Hazem Saghiyeh

What Egyptian presidential candidates Amro Moussa and Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh said in that presidential debate in Cairo may have been important. However, what is way more important is the fact that the televised debate between the two presidential candidates in Egypt occurred in front of millions of viewers.

In order to understand the true value of this event, one must remind that Egypt has been ruled since 1952 by a unique leader who holds power and controls decision-making according to his opinion and whims, whereas elections are inexistent or have results that are known beforehand.

This is a major qualitative leap initiated by the January 2011 revolution. This transition makes it easier to deal with the negative symptoms emerging after the revolution, knowing that the regime has long suppressed these symptoms and was secretly stoking them.

This transition denotes of a change in the sources of political inspiration and influence. Indeed, former Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser was inspired by the fascist and Stalinist models (an eternal leader, one organization, etc.), even as the late Egyptian ruler remained silent on this inspiration source. His successors Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak mitigated [the influence of] this source, but they still preserved its general spirit. Nevertheless, the mere fact of holding presidential elections following parliamentary ones in Egypt indicates that western democratic countries with parliamentary regimes have become the new sources of inspiration. Holding a presidential debate, as such, means that the US model – specifically – is being followed and emulated.

In reality, some Egyptians and Arabs are still uncomfortable with acknowledging this obvious influence, knowing that the US model – or at least this aspect of it – has become global. Still, the fact that a debate was held means that we have started to depart from the lethal assimilation policies, which drove us to loathe the US model because of a political divergence with the United States. These same policies had driven us to shy away from democracy because the “imperialistic” West, which supports Israel, is democratic!
 
The Egyptian revolution has started to bear its fruits and this is a cause for happiness and optimism despite everything else. When the Egyptians successfully achieve their tough mission, i.e. consolidating their political life and democratic institutions, today’s dangers will be mitigated, whether they originate from Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood or any other source. This will undoubtedly have a tremendous impact on the Arab world: Much like Nasserism put the Arab world on an irrational and reckless course, we can now rightfully rely on a rational influence to steer it in the opposite direction.

Who said that this part of the world will forever wallow in issues of no importance for anyone else while ignoring the causes in which it does have some interest?

This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Monday May 14, 2012