With positive and negative consequences, change is both inevitable and is the shifting tide all policymakers must address, writes Abdel-Moneim Said I am naturally concerned by the many changes that are sweeping the country. But what concerns me more, at this point, is how oblivious to them political elites seem. One would think that one of the chief functions of such elites, whatever their nationality, is to keep their fingers on the pulse of change and to use it to propel forward the processes of advancement and progress in their countries. I can understand the anxiety over certain ramifications of change and, hence, the slowness to respond to the yearning to catch up with other societies that have preceded us in the race to democracy. In fact, I even share the anxiety at times. However, there are many ways to push in this direction. Some involve various forms of political advocacy. Others involve creating the concrete circumstances conducive to the desired transformations. After all, the point is not just to become a democratic nation, it is to become a successful, dynamic and effective democratic nation, one that can form its governments when they're supposed to be formed and that can put its policies and programmes into effect more or less as planned. True, recent years have brought a plethora of seminars, commentaries and entire books on the extent of change -- large or small -- that Egyptian society has undergone. When you see such titles as "Whatever happened to Egyptians?" "The transformations in the Egyptian character," "Changes in Egyptian behavioural patterns" and "Shifts in the value system of the Egyptian people" you realise that something is afoot. But you quickly realise that most of these works are, in fact, compilations of impressions and biases based on the premise that what is happening in Egypt is a change for the worse or a regression. Far and few between are the writings that take as their starting point actual and indisputable facts. It is a fact, for example, that Egyptian society is very big. According to the General Census Bureau, the population of Egypt this year stands at 77,701,561, of which 39,726,187 are male and 37,975,474 are female. Around 43 per cent of the population lives in urban areas. Some 2,050,704 newborns were added to our population last year while 461,934 people died. Egypt's population is the 16th largest in the world, the third largest in Africa and the largest in the Arab world. International development organisations estimate that if Egyptian population growth continues at its present rate, we will have an additional 23 million people by 2025, which figure will increase to 45 million by 2050. According to the scientific literature, which is borne out by tangible testimony, Egyptian society is a very homogenous and cohesive society, with perhaps only Tunisia approaching it in this regard. It certainly does not have the religious and sectarian divides that characterise Lebanon and Iraq, for example, or the ethnic divides that are found in Sudan, Morocco and Algeria. This homogeneity accounts for the relative stability of Egyptian society, contrary to the impression some political activists might give and their augurs of an immanent explosion. In fact, the Copts cannot really be considered a "minority" in the political sense of the term. While a numerical minority, they are physically no different from Egyptian Muslims; they do not live in specific quarters and they are subject to the same civil laws as we all are. Last May I participated in a conference organised by the National Centre for Social and Criminal Research. The panel was chaired by Minister of Social Solidarity Ali Meselhi and also included Alieddin Hilal, professor of political science at Cairo University. The conference title was, "The Egyptian character in a changing world". I sensed a static quality in one side of that equation, which caused me to remark that one of our most prevalent myths is that Egyptian society is as constant and immutable as the Sphinx. Yet, I said, this society changed its religion from Pharaonic polytheism to Christianity and to Islam. It changed its language several times and it underwent hundreds of costume changes for men and women. Egyptian society has always been in constant flux, even if it changed more quickly in some aspects than in others. Today, as has always been the case, change is governed by the interplay between four variables: place, time, power and man. Place refers to the physical space or the geography that forms the material setting in which mankind lives and from which he derives sustenance. Time has to do with the interaction between technology and geography and, specifically, the ways in which the former makes the later shrink or expand and become both more complex and tightly knit. Power refers to the authorities that organise and regulate these processes, and set the no-go areas. Man is, ultimately, the mind that grasps all these relations and combines them in a framework of values and culture. Egyptians are deeply attached to their land, but their relationship with their land has changed. They are no longer fixed upon "dying on the land they were born on" and the days that would give rise to an operetta about an oud player who sold his land are long gone. The past 30 or so years have brought the largest ever wave of emigration. Some seven million Egyptians now live permanently or temporarily outside their country. A large portion of these is based in Arab Gulf countries, but a million have settled in North America and another million in Europe and Australia. The Egyptian relationship with their geographical region has changed at home, as well, with the shift of huge portions of the population from the countryside to the city, which was followed by a second shift from the city to the suburbs. Over the past three decades Egyptians moved to 33 completely new satellite cities, such as 6 October governorate, Al-Tagammu Al-Khamis, Shorouq and Rehab, which now combined house millions. The urbanised area of our country has expanded from three to seven per cent of the land, much of this stretching beyond the Nile Valley to the coastal areas. The relationship between the Egyptian people and time has undergone a change of perhaps even greater magnitude. For most of today's generations of Egyptians the wheel of daily life is now governed by modern IT. The computer, the mobile phone, the Internet, the fax and the satellite dish have made communications and transactions instantaneous. Yet if this is the most noticeable time-related change, and maybe the most exciting and profound, we should not overlook the spreading grid of modern highways that enable millions of Egyptians to speed from their homes in the cities to the coasts in the pursuit of leisure, commerce or services. Egyptians' relationship with power has also changed significantly. Contrary to the prevailing belief that holds that Egyptians are "apathetic" and "submissive", there has been a tangible change in the way people relate to authority. It manifests itself in the new social movements which existing institutions, such as the political parties, occupation syndicates, community associations and other organisational frameworks, have so far failed to incorporate. Another common fallacy is that these movements are located outside the National Democratic Party (NDP) and in the opposition camp, whereas in fact some of them can also be found within the NDP, albeit in other forms. A fourth aspect of change is to be found in the relationship between Egyptians and their society, with respect to which the concept of individuality is increasingly asserting itself. More and more people are looking for ways to distinguish themselves from others, whether in the clothes they wear, the food they eat, or their educational pursuits and artistic tastes. These trends do not just express themselves in the veil or blue jeans. Generations of Egyptians that we had long dismissed as apathetic, superficial, egotistical and insular have begun to take initiatives that have made them effective players in the public domain. The most prominent among these are Internet activists and bloggers. In my frequent discussions of this question recently I have tended to stress the positive aspects of change. These are, indeed, many. But they should not divert our attention from the detrimental impact change might have on the prevalence of crime, family relations, and the social and class structures of towns and cities. Such negative consequences are a natural price of change. But it is a price that the elites can counteract through the search for solutions to the problems that arise from change. The elite of the NDP, perhaps more than others, should take stock of the fact that its policies will inevitably precipitate change and that this can illicit challenges that require an appropriate response.
