Most Egyptians and foreign observers take it for granted that the most important challenge President Sadat faces as a result of the Arab sanctions and boycott is in the economic field. Hardly anyone is paying attention to the psychological aspect of the problem.
This is not particularly surprising on several counts. The Egyptian economy is not in a good shape and could well become President Sadat’s Achilles’ heel if the Saudis in fact act tough. There were vicious riots in Cairo two years ago because an inept prime minister had decided to reduce subsidy for bread and cooking gas and no one has forgotten them. Since we all got used to regarding economic development as the be-all and end-all, most observers have assumed that Egypt’s expulsion from the recent Islamic conference has not caused the slightest concern in Egypt.
Yet on the strength of a rather short stay in Cairo and limited contacts with Egyptians, I have come to the opposite conclusion, which is that the Arab boycott is having an adverse psychological impact on them and this should not be ignored. I am not referring to the common people who may well be more interested in the continuance of the heavy food subsidy than in Egypt’s place in the world. I am also not referring to the so-called fat cats who have made enormous fortunes in real estate deals and prize the friendship of other Arab countries primarily because their nationals bring in money to spend and invest in Cairo. I am referring to the intelligentsia and I feel that they have been shaken by the experience. Indeed, I am inclined to view the opposition of a substantial section of the intelligentsia to President Sadat’s peace efforts in that light though it is true some intellectuals dislike him because they are Nasserites and communists.
NATIONALISM
I came to Cairo in order to find out for myself whether Egyptian nationalism was strong enough and deep enough to withstand the shock of the Arab boycott and its adverse economic consequences. And everyone I have asked this question has told me that this is in fact the case. This has included Nasserites some of whom have told me that President Sadat’s popularity would decline rather rapidly if he were to make up with the other Arabs. But I am not persuaded. Egypt is too much an integral part of the Arab world to be able to stand alone for long without feeling forlorn. In my view it must make a desperate attempt to return to the Arab fold.
In spite of the well-known fact that Arab leaders can rapidly compose their differences, however sharp and basic, it has been fashionable to juxtapose individual nationalisms and pan-Arabism as if they were two wholly distinct and independent phenomena. The article ‘End of Pan-Arabism” in the winter 1978-79 issue of the Foreign Affairs Quarterly, New York, illustrates this point. In this article the author has argued that the six-day war with Israel in 1967 “marked the Waterloo of pan-Arabism”, but that the retreat has continued ever since and that finally the normal state system has triumphed with the legitimisation of President Sadat’s leadership as a result of October 1973 war and the use by him of that authority to make peace with Israel.
But this line of reasoning, however persuasive in terms of the western experience and concepts, misses the central point which is that the Arabs do not wish to choose, and indeed cannot choose, between the state system and pan-Arabism. They cannot abolish the existing boundaries to merge their separate sovereignties and they cannot allow “the reason of state” to prevail. This is no less true of the Egyptians than of other Arabs, though right now they are nursing a strong sense of grievance against fellow Arabs.
This has caused endless confusion among the Arabs and led them to pursue disastrous policies. But they have not been in a position to help it. They have been victims of dual identity and they cannot opt for one.
This problem is peculiar to the Arabs. There is an overlap between other countries as well – cultural between India and Pakistan, religious and ethnic between Pakistan and Afghanistan and religious and cultural between the Iranians and the Arabs. But in no case is the overlap as complete as in the case of various Arab countries.
ECONOMY
In a sense the Egyptians are justified in being angry against the other Arabs. They have borne the brunt of the struggle against Israel and they have virtually ruined their country’s economy in the process. There might have been an element of exaggeration in their claim that Egypt’s losses from the 1967 war would total up to nearly 30 billion Egyptian pounds (77 billion US dollars) up to 1983, because the plants destroyed in the war would have been in production up to then. But there can be no question that even well-informed Egyptians accept this figure as being reasonably accurate and that Egypt has suffered greatly on account of the 30-year-long conflict with Israel.
Some other points may be made in this connection. The defence expenditure rose from 5.5 per cent of the Gross National Product in 1960-61 to 20 per cent. This enormous diversion of resources inevitably led to the neglect of investment in the infrastructure, agriculture and industry. Over one million men, women and children had to be evacuated from the Suez Canal zone as a result of Israeli bombing and destruction of cities and accommodated in overcrowded Cairo. The canal remained closed for eight long years from 1967 to 1975 and the tourist industry stagnated.
But in a more basic sense the Egyptians are not justified in being aggrieved against the other Arabs. President Nasser did not pick up the banner of pan-Arabism at the instance of other Arabs. On the contrary, as Mr Aly Hamdi Gamal, editor-in-chief of “Al Ahram,” Cairo, put it to me, he imposed it on them through terror.
President Nasser did not go to a war with Tel Aviv in 1967 and bring disaster upon his country because other Arab leaders were anxious to throw Israel into the sea. On the contrary, his relations with most Arab governments then were bad or at best indifferent and his troops were waging war in Yemen (now North Yemen) against the royalist forces backed by the Saudis. Nasser was the arch priest of pan-Arabism and Egypt has paid the price.
But regardless of whether or not one accepts the legitimacy Egypt’s sense of grievance against the other Arabs, one cannot help noticing that this is an important group of Egyptian nationalism as we see it today. It would be wrong to infer that Egyptian nationalism is rooted wholly in resentment and not in awareness of a distinct identity. Egyptians at all levels are proud of being Egyptians. But they are unable to think and act purely in terms of Egyptian interests. If that was not the case, President Sadat would not have been on the defensive which he is, not in relation to his own people, but towards other Arabs.
President Nasser sought to impose his and Egypt’s leadership on the Arab world. But two points are notable. First, he sought no economic advantages for Egypt.Secondly, unlike the Shah of Iran, he made no attempt to base Egyptian nationalism on the pre-Islamic pharoahnic past. And he could not do so because Egypt since the seventh century has had little to do with that glorious past. The Shah could make the attempt because the Persian language and culture had survived the country’s Islamisation.
A distinction has been sought to be made between the pan-Arabist Nasser and the Egypt-firster Sadat. This is a valid distinction as far as the facts are concerned and it is possible that President Sadat is more of a nationalist in the Egyptian sense of the term than President Nasser was, but it is equally possible that the difference in their approaches and policies is the result not of divergent outlooks but of the difference in their circumstances. President Sadat inherited a terrible mess and he would have had little choice but to try and clear it up even if he shared his predecessor’s pan-Arabist preoccupation.
In the absence of peace with Israel, Egypt could perhaps have lived for years on the assistance of the oil-rich Arabs but only at the cost of its self-respect. And surely an Egypt dependent on the goodwill of others could not have re-established its leadership in the Arab world. What sense then would it have made for a pan-Arabist Sadat to continue the confrontation with Israel? He has probably acted rashly in his dealings with the Soviet Union, in making Egypt too dependent on the United States and in having gone to Jerusalem in November 1977 without adequate preparations and prior negotiations. But these are different problems which are not under discussion here.
FANTASY
Unlike other Arab leaders President Sadat has refused to live in a world of fantasy (belief in early victory against Israel, military or political), recognised the reality on the ground (long-term military superiority of Israel on the one hand and steady impoverishment of his country as a result of the defence burden on the other) and tried his best to tackle it in both its aspects. And he has shown the courage to walk out of this world of make-believe when another powerful fantasy has seized the minds of a large number of Arabs and Muslims in other countries – that it is possible to write off 13 centuries and return to the ways of early Islam.
He has also had the audacity to place the interests of Egypt above all else and to mobilise support among his people on that basis. In the process, he has not sacrificed the interests of other Arabs, including the Palestinians, if only because the alternative approach has not worked for 30 years and is not likely to work in the foreseeable future. But to give priority to the interests of Egypt is not to proclaim the doctrine of Egyptian nationalism in the sense most of us outside the Arab world understand the term nationalism. In acting the wav he has, he has only followed the example of other Arab leaders and not set one for them. They too seek to promote their own interests.
The Times of India, 21 May 1979