Akhee-Abdullah
10-28-2001, 02:11 AM
By Susan Sachs,"Frustration formenting ill will, even among allies. Beneath the Arab world's growing rage are frustrated and unemployed people from the slums of Egypt and arid cities of Saudi Arabia, reports SUSAN SACHS
CAIRO - The Bush administration's war on terror is, in some ways, a war on the Islamic extremism that was born and bred in the crowded slums of Egypt and the sterile desert cities of Saudi Arabia, out of the abject sense of powerlessness that drives some people to loathe anyone who represents power.
As such waging and winning the war could require colossal change in both of those nations, whose rulers have often been America's strongest allies in the Arab world.
"The War on terrorism may eliminate a few terrorists," said Muhammad Zarea, a human rights activist in Cairo who said he believes that political and social improvements arew the ultimate answer. "But without basic reforms, it will be like killing a few mosquiteoes and leaving the swamp."
American strategy in the Middle East has long relied on Egypt as a moderating force, particularly in the conflict with Israel, and Saudi Arabia as a stabilising influence on the weak tribal regimes of the Persian Gulf, which control oil riches. Washington's appeal now would seem to be tailor-made for them. The Egyptians have known terrorism first-hand - President Hosni Mubarak was the target of an assassination attempt by Islamic militants in 1995. His predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was killed by them in 1981.
The Saudi royal family, whose power rests on its claim to religious piety, has endured Osama bin Laden's charge of being unfit to oversee the holy places of Mecca and Medina.
But there are problems, too. Both groups of rulers are entrenched elites dealing with increasing social frustration - rooted in stagnant economies and a paucity of jobs - and the difficulty of managing change at the top.
Both have tried to weather a storm of anti-American sentiment in the last year, growing from the perception that the United States supports Israel against the Palestinians.
And now, the list of America's most-wanted terrorists, replete with the names of Egyptians and Saudis, has made it clear that hatred for the US and its friends was nurtured on their own soil.
Egypt, with 69 million people, is the Arab world's most populous state. In a region made up of nations carved by European powers from the Ottoman empire, it has the distinction of being the only Middle Eastern country living within its historic borders.
The Arab world's defining political ideologies have come out of Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the grandfather of the modern movements that seek to replace secular governments with Islamic states, was born here. Pan-Arab nationalism, the secular movement that sought to erase the European-made borders and create a single Arab nation, took concrete form here.
Egypt was also the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, a decision that ushered in Egyptian-American cooperation but that ultimately cost President Anwar Sadat his life.
CAIRO - The Bush administration's war on terror is, in some ways, a war on the Islamic extremism that was born and bred in the crowded slums of Egypt and the sterile desert cities of Saudi Arabia, out of the abject sense of powerlessness that drives some people to loathe anyone who represents power.
As such waging and winning the war could require colossal change in both of those nations, whose rulers have often been America's strongest allies in the Arab world.
"The War on terrorism may eliminate a few terrorists," said Muhammad Zarea, a human rights activist in Cairo who said he believes that political and social improvements arew the ultimate answer. "But without basic reforms, it will be like killing a few mosquiteoes and leaving the swamp."
American strategy in the Middle East has long relied on Egypt as a moderating force, particularly in the conflict with Israel, and Saudi Arabia as a stabilising influence on the weak tribal regimes of the Persian Gulf, which control oil riches. Washington's appeal now would seem to be tailor-made for them. The Egyptians have known terrorism first-hand - President Hosni Mubarak was the target of an assassination attempt by Islamic militants in 1995. His predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was killed by them in 1981.
The Saudi royal family, whose power rests on its claim to religious piety, has endured Osama bin Laden's charge of being unfit to oversee the holy places of Mecca and Medina.
But there are problems, too. Both groups of rulers are entrenched elites dealing with increasing social frustration - rooted in stagnant economies and a paucity of jobs - and the difficulty of managing change at the top.
Both have tried to weather a storm of anti-American sentiment in the last year, growing from the perception that the United States supports Israel against the Palestinians.
And now, the list of America's most-wanted terrorists, replete with the names of Egyptians and Saudis, has made it clear that hatred for the US and its friends was nurtured on their own soil.
Egypt, with 69 million people, is the Arab world's most populous state. In a region made up of nations carved by European powers from the Ottoman empire, it has the distinction of being the only Middle Eastern country living within its historic borders.
The Arab world's defining political ideologies have come out of Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the grandfather of the modern movements that seek to replace secular governments with Islamic states, was born here. Pan-Arab nationalism, the secular movement that sought to erase the European-made borders and create a single Arab nation, took concrete form here.
Egypt was also the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, a decision that ushered in Egyptian-American cooperation but that ultimately cost President Anwar Sadat his life.