Jumbled reactions
The US capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has elicited mixed feelings and speculation on the streets of Cairo. Gihan Shahine gauges the public's mood
Unlike the many Iraqis who took to the streets to celebrate the US's capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Sunday night, many Egyptians found little, if nothing, to be happy about. The unmistakable gloating with which US officials announced having 'gotten' America's most wanted man in Iraq -- as he was 'hiding in a hole like a rat' having surrendered without 'a single shot fired' -- left many in a state of bewilderment. Whereas some received the news with a certain amount of scepticism, its very timing -- in the lead-up to the US's presidential elections -- gave rise to a series of mainly negative reactions and conspiracy theories which all, more or less, centred on speculations of "some sort of an American deal or fabrication".
"I never expected Saddam to surrender without any resistance," said Bassem El-Kababgy, president of the Suez University Student Union. "But we never know: it could be one of Saddam's look-alikes, or else the myth of Saddam's bravado was all his own invention."
American University in Cairo economics professor Galal Amin was equally sceptical. "News is what the media tells us, and so the amount of information we get is very minor, in proportion to the truth," lamented Amin. "Personally, I have no way of telling if that's the true Saddam or not. The game is so dirty; we've been manipulated and told so many lies everyday that we can't tell the true from the false."
Amin believes Saddam, "the 66-year-old despotic leader", was already "a creation of the west", who had done a fantastic job for the US, first by attacking Iran and Kuwait, and then by contributing to the creation and exaggeration of the myth of terrorism, on which the US is living, according to Amin.
"The US cannot actually survive, and go on with its colonial plans in the region, without Bin Laden or Saddam," Amin said sarcastically. "But, for some reason the US decided it would be rather good to find Saddam now and declare to the whole world that he has been captured."
"Let the US go on lying to their own people in order to justify the billions of dollars they are taking from them, and justify the death of their young people," Amin went on. "It's a farce."
Public disbelief, however, soon gave way to a spate of mixed reactions among the millions of Egyptians who stayed glued to their screens at workplaces, coffee shops and homes. Whereas many felt happy that "a despotic ruler", who brought suffering to millions of people, was ultimately brought to justice, there was also an unmistakable sense of public regret, and even dismay, at the fact that it was the "US occupying forces", and not the Iraqi people, who had done the job.
"I'm so happy Saddam is actually tasting the same humiliation and torture he inflicted on millions of people," said housewife Samia Ismail. "I don't care whether it was the US or the Iraqis who captured him -- all that matters is that an era of oppression and despotism is over at last."
There were also those who saw in Saddam Hussein a symbol of "the only heroic Arab leader who, despite his bloody crimes, still stood up to Israel and the US". And so, for them, Hussein's arrest at the hands of the US occupying forces was seen as "yet another slap on the Arab face".
"I wonder why the Iraqi people are celebrating?" asked a taxi driver, seeming to reflect the opinions of many: "Iraqis got rid of Saddam, only to fall into the hands of Bush, whose interest lies mainly in Iraqi oil. Just look at how many civilians and children were killed in the US raids on Iraq, and the US's support of Sharon's massacres of the Palestinian people. Besides, Iraq was definitely much better off under Saddam than the US occupation."
Many people found the US's decision to broadcast video footage of a former Arab president, dishevelled-looking, hiding in an underground hole, and receiving medical check-ups, humiliating and degrading to all Arabs.
"No matter how tyrannical Saddam was, he was an Arab leader," said lawyer Mamdouh Riyad. "It is absolutely humiliating for us when the US portrays him as a caveman dragged around by US soldiers. It is not the US's job to capture or try Saddam, which should be the sole domain of the Iraqi people themselves."
Amin, however, countered that, "there was no need for shame since Saddam, having been a tool of the west, represents only himself, and not the Arabs."
Cairo University political science professor Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed called the US presence in Iraq illegitimate, thus making any US plans to try former Iraqi officials completely inconsistent with the rules of international law. Instead, argued El-Sayed, "It is US leaders who should be tried for their continuing occupation of an Arab country."
El-Sayed acknowledged that the Iraqi regime committed massive violations of human rights; at the same time, however, "the US administration is not an international authority to judge Iraqi leaders, and its own record in defending human rights is already far from honourable." He mentioned Guantanamo as well as the US's support for the Israeli government as cases in point.
Legal or not, Saddam's capture has opened a Pandora's box of questions about Iraq's future, the resistance, and the overall effect these developments will have on the upcoming US presidential elections. Will the resistance die out now that Saddam has been captured? Will Bush's victory prove temporary when people realise there is no longer an excuse for US troops to remain in Iraq?
Almost all of those interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly -- including students, housewives, intellectuals and taxi drivers -- predicted that the Iraqi resistance will continue to fight, and perhaps even gain additional momentum.
"US officials would be deceiving themselves if they think the arrest is going to put an end to Iraqi resistance," maintained El-Sayed. "Resistance is to be expected in any country that falls under foreign military occupation."
Although Saddam's capture has given Bush something to brag about, and perhaps even ameliorated both the morale of the US occupying forces, as well as Bush's ability to convince the American people that his foreign policy plans are right- minded, analysts speculated that the victory would be "short-lived".
Hussein Abdel-Razeq, of the leftist Tagammu' Party, said, "Bush will definitely make the utmost use of the arrest to win the upcoming presidential elections." Since the American president had lost much of his popularity as it began to dawn on the American people that billions of dollars had been spent in Afghanistan and Iraq without either Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein being captured, "Saddam's capture will provide Bush with a way out of the stalemate," Abdel-Razeq said, "at least until everybody realises that, in reality, nothing has actually changed."
El-Sayed speculated that Saddam's capture and the ensuing media circus would also help the Bush administration dodge some of the harsh criticism stemming from the fact that weapons of mass destruction -- one of the initial justifications proffered by Bush for attacking the country -- have yet to be found. According to El-Sayed, even though finding Saddam will certainly provide a temporary boost of troop morale, it will probably have little effect on the US's essential problem: "their sheer ignorance of Iraqi culture," as well as the ramifications of a string of incorrect decisions such as the dissolving of the Iraqi army and the inability to truly hand over the reigns of power to a legitimate Iraqi body.
Amin concurred, saying "we should not let Saddam's capture distract us from more important issues affecting the future of Iraq and the whole region. His capture should be seen as insignificant. Instead, we must be more concerned with US plans to divide Iraq into three parts."
Abdel-Razeq said Arab leaders should be equally concerned "that despotism and the absence of democracy will only provide a pretext for the US to interfere by imposing a superficial form of democracy while continuing to pursue its colonial interests in the region."
