Yet, while the biggest battle is fought in
Sinai since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, we psychologically
smother this conflict with our fears about Iraq, Syria,
Libya and Yemen. So relieved are we in the West that a
secular general has replaced the first democratically
elected president of Egypt that we now support Sisi’s
leadership as benevolently as we once supported that of
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Americans have
resumed arms supplies to Egypt – and why not when Sisi’s men
are fighting the apocalyptic Isis?
To Egyptians, though, it all looks a bit different. They are
being treated to Sisi’s almost Saddam-like mega-mind. This
includes his grotesque ambitions for a new super-capital to
replace poor old Cairo, to be completed in a maximum of
seven years, not far from the new two-lane Suez canal which
must be finished – and those who know Egypt will literally
gasp here – in a maximum of 12 months. The “new” Cairo is
going to be 700sqkm in size and will cost £30bn. The
unveiling of this preposterous project a few weeks ago was
accompanied by none other than our own Tony Blair, who used
to be a British prime minister but is now (among other
burdensome chores) advising the Egyptian president through a
UAE-backed consultancy.
This “spendthrift dream of modernity”, as
the American writer Maria Golia puts it, betrays an
indifference to Egyptians’ real interests. Over 60 per cent
of Cairo – the real Cairo that exists today – was built in
the past few decades and is spread across miles of tree-bald
rotting concrete estates of poverty and heat. Its thousands
of newly developed villa-suburbs high above the city are
largely empty; no one can afford to purchase them. Could
there be a better environment for Isis?
So let’s take a brief look at Sisi’s real
Egypt. Rather than rejuvenate the weary, fetid city that
Cairo became under the British and then King Farouk and then
Nasser and then Sadat and then Mubarak, Sisi wants to start
all over again. There is already a New Cairo outside the
original Cairo – it was constructed as an expansion of the
city under Sadat and Mubarak – so Sisi’s megalopolis will be
new New Cairo, a second attempt to alleviate social failure.
The President need not worry too much
about industrial disputes in his fantasy city. The Egyptian
Supreme Administrative Court has made strikes illegal on the
grounds (Brotherhood-like) that practising the right to
strike – albeit legalised under Article 13 of the Egyptian
constitution – “violates Islamic sharia”. The court has
already “retired” three civil servants and imposed penalties
on 14 others for striking in the governorate of Monufia,
arguing that withdrawing labour “goes against Islamic
teachings and the purposes of Islamic sharia”. Under Islamic
law, the court announced with almost Isis-style formality,
“obeying orders by seniors at work is a duty”. This was a
very weird ruling. The teachings of the Prophet forbid
alcohol consumption (mercifully, for millions of Muslims,
cigarettes had not been invented in the seventh century),
but trade unions would have been incomprehensible in any
ancient caliphate.
Not that the Egyptian government has much
to worry about from its officially sanctioned unions. Gebali
al-Maraghy, chairman of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation,
declared in an interview with Al-Musry Al-Youm newspaper
that “our task is to carry out all the demands made by the
President … increasing production and fighting terrorism”.
Former deputy prime minister Ziad Bahaa Eddin found the
court’s ruling absurd. “Didn’t we demonstrate against the
constitution drafted by the Muslim Brotherhood because it
attempted to mix religion with the state?” he asked.
True. Indeed, we in the West are now
encouraging a very familiar “new” state in Egypt:
paternalistic, dictatorial, haunted by “foreign” enemies –
it’s only a matter of time before the Egyptian government
declares Isis an arm of Mossad – in which an ocean of
poverty is regarded as the very reason why ever more
draconian laws must be used against free speech. The people
want bread, we are told, not freedom; security rather than
“terrorism”.
Egypt is, in fact, following the path of
so many other countries that are being torn apart by Isis.
For, if you torture your people enough, Isis will germinate
in their wounds.
Thus Sinai is now as much under the
“control” of Isis as it is of Egypt. The Cairo bomb that
assassinated President Sisi’s chief prosecutor proves that
Isis operations have crossed the Suez Canal. And even the
Egyptian navy can be attacked.
Was there ever a more potent symbol of our
choice? Between the devil and the deep blue sea.