Egypt is tired. The new sun that had wrapped Tahrir Square in its warmth has grown dim. Today's Egypt needs to continue its meticulous search for modernization, identity and national strength. The threat of another sudden revolution is not the issue here. Rather, the issue is the country's descent into the pits of disappointment and despair.
How will the Egyptian people, bursting with ideology but well-versed in frustration and disappointment from politics and from regional economics, respond this time around? It appears, for now, with continued violence.
Even as it sinks, Egypt leans on a distinguishable national identity. The various religious worldviews, however, have still not left the stage in favor of modern nationalistic ideas, and both are incessantly in competition with each other in the market of ideology.
For a long period, nationalism meant modernity, progress and the right to self-determination, along with the individual being responsible for his own fate -- the very heart of Western secular ideology. Nationalism highlights a country's language or territorial commonality as cohesive factors essential to the unification of a political community. Religion was pushed aside and became just another factor of many comprising Egypt's cultural legacy. It is not that religion had no place in the country's cultural legacy, or in the nationalistic model devised by Gamal Abdel Nasser, it is just that religion was marginalized.
The Islamist movements' attempt at "normalization" and compromise in its dialogue with the authorities created fringe groups which became extreme not only in regard to violence and terrorism, but also regarding the dichotomy between Islam and the West. The new (nationalistic) movements abandoned the universal message of Islam at its origins, that which sought to negate the nation state and to unify the people through education and sentiment building, and chose, on the surface, nationalistic particularism and compromise to mold the nation state. Despite this, the grip of Islamic identity is much stronger on civil society, as evidenced by the Muslim Brotherhood's election and national referendum victories in Egypt within the past year.
Another reason for the Muslim Brotherhood's victory is the recurring trend in the Muslim world during times of crisis: the tendency to return to the roots, or in other words, to an entity defined by Islam, not by nationalism. The new Islamification, which has again sprung from the "bottom," is first and foremost a way of building a new identity in a world that has lost meaning and has become unrecognizable and alienating.
Is it possible to unify the Nile Delta? Will modern Egyptian nationalism and its yearning to be unique withstand the weight of its religious-Islamic legacy? The path toward changing the political, social and economic situation is bloody and growing ever more extreme. The dozens of people killed last week were a consequence of the historical conflict between two movements, the violent and dangerous result of their clashing over the years.
If the situation does not change, Egypt will again lose a real opportunity for change. Darkness will once again cover the land, the Nile will turn to blood and Egypt will again sacrifice its sons on the altar of clashing identities and ideologies, without promising a better future for the next generation.
The writer is a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies.
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