Egypt Elections Stir Arab Dreams

The Presidential election in Egypt is being watched closely throughout the Arab World.

“It’s an extremely important, symbolic, and moving moment,” says Rami Khouri.

Khouri is director of the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

“Egypt was the leader in the Arab World in so many things for decades,” he tells anchor Marco Werman.

“But then it fell out for 30-40 years … and now it’s back. And the Egyptian people did it themselves.”

Beyond Egypt, Khouri says, “it’s kind of a re-birth for many Arabs all around the region.”

“It’s a feeling that this (democracy) is something that could spread across the entire Arab World.”

“People feel a lot of pride.”

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Egypt is by far the largest Arab country by population and events there tend to reverberate throughout the region. Rami Khouri is director of the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. Rami, what does this election in Egypt mean to the Arab world?

Rami Khouri: Oh, it’s an extremely important, symbolic, and moving moments, you know? Egypt was the leader of so many things in the Arab World for decades and decades, in military, political, culture, education, scholarship, everything. Egypt was the leader of the whole Arab World, and then it fell out for about 30-40 years. It become very mediocre and it was marginalized, and it’s back in and the Egyptians did this themselves. And this really marks not just the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and the re-legitimization of a new political order, but in a way it’s a kind of rebirth for many Arabs all around the region. They… People all follow this election very closely, and it’s not just the symbolism that Egypt is back, and Egyptians are proud, and they’re electing their own president, and they just elected a parliament, and they’re going to elect another parliament. But it’s a feeling that this is something that might spread all across the Arab World, and it was homegrown, it was done by Egyptians. So there’s many many levels at which people feel a lot of pride, and there’s also the practical issue which is, what happens in Egypt will go a long way to clarifying what may happen in other countries. For instance, the balance between the Islamist candidates and the secular candidates, the fate of the new progressive left-wing political parties, the balance between the military and the civilian authorities. All of these are big sticker items, and every Arab country in one way or another is going to deal with them. So this makes the Egyptian moment even more important.

Werman: So, how are these elections being seen where you live in Beirut in Lebanon and say, where you’re visiting today, and Jordan. What do people say?

Khouri: Well, they’re watching it very closely. The big question that people are wondering about is, “Who will actually emerge?” And this is a great debate to have, because it means you have a real democracy where the result is not known, and where actually the consent of the governed is what determines what’s going to happen.

Werman: Right, I mean, it’s the uncertainty itself that’s pretty remarkable, whereas in past elections in Egypt the results were pretty much known before people went to the polls.

Khouri: Oh, absolutely.

Werman: You wrote today Rami, picking up on that, that one of the side effects of this upheaval in the Arab World is that is the change in perceptions of Arabs themselves, getting away from the caricatures that many in the West kind of dabble in. Elaborate on that a bit.

Khouri: Well, because of the revival of political life, the revival of pluralistic politics, civil society, there’s all kinds of things going on in society now in Arab that can. Tunisia and Egypt though, is more clear, and you can see a normal society coming back into being, and one of the things this does, for both people and the region, but mostly for people in the West, is it stops them from echoing the old cliches that people used to say, like you know, “The Arabs can’t be democratic.” Or, “Muslims only understand violence.” I mean, these kind of racist caricatures is like people in the 40s used to say about black people or Jews in the United States, or Italians. They make these sweeping statements about an entire group of people, that they’re lazy, or that they’re dishonest, or that they’re scheming, or something like that. And this is now behind us in the Arab World.

Werman: Rami Khouri, director of the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. Thank you very much, as always.

Khouri: Thanks for having me.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.