The signposts to safety for a prudent autocrat

“Ten years after his inauguration, Bashar Al-Assad is still in power. With no perceptible threat to his rule at present, he is looking less vulnerable than at many times over the past decade.” That is how a BBC report, published in 2010 on the tenth anniversary of Bashar Al-Assad's rule, described the situation.

Dangerous curve ahead

Under the headline “Bashar Al-Assad’s tightening grip on Syria 10 years on,” the report listed evidence that the Syrian president had total control, ruling with an iron fist, eliminating all dissenting voices, and closing the door to any potential popular movement.

Less than three years later, millions of Syrians were in the streets demanding Assad’s departure.

He met peaceful protests with bullets and artillery, plunging Syria into long years of darkness in which it lost all the basic elements of a functioning state and all the aspirations of its people.

This is just one page from a volume crowded with similar examples of countries that thought they were stable and regimes that believed they were in control, only to discover that this stability was fragile, that this control was an illusion, and that nations pay a heavy price to learn what should be obvious.

One way

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi warns of the collapse of the state and says that if Egypt were to slip back into chaos it would never recover.

He reminds us of the existential danger that threatened the country years ago and from which it barely escaped.

We believe the president does not want chaos for Egypt; it is not in his interest. What remains is for the president to believe that we, too, do not want chaos for Egypt, and that, like him, we have no interest in it.

But there is a clear disagreement over the path that each side believes will spare us that chaos.

In ruling circles, there is a prevailing conviction that the road to stability passes through control, closure and a single voice. Yet, history tells us that all the countries whose fate we now fear walked this road before us, convinced, as we are, that it was the road to safety.

Without exception, no state has fallen into chaos or stood on the brink of collapse without having relied on prohibition, closure, and monopoly rule in order to “protect the homeland” from something.

Without exception, no state has fallen into chaos or reached its edge without its rulers believing, up to one hour before the explosion, that it was stable.

Stability means nothing if it is built on fear.

Tunnel ahead

Syria enjoyed a short-lived spring at the beginning of Bashar’s rule, but the fog of the past prevailed.

The thirty-something doctor with a European education and outlook seemed to be offering a project different from that of his father. Political and cultural forums sprang up. Debates moved into the open about reform, greater openness, ending the state of emergency, releasing detainees, and strengthening civil society.

For its part, the state sent signals that it supported this direction, releasing some prisoners, softening the tone of its official media toward opponents, holding unprecedented meetings between officials and intellectuals, and using language not usually heard in presidential speeches.

Then the old guard convinced Bashar that these forums were dangerous. His security agencies told him that if they were left alone they would bring down the regime within a few years. So they shut them down, arrested those who frequented them, and the iron fist returned.

The forums were not left alone, and yet the regime fell within a few short years.

It is not a diversity of voices that brings nations down, but the single voice.

Slow down

Egypt needs genuine reform that brings about safe, orderly change, or at least deliver firm, lasting stability.

The governing formula that some accepted out of conviction, and the majority accepted out of necessity in 2013 is no longer workable in 2025. Nor is it capable of holding out until 2030,  given changing circumstances and faces, the disappearance of old threats, and the emergence of new ones.

Reform is most effective when it is voluntary, not carried out under the pressure of a rebellious street and explosive anger.

Had Hosni Mubarak delivered his February 1 speech just one week earlier, his pictures might still be filling the streets today, and history and Egyptians might have remembered him as a president who left office willingly and oversaw a safe, calm transition. A delay of just one week meant that millions took to the streets, insisting on his immediate and unconditional departure.

We are now at a moment that is perfectly suited to successful, voluntary reform. It is a rare moment when the street, the opposition, and the authorities all agree on their fear of revolution and violent change.

Whatever the reasons for each side, it seems everyone is now convinced that no one will be in control of any explosion of anger if it comes—not the authorities, not the opposition, not even the street.

If an explosion born of a lack of solutions is not a goal, and stability based on the strength of the fist is not a solution, then honest reform must be the path.

Work zone

The first step in any treatment is always to admit that there is a problem.

Blaming the January revolution for every disaster will not work, 15 years after it began and after its youth have become middle-aged, especially given that it never actually had power.

We have a state that has been ruled one way and with one voice for more than 12 years, with absolute powers and without competition from anyone. Yet, by the authorities’ own admission, crises besiege it from every side—from elections and political participation to education, health, and train crashes, and from tensions on every border to the results of the national football team.

When the president called for a national dialogue a few years ago, the experience failed because it was a dialogue of the fearful. It was between authorities convinced that the opposition was lying in wait for them, ready to seize any chance to take power, and an opposition holding its discussions inside the hall while outside arrests and prosecutions for opinion never stopped.

It was also a dialogue of the compelled. The authorities were forced into it by shifting international and regional circumstances that required them to put some cosmetic touches on their policies. The opposition could not reject an invitation to dialogue issued by the president, however many reservations it had about its substance.

We desperately need a national dialogue, but one in which those who disagree sit at the same table to lay out their ideas, differences, and fears and to search for answers to questions they are not afraid to ask. 

A dialogue that ends with a clear vision of the state we want to build, the shape of its system of government and the relationship between its institutions and society.

A dialogue that produces plans to repair education and health care, upgrade infrastructure, and strengthen the economy.

A serious dialogue that leads to real reform, whose signs would appear when the authorities entrust the management of any sector to the most competent person in it, even if they are their fiercest opponent. When they employ every mind in the service of the country without combing those minds for opinions and positions. When they encourage everyone to think and to let their imagination roam.

Crossroads

Stability is very good, but only when it rests on consent, not fear.

Reform is a safe alternative for those who fear explosions, but delaying it can rob it of its effectiveness.

Agreeing on the rules of the political game—even if they are unfair and involve many concessions—is better than playing with no rules and no limits.

The president’s final term has four and a half years remaining. That is more than enough time to launch a comprehensive reform process that lays the foundations for a more modern, dynamic state, a more confident, stable system of government, and a safer, smoother transition.