When Mohamed Hassanein Heikal speaks, people listen. Amina Elbendary attended his lecture at AUC On Monday evening, senior political analyst, commentator, journalist and writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal was the guest speaker at the resurrected Arabic Public Lecture Series at the American University in Cairo. Ewart Hall was packed. It was Heikal's second public appearance this month. Last week, he delivered a two- hour long talk on the private satellite channel Dream TV which later aired the AUC lecture as well. But contrary to expectations, Heikal did not choose to talk about regional politics at AUC; neither the war in Palestine nor the impending war on Iraq were at the crux of his lecture. Entitled "The Future is Now", Heikal's lecture focused on Egypt's political and social history in the past 50 years with the aim of drawing 'a map for the future'. Egypt is currently at the threshold of a new political stage -- one that could carry it over to a new era of legitimacy, he argued. The country is at a political juncture of sorts which requires a sophisticated strategy that would ensure a smooth and ordered transition to this new stage, one that could be markedly different from its post- revolutionary regimes was Heikal's contention. Heikal criticised the summer celebrations marking the golden jubilee of the July 1952 Revolution. Long associated with the regime of late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser (with whom he enjoyed a close relationship), Heikal found the celebrations too theatrical, lacking in substantive content, and designed to accommodate and gloss over differences. "The jubilee could have been an occasion to place before the nation a map of sorts, revealing as it guides, but unfortunately, all that was placed before us was a photo album, one devoid of logic and meaning," he argued. The photo album was a recurring motif throughout the lecture, referring, as Heikal did, to the portraits of Egypt's four leading men -- its four presidents since the 1952 Revolution. Indeed the photos of presidents Mohamed Naguib, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Anwar El-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak have been published side by side and presented to the public as comprising a political continuum, as though the four shared the same frame of reference and sources of legitimacy -- a point Heikal takes issue with. He argues that the past half-century is made up of different political stages. Heikal resorted to Weberian definitions of legitimacy, explaining that Egypt had grown out of the traditional stage into the transitional "charismatic" stage of one man rule. The country still awaits the stage of legal-rational legitimacy. The man whose photo is placed first in the album, General Naguib, legitimised the transition from monarchy to republic. Nasser, on the other hand, embodied the imperatives behind the change and transition. The revolutionary regime was a metamorphosis of a national Egyptian project. It had Egyptian, regional and humanistic dimensions that intermingled with Arab, Islamic, Asian and African ones. The July Revolution faced a legitimacy crisis with the 1967 defeat, however. The masses chose to resist this defeat and continue fighting, by taking to the streets on 9 and 10 June protesting Nasser's resignation. But that was only a temporary solution to the legitimacy crisis. Even Nasser, Heikal insists, realised that an era was coming to an end. Nasser's successor, whose portrait is third in the album, President Anwar El-Sadat, continued on Nasser's path until the defeat was reversed. The October War of 1973 marked the end of July's legitimacy and ushered in its own. Its identity was solidly Egyptian, its frame of reference a type of capitalism referred to as "infitah" or open- door, and in the sphere of domestic politics, the single party was transformed into three different platforms -- right, left and centre. In foreign relations a special relationship with the United States was pursued, followed by a strategy of reconciling with Israel, though the 1973 war was based on a wide Arab coalition including close cooperation with Syria and involving Soviet arms after Sadat failed to convince the US to help reach a fair settlement of the Middle East crisis. This basic contradiction, Heikal argued, was at the heart of the legitimacy crisis faced by the October regime, along with the fact that those sectors of society who paid the economic price for the victory were not the ones to reap its rewards. The bread riots of 18 and 19 January 1977 compelled the regime to resort to the armed forces to subdue the masses when they revolted. This crisis of legitimacy, Heikal surmises, was in part behind El- Sadat's decision to visit Jerusalem that same year in the hope that this initiative would break the last barriers between Egypt and the US, placing the country on equal footing with Israel. It is a sad irony, remarked Heikal, that the date marking October's legitimacy also marked its end; El-Sadat was assassinated on the anniversary of the October victory. The subject of the fourth portrait, President Hosni Mubarak, was eager to assure his independence early on, Heikal suggested. Mubarak, argued Heikal, underlined that he was not a successor of July or October. He promised a move towards legal- rational legitimacy. Yet, many domestic, regional and international variables hindered and slowed down this process. The rise of religious fundamentalism at home, the intensification of the Cold War under the administration of US President Ronald Reagan, civil wars in Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen and Algeria and the two Gulf wars encouraged a policy of caution and deferment. In the face of such pressures a strategy developed where compromises and further deferment were often the chosen solutions, Heikal said. In the meantime, a number of significant developments occurred, said Heikal, which have undermined Egypt's strategic influence in the region. The balance of forces in the region has been radically altered bringing Israel close to achieving the dream of its architect and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, of isolating Egypt behind its borders and giving the Zionist state free rein in the eastern Arab lands. Furthermore, misuse of public funds and corruption in the banking sector have occurred, causing serious damage to the national economy while Egypt's leading cultural role is diminishing. It is time, he pleaded, for a new level of legitimacy: legal-rational authority. It is time for Egypt to transcend the stage of traditional legitimacy as well as the transitional stage of one-man-rule and charismatic authority. What Heikal proposed is a national dialogue throughout the remaining three years of the current presidency in order to reach a collective national decision on drawing a new map for the future. In this respect, Heikal commented on speculation surrounding the bequeathing of the presidency in Egypt. Both President Mubarak and the son around whom speculation revolves, Gamal Mubarak, have both emphatically rejected this notion on a number of occasions, Heikal reminded the audience. Egypt is not like other states that are governed by sectarian, tribal or clan politics, while republics, by default, do not allow for the inheritance of power. Heikal's proposal is that the presidency put forth a project for the constitutional transition to a new era -- from transitional charismatic legitimacy to stable legal- rational legitimacy. And, he stressed, the president is in the best position to lead this project. In answer to a question posed following the lecture concerning the particulars of such a project, he commented that the issue of constitutional reform should also be up for discussion since, in many respects, the 1971 constitution has become anachronistic. By next fall such a project should inform the subject of a national conference beyond the limitations of any one political party, he suggested. This project for the transition of power cannot be postponed till the eleventh hour, Heikal insisted. "What worries me most," he stressed in answer to another question, "is a scenario of chaos." The time is now. The future is now. Related stories: Heikal's dream 10 - 16 October 2002
