Egypt without Egyptians: the story of the Red Sea islands

Egyptian lawyer and leftist opposition figure Khaled Ali celebrates in courthouse in Cairo after the verdict. NurPhoto SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.In April 2016,
an agreement was reached between Egypt and Saudi Arabia to transfer two islands in the Red Sea from
Egyptian to Saudi sovereignty.

Human rights
lawyer and ex-presidential candidate, Khalid Ali, took the case to court and
much to people’s surprise, the agreement was annulled in January 2017.

However, in
what appears to be an attempt to circumvent the courts, the Egyptian government
sent the agreement to parliament for ratification, with the head of parliament stating that the ratification will proceed regardless of the court verdict.

This court
ruling was the regime’s first major defeat and the first instance,
leading up to the annulment, that sizable protests had taken place against
Sisi’s regime.

However, as the
opposition were claiming a legal and moral victory, human rights organizations
published figures on state
repression in 2016, which include more than 4000 cases of extra-judicial
killings and 3000 forced disappearances.

Interestingly,
the transfer of two islands triggered the eruption of the first large protests
against the regime (a number of activists and protesters remain behind bars even though the agreement was
annulled), but mass repression did not.

State
repression has failed to galvanize mass societal opposition

State
repression has failed to galvanize mass societal opposition, especially within
the ranks of the middle class. These events shed light on the nature of
Egyptian nationalism and how it is an ideology of this class.

This
nationalism marginalizes the mass of Egyptians, as an Orientalist perception is
held of the periphery. And the memory of the 1973 war fuels their nationalistic
pride, as explained below.

The 1973 war

In order to
gain a deeper understanding of this latest episode, one needs to examine the process of myth building,
perpetuated by the regime, regarding the war of 1973. This process plays a
central part in the legitimization of the military regime.

The military is
glorified for the “sacrifices” it made in order to liberate Sinai, and these
myths have instilled deeply rooted feelings of nationalism in the hearts of the
middle class.

There are a
plethora of songs and films about the liberation of Sinai, one of the most
notable is the operate popularly known as “We chose you” which reenacts the events of the war.

However, the
most notable section is a song that praises Mubarak as the head of the air
force at the time, followed by promises of “Bay’ah”, an Islamic oath of allegiance
to the leader.

This involved
an exaggeration of the role the air force played in the conflict, which in
reality was marginal. The war was appropriated by Mubarak only because he was
the head of the air force at the time, and to reinforce the legitimacy of his
regime.

This even
included the insertion of Mubarak into a picture taken of the operations room removing
Saad El Din el Shazly, the Chief of Staff, who later voiced
criticism of Sadat’s and Mubarak’s narrative of the
war.    

The sacrifices
and stories of the ordinary men and women, overwhelmingly from the periphery,
are casually ignored from official narratives.

After the
defeat of 1967, the collapse of Nasserism, and the wide social transformation
that followed, the war of 1973 served to legitimize the regime, and was the
anchoring myth on which its power was in its role as the “protector” of
Egyptian land.

One of the most
potent attacks against the Muslim Brotherhood during their year in power was
the accusation that they were planning on selling the Suez Canal to the Qataris, and that they were planning on using Sinai as an ersatz homeland for the
Palestinians.

The myth
of the “protector” of Egyptian lands was revived by the Sisi regime to
legitimise the coup of 2013

Thus, the myth
of the “protector” of Egyptian lands was revived by the Sisi regime to
legitimise the coup of 2013 –  this time
against an internal rather than external enemy.

This helped
create the regime’s support base, most notably among the middle class, which is
still under the influence of the myth of the 1973 war.

This also explains the
strong backlash against the regime, when it decided to transfer the Red Sea
islands to Saudi Arabia, since it goes against its own founding myth and undercuts
its own ideological base in a move that was bound to create cognitive
dissonance, even amongst its staunchest supporters.

It has, in
essence, done what the Brotherhood was accused of doing, namely give up
Egyptian sovereignty in exchange for aid.      

Orientalism       

Coupled with
this process of myth building is the orientalist dynamic, which dominates the
center/periphery relationship in Egypt, where the majority of Egyptians living
in the periphery are considered alien to “modern” Egypt.

This is most
apparent in the case of Sinai, which paradoxically is mythologized as a
geographic location, however its people are not only marginalized and
repressed, but also considered to be outside the nation.

The regime, for
example, has embarked on a massive campaign of repression in Sinai, which has
hardly made any impact on Egyptian public opinion. One of the notable cases was
the demolition of thousands of houses on the
border of Rafah to create a buffer zone with the Gaza strip, which has aroused
little domestic condemnation.

Another example
of this orientalist dynamic is the struggle of the Nubians to return to their homelands, which also goes
unnoticed by most.

There is a
strong orientalist view of the periphery as the domain of backwardness and
barbarism, justifying repression and the use of violence. Thus, the repression of
the periphery does not arouse much anger, and is sometimes justified as
necessary for the protection against its backwardness.

Nationalism

This helps
explain the level of opposition that rose due to the transfer of the Red Sea
islands. What became clear is that the attachment of the middle class to the
myth of the “place” has no equivalent to the inhabitants of this
place.

the attachment of the middle class to the
myth of the “place” has no equivalent attachment to the inhabitants of this
place

This attachment
is so strong that it created a crisis within the ranks of the state
apparatuses, namely the judiciary, which has so far supported the executive
branch and the military, as it ruled against the transfer of the islands, even
though it has been subjected to intense pressure not to do so.

For example, in
a rare corruption probe, a judge in the administrative court was
arrested, later to hang himself in his cell in suspicious circumstances. Thus,
the move away from the myth has created inter-elite conflict, which the regime
has avoided until now.           

One can argue
that Egyptian nationalism, as an ideology nurtured by the military elites and
embraced by the middle class, produced an urban center oriented vision of
Egypt; a nationalism that glorifies the land, but not the people that inhabit
this land.

The image of
Egypt that dominates discourse is that of the urban centers, anchored around
the middle class, seeing itself as the bearer of modernity.

In other words,
Egypt without the Egyptians!