Amitai Etzioni David Katz Harsh Pant - Middle East Forum

eports indicate that lootingof shops and homes iswidespread. 11 The armystands as the last defenderof order and balance and may yet step in torestore order, end the neo-liberal economic experiment,and defend its own prerogatives. Ithas done so for 5,000 years.As the Muslim Brotherhood emerges fromthe shadows to participate and perhaps dominatethe revolution, the question of its regardfor antiquity must also be raised. Egypt’s Islamistsalso have a vision of the past. It is difficultto discern what their attitudes toward antiquitieswould be except indirectly. For example,Egypt’s grand mufti Ali Gomaa issued a fatwa in2006 banning the display of statues in homesand was joined in his condemnation by SheikhYusuf al-Qaradawi. The fatwa was condemnedby Egyptian intellectuals and even by the MuslimBrotherhood. 12It is also well to remember that Khalid al-Islambouli cried, “I have killed the pharaoh,” aftershooting Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981. 13The pharaoh is not a positive Qur’anic imagebut a tyrant. The Luxor massacre of 1997, wheresixty-two tourists were slaughtered, saw the Islamistal-Gama’a al-Islamiya attack the Templeof Hatshepsut. The modern Egyptian and Westernrelationship with the Egyptian past was thesetting for the attack. Tourism was clearly intendedto be the victim. How the Muslim Brotherhood,dedicated to Islamizing Egypt, woulddeal with tourism, museums, and antiquities isunclear. Certainly, in the short term, for the sakeof foreign currency and appearances, little willchange. But the example of Afghanistan underthe Taliban is in the background. The destructionwrought on remains of the Jewish templesThe practicality and wisdomof repatriating antiquitiesto Egypt is dubious.in Jerusalem by the PalestinianIslamic authoritiesshould also be mentioned.Perhaps most telling, however,is the almost complete erasure of Islamichistorical remains from the cities of Mecca andMedina, including structures associated withMuhammad. 14An Egypt dominated by the military will almostcertainly seek to restore both the country’ssymbols and the practical mechanisms of tourism.Whether the military can ride the crocodileof popular unrest and a population empoweredby social media yet lacking meaningful liberaldemocratic roots remains to be seen. But thereligious desire to create a rupture with the pastin the name of fighting idolatry is deep.In all this, the practicality and wisdom ofrepatriating antiquities to Egypt is dubious. ZahiHawass in particular has been determined in hispursuit of antiquities that were taken from Egyptover the past centuries. The Rosetta Stone,found by French engineers but taken as Britishwar booty, tops his list. But even objects givenby Egypt as gifts have come under his acquisitiveeye. Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park waserected in 1881, a gift from the Khedive of Egypt.But 130 years of standing out in the rain does noobelisk good, and Hawass has demanded that itbe preserved, or he will take it back. His pursuitof Egyptian objects outside of Egypt has beenalmost as relentless as his drive to become theface of Egyptian archaeology everywhere.The pharaoh is gone and so is Hawass. 15In the meantime, those concerned aboutEgypt’s past can only sit back and watch as agenuinely Egyptian transformation takes place,one in which the relationship of past andpresent will inevitably be redefined yet alongfamiliar lines.11 The Gulf Today (Dubai), Jan. 30, 2011.12 Middle East Online (London), Apr. 3, 2006.13 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and theRoad to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 50.14 “Muslims start petition to stop Saudi destruction of Meccaand ‘The House of Mohammed,’” Militant Islam Monitor, Sept.29, 2005.15 The New York Times, Mar. 3, 2011.78 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SPRING 2011