May 23, 2012
Many historic things have happened
across the Arab world since December 2010, when Mohammad Bouazizi’s
self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid town in rural Tunisia sparked the uprisings and
home-grown regime changes that continue to define much of the region. To my
mind, the single most profound event to date was the Egyptian presidential
election that took place last Wednesday and Thursday. I write this on Friday,
before knowing the results, but then the results are not the most important
thing about this election. That distinction goes to the mere fact that the
election took place, with 50 million Egyptians eligible for the first time in
three generations to choose their president from a field of candidates that
offered real choices.
Like 350 million other Arabs, I
watched this spectacle from afar with awe, excitement and much hope. I was
thrilled for every one of the 80 million Egyptians who have had to endure 64
years of humiliating military rule, during which they had regressed in most
fields from being the leaders and pioneers of the Arab World to its buffoons
and mediocrities in many arenas, redeemed from a total loss of their humanity only
by their indomitable capacity to tell jokes about themselves and the hard world
and condition that had engulfed them.
This election is significant for
Egypt and the entire Arab world for two reasons. The first is the political
trajectory that it may portend for Egypt and other countries, and the second is
for the faith that it restores -- in all Egyptians, Arabs and human beings
everywhere – in the capacity of ordinary men and women to struggle against all
odds, and to affirm life over death, freedom over servitude, and dignity over
despair.
The political implications of this
election in turn comprise two dimensions. The first is the immediate result of
the voting and what it will tell us about the spectrum of ideological and
cultural sentiments throughout Egypt. Of the thirteen candidates who ran for
president, the five most prominent represented a range of perspectives that
included former Husni Mubarak era ministers from both the civilian and military
spheres, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, an ex-Muslim Brotherhood leader with
liberal tendencies, and a Nasserite ex-opposition member of parliament who was
prominent in several movements that challenged Mubarak.
The parliamentary elections last year
took place in the wake of the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, and their
results (nearly 80 percent of elected MPs were Islamists of some sort)
reflected the distortions that are inherent in holding elections at such a time
of immense emotionalism, when non-Islamists had huge organizational advantages
over all other contenders. This presidential election will provide a more
accurate picture of political sentiments across the country, with less
distortion from a disproportionate number of votes going to better organized or
more trusted Islamists. Many who voted for Islamists have expressed
disappointment with their performance to date, and will probably vote
differently this time. This election will give us the best snapshot of the
spectrum of political sentiments in Egypt that we have had for generations.
The second political dimension of
this election is about establishing the precedent of a free and fair electoral
process – largely self-managed and monitored – that will reverberate around
Egypt and the entire Arab world for generations to come. Everywhere across this
land of 80 million free and proud citizens, most men and women will now
participate more diligently in public life because they know that their voice
counts, their opinion matters, and they can indeed change the world, or at
least their government’s policies on issues like bread subsidies, relations
with the United States, Israel or Iran, or education, health and employment
policies.
A dead political landscape has come
to life, resuscitated by the will to live free of its own bludgeoned peasants,
clerks, and professionals. I imagine many young men and women in their 20s and
30s across Egypt are now wondering if they should enter politics, and a few of
them are even pondering one day running for president. Hope and ambition have
returned to the lexicon of human emotions in Egypt, and that will reverberate
around the rest of the Arab world in ways we cannot possibly fathom now.
The symbolic importance of this
election also transcends the land of Egypt and touches people everywhere, who
marvel at the sheer determination and heroism of the tens of millions of
Egyptians who endured three generations of uninterrupted military rule -- since
the 1952 Nasserite revolution – yet never lost their sense of what it means to
be a whole and functioning human being. They were beaten, dehumanized, jailed,
exiled, pauperized, intimidated, corrupted and more, but Egyptians never forgot
that the rights to think, speak, debate and create emanated from God and the
human concept of constitutionalism, not from the heartless and greedy despots
who invented and then exported that modern Arab monstrosity called the Ministry
of Information.
The presidential election marks a
major step forward on Egypt’s road back from national disgrace to national
integrity and regional leadership by example.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large
of The Daily Star, and Director of
the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the
American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Copyright © 2012 Rami G. Khouri --
distributed by Agence Global