To Be a Fan of Gamal Mubarak

Referring to Gamal Mubarak earlier this year, a senior editor at the distinguished London Review of Books wrote that "he may be the only person who is more widely disliked in Egypt than his father." After ten years in the spot light, the banker-turned-hotshot-politician could not bond with the majority of Egyptians. His competence as an astute politician, let alone his eligibility for the presidency of the Egyptian state, is still highly questioned.

At odds with this reality, a campaign called "The Popular Campaign to Support Gamal Mubarak" was recently launched to nominate Gamal Mubarak to the presidency in next year's elections. According to the coordinator of the group, 100,000 signatures have been collected so far, and more signatures are expected to flow as the campaign intensifies its efforts in many governorates. In tandem, the powerful pro-Gamal clique in the NDP and business circles has become less guarded in its espousal of Gamal's "political future" — more precisely, the presidency.

There are two types of Gamal Mubarak's followers. First, the opportunists who support him for their own personal benefits: the apparatchiks in the NDP hunting for a rise in hierarchy and prestige; the businessmen who believe that Gamal's ascendance to power will serve their business interests; and the self-seekers who climb the bandwagon of any would-be man at the helm. Second, there are those who sincerely think that Mubarak Jr. is the best choice for Egypt's future.

Though the second group is apparently made up of a small minority, their existence still raises a number of vital questions: Why do Gamal's supporters think that his election as president would serve the national interest of Egypt? What kind of arguments do they lean on to accept a rather unscrupulous father-to-son succession of power? Why do they feel affinity with, and pay allegiance to, a man who is so unpopular, so ostracized by the majority?

Do these faithful supporters believe that appearance is more important than substance? This is not a sarcastic question. Many admirers of Gamal Mubarak praise his good looks, his nicely-cut business suits, his mastering of English, and his open-minded mentality. Except for a few exceptions, most Egyptian politicians for the past few decades have been old, unappealing, speaking an outdated language, and they came from humble social backgrounds. Gamal represents a different generation, one that is better educated, more exposed to the outside world, one that speaks the language of modern times.

That these personal qualities are irrelevant to the real performance of a politician, it seems, is not so clear to them, unless these ardent believers in Gamal succumb to the conception that Gandhi liberated his nation with the help of a Gucci suit and a pair of fancy sunglasses. Or, perhaps, they overlook the fact that none fancied the presidential seat among the millions of Egyptians with the same traits; after all, none of them is the son of the president.

The support for Gamal Mubarak is usually clothed in the robes of the argument that Gamal will be a "civilian" president, unlike all Egyptian rulers since 1952. If we take this argument seriously – a no easy task for sane people - we will be tempted to believe that the entire population of Egypt is made up of men and women in uniform, and that Gamal represents Egypt's "only hope" to demilitarize the country.

Gamal, we are also told with a self-congratulatory tone, is a "young" candidate who will modernize Egypt and drive it smoothly into the thriving hub of the 21st century's world. It is as though Egypt is barren of youth and vigor. Moreover, Gamal will turn 47 next year; not so young in abstract terms, but certainly very young when compared to his 82-year-old father. So if being young is the sole yardstick used to measure leaders, then Mubarak Sr. should have long been deposed.

These glib arguments are emblematic of the infected discourse of Gamal's support base.

In addition, the fans of Gamal Mubarak do not exhibit any glimmer of awareness of the very basic facts of Egyptian politics. One need not be a genius to know that Egypt has for many decades been ruled by an authoritarian regime that has no appetite for democracy or rotation of office, and that all elections were systematically rigged to perpetuate the dominance of the ruling party. In accord with these longstanding practices, presidential elections will, quite certainly, be rigged to smooth Gamal's path to the presidency. And if Gamal becomes president, the politics of the status quo, which Gamal helped design and execute for the past ten years, will be maintained and deepened. If an Egyptian doesn’t know this, he is ignorant; if he does know this but condone it, he is corrupt.

Some important questions crop up from the talk of political corruption. What about the dominance of nepotism that enabled Gamal to rise in the ruling party, until he became its Deputy Secretary General in a few years? Could this speedy rise in power take place had he not been the president's son? To these questions, they remain silent, but silence is an answer too.

Obviously, one word seems to be missing from these fans' lexicon: legitimacy. Legitimacy will surely mean so little if Gamal becomes president through the NDP's democratic sham.

Nor do these fans pay attention to Egypt's stature in the region and the world, which will be shattered by the father-son succession of power. While Egyptians mourn as they see the age of Egypt-the-manor house take over and quash the ages of Egypt-the-culture/civilization/enlightenment/model/progress, etc, Gamal's supporters think it is time to jubilate. Is straight thinking so difficult?

However, to give them the due benefit of the doubt, the possibility that they care more about economic and social performance than democratic practice and constitutional legitimacy should be taken into account. These followers are possibly disciples of the school of the "fair dictator," which is prevalent in Egypt and the Arab world. If this is the case, then maybe these enthusiasts think that only Gamal will guarantee the continuation of his father's "golden" era in Egypt. Under Hosni Mubarak, they probably assume, Egypt witnessed an "an unprecedented process of development" that should be preserved and built upon.

But, is there still any doubt about the abysmal heritage of Hosni Mubarak? After thirty years of failure, the deterioration in public services, be it education, health, electricity, water, or transportation, needs no compelling proof; just a bit of common sense and general wisdom. Images that reflect widespread poverty, negligence, inefficiency, skewed planning and mismanagement of resources besiege Egyptians at every turn in their daily lives. And there has been no breakthrough in economy, foreign policy or democratization. So, again, one must be so effectively brainwashed by the regime's defunct propaganda to hold such out-of-touch-with-reality beliefs.

Naively, Gamal's supporters use the example of Bush Senior and Junior – father and son becoming presidents - to justify and suggest a similar scenario in Egypt. Eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency are thus swiftly erased from the historical record, along with the legal and political sea of differences separating between America's and Egypt's systems.

The unsophisticated arguments of the Gamal faction have this tragi-farce effect that leaves one bewildered, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Reading and listening to these arguments could be enormously useful, but only if one has an appetite for comedy — black comedy.

A poll conducted at the website of Al-Jazeera channel last month asked the following question: Do you join the Egyptian opposition's rejection of the nomination of Gamal Mubarak to the presidency? 91% voted no, showing that, contrary to prevalent stereotypes, the people of Egypt and the Arab world can, thank God, still spot the difference between good and bad apples.

Nael M. Shama

* This article was published in Daily News (Egypt) on September 17, 2010.

In the Footsteps of Fascists: The Mubaraks and Egyptian Football

Football and politics are not two mutually exclusive realms as many may think. To gain legitimacy, bolster their rule and spread their ideology, various political leaders have turned football into a political and ideological battlefield. In the heyday of Fascism, for example, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco used football to achieve multiple political ends.

Though the Italian leader Benito Mussolini was not a fan of football, the rising popularity of the game in the 1920s impelled him to pay attention to its dynamics and impact. "Opportunity," argues Professor of International Sports History Pierre Lanfranchi, is the key word that explains "why this wedding between fascism and football worked well," a wedding that ushered in the age of "football in a black skirt."

Italian fascists were attuned to the influence of popular culture. They realized that through football, they can effectively reach and influence the masses. According to Simon Martin, historian and author of Football and Fascism: The National Game under Mussolini, fascists "were very keen to attach themselves to the sport all over the country." Football was exploited domestically to create consensus by developing a sense of national Italian identity and cement Il Duce's popularity, and internationally to promote Italy's image in the world.

Adolf Hitler also used the magnificent appeal of football to serve the parochial interests of his Nazi regime. As host of the World Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, the master of propaganda in the 1930s scored a huge propaganda success, just as Mussolini had done with Italy's organization of the 1934 World Football Cup.

After WW II, Spain's notorious Francisco Franco became aware of the appealing charm of football. In the age of television, he made sure football games are broadcast on TV, to keep people off the streets when social turmoil was anticipated. Franco adopted the Spanish Capital's major club – Real Madrid – considering it the symbolic embodiment of his fascist regime. The current rivalry between the teams of Real Madrid and Barcelona dates back to Franco's adoption of the former and his suppression of the latter.

Mubarak rejuvenated these long-forgotten fascist traditions. In a country like Egypt, where successes are rare, and corruption, despotism and inefficiency are commonplace, getting associated with football seemed to be the only way for Mubarak's authoritarian regime to fill its acute legitimacy deficit. In Egypt, football is the opium of the masses. Egyptians jokingly say that the biggest two political parties in the country are Al-Ahly and Zamalek—Egypt's top football clubs. With millions of enthusiastic supporters, the fans of these two clubs far outnumber members of all political parties who suffer from state oppression, which has ensured the dominance of the ruling national Democratic Party (NDP) over the past thirty years.

No wonder thus, after his rise to power in 1981, the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sought to give his people the impression of a healthy leader, who wakes up early, plays tennis, and is genuinely interested in sports. The official media has depicted him ever since as "the guardian of sports and sportsmen," and Mubarak spared no chance to confirm this image.

Last November, the fierce competition between Egypt and its archrival, Algeria, resulted in a vicious propaganda campaign between the two countries. In the heat of the crisis, Mubarak called the Egyptian Ambassador from Algiers. In foreign relations, Mubarak has been a lifetime pragmatist, who favors diplomacy and reconciliation, and shies away from conflict and confrontation. But appeasing the disgruntled football fans was an opportunity not to be missed.

Furthermore, the Egyptian state' interference in football has left its prints on Egyptian football. In the recent few years, formidable state institutions have poured massive funds into their own clubs, resulting in a fundamental shift in the structure of the Egyptian Football League. In the season 2009/2010, seven teams in the first division of the league (which comprises 16 teams) were funded and run by the ministries of Interior, Defense, Military Production and Petroleum. Consequently, the popular teams, that have historically shaped Egyptian football for the past century or so, have suffered from negligence and scarcity of resources, and many dropped to the second division. Major Egyptian cities, such as Tanta, Mansoura, Aswan, Al-Minya, and Damietta are not represented anymore in the first division.

Football also figures heavily in the current heated question of succession to the nearly three-decade rule of the octogenarian Hosni Mubarak. Like father, like son. The recent national football team's winning of the African Cup of Nations – the third in a row – was a golden photo opportunity that Gamal Mubarak, Hosni's Mubarak's son and heir apparent, could not miss. Gamal attended the final match in Angola and headed back home with the team, to salute the masses that flocked to Cairo Airport to receive the heroes.

Egypt's gigantic official propaganda machine claimed that the moral support Gamal Mubarak had given to the national football team was crucial to its bright success. The media's feverish attempts to attach the achievements of the team to the genius of Gamal Mubarak prompted an independent Egyptian journalist to ask: "Is it Egypt's national team, or the team of Gamal Mubarak?"

True, football was used by authoritarian regimes, but it could also be the antidote against the evils of authoritarianism. Many Egyptian activists contemplate using stadiums to express their support of former International Atomic Agency Chief, Mohamed El-Baradei, who, since declaring his readiness to run in the 2011 presidential elections, came to symbolize Egyptians' hope in a democratic and free Egypt.

Nael M. Shama

2011

Egypt is today in a transitional phase. Presidential elections are scheduled for 2011, but Egyptians are still uncertain about whether incumbent Hosni Mubarak is intending to run for a sixth term, or if he is willing to witness, or indeed oversee, a transition of power to another president.

Hosni Mubarak is in the eyes of one group of analysts a replica of power-hungry Third World authoritarian rulers, who would not relinquish authority under any circumstances. They stay in power as long as they stay in life. Mubarak's infamous statement a few years ago that he will continue to serve the nation "until the last pulse" of his heart reinforced this group's conviction that Mubarak's disappearance from the stage of Egyptian politics will only accompany his death, and never before that.

A number of reasons, however, suggest that Mubarak may not run for a new term, preferring instead to groom his son Gamal Mubarak as his successor.

First, those in the corridors of Egyptian politics and economics who began pushing for the "tawreeth" (inheritance of Gamal) scenario a few years ago based their strategy on buying time. This choice was inevitable then for two reasons. First, they realized that imposing on Egyptian people a sudden and unwanted father-to-son transmission of power could trigger wide-ranging public protests that might jeopardize the entire plan. Second, they realized that this strategy goes best with the personality of President Mubarak, who has exhibited since 1981 a natural tendency towards moderation and gradualism, and an inherent aversion to "electric-shock" policies to which his predecessors grew accustomed.

Buying time was fitting when the plan was launched around nine years ago, but, today, the pro-Gamal clique understands that buying further time is a failing strategy. If in 2011 Hosni Mubarak (at the age of 83) runs for a new six-year term, biologically speaking, the possibility of his death or incapacitation during that term will be high. Talk about the deterioration of Mubarak's health is already rife, and there are indeed visible signs that support that talk. Certainly, if Hosni Mubarak passes away as President, Gamal will lose his main base of support, and his chances of rising to power will be greatly reduced.

Secondly, throughout his reign, Mubarak's concern for the stability of his country and regime outbid all other priorities. Now, at the age of 81, it makes sense to believe that Mubarak is speculating over Egypt's fate following his demise. Even if one succumbed to the accusations of Mubarak's harshest critics, who believe that the President's concern for Egypt's national interest has diminished over the years, and has been replaced by a narrow interest in the wellbeing of himself and his family, one would still be left with Mubarak's apprehension about the safety and welfare of his family after his demise. A smooth transfer of power that maintains stability, and with it the safety of his family, must be looming high in his calculations. Such an arrangement will likely work out if Gamal succeeds him as president.

Thirdly, opposition forces are in shambles, unable to disrupt any of the regime's grand schemes. The Muslim Brotherhood, the most effective and organized opposition force, has been subject to a serious of security crackdowns since their impressive showing in the 2005 parliamentary elections. These measures have undermined the group, and diminished its capacity to defy the regime. Other opposition groups are weak, internally fragmented, suffer from a lack of resources, and their influence in the Egyptian street is limited.

In brief, politics in Egypt is in a miserable state of stagnation and fragmentation. Opposition parties and intellectuals are engaged in heated, theoretical, political debates, while average Egyptians are too busy making a living to care about the subtleties of political affairs. Nobody is more aware of the nature of this situation than the regime, for it was the architect of this "de-politization" process. Thus, Mubarak and his cohorts are probably concluding that Gamal's takeover of power will pass by smoothly, with minimal opposition and civil unrest.

Fourth, there are indicators that Mubarak's regime has strived lately to secure America's acquiescence of Gamal's rise to the presidency. The regime has also tried to convince major political and societal forces to back, explicitly or tacitly, the grooming of Gamal for the presidency. Last July, Pope Shenouda III suggested that Gamal would be the best candidate to succeed his father. Along with the Egyptian Orthodox Church, other political forces (including the Muslim Brotherhood group) may have been enticed or intimidated to take similar positions.

Will 2011 be as important as 1952, 1970 and 1981 to Egypt's history?


Nael M. Shama

* This article was published in Daily News (Egypt) on August 27, 2009.

Gamal Abdel Nasser vs. Gamal Mubarak

Two chapters in the chronicles of modern Egyptian leaders narrate the story of two men and the sea of change separating the nature of the country's political leadership in fifty years. Generations apart, both men are influential politicians with wide aspirations, a penchant for change and the spirit of youth. The first is Gamal Abdel-Nasser (ruled 1954-1970) and the second is Gamal Mubarak, Egypt's current quasi-president and, most probably, the next resident of the presidential palace.

While Gamal Abdel-Nasser's ascendancy to the presidency was based on his own merits, political authority was handed over to Gamal Mubarak on a silver plate. In the late 1940s, Nasser formed - and led - the clandestine 'Free Officers' movement that overthrew the monarchy smoothly in 1952. The group expanded to include more than 250 officers, kept its secrecy for years and seized power without firing a shot, quite an exception by the standards of conventional Third World coups. Hence, Nasser's rise to the presidency came as a result of hard work, minute planning, a sense of initiative and a great deal of risk-taking, and the whole venture was motivated by the 'noble' cause of purging foreign troops and eliminating the rotten regime. Even though the revolution has, in the eyes of many, deviated from its initial goals, quite nobody denounces the necessity of ending the rule of Mohamed Ali's family whose last monarch had saved no chance to prove his incompetence and ignorance.

Gamal Mubarak's tedious tale includes none of this. His hard work was, instead, limited to the arena of 'wasta', the magical solution utilized mostly by the incompetent to transcend the law in their quest for benefits. Furthermore, in contrast to Nasser's snail's pace, the impatient Gamal Mubarak was carried by a spaceship to the higher echelons of the National Democratic Party (NDP). He joined the party in the year 2000 straight into the General Secretariat, a position senior members have strived for decades to get hold of in total vain. Just two years later, a new secretariat was designed and set up specifically for him. Gamal commanded the 'Policies Secretariat' that was, then, portrayed by the NDP's Secretary-General Safwat Al-Sherif as the party's "heart and brain". A few days after his 42nd birthday, the whiz kid was further elevated to the position of Deputy Secretary-General, just two steps away from the man at the helm. To profess that the rise in the chain of command of Egypt's clogged political system was an accomplishment born of the golden boy's genius and talent reflects either a fatalistic type of naivety or a callous attempt at deception.

Furthermore, Gamal Abdel-Nasser's early and profound interest in politics is all too known. He was arrested during an anti-British demonstration at the age of sixteen, prowled around the underground world of revolutionary movements and moved about Egypt at length in his early years. In the Palestine war, Nasser's battalion survived a ten-week siege in Al-Faluja and got a hero's reception back home. Afterwards, Nasser indulged himself with creating and reinforcing the 'Free Officers' movement that, in due course, changed the face of Egypt and the whole Middle East. In brief, Nasser's life was, at all accounts, rich, dynamic and adventuresome.

Gamal Mubarak's life journey took on a different course, one that is staid, banal and unlikely to produce a deep understanding of the country's complex realities. Living behind the gates of presidential palaces under heavy security measures (ever since Hosni Mubarak was appointed Vice President thirty-two years ago) inhibited his social activity and provided him with little inspiration. In addition, it was not before his late thirties that he showed any serious interest in politics. By that phase in life, Nasser had already nationalized the Suez Canal Company and emerged as the mythical hero of the Arab world, a second 'Saladin' who would restore 'Arab dignity' and bring about independence from the great powers.

The absence of democratic practice notwithstanding, the popularity of Gamal Abdel-Nasser's political and ideological choices in the early years of the revolution gave him a mandate to proceed with the line of policy he had articulated and effectuated. His authority in Egypt - and beyond - closely corresponded to the 'charismatic' type of authority elucidated in detail by the German sociologist Max Weber in his masterpiece 'The Theory of Social and Economic organization'. In fact, if Weber's theory needed an ideal case study in the Arab world, then Nasser would be its best candidate.

In contrast, Gamal Mubarak is the paragon of toying with politics with no cover of legitimacy. His wide prerogatives are, indeed, unconstitutional and had stirred relentless public condemnation. To compensate for that deficiency, the wunderkind was introduced by his bird-brained entourage as the architect of future political reform, the only savior of Egypt's democracy against the heavy odds of tyranny and repression. But, ironically, the aspirant to injecting democracy into the congealed blood of the authoritarian state has never been elected by the people. Instead, he was parachuted into Egyptian politics by mere virtue of kinship. Even to the blind, five years in power have visibly shown that the lame 'reform from within' rationale was just a smokescreen shrewdly used by Gamal's henchmen to buy more time while authoritarianism endures and a hereditary republic approaches.

Apparently, no substantial change followed the sidelining of the party's 'old guard' from positions of authority. Gamal Mubarak and Kamal El-Shazly essentially represent - despite the visible difference in façade - the two sides of the same coin. The 'new thought' slogan propagated by Gamal's team scores high on the scale of political slogans, promising progress and emancipation of the chains of despotism. But, in reality, it is a cheap replica of the old days' defunct slogans; it hypnotizes masses while authoritarianism reproduces itself in a new dazzling outfit with excessive make-up and lots of accessories. Mournfully, some booby-traps in Egypt are disguised as 'heaven-sent gifts'.

On the personal level, Gamal Mubarak is a decent and well-educated man who has probably loads of good intentions, qualifications that make him an impressive groom for many brides― other than Egypt. Whether the President is grooming his son as successor (as the hawkish opposition papers assert) or the son hardly convinced his father to join the party (as the President once claimed), the discussion of Gamal's political career was confined to the domain of the small family, a painful reminder of the ways national issues are resolved in royal families.

One certain aspect of royal families is that they are glued to power like flies to fluorescent. Boutros-Ghali acknowledged that power is like alcohol, both are tragically prone to addiction. In this context, it is worthwhile to remember that Gamal Abdel-Nasser resigned after the humiliating defeat of 1967. He believed that a successor who was on good terms with the Americans would be in a better position to regain the occupied territories. On the other hand, Gamal Mubarak's thirst for political power will, if the current trend continues, lead to a father-to-son transmission of power.

In other words, Gamal Abdel-Nasser divested himself of the presidency to set his country free, while Gamal Mubarak will, by climbing to the presidential seat, enslave the country to a notorious hereditary republic precedent. The former resigned despite his glaring accomplishments in economy, development and foreign policy. And the latter is adamant about satisfying his political ambitions, in spite of the drastic failures of previous NDP governments in quite everything they undertook.

The American novelist Herman Melville argued that the meaning of anything is deserved by contrast, for 'nothing exists in itself'. The Arabic saying also goes that 'things are differentiated by contrast'. The power of contrast is, indeed, mind-boggling. Digging into the chronicles of Egyptian politics does provide some good evidence.

Nael M. Shama

* This article was published in Daily News (Egypt) on March 6, 2008.