“Many countries have an army, but only in Egypt does an army have a country”.
Umm al-Dunya, or ‘Mother of the World’, is how Egyptians – with a mix of pride, nationalism and nostalgia – refer to their country. Many still rue the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser, when Egypt was the leader of the Arab world and a driving force of the Non- Aligned Movement. “Fifty years ago everyone respected us, even the Russians and the Americans,” says Ayman, who owns a store in Talaat Harb Street, one of the main streets in Cairo. “Nasser was a great president, and Al Sisi is a son of the same mother, the army.”
There are many Egyptians who, like Ayman, are convinced that the former head of the armed forces, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, elected president in late May, can restore the country to its ancient glory. That task is anything but simple. The economy is on its knees, propped up exclusively by the petrodollars from the Gulf. In less than a year, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Arab Emirates have already supplied Cairo with approximately six million dollars (€4.5M) worth of petrol and diesel. In exchange, they are gaining access to a promising market of over 86 million people, as shown, for instance, by the extensive Emirate real estate development projects.
“Without help from the emirs, Egypt would be prone to continuous blackouts”, explains Marina Ottaway, a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, “and Egyptian stability is a Gulf priority.”
Stable, but not strong. Riyadh is looking for new regional allies, especially now that relations between the US and its traditional enemy Iran have improved. Yet the Saudis are also aware of the pan-Arab leadership ambitions of the new Egyptian president, and don’t want their regional influence jeopardised. Al Sisi knows this, says Silvia Colombo, a research fellow at the Institute of International Affairs in Rome: “That’s why he wants to maintain strong relations with Washington.”
That desire seems mutual. “I believe that the American government, and even more so the Pentagon, want relations with Egypt to normalise,” says Ottaway.
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“Many countries have an army, but only in Egypt does an army have a country”.
Umm al-Dunya, or ‘Mother of the World’, is how Egyptians – with a mix of pride, nationalism and nostalgia – refer to their country. Many still rue the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser, when Egypt was the leader of the Arab world and a driving force of the Non- Aligned Movement. “Fifty years ago everyone respected us, even the Russians and the Americans,” says Ayman, who owns a store in Talaat Harb Street, one of the main streets in Cairo. “Nasser was a great president, and Al Sisi is a son of the same mother, the army.”
