It’s been a busy week at DC and in the world, thus a slight delay in this post.
Indeed, last week has been “restlessly eventful,” as Robin Wagner Pacifici might put it. The main event has been in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt. But closer to home, President Obama gave an important State of the Union address. In both cases, we can see that something new is emerging, that tomorrow will be strikingly different from what yesterday was. Change rather than continuity is the storyline.
Obviously, Egypt appears to be more consequential. It would seem that there is real democratic promise and a promise of an end to stagnation, in a country and region with a history of great cultural and political achievements, mostly frustrated in the recent past. The outcome is uncertain, who wins and who loses is unknown, but clearly a page has been turned.
Less dramatically, President Obama for the first time seems to have been understood on his own terms, as a creative centrist, making advances in changing the nature of the center in the United States. Given the power of the United States, this may indeed be eventful.
Egypt and Beyond
I particularly appreciate the post by Hazem Kandil. He points out how conventional ways of understanding politics and history, not only in the media but also in academia, did not anticipate what is now happening before our eyes. I would underscore two aspects of this, which in fact coincide with my last two book projects, The Politics of Small Things and the forthcoming Reinventing Political Culture.
Kandil illuminates the gap between past and future, as Arendt depicted this. All the studies of Egypt as “thoroughly Islamized,” with powerful “mosque networks,” “social welfare circles,” mired by “identity politics,” and informed by and organized around symbols and rituals, suggested that the culture of political culture points in the direction of authoritarian continuity. His note demonstrates how we must consider cultural creativity, along with cultural continuity in political and not only in artistic matters.
Now, look again at the Muslim Brotherhood. Note . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Egypt, The State of the Union, Between Past and Future