CAIRO, Egypt — Sept. 11 passed by here in Egypt recently. For all intents and purposes it was just another day, which made me wonder—what do Egyptians really think of America? Is this a country full of our friends? Or have our policies turned most of Egypt’s 70-odd million people against us?
As a recipient of a huge amount of U.S. aid and the closest thing to a democracy in the region outside of Israel, Egypt should be our biggest ally in the Middle East and the Arab world, right? Sure, Egypt’s leadership enjoys the relationship (and the security and the billions that go along with it), but then again Osama’s right-hand man, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, comes from a wealthy Egyptian family. So what does the rest of the country have to say?
In search of this answer, I have pulled some clips from various Egyptian and American news sources. Most of what I pulled came from Cairo, but I’m sure The New Yorker’s cartoons would be a big hit over here anyway.
Before we get there, though, a quick history lesson is necessary—what’s going on in Egypt today? Well, the Sphinx still stands near the Great Pyramid, but a lot else has changed. Technically a democracy, Egypt has one major political party, the National Democratic Party. President Hosni Mubarak is currently serving his fourth consecutive term and most likely his son Gamal will succeed him. Egypt’s economy is very weak, saddled by, among other things, high rates of illiteracy and low rates of foreign investment. Mubarak overhauled his entire cabinet this summer because it was considered too old and out of touch.
Egypt is also home to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organization set on bringing Egypt under Islamic law and doing who-knows-what to Israel, President George W. Bush or the U.S. Thanks to some shady legal work, Murbarak has been successful in pushing the Brotherhood underground during his term. It is unclear how popular the Brotherhood is, but it does hold 16 of the 435 seats in parliament, and when one of its leaders died in 2002, 200,000 people showed up at the funeral.
About the only thing anyone can totally agree on here seems to be anything anti-Israel, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East or just Jews in general. State run television aired a 41-episode series about the “Protocols of Zion” last year while the Brotherhood calls al Qaeda “an American illusion.” (The New Yorker July 12 and 19, 2004.)
So again I ask—what’s the word on the street? First we have Americans saying things about the Middle East, and second, we have the flip-side.
• “The United States is the only thing standing between tyranny and the rest of the world now. We saved Europe from Hitler and now we’re saving the rest of the world from fundamentalist Muslims who will do anything to get where they want—even kill children. If people don’t start get behind Bush and stop the negativism, they’re going to get theirs.” (Middle East Times, Sept. 4 to 10.)
And the reverse:
• Speaking of Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and undersecretary Douglas Feith, “Both men are well-known for their fanatical support of Israel and profound dislike of Arabs and Muslims, positions that are well documented in their writings and comments over decades.... The balance is so skewed that Israel is not only telling the U.S. what to do in the region, but determining which wars and what sanctions America will impose on whomever Israel and her Washington spies designate as enemies.” (Middle East Times Sept. 4 to10.)
• A student at the American University in Cairo, a place where Duke sends students regularly study abroad, said, “Also, when the United States pushes for democracy without really supporting liberalism in the Islamic world in an adequate way, support for the Islamists grows.... I see people at A.U.C. tilted towards the Jihadist cause more and more. They’re watching satellite television, they’re watching Saudi-financed channels, they’re listening to the cassette tapes of fundamentalists sold on every street corner, they’re reading Islam Online and lots of other websites like that.... A clash of civilizations is a war that West cannot win.” (The New Yorker)
An entire country’s opinion can not obviously be captured in two opinions. But they do say something small, do they not?
Jesse Shuger-Colvin is a Trinity junior.
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