The point of departure to avoid being swept by a wave of anarchy and despotism is to adopt a modern constitution which provides for the complete separation between the organs of the state and sets out the powers and duties of officials and the methods of calling them to account. It should also provide mechanisms for the rotation of power and safeguards to ensure that theocracies (dictatorships ruling in the name of religion) or autocracies (dictatorships ruling in the name of a specific ideology or nationalism) can never come to power. Special processes should be devised for the amendment of the constitution, and safeguards inserted to ensure that certain of its provisions are unalterable. In short, hundreds of constitutional issues need to be addressed in order to guarantee that political life proceeds in an orderly fashion in a civil society governed by the provisions of a modern constitution.

An insurmountable obstacle in the way of genuine democracy is the domination of political life by a single party, a feature that is still prevalent in a number of countries. The sidelining of other parties by the ruling party is counterproductive in that it enhances the appeal of underground movements and allows them to acquire a degree of influence far greater than they would otherwise have had. In the case of Egypt, there is an urgent need for the ruling National Democratic Party to change the form and scope of its sphere of influence, which now resembles that of the Socialist Union when it was the only party in the political arena. The current situation not only weakens the legal opposition parties but also, and to an equal degree, the NDP itself. Moreover, it expands the sphere of influence of underground political movements skilled at coming up with catchy slogans but not with specific programmes. And, at the end of the day, it is the commitment to a political programme that distinguishes a party from a movement.

Building a real and vibrant democratic life entails devising a detailed plan to consolidate civil society in general and human rights organizations in particular, as these are among the most effective mechanisms which can prevent anti-democratic parties or movements from taking advantage of the democratic system to reach influential positions. Unfortunately, the bureaucracies in certain political systems that are in the early stages of democratic transformation are hostile to civil society organizations, even though they are the main bulwark in the face of takeovers by anti-democratic forces.

It is important in this connection to realize that there is a vast difference between the real popularity of a certain trend and the apparent popularity it can appear to have under certain circumstances. For example, it could gain as much as 60% of the vote in the context of voter apathy, as when a silent majority of the electorate stay away from the polls because they believe their participation will make no difference. If this silent majority were to participate, the popularity of the same trend could drop to less than half that percentage. It is not difficult to understand the indifference behind poor election turnouts, a subject I previously addressed in an article entitled “Public apathy under scrutiny.” In the article, I attribute the phenomenon of political apathy to a widespread sense of the futility of participation. Overcoming the problem does not require centuries or even decades: all it takes is a moment of truth to replace people’s negative attitudes towards participation with feelings of confidence that the election process is not merely a charade and that their participation can make a difference. Poor voter turnout needs to be addressed qualitatively, not quantitatively.

Before talking of political reform, we also need to recognize that the world today knows only two models of development in general and of development in a democratic environment in particular: the West European/North American model on the one hand, and the Asian model in countries like Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia on the other. In some of the talks I gave, I used the expression “slow cooking” to describe the process of development in Western Europe and North America, which unfolded over centuries, and “rapid cooking” to describe it in the case of the Asian model, where it was compressed into a few decades. If we Egyptians want to see our country attain the level of progress, development, prosperity, stability democracy and general freedoms to which we aspire within the time-frame of a few years rather than over centuries, we need to draw the necessary lessons from the Asian examples, whose adoption of democracy was dictated by internal factors, not external pressure. In all the successful Asian experiments, society passed through a stage in which the main focus was on economic success. This went hand in hand with the growth and expansion of the middle class, which usually results in a higher level of democracy. I have referred in some of my writings to what I call the “engineered reform phase,” which is a stage of planned reform. Egypt has embarked on this stage, but so far the steps it has taken on the path of reform have been slow. Meanwhile, the problems crying out for reform are growing at a much faster pace, and the lag between the speed of reforms and the rate at which these problems are growing carries implications that are too dangerous to ignore.

In recent years, the issue of internal political reform has come to be associated with an external factor that needs to be addressed very seriously. I am talking of the way certain great powers take it upon themselves not only to call for political reforms in other countries but even sometimes to apply pressure on those countries to introduce certain reforms. It is important for both sides to realize that the boundary between asking and demanding must not be crossed, and that moving from a stage of recommending reforms to one of applying pressure on a country to force it to comply is at best useless, at worst counterproductive. From my first-hand experience in the world of management, where I have been actively involved at both the executive and academic levels for many years, I know that any real constructive change can only be brought about by believers, not followers. As this principle applies in the world of management, so too does it apply in the world of politics and to relations between nations. In other words, all that an outside party is entitled to do is to request and persuade; the use of coercion rather than persuasion is self-defeating. Not only will it fail to produce the desired result, but, more often than not, will actually produce the opposite result. If we analyze the experience of the Asian tigers, which are now enjoying real democracy, we find that there is not one case among them in which change and development came about in response to external pressure.

So far we have addressed the issue of reform only in its political, not its economic, sense. Economic reform (which is distinct from fiscal reform), it is on the one hand the product of political reform and, on the other of an economic environment and an investment climate attractive to foreign capital and to international and local projects. There has been a great deal of irresponsible talk by armchair economists on what economic reform entails. Actually, the issue of economic reform must be seen from the perspective of modern management science, which teaches us that what cannot be measured cannot be appraised. Today there is a whole branch of management science dealing with this question. Originally established under the name “Performance Evaluation,” it is now known simply as “Benchmark.” The importance of this branch lies in its complete disregard of subjective factors like emotions, instincts, aspirations, whims and ideological inclinations in favour of objective measurement criteria or benchmarks. It would take hundreds of pages to explain the use of benchmarks in measuring economic performance, so I will limit myself to citing a couple of examples here:

- The volume of direct foreign investment in Egypt in 2003 amounted to a paltry 400 million US dollars, which is half the amount invested by an international oil company in east Russia and less than 1% of foreign investments in Malaysia.

- Egypt’s textile exports account for less than 5% of the potential of this sector, as determined by extremely reliable international studies. At the same time, the textile exports of a smaller country, Jordan, exceeded those of Egypt.

In the light of these and hundreds of other indicators there is no room to cite here, it is manifestly clear that we need to take a critical look at our poor performance and ask ourselves why the flow of foreign investments remains so modest. It is equally clear that we have no one to blame but ourselves, especially that we reject any outside interference in out internal affairs. Thus we alone are responsible not only for economic reform but also for our economic problems.

One cannot talk of reform, even in the most perfunctory way, without referring to what I call the “anti-change culture” pervading every aspect of our lives. In the world of management, all training programmes for senior cadres begin by emphasizing the importance of managing change. Rapid change is a feature of modern life, and the ability to adapt to the accelerated pace of change and deal with the many variables involved is par for the course. However, we belong to a culture that venerates the past and sets great store by traditions and customs established through long usage. This makes for a mindset that is averse to change in general and to any change perceived as a threat to our traditions in particular. We are not the only ones exhibiting this cultural peculiarity. Another Arab country launched a campaign in the early nineties under the slogan “Development without change!” As development is by definition a dynamic process involving a forward motion from one situation to another, to talk of development as a static process that will miraculously unfold without bringing about any change is a contradiction in terms, not to say an oxymoron. Still, the slogan is significant in that it reveals the strong resistance to change in our culture, whose sociological formation is still dominated by the notions of tribalism and kinship, not of modern citizenship.

Skeptics who warn against the dangers of rapid change do have a point. However, the time for abstract reflections is fast running out. Any society whose problems continue to grow at a faster rate than it can come up with the proper remedies is doomed to sink into a downward spiral. By the same token, if treatment proceeds at a faster rate than the growth of problems, the situation is bound to improve.

These are just a few notes in the margin of the most important subject in Egypt today, which can be summed up in the question on everyone’s lips: where is our society headed? One can only hope that the answer is not couched in such vague, poetic formulas as “towards a brighter future” or “towards a dark future.” This kind of response is totally out of synch with the spirit of the age, which requires measured answers based on precise criteria. Such criteria, or benchmarks, can help a society determine whether it is on the right course, as can a comparison with the experience of other countries in instituting reforms, specifically the path they took and the speed at which the process was accomplished.