CAIRO
-- When I was a child during the 1960s in Egypt, we were taught
geography that showed maps of ''Palestine'' but made no mention
of Israel except as a ravager of Palestinian and, therefore,
Arab rights. As a puzzled 6-year-old, I had to rely on imagination
alone to conjure up the image of an ''enemy'' that I could
not find on a map.
We were
hemmed in -- intellectually and culturally. That intellectual
wall produced a generation that grew up beside a faceless
neighbor it profoundly distrusted. Just like any introverted
society, we failed to develop, to learn from new ideas; instead,
we just re- peated over and over our anachronistic mantras
of anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism. The
result was an intellectual, economic, cultural and spiritual
void.
SADAT
IN JERUSALEM
It had
not always been so. I come from a country that long thrived
as an open society. There have been Christians in Egypt since
St. Mark first came in AD 43; before Gamal Abdel Nasser took
power in a bloodless coup in 1952, there were Jews, Syro-Lebanese,
Greeks and Italians, all of whom contributed to a culturally
rich and diverse Egypt. When they were gone, Egypt was the
poorer for their absence.
Then came
President Anwar Sadat. When he took that fateful trip to Jerusalem
in 1977, our collective anticipation, emotion and wonder were
as great as if his plane were landing on Mars. Suddenly our
prospects were brighter; the world was a friendlier place
as he was asked (now famously) upon his arrival what took
him so long.
In seemingly
quick succession, there followed the Camp David accords and
the return of the Sinai, and with it, an influx of Israeli
tourists to Egypt. I remember a camping trip in Sharm el Sheik
in the late '80s when we saw as many cars with Israeli plates
as we did Egyptian cars. The Bedouins serving breakfast at
the camp were as fluent in Hebrew as they were in Arabic --
and as comfortable with one as with the other. This is how
it should be, I thought.
These
are the images that colored my upbringing, my passing from
a gray childhood to a young adulthood full of promise. In
1993, the Oslo accords promised more progress and hope. In
1995, I finally made my own trip to Israel.
Eyes wide,
I took in the sights of Tel Aviv, the familiar whiff of sea,
fish and falafel. I made friends with whom I stay in regular
touch today -- friends I called immediately to express condolences
after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination
in 1995.
My friends
said that Rabin's death was a devastating loss -- but that
the extremists would never win. For a while it seemed they
were right. We were all on the right track, with increasing
openness pointing toward the articulation of a hitherto undreamed-of
vision of regional integration, peace and economic cooperation.
Whatever
happened to these dreams? What has the Middle East come to?
My own
lofty ideas for participating in the ''New Middle East'' have
been put on hold by circumstances. The current violence is
an extremist's fantasy -- and a horrible vindication for their
destructive impulses. After so many years of hope, it is shameful
-- and sad -- that the only ones in a position to say ''I
told you so'' are the extremists on both sides.
I am not
alone here. Many others watch with horror this seemingly unstoppable
war, the now daily verbal assault of extremism. We all cringe
at the physical and intellectual devastation that this tragic
conflict will leave behind.
We have
all lost in past decades. Lost the opportunity to get to know
each other, lost the chance to work together -- to contribute
to each other's prosperity and security.
Yet even
in these bleak moments, all it would take is for us to recognize
that we share a common future. Let us work together to reach
a true resolution that will end the conflict permanently.
Let us think beyond the current crisis and imagine the future
we want. That's the only way we'll get it.
Dina
Khayat is managing director of Lazard Asset Management Egypt
and an executive board member of the Cairo Peace Movement.
©2002
The Los Angeles Times
