Wahid Abdel-Meguid examines why celebrations of 6 October are so muted A quarter of a century is usually sufficient to allow for an objective view of a particular event, specific policy, or even the performance of a leader to be formed. This is not the case, though, 25 years after the death of President Anwar El-Sadat. Our view of the period of his rule -- a time of upheaval that continues to mark both Egypt and the region - may be more objective than at the time he was in office but the difference is not so marked. Some of the most significant components of Egypt's current crisis stem from the Sadat era and though it also witnessed some remarkable achievements in the end it is the worst decisions made and executed by Sadat that have had the greatest influence on Egypt's current situation. Sadat ushered in major socio-economic transformations that shook society, exhausted it and dictated a deformed development of social structures and values. These did not stem from the direction of the transformation per se but rather its randomness and, to an even greater extent, its timing. The problem was not in the rightward shift away from something similar to socialism to something resembling capitalism. The problem was in the arbitrary way this transformation developed, the dumbfounding randomness with which centres of political and social power were restructured. As the marriage between power and wealth was consummated those with influence came more and more to resemble the Mameluke princes of the past. Some of them accrued more power than state institutions; one, in Alexandria, was so powerful that the port city's governor and leading statesmen had to bow before him. This distorted relationship is one of the imbalances that resulted from the random nature of the socio-economic transformation that El-Sadat pursued as an alternative to the policies of Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Sadat embarked on his shift to the right when Egyptian society was still reeling from the earlier Nasserite reorientation towards the left. That two such transformations should occur in quick succession created stymied formal economic development and what emerged was an anomalous form of capitalism ruled by corruption, speculation, the plunder of public money and the absence of accountability, not least among ths apparatuses of the state. Sadat's shift created a capitalism of greedy whose ambition was not to create a truly free market but maximise their profits in the shortest possible time. There was no investment in research and development, nothing that might indicate the taking of a longer view. Not a penny of the massive profits was spent on building a more prosperous future. Egypt was once again in the throes of change without having had time to absorb the major shifts of the 1960s. Major socio-economic transformations, regardless of orientation, shake society to its roots. They restructure it, redraw relations between groups and classes and reorder dominant values. Society needs several decades to absorb these seismic shifts; without it resembles a marathon runner who, after completing one marathon, is immediately expected to embark on another without being allowed any time to recuperate. It was an exhausted society that Sadat was redirecting, and the consequences of this exhaustion remain until today. The Egypt Sadat left was in a state of political, social and religious trauma. It was in desperate need of a period of calm so that it could regain its strength. Yet instead of being allowed to cool following the assassination of Sadat Egypt was placed in the freezer. The political freeze that occurred following his death has extended till now. Three generations have grown in this arctic atmosphere during which the generation gap has widened and faith in public life and institutions has crumbled. Confidence in both the regime and the opposition has been eroded. Egypt has lost any direction and appears ruled by random movements. Most serious of the consequences that began with the transformation caused by El-Sadat is the way in which corruption has become so embedded that it is now the norm. So pervasive is this rot that it has inevitably overshadowed what might be seen as the achievements of Sadat's period in office, including his wise command of the 1973 October, the anniversary of which coincides with his death. The anniversary of the war that enabled the liberation of occupied Egyptian territory and allowed the country to reclaim a dignity that had been buried beneath the sands of Sinai since 1967 now passes all but unnoticed. How can the amnesia of Egyptians towards one of the great events of the last century be explained? It can only be explained within the context of the changes Sadat's other transformations brought, changes that after three decades have now turned Egyptians into bodies without souls. It is the most dangerous transformation that can be wrought on any people, this sinking of the soul, the extinguishing of all light. As the late Mohamed Sid Ahmed said, barely a month had passed before the pickaxe of destruction was applied to the endeavours of six years - a period of reconstruction of which the 1973 victory was the culmination - and the results of which have brought us to where we stand today. Egypt's subsequent political performance has been dire. The nation's economic-political transformation allowed many of those who had brought victory to sink to the bottom of society while the corrupt, speculators and swindlers in every shape and form, have risen to the heights.
