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7/30/2019 The Quiet General
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The Quiet General
That Egypt has a new strongman is no longer in doubt. Since the Egyptian military
ousted the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi last month following
protests across the country, posters of Egypts de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-
Sisi, have become more ubiquitous on Cairo streets than Sphinx souvenirs. The head of
the Army stares out from caf walls and the windows of government buildings, the red
and the gold of his uniform remaining bright, even as the features of his face fade under
the relentless sun. He is the one we can trust, read some of the posters. Others call
him the eagle of the Arabs.
Its a ubiquitous imagebut an enigmatic one. More than a month after assuming
power, al-Sisi remains as opaque as his dark glasses. In Egypt, he is often compared
with the charismatic and ruthless leader of the 1950s and 1960s, Gamal Abdel Nasser,
yet few people know anything about his family or background. He hardly ever talks to
reporters, and his close friends and allies are reluctant to speakbegging off interview
requests, or agreeing to talk, only to cancel later after checking with the generals staff.
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Khaled Elfiqui/EPA
Al-Sisi was virtually unknown to the public before Morsi named him defense minister a
year ago.
But understanding al-Sisi is critical to understanding where Egypt is headedespecially
after this weeks bloodletting, which has seen his soldiers crack down on proMuslim
Brotherhood demonstrators. And one place to begin is in Cairos ancient Khan al-Khalili
bazaar, in a shop called Al-Sisi, where finely crafted Egyptian boxes made of intricately
inlaid mother-of-pearl grace the shelves.
THE GENERAL grew up in the Gamaleya district of Cairo, the same warren of alleys
among time-worn mosques and caravansaries that the Nobel Prizewinning novelist
Naguib Mahfouz wrote about in his landmark trilogy:Palace Walk, Palace of
Desire, and Sugar Street. Even today the precincts that include the bazaar are alive
with scenes that may appear exotic to a foreign visitor. Vendors of perfume and
hookahs, of brass palm trees and glittering bras for belly dancers, line the streets. In
some corners raw sewage spills into the road and garbage is piled high against
crumbling mud walls; in others, just steps away, the dust of spices hangs in the air like
mist. When Egyptians say that their country is the mother of the world, it is this
crumbling but intensely proud and immensely alive neighborhood that comes to mind.
Mahfouzs pages are filled with the same issues that face Egypt today: the frustrations
of young men, the oppression of women, the unpredictable thuggery and occasional
clemency of the police, and the idealism, fanaticism, and sophistry of the Muslim
Brothers. Islam is a creed, a way of worship, a nation and a nationality, a religion, a
state, a form of spirituality, a Holy Book, and a sword, preaches a sheik from the
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Brethren in Sugar Street, written in the 1950s and set in the 40s. It is language not
unlike that of todays Islamists.
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Mosaab Elshamy/EPA
The generals enemies, and there are many, see him as just another dictator, cut from
the same tinhorn template as so many Arab tyrants before him.
Al-Sisis family is religious, as are the vast majority of Egyptiansand pride of place in
the Al-Sisi shops showroom goes to a work of striking grace and delicacy with the
fundamental devotional phrase of Islam: There is no God but God. It was crafted by al -
Sisis father, Said Hussein Khalili al-Sisi, known as Hassan, the founder of the family
business and a true patriarch in the eyes of those who worked with him. The store
manager, Hussein Ali, says he has been told not to talk about the general, whom he has
known for years. But he cannot help talking about the father. You dont need me to
speak about Abdel Fattah, he says. When you speak about Hassan, you speak about
all his sons. They are copies of him.
Hassan loved to read about history and law, and he loved to listen to the powerful,
intensely nationalistic music of the great singer Oum Kalthoum. He also knew several of
the leading religious sheiks in Cairo, who were clients as well as friends, says Hussein.
He was conservative, but not radical in any sense of the word. He had three sons and
five daughters. All were university educated.
On the wall above the manager, a photograph of the old man looks down, framed by the
mother-of-pearl arabesques that exemplified his craft. Abdel Fattah is just like Hassan,
he says. Hassan was very good at inspiring everyone around him. When he looked into
your eyes, he knew what you wanted to say. He knew how to send messages when he
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spoke. If he was talking to a doctor, he knew how to talk to him. And if he was talking to
a worker, he knew how to talk to him. And his children took that from him.
Hassan liked business, so one of his sons, Hussein, followed him into that. Hassan liked
law, so his son Ahmed became a judge. And he was like a generaleverything
accurate, everything on time, everything in order ... And so his son became a general.
Hassan loved to tell jokes, says Hussein. Abdel Fattah, on the other hand, rarely kidded
around. He might sit there for a long time, but maybe say only one or two words. He
was a listener, but with authority: In fact, they used to call him the general since the
time he was young, says Husseins brother Tamer, who also works in the shop.
Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters
For Egyptians who were disappointed in Morsi, al-Sisi represents the pharaoh who can
pull the country together.
Everyone, including the boys, visited the shop where the father taught and practiced his
painstaking craft, taking countless tiny pieces of seashell and embedding them in
delicately carved wood, creating an iridescent veneer of elaborate intertwined patterns
worked out in Hassans mind. The man, he had a vision, says Tamer. He created new
models; he didnt see old ones and make the same. He was extremely patient.
Typically the patriarch would imagine a grand projecta chair, a chest, a doorthen
delegate the work on different elements. The craftsmen were never supposed to look
up, never supposed to break concentration, as they applied themselves to their
assigned tasks. Usually, at the end, none of the workers knew what it would look like,
says Tamer. Then Hassan would put it all together. Gathering everyone around, hed
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reveal the finished piece and watch with pleasure the amazed expressions on the faces
of those whod worked on it.
UNLIKE THE countrys erstwhile strongman Hosni Mubarak, whose wife and family
were well known to the Egyptians, al-Sisi has been protective of the privacy of his kin.
According to his older brother, Ahmed al-Sisi, who only reluctantly agreed to talk, the
general has four children: three sons and one daughter. His wife is said to wear a
traditional head covering, the hijab, but, unlike the women of the previous generation,
these days most Egyptian women do. Like his wife, the generals five sisters dont have
jobs outside the home. Our girls dont work, they stay home and raise the kids, says
Ahmed.
For the boys in the family, though, it was always different. Life was outside the home,
where they pursued ambitious careers. As Ahmed proudly says: We come from a
family that leadsnot one that will be led.
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Mahmoud Ghany/EPA
A protester is removed from Nahda Square, near Cairo University, one location where a
sit-in was organized on August 14.
The little boy who would be general missed out on all of Egypts major wars. He was
born in 1954, two years before Nasser became president, and was not quite 2 when
Israel, France, and Britain attacked during the Suez Crisis. He was still only 12 when
the Israelis crushed the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies in the 1967 war. The
finest brief moment of Egyptian military glory, the surprise crossing of the Suez Canal
and the push to retake the Sinai from Israel in 1973, came four years before al-Sisi was
commissioned. Then the Camp David peace accords ended Egypts wars with Israel in
1978, and more than $1 billion a year from the United States started pouring into the
coffers of the Egyptian military.
The Army where al-Sisi made his career became less a war machine than a rigged slot
machine that paid out rich dividends for its loyal officers and its American suppliers. The
military draws on recruits from throughout Egyptian society, and in that sense it may be
the closest thing to a meritocracy that exists in a state habitually plagued by nepotism
and corruption. But as officers move up the ranks, they move ever-more deeply into a
world intentionally isolated from the rest of the country. They have their own
apartments, their own clubs, their own schools and stores. The Army has its own
manufacturing empire and a vast construction business that frequently shuts out the
private sector with little or no public accountability.
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Under President Mubarak, himself a former general, the Egyptian military-industrial
complex thrived as never before, and the very top officers, like Field Marshal Mohamed
Hussein Tantawi, the longtime defense minister, and many other members of the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, allegedly made great fortunes. By comparison,
al-Sisi is thought to be relatively clean.
Al-Sisi was selected to attend the U.S. Army War College in 2006 during a fraught
moment in the Middle Eastfor Americans as well as for Arabs. At the prestigious and
historic college in Pennsylvania, al-Sisi found himself confronted by U.S. officers fresh
out of Iraq, where the war was failing and American and Iraqi casualties were mounting.
While President George W. Bush promoted his freedom agenda in the Middle East, he
was spending about $2.5 billion dollars every week on the war in Iraqalmost twice as
much as the yearly aid to Egypt, where fraudulent elections had once more returned
Mubarak to power.
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Manu Brabo/AP
After days of violence, more than 500 people had been killed and almost 4,000 people
were reported injured.
According to Sherifa Zuhur, a professor at the War College when al-Sisi was there,
many of the shell-shocked American soldiers got into heated arguments with their Arab
and Muslim counterparts. Al-Sisi was ready for debate, but not aggressive, she said.
He can be angered, but possesses a lot of self-control and would choose not to
respond when others might do so. He was not quiet because he was passive, but more
contemplative, waiting, watching, and following along.
While at the War College, al-Sisi wrote an 11-page academic paper titled Democracy in
the Middle East. Whereas Americans believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, Islamic cultures cling to principles of fairness, justice, equality, unity, and
charity, he argued. Americans look to their republics Founding Fathers for guidance;
Muslims cherish the memory of the ancient caliphate. However, this does not mean a
theocracy will be established, wrote al-Sisi, rather it means a democracy will be
established based on Islamic beliefs. In his paper, he pointed out the influence of
Christianity and its culture on American government, especially in its early days,
drawing a parallel with the role of Islam now in the establishment of nascent Middle
Eastern democracies.
He knew a lot and took pride in Egyptian and Islamic heritage, says Zuhur, and this
was also a line of defense against some [American] peers, students who sometimes
described Iraqis, for example, as little more than barbarians.
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Perhaps it is not surprising if this proud American trained general now makes it clear
that he doesnt need or love America. Since Morsis overthrow, al-Sisi has found the
Sunni royals of the Gulf states much more generous than the United States, securing
billions of dollars in aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have their
own agenda in Egypt.
In his view, Egypt got little support from the U.S. when Morsi turned autocratic and the
Brotherhood subverted the popular will. As he bluntly toldThe Washington Postin a rare
recent interview: You turned your back on the Egyptians, and they wont forget that. It
seemed a clear message to the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and
perhaps his old friends in the American military: Egypt is a country that leadsnot one
that will be led.Reuters
Morsi (second from right) seemed to think the generals would never turn on him.
IN THE early and still-heady days of the Arab Spring, Egypts high command was as
surprised as anyone by the size and determination of the protests in Tahrir Square.
Though the Army had supported Mubarak through his decades-long rule, military
officers realized that, to protect their own institutions, perks, and bank accounts, they
would have to step in on the side of the protesters against Mubarak. The defense
minister, Tantawi, who had long been closely identified with Mubarak, still managed to
linger on.
A few weeks later Egyptians saw a new face on TV: the youngest and least-known
member of the high command and the new head of intelligence, Major General al-Sisi,
who stepped in front of the cameras to defend the Army against charges that it was just
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as bad as before. According to several Egyptian journalists as well as former Mubarak
insiders, the aged Tantawi had already picked al-Sisi as his successor. But now al-Sisi
would have to prove that he could stay relevant in the new Egyptian political landscape.
As the country moved toward the 2012 elections, it became increasingly clear that the
Brotherhood had the best political operation and would likely win the popular vote. Ever-
pragmatic businessmen, the military officers realized that they had to negotiate with
their erstwhile enemies about how a Brotherhood victory might affect the Armyand
vice versa. Morsi was the Brotherhood representative in those talks; al-Sisi spoke for
the officer corps.
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Scott Nelson/Redux
We come from a family that leads, al-Sisis brother said, not one that will be led.
After Morsis election last summer, the new president moved quickly to change the
dinosaurs of the Army. Outsiders marveled at the seeming lack of resistance from the
high command, without realizing that this was a generational changea revolution
within the military itself, led by al-Sisi. Morsi appointed al-Sisi the new defense minister,
seemingly believing that neither he nor the other generals would turn on him as long as
he respected their economic privileges.
Whatever the scope of his original goals, al-Sisi reportedly started stealthily to
maneuver himself into a much more ambitious position late last year. As Morsi started
claiming more dictatorial powers, excluding rivals from his team, and declaring himself
immune to rulings by the courts, bloody riots broke out. The country, once more,
seemed to be spiraling toward chaos.
Even as security forces were called on to defend the increasingly unpopular regime, al-
Sisi began to behave in public as a player independent of the Morsi government. The
general called a meeting for talks among opposition groups, and military intelligence
officers began to communicate secretly through intermediaries with those who wanted
to force Morsi out of office, according to anti-Morsi sources.
In May, old-guard elites, including intellectuals and journalists, met with al-Sisi at a
military event and encouraged him to act. Dont rush, he said, in a way t hat suggested,
according to one of those present, all in good time. As the date approached for
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planned demonstrations at the end of June, activists were encouraged by intermediaries
speaking on behalf of the military to build pressure on the street, according to protest
leaders and one retired general who acted as a go-between. In the background, al-Sisi
silently waited for the right moment, giving Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood more and
more rope with which to hang themselves. Then finally, like his father in his workshop,
he stepped out into the light to reveal what he had carefully constructed.