Following my recent meeting with President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, I hold that his first year in power entailed five major tasks. The first of these tasks was management of the affairs of government. The others were strengthening the foundations of the state that were violently shaken over the past four years, acquiring international legitimacy for the events of 30 June 2013, forming and following through on a presidential working team, and setting in motion national projects that will enable us ¾ the Egyptian people ¾ to regain confidence in ourselves and in our ability to shape our future. I do not believe that all five tasks were accomplished with the same degree of success. Many Egyptians are looking to the president to launch initiatives that will shape his presidency over the next three years and, if Egyptians give him a second term in office, the following four years. The occasion of 6 August will be important for many reasons, but above all it will deliver a message from Egyptians to Egyptians. That message says: “We are capable.” But however great the direct returns from the Suez Canal project, I do not believe that it will meet the ambitions of the Egyptian people. Therefore, I hope the president takes advantage of this occasion to announce seven initiatives to his fellow citizens and to the world. I refer to the first initiative as the “civic service brigades” project, which is designed to create jobs for youth. A specialised committee in the presidency is already in touch with me for the purposes of making this happen. The second project aims to shape young leaders. Although I wrote about this eight months ago, and the president has spoken of it, the project has yet to see the light of day. Egypt suffers a major deficiency in the capacities of the people in charge of government. When France, China, Mexico and other countries encountered this problem and realised how it was impairing government performance they created advanced management academies. Students in these colleges studied a range of core subjects to equip them for government office, such as the constitution and law, statistics, history and international relations, systems of government, economy and public finance, administration and computer sciences. Thus, anyone who occupies a position of authority at any level, from mayor to president, and even in the legislature, will have obtained a minimal degree of higher education. I recall the president remarking, “I wish that the minimal educational level for members of parliament was a master's degree or even a doctorate, so as to raise the academic calibre of our lawmakers. But we are bound by the constitution.” Still, from now until the end of the president's term in power we can equip many young men and women with the knowledge and skills necessary to assume the reins of administration and government. The third initiative is the democratic transformation project. Egypt needs strong national political parties so that the Egyptian arena is not vulnerable to the Muslim Brotherhood and their colleagues. There are 86 political parties in Egypt at present, but they possess little by way of the functions of political parties. These functions, incidentally, are four: forming a government if they win a majority in general elections, serving as opposition and offering an alternative if they lose in the elections, recruiting new political talent and expressing the interests and values of citizens. President Al-Sisi should help forge a strong patriotic political party opposition. I speak of an opposition that consists of political parties that do not have extensions outside the country, that fall politically from the centre left to the centre right, and for which the electoral system, whether within parties or between them, is a means to bolster the parties and to encourage the participation of youth and women. Each political party should have a specialised studies centre that focuses on the various fields of public work, analyses problems and seeks to benefit from relevant studies, research, recommendations and even the expertise and knowhow of other countries to formulate their positions on the problems of Egypt and how to solve them. Strong national football teams are not created by relying on the informal fields of popular neighbourhoods. There have to be professional sporting clubs that have the capacities to discover and hone talents. The fourth initiative is an alternative education programme. When the South Koreans began their economic revival under Park Chung-Hee they asked themselves: “Do we need school buildings to learn? Or can we learn anywhere and let that place be our school?” Park Chung-Hee responded: “Wherever there is science and learning, that place is a school.” His point was that the teacher could instruct students anywhere: in the street, in the field, under a tree, next to an old building. What mattered was “the chalk, the blackboard, a teacher who wanted to teach, and children and youths who wanted to learn.” I realise that reforming the current state of education in Egypt is next to impossible. However, I have begun to take part along with some colleagues in a new experiment: I teach the secondary school history curriculum by simplifying the subject matter and focussing on lessons to be learned from a historical event. The first experiences in the project demonstrated that the Internet could serve as an alternative to the traditional classroom. Egypt needs to generate an extraordinary educational breakthrough, and to do this it needs to break away from traditional methods that are no longer serviceable. I call the fifth initiative a “national blog” of values, ethics and appropriate behaviour. Egypt is a country without a “brain” and without a clear moral compass. The president has criticised religious rhetoric. He has criticised the media. He has criticised much that falls within the framework of the educational function of the state. The state is responsible for inculcating in its citizenry a minimal level of moral behaviour. This is an area where developed and underdeveloped societies differ. The state is responsible for five areas of discourse: political discourse, religious discourse, educational discourse, media discourse and artistic and cultural discourse. All these discourse areas are moving without a compass to distinguish right from wrong. Does the government approve or disapprove of the crude vocabulary we hear from people on our television screens? Approved, evidently, judging by the silence from that quarter. But what we hear from individual government leaders is totally contrary to any such “approval”. Such expressions of “personal rejection” are what I have in mind as entries in the national blog, where those responsible for the various educational discourses explain what is unacceptable and what is within the limits to the acceptable. Sixth is a three-year initiative to regulate population growth. Egypt can no longer tolerate uncontrolled birth rates. An awareness-raising campaign is of the essence. It should bring to bear the various political, religious, educational, media and cultural discourses to explain the dangers and the remedies. Following such an awareness campaign, the sword of the law needs to be wielded in order to protect Egypt from those Egyptians who fail to realise the detrimental impacts of their personal decisions. The seventh initiative is the social peace drive. It is based on a basic principle that holds: “People who obey the law are safe. People who abide by the principle of peacefulness are safe. People who take part in the political process peacefully are safe. “As for those who are bent on overthrowing the state, wreaking attrition on society and undermining government, they have chosen to face the penalties of the law.” In conclusion, I realise that investing in people is far more difficult than investing for people. I know that shaping minds and instilling morals are wearying uphill tasks. But they are the “missing duty”, as we say, and as long as it remains unperformed we will continue trying to remedy our problems with partial solutions. Otherwise put, as long as we continue to ignore the common denominator of all our problems ¾ the Egyptian person ¾ the development we desire will remain out of reach. President Al-Sisi is in the driver's seat. I expect that he will steer us in the direction envisioned by Gamal Hamdan, the author of The Personality of Egypt: A Study in the Genius of Place. As Hamdan wrote: “What Egypt basically needs is a psychological revolution in the sense of a revolution against the self, firstly, and against its psychology, secondly; which is to say a radical change in mentality, standards and ideology of life before a real change in lifestyle, state of being and fate. “A revolution by the Egyptian personality against the Egyptian personality this is the prerequisite for changing the character of Egypt, the state of Egypt and the future of Egypt.” The writer is a professor of Political Science, Cairo University.
