U.S. "Double Standard" Renews America-Bashing In Egypt

By James J. Napoli

A tall, young blond man who used to walk almost every day on a street near the Egyptian parliament building in downtown Cairo was regularly greeted with a grin and a wave by the same menadi, one of thousands of people who have created jobs for themselves parking cars.

But this day, the menadi shook his fist at the man and spat on the ground with exaggerated drama. "Ptui," he said. "America no good."

The young man—who was French, by the way, not American—couldn't account for the sudden change in attitude until he got home and got the news. The United States had bombed an intelligence compound in Baghdad, killing at least eight civilians and injuring a dozen more.

The menadi's anti-American outburst was as good and as literal a reflection of what the man in the street was thinking as there is in a country with no regular public opinion polling.

Seemingly insignificant anecdotal evidence—an American man accosted by a stranger in the street and told to go back where he came from; an American woman put on the defensive in her aerobics class by Egyptians critical of U.S. policy—seem to pick up meaning in the context of anti-American tirades in the media.

In recent months, both government and opposition papers, as well as radio and TV, have been pounding away at U. S. policies on Iraq, Israel and the Palestinians, Bosnia, and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Muslim cleric recently arrested in New York.

Criticism also has been blaring over loudspeakers at mosques on Fridays and through cassette players running surreptitious tapes of vitriolic, anti-Western sermons.

The U.S. media has picked up the vibes—obviously amplified by Islamist threats against American institutions—to depict Egypt in the throes of anti-American hysteria. The coverage has spooked foreign tourists and even professionals with business in Egypt.

It's likely so far, however, that the average Egyptian's antipathy for the United States is only skin-deep—and the current anti-American atmosphere may be short-lived. In fact, the streets are still safe, and a number of conspicuous Fourth of July celebrations, including a large one at the U.S. Embassy, were well attended by foreigners and Egyptians and went off without a hitch.

Like people in most of the world, Egyptians are alternately attracted and repelled by U.S. power, wealth, freedom—and its Hollywood imagery. Their ambivalence could easily take a positive direction under the right circumstances.

But more to the point, Egyptians also are ambivalent about the issues that recently have prompted them to America-bashing. And the media campaigns that have been tightly orchestrated against Egypt's most important Western supporter and ally could play a quite different tune at the drop of a tarboosh.

Issues of Ambivalence

Before the Gulf war, for example, Iraq was represented in the mainstream press as an Egyptian intimate, in keeping with government efforts to strengthen ties with a fellow member of the doomed Arab Cooperation Council. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and humiliated President Mubarak, who had publicly announced the peaceful intentions of Saddam Hussain, the media reversed itself.

Dina Lamey, a young Egyptian researcher now teaching in Saudi Arabia, wrote: "Until Aug. 2, 1990, the Iraqi leader was portrayed as a strong friend of Egypt and protector of the Arabs. But after that, President Hosni Mubarak called Saddam Hussain a liar for assuring him that he would not attack the tiny emirate. The word 'liar' was the cue for the press. It then poured hatred and scorn on the Iraqi ruler, disclosing real and rumored crimes which were ignored when Mubarak and Hussain were good friends."

Similarly, the coordinated semi-official media attack against the United States wouldn't take place without the right cues from government. The extreme left and Islamist press are of course always anti-American, but the right-of-center opposition daily, El Wafd, had to plan its assault.

Gamal Badawi, editor of El Wafd, told the Washington Report that leaders of the Wafd Party meet every week to determine the editorial direction for the paper, and the party line suffuses everything in the paper—news as well as comment.

The Egyptian government had to disassociate itself from the June 26 attack on the Iraqi intelligence compound if for no other reason than to maintain its pan-Arab credentials. The outpouring of opposition to the U.S. action was also inspired by genuine abhorrence for the loss of innocent lives in what appeared to have been a reckless, vindictive and unwarranted act. To please the Kuwaitis, wrote the slavishly pro-government columnist Samir Ragab, "the Iraqi people, rather than Saddam Hussain, may continue receiving strikes from time to time."

Egyptians generally dislike the Iraqi regime, which they know very well. Millions of Egyptians have lived and worked in Iraq; many laborers report being abused and some have been killed there. The most commonly heard question during and just after the Gulf war, which Egypt supported, was, "Why didn't the United States kill Saddam?" If the Tomahawk missiles had managed to accomplish that, public opinion would have taken another turn.

On the whole, the commentary has focused not on the attack, but on the inconsistency between U.S. policy that sternly punishes an Arab regime for every alleged offense, while routinely ignoring flagrant violations of international law by the Serbians and particularly by the Israelis in dealing with the Palestinians.

But, again, Egyptians are ambivalent. Despite the official pro-Palestinian rhetoric, Palestinians are treated badly by policy and passport officials here, and many Egyptians consider Palestinians a troublesome and ungrateful lot.

Akhbar Al-Yom columnist and editor Said Sonbol told the Washington Report earlier this year that Egyptians would naturally sympathize with the nearly 400 Palestinian expellees in southern Lebanon and with the victims of the intifada "because they are Muslim." But he repeated a common complaint among Egyptians that "we sacrificed a lot for the Palestinian cause. We lost a lot of money we could have used to develop our own country."

But of all the issues that have drawn recent anti-American attacks, the most puzzling is the case of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. The fumbling of the U.S. Justice Department in handling the case was greeted with mockery, derision and anger from just about every quarter. The sheikh, whose followers have been linked to New York's World Trade Center bombing, surrendered to U.S. officials on July 2.

Critics can't decide whether the sheikh is the innocent victim of persecution by an American legal system swept up by anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States; whether he is a no-account whose importance has been artificially blown out of all proportion by an intemperate and ill-informed American media; whether he is a great spiritual leader being crushed to prevent his turning into another Ayatollah Khomeini; whether he is the creation— now turned uncontrollable monster—of the United States when he was useful in the fight against the Soviets; or whether he is a crackpot or CIA agent.

Reflecting the Egyptian government's confusion, the critics can't decide whether Egypt's interests are best served if he is extradited to face trial at home for inciting violence; if he is set free in the United States and kept under close watch; if he is sent off to Sudan or Iran; if he is slapped in an American slammer or allowed to continue his preaching.

The only thing that everyone seems to be sure of is that the United States is up to no good, and ought to be attacked and derided for it—whatever it is.

As one Egyptian observed, "The government doesn't know what to do about the sheikh, so the anti-Americanism helps divert the public from its own confusion. I'm just worried about the long-term effects of all these media attacks. If it doesn't stop at some point soon, it will affect average Egyptians, and it will be too late to reverse."

James J. Napoli chairs the department of journalism and mass communication at the American University in Cairo.