I have long known that the contemporary Egypt in which I was raised could easily produce a figure like\u00a0General Ibrahim Abd al-Ati<\/a>\u00a0and his ill-famed sham device for\u00a0vanquishing AIDS<\/a>\u00a0and hepatitis C. I knew that Egypt\u2019s security doctrine could enable the\u00a0killing of a young man like Giulio Regeni<\/a>\u00a0under torture, without the slightest trace of guilt. I also knew that Egypt\u2019s strategic experts could\u00a0believe that Freemasons actually rule the world<\/a>. I was aware that the mentality of education officials in Giza would let them\u00a0burn books<\/a>\u00a0deemed insulting to the nation. I was not surprised that a\u00a0former chair of the Federation of Industries<\/a>\u00a0and a member of the board of trustees at a foreign university could say under the dome of that university that intellectuals are the greatest threat to society; or that\u00a0state antiquities officials could destroy archeological inscriptions<\/a> on a temple wall thinking that a foreign archeological mission had carved them.<\/span><\/p>\n All these things were theoretically possible, but there was a brake in place to stop them from slipping out of control, to prevent them from becoming realities. The problem, I think, goes beyond the current administration, or particular influential cliques within it. Rather, the current situation is more about the conditions of the elite, the dominant temperaments within this group, and the core inclinations and historical choices of the Egyptian intelligentsia. Contemporary Egypt as a whole is like a satellite spinning out of orbit, in danger of being lost in the ether. Perhaps for the first time in its modern history, Egypt seems to be purposefully isolating itself from the world.<\/span><\/p>\n In this rather long article, I\u2019ll try to answer two central questions: Why has Egypt only come untethered in the last three years? What are some of the roots of this dangerous and disgraceful situation? And finally, is there a way back?<\/span><\/p>\n Since the establishment of the modern state in the 19th century, Egyptian elites have been obsessed with the nation\u2019s image in the world, leading them to expand great effort and investment in fashioning and fixing a particular fa\u00e7ade for outside observers. As is the case with any country that recently won its independence from a foreign colonizer, Egyptian elites wanted to show the colonial power that their country was worthy of independence. The national elite and bourgeoisie wanted to prove their entitlement to the colonial state, and affirm their legitimacy and right to represent the local populace. In a more anxious, impetuous turn, the elite sought to prove that they were no less advanced and modern than their former colonizers. The nationalist desires of those elites at certain critical junctures produced an image that combined a sense of greatness with feelings of persecution and historical injustice, mingled with shame and embarrassment at the local populace of backward peasants and urban poor.<\/span><\/p>\n While this mindset is characteristic of most post-independence states, it was particularly stark in Egypt, where it gained a life of its own.<\/span><\/p>\n Egypt\u2019s modern conceptions of its national identity were based on an imagination of a glorious legacy spanning thousands of years, and grounded in a widely shared perception of a historical continuity from ancient to contemporary times. This imagined nation first took shape under King Narmer in 3200 BCE. We learned in school that Egypt was occupied, and was never ruled by one of its own from the 30th Pharaonic Dynasty until Nasser took power in 1952. That is, the country saw no Egyptian ruler for some 2,400 years. But this did not preclude \u201cEgyptianizing\u201d everything that happened between these two dates. According to this nationalist narrative, every conqueror and occupier was swallowed and consumed in the crucible of Egyptian civilization, to be broken down and fused into its own civilizational amalgam \u2014 or so we were told.<\/span><\/p>\n Today\u2019s Egyptian army sees the genealogy of its own battles and conquests as dating back to the battle of Qadesh led by Ramses II in the 13th century BCE, followed by the battle of Meggido (15th century BCE) when forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III defeated the Canaanites led by king of Qadesh. The contemporary Egyptian army claims King Ahmose\u2019s liberation of the Delta from the Asiatic Hyksos in the 16th century BCE as part of its own historical victory. This genealogy is exhibited in the mural outside the Egyptian Military College that includes scenes from these ancient battles in addition to depictions of Ibrahim Pasha\u2019s conquest in Syria in the 19th century, all the way to the 1973 war with Israel.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Egyptian bourgeoisie: Public image and self-image<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n