Dina Ezzat listens in as President Mubarak uses his speech on the 35th anniversary of the October War to rekindle the spirit of a glorious event In his annual address celebrating the anniversary of the 6 October War, President Hosni Mubarak reiterated his commitment to work for improving the nation's socio-economic standards in a fashion that observes "social justice" and aims to live up to the expectations of the people. A unified nation that was able to achieve a military victory in the 1973 October War, Mubarak argued, could still live up to the challenges of today. These challenges, he said, are about confronting "terrorism" that still targets the stability of the nation and the entire region; making ends meet in a complex set-up of "over-population" and "limited resources"; "upgrading the quality of education"; increasing "productivity" and "competitiveness"; improving "public services"; confronting "poverty" with all its manifestations especially "shantytowns"; and establishing "social justice". In a statement addressed to the nation and an interview accorded exclusively to the Armed Forces newspaper, the president did not make any reference to what seems to be the top two concerns of the opposition and independent quarters: political reform and a government reshuffle. The relevant words were simply not spoken by the president who expressed pride in "the long period of serving the nation" and resolved to stay the course despite the many challenges that he numbered, starting with "terrorism" and ending with "social justice". "We have no alternative but to continue the liberalisation of our economy so as to [be able to] deal with the world in line with the [prevailing] facts and modes," Mubarak said in his address to the nation on Sunday. The objective of this liberalisation, he explained in the same statement, was to "continue to secure high levels of investment, employment and economic growth." In his interview with Armed Forces, printed in full by the semi-official dailies on Tuesday morning, Mubarak reiterated the acute economic challenges still facing a nation of a growing population -- now nearing 80 million -- and "limited resources" despite "the fact that our economy has bypassed the slow growth years". He, however, expressed commitment to stick to a "gradual" approach in liberalisation to avoid a harsh impact on the "limited-income citizen[s]" that he said continue to be his main and top priority. In the same interview Mubarak acknowledged the need for much harder work on the part of the government to provide better public services to all segments of the population "across the nation". This, he said, should demonstrate sensitivity on the part of the government to the concept of social justice. "Social justice is about fairness in distributing the rewards of [economic] reform among all citizens and fairness in providing citizens with employment [opportunities] and services ... always with an eye on containing poverty," he said. Mubarak, however, did not elaborate on the road the nation needs to take towards achieving the unique unity that confronted the horrid defeat of 1967. As normally expected in such a symbolic occasion, the president did not touch on foreign or security policy priorities that could support home front achievements despite the obvious references to national interest guidelines of good neighbourly relations with other Arab countries, close cooperation with developing states, especially African and Islamic, stable relations with the world powers, especially the US, and continued peace with Israel. It seems that those who criticise the slow pace of home front political reforms and foreign and security policy priorities and performance must wait for another occasion to learn more about the plans the president has for the future. The inaugural speech that he delivers at the opening of parliament in a few weeks could be that opportunity.
