Morsi’s Two Faces

The Arab Spring has been greeted with great hope in the West, a sign that perhaps the Arab world was finally caught up in the tide of global democratization that swept the world after the Cold War. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. While we’ve seen some overtures toward democracy — elections in Tunisia and Egypt, for instance — it seems old hatreds die hard. Take the latest controversy regarding Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The New York Times discovered a 2010 video in which Morsi urged Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews. In a subsequent television interview, he described “Zionists” as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.” No surprise, the video’s contents have sparked consternation. The Obama administration admonished Morsi for his “deeply offensive” remarks and called on him to repudiate them. The Egyptian government, no surprise, says the president’s comments were taken out of context. It’s hard to see what “context” would make such vitriol acceptable anywhere, except, of course, in the Arab world. That’s the problem. Morsi is not the first Arab leader to say one thing for domestic consumption, while talking good intentions on the international stage. Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, was also a master of deception. The Morsi video may predate the Arab Spring and his own rise to power, but the fact that it was broadcast last week on Egyptian television suggests at least tacit endorsement by his government. Which, in turn, suggests the old hatreds — hatreds that lead to war — are deliberately being stirred up again. And that raises the question of whether a new and perhaps dangerous political dynamic is taking shape in the Middle East. When you add the rebroadcast of Morsi’s sentiments to recent reports that Egypt and Iran, with its nuclear ambitions and anti-Israeli policies, are co-operating on intelligence and military matters; well, Western governments may need to hit the reset button on their reaction to some elements of the Arab Spring. It’s beginning to look like an Arab Winter. Ottawa Citizen