Salama A Salama When US Senator John Kerry asked Fathi Sorour during his visit to the US Senate who he thought would succeed President Hosni Mubarak, the speaker of the People's Assembly responded: "And do you know who'll be the next president after George Bush?" News reports relate that the American senator simply smiled and made no comment. Kerry may or may not have realised that he had just been treated to the Arab version of evading the question: a short quip to avoid embarrassment and to change the subject. But he certainly has a pretty good idea of who the next American president will be. There are only three possibilities: either the Republican candidate or one of the two contenders for the Democratic ticket, Obama or Clinton. In fact, almost every American has a pretty clear idea of who he thinks will win, because in the US the possibility doesn't exist of some dark horse popping out of the wings and parachuting into the Oval Office. This is the advantage of electoral campaigns in democratic countries, whatever one might say about all their noise and fanfare and mutual accusations. Every voter has the right to form his own opinion, to choose without coercion, and to bear responsibility for his choice. Every voter can engage his independent will and conscience in the process of democratic change, a process that takes place in accordance with constitutionally stipulated timeframes and procedures that leave no room for individual whim or the arbitrariness of fate. So, all those discussions, seminars and debates they hold at various junctures are not for nothing. They are what help the public make up their minds, for or against the candidates and what they stand for, so that by the end of those campaign months voters can go to the polls and the majority can have its say on the shape of the forthcoming presidency and the direction of US foreign and domestic policies. These public debates and constructive dialogues are what enrich the democratic process and help equip the public to take part in that political process in accordance with which power is peacefully and naturally transferred from party to party and from one president to another. They are very different, indeed virtually the antithesis to the types of dialogue we see in Arab countries where the aim is generally to release a bit of pent-up steam, or to smother public opinion with more smoke and fog, or to drive home the message that the ruling elite is in full control and that change will avail nothing and even bring disaster if opposition forces are brought to power. In Egypt, as in every other Arab society, we hold dozens of conferences and seminars every day, to discuss the present and future of political reform, municipal and parliamentary elections, human rights and the status of women, Danish cartoons, the anti-terrorist law, among other things. If these conferences and seminars do not erupt into quarrels and recriminations, or even if they do, they inevitably conclude with recommendations and resolutions that change nothing. The reason they change nothing is that these meetings are restricted to a handful of expert conference attendees and are more akin to private clubs that the broader public is unaware of and not interested in. Once, I decided to count the number of "important" meetings that were held one day. There was the Arab Reform Conference, held annually in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, bringing together some 400 prominent intellectuals and media figures from around the Arab world. There was the annual festival on the reform and democratisation process, a process that has barely left first base since the festival started five years ago. The National Council for Women was celebrating International Women's Day, the Judges Club was holding a seminar to discuss the anti-terrorism law, the provisions of which continue to remain one of the government's most tightly guarded secrets, and assorted workshops and roundtables were going on here and there. What do all these meetings produce? Do they contribute to shaping an informed public on any of the issues connected with progress and development? Or, in view of the closed channels of communication between our intellectual and cultural elites and the general public, is their produce similar to the wealth that gluts the top of the social hierarchy because our development policies have never succeeded in making it trickle down to the lower rungs? My greatest fear is that all those meetings and all that talk is really just a lot of running around in place. I certainly can detect no signs of progress, not even gradual progress, and that is frightening in a world that has no time for laggards. So, Senator Kerry, I think you have your answer now, though I bet you had already guessed it.
