the former.
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