Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ducked the assassin’s bullet once again this week, but he can no longer duck the life-or-death question of striking a balance between accommodation and repression in his nation’s long war with Islamic fundamentalists.
An armor-plated limo saved Mubarak’s life during a botched assassination attempt Monday in Ethiopia. This brush with death marked no less than the fourth time the Egyptian president has been caught in the cross-hairs of murderous plotters.
(The most notorious, of course, was in 1981, when Mubarak suffered shrapnel wounds and was splattered with the blood of his predecessor when Anwar Sadat was killed by Islamic militants.)
Running a nation in the Middle East is risky business. Seeking peace with Israel, and pursuing it, is riskier still. And attempting to introduce market capitalism into a backward economy risks widespread social dislocations like poverty and unemployment and its attendant disillusionment and anger. Just ask the Russians.
In their zeal to topple the Egyptian government, Mubarak’s fundamentalist foes do not negotiate. But so far, neither has Mubarak. That’s a mistake.
North Africa offers a perfect example of this strategy taken to extreme, and that is in Algeria. There, a military-backed government pays little regard to the will or needs of its people and has learned how quickly Islamist militias can undermine faith in civil order and scare away international trade.
By refusing to even acknowledge its radical foes, the Algerian government has created an entrenched Islamic opposition whose only platform is violence–and, thus, is free of the democratic political burden of offering concrete programs for improving national life.
By contrast, Jordan, Morocco and Turkey have allowed Islamic radicals to enter public political life so long as they unwaveringly obey national laws and pledge a program of non-violence.
In all three nations, radical parties have had to fight to maintain their value in the marketplace of ideas, and political stability has been enhanced.
Egypt’s history of authoritarian central control dates back to the pharaohs; it’s time, on the eve of the 21st Century, that Egypt halt repression of its citizenry for opinions and beliefs.
This would mean freer elections, so Mubarak would have to get his house in order. At the same time, he must not slow his implementation of market reform, nor fear true structural reform of his economy.
Mubarak has been heroic in his advocacy of peaceful solutions to the seemingly intractable problem of Arab-Israeli relations.
He should let Mubarak be Mubarak in resolving this domestic crisis.
