Abstract
Many Egyptians refer to their country as Umm al-Dunyah [mother of the world] though this is an unlucky motherland. Hyperbole aside, Egypt has had too many pharaohs, most recently Jamal ‘Abdul Nasir [Gamal Abdel Nasser], Anwar al-Sadat [Anouar Sadat], Husni Mubarak [Hosni Moubarak], Muhammad Mursi [Mohammed Morsi], and ‘Abdul Fattah al-Sissi [Abdel Fatah Sisi]. Legend transformed these contemporary pharaohs into demi-gods even if none matched the great Ramses II (1304–1214 bc) who, to his universally acknowledged credit, added value.
For Alaa Al-Aswany, a writer, novelist, and dentist who rose to fame with his celebrated work (Al-Aswany, 2002) that addressed numerous taboos and cautiously described the Egyptian bureaucracy’s celebrated corruption mechanisms, none of the modern pharaohs matched dexterities displayed by their predecessors. On the contrary, they honed dictatorial skills, abused their authorities, and otherwise ruled Egypt with iron fists immersed in the blood of docile populations.
In his latest opus, Al-Aswany laments the “Syndrome,” identifies its symptoms, describes the good citizen, trashes conspiracy theories, focuses on the spread of the fascist mindset, grieves over the dislocation of the intellectual, bemoans over the dictator’s predisposition to terrorism, commemorates the course of the syndrome, and offers remedies to prevent the tyrannical disorder from gaining popularity. In clear language, the author lambasts all dictatorships, even if the book’s strength is his concentration on its Egyptian variety.
It should not surprise the reader that Alaa Al-Aswany, a dentist by profession, concluded that dictatorship is a syndrome, in other words, a medical condition that can be scientifically diagnosed that, he hopes, can also be cured. Notwithstanding this optimism, few Egyptian leaders after the 1952 revolution offered any solace, as the pivotal Arab country confronted the Muslim Brotherhood and poverty, dual threats that buried it lock, stock, and barrel, and that continue to devastate the realm.
Al-Aswany’s bête noire is Nasser and the numerous lies that accompanied the horrible 1967 territorial losses to Israel. In an appropriate aparté, the author quotes Tawfiq al-Hakim and his book (al-Hakim, 1974), in which the prominent dramatist condemned himself for having supported the dictator. Like most Egyptians, al-Hakim fell to Nasser’s brilliant emotionalism, oblivious to the charisma of the Rayyis (leader). Al-Hakim wrote that Nasir placed
such a spell on [Egyptians] that we did not even realize we had become bewitched. Perhaps it was his special magic, as they say, or perhaps it was the dream itself which gave us such hopes and promises. Or maybe it was even more than a wonderful image of revolutionary achievements which he wove for us and which turned us into instruments of that far-reaching propaganda with all its drums, pipes, anthems, songs and films and enabled us to see ourselves as a great industrialized state which was leading the developing world in agricultural reform and was the leading force in the Middle East. It was the face of that worshipped leader which filled the television screens, which peered down on us from tents erected for political rallies and in assembly halls and as he orated for hours on end, telling us how we had been and what we had now become with no space for discussion or review, no space for comment or correction. All we could do was believe and clap until our hands were raw (pp. 10–11).
This was one of the best descriptions ever of what mesmerized Egyptians, as the Nasser regime and its successors instilled fear in the hearts of millions and, in the process, produced the model “good citizen” who would tolerate brutality. Al-Aswany believes that the good citizen is habituated to accept violence and the “unfettered authority [that] gives rise to [the] brutality in a dictator who is so plagued by an exaggerated vision of self-worth that he cannot countenance the existence of anyone who either opposes him or simply does not support him enthusiastically enough” (pp. 29–30).
Dictators aim to oppress, he tells us, precisely to create a barrier of fear, which automatically generates the ideal “good citizen.” Such individuals will defend “authority” and reject everything remotely associated with revolution and freedom. “The good citizen,” Al-Aswany affirms, “only sees the positive side of the dictator—security, a guaranteed job and a stable life under the wing of a paternalistic strongman who shields them from the ills of the world” (p. 36).
Of course, one is seldom allowed to criticize a regime’s nepotism and corruption, which Cairo transformed into an art form by 2020, oppressing Egyptians in special ways. President al-Sisi remained confident that his American ally would bestow its imprimatur because, in the perpetual “war against terrorism,” the regime was an ally. In Donald J. Trump’s inimitable style, al-Sisi, was his “favorite dictator,” notwithstanding Egypt’s roughly 60,000 political prisoners. Others throughout the region benefitted from this peculiar and entirely unhealthy behavior too, with President of Syria Bashar al-Assad gaining favors with both Moscow and Washington for allegedly fighting the so-called Islamic State, which was neither. Even the avowed anti-American Iranians gained certain favors when they presented their sophisticated rhetoric in similar terms. Such a company was not unusual as other dictators, including the legendary Libyan strongman, Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi, was lauded by Russian, French, British, and even American officials.
To be sure, the Qaddafi paradigm was not unique, though the “King of Kings of Africa” was uniquely entertaining. As al-Aswany reminds us, Qaddafi and his fellow dictators liked to accumulate titles, as the wily Libyan was variously called “Colonel, Leader, Leader of the Libyan Revolution, Custodian of Arab Nationalism, Dean of Arab Rulers, Head of the African Union, … Commander of the Tuareg, Leader of the Association of Coastal and Desert States, Leader of the Popular Islamic Leadership and Imam of the Muslims,” when he was not simply “King of Kings of Africa” (p. 127).
Qaddafi appeared on television in his last days in power and hurled invectives at the revolutionaries, saying, “I am the person who has made Libya what it is today. Who are you? You are traitors and agents of America and Israel” (p. 41). But he also said far worse: he urged his supporters to go out and attack the “cockroaches” demonstrating against his rule and referred to protesters as “rats” (p. 164, note 45). Bashar al-Assad raised the bar higher when he described Syrians as jarasim [plural of Jarsum or microbe] on several occasions (Khoury, 2011; Khalifé, 2017, p. 11), though the Oscar for best actor in the “Insult Your Nation” category went to the Ugandan leader Idi Amin 1 who declared himself “Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas” and “Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular,” before he allegedly ate human remains (O’Regan, 2012).
Al-Aswany is at his best when he describes this lunacy since the objective is to dehumanize others, led by revolutionaries anxious to protect what is left of their freedoms, and increase their liberties. Where he errs is to mix everything together, oblivious to differences that exist between Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, which is facile.
In one of the few sections of the book that does not deal with Egypt, the author focuses on “religious dictatorships,” ostensibly to make the point that conditions were no better than in his land. He writes that “censorship in countries such as Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia is harsh, encompassing cinema, television, the press and book publishing (both fiction and non-fiction).” He continues “As well as imposing political censorship, religious rule generally also extends government control to include a form of moral censorship in order to ensure that cultural output does not offend against religious rulings or public virtue” (p. 52).
To buttress his arguments that a dictator aims to control the consciousness of the masses precisely to shape the way they think, al-Aswany avows that all independent sources of information are eliminated, mobilizes selected groups against enemies and conspirators (promoting conspiracy theories), and cuts down opponents via character assassination to further discourage anyone from listening to alien opinions. As best invented by the Counselor to President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, during a Meet the Press interview on 22 January 2017, “alternative facts” apparently existed that, in the hands of sophisticated dictatorial teams, easily became “alternative truths.” Whether this is still possible in the Internet age is a topic that al-Aswany fails to address, especially as most Iranians and Saudis, to concentrate on these two societies, enjoyed relatively free access to data.
While the largely educated Iranian populations appeared to accept the mullah dictatorships since 1979 out of shear fear—given the excessively harsh attacks by the regime against demonstrators each and every time they demanded inalienable rights—chances were excellent that the rulers in Tehran would eventually make bad decisions that will lead to a catastrophe and for which they will pay the ultimate price. It was also important to state that no Saudi King has ever ordered his security forces to open fire on demonstrators or kept hundreds of thousands in prison under harsh conditions. Al-Aswany is correct when he wrote that “The Gulf citizen does not consider their ruler to be a constitutional monarch or a head of state in the democratic meaning of the term, which would see him subject to an election process or some form of accountability,” but he is mistaken to conclude that a monarchy must always be constitutional (p. 106). The author acknowledges that “the shaykh of the supreme tribe, a family elder, with the traditions and duties of honor imposing on the younger family members obedience and reverence for him as the symbol of the tribe,” is what conservative Arab Gulf citizens perceive their respective rulers to be (p. 107). Seasoned Arab Gulf rulers are wise and caring enough to play the roles of patriarchs for all, which is a legitimate form of authority.
This reviewer’s affirmation of this point would probably disappoint al-Aswany, who laments intellectual justifications to separate the wheat from the chaff. “In the dictator’s view,” writes al-Aswany, “intellectuals make unsatisfying and unconvincing claims to knowledge; they speak when they should remain silent and occasionally pose inconvenient questions. They are driven by ostentation and a passion for futile argumentation, criticizing and making observations about subjects of which they know nothing” (p. 65). He compares intellectuals who resist [like him], to those who give their support, those who appease, those who are no more than part-time intellectuals, and those who may simply be “jobbing,” precisely to warn relatively honest thinkers that
Whatever stance an intellectual takes towards a dictator—whether they oppose him and are exiled, jailed or killed, or whether they appease him and are forced into silence or go against their own conscience and churn out anything for money—whatever the circumstances, when a dictator attains power, intellectuals are displaced from their natural duty to enlighten minds and provide an impetus for intellectual activity. (p. 82)
It may be entirely accurate to conclude that intellectual activity will only bear “fruit in a free society,” and thus not in a dictatorship, though this denigrates thinkers who toil under difficult circumstances (p. 83).
Why, al-Aswany asks, did Egyptians like him hold on to Naserr after Egypt’s repeated failures or tolerated Mubarak’s excesses that redefined corruption or even ushered in al-Sisi to replace the Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi, after the latter devoted a full year to social engineerings instead of paying attention to the poverty that crippled his nation? To find an answer to his questions, the author turns to the 16th-century French philosopher Étienne de La Boétie and his work (de La Boétie, 1577), which asserted that states were vulnerable and could easily collapse when consent was withdrawn. La Boétie advanced the idea that even in a dictatorship, there existed “a human relationship in which two parties [were] necessary: the tyrant who decides to subjugate a people and a people who have accepted such subjugation” (p. 9). Yet, unlike a broken horse, citizens could waive certain freedoms and submit to the will of one individual until they no longer accept to acquiesce to the will of a tyrant.
What is to be done, then? Al-Aswany would like to prevent the dictatorship syndrome by getting rid of dictators, first through awareness that “will strip the dictator of the tools he uses to govern the masses—charisma, idols, religion, chauvinism and conspiracies” (p. 133). A dictator, he says,
sees his people in two contradictory ways ... he gives a central place to the people, always singing the praises of their genius and their astonishing ability to understand and read a given situation so correctly that they can distinguish between nationalists and traitors. However, on the practical level, a dictator has absolutely no faith in the ability of the people to think independently. … This underestimation of the people is perfectly consistent with the concept of a paternalistic dictator. You love your children, but you would never trust their ability to manage things alone. (pp. 54–55)
Consequently, the author warns that citizens ought to be wary of mechanisms used by dictators to convert patriotism, a natural phenomenon, into chauvinism. Al-Aswany cautions that a dictator will always sermonize that his nation is the greatest on earth and that it has a message to deliver to all humanity, à la Trump, or various Iranian Ayatollahs. He forewarns citizens to be wary of chauvinism that titillates masses since it could lead to racism, perpetual wars, or other crimes. “If you have come to believe that you belong to an intellectual, ethnic or religious group that is superior to others,” he writes, “it might seem natural for you to deny others the rights you enjoy, as they are—to put it simply—inferior. By this logic, you might quite easily look the other way as they suffer discrimination or persecution” (p. 141).
The way to overcome such chauvinism and, presumably, be able to break the wings of all dictatorships, is to understand that a single individual can be loftier than others, even if exceptional persons could well shine in their respective fields of interest. As a corollary, al-Aswany extrapolates that no nation can be “superior to any other” along racial, religious, or socio-political lines, even if differences in their power bases could well exist for specific periods of time. All we thus need to do is to stand up to chauvinism to protect ourselves from dictatorships, he affirms.
Notwithstanding a few absolutist quirks that may be due to the author’s scientific background that, in technology-driven societies, dismisses humanistic cultures, this important book merits careful reading for its erudition and thoughtful discussion of a thorny subject. The topic has preoccupied mankind for millennia and is likely to continue to obsess it sine die under evolving conditions. Of course, and ideally, a modern man ought to eliminate whatever barriers existed between the scientific and humanistic cultures to integrate both branches of knowledge in the way he governs himself, but this is easier said than done. Still, al-Aswany is optimistic that The Dictatorship Syndrome is a curable disease and that Pharaohs can be put to pasture, both to save humanity and give hope to those who dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Even in Arab and Muslim lands.