National political identities reflect material interest and the exercise of power, hence they mirror the outcome of the clash of those interests and the capacity as well as the inclusiveness of governmental institutions. A coherent national political identity suggests the existence of a dominant social formation or broadly inclusive governmental institutions with ample capacity to make, implement, and adjudicate public policy. Conversely, a fragmented national identity points to the existence of competitive social formations and the likelihood that governmental institutions are immobilized by competition between those formations, or rendered illegitimate by virtue of having been captured by one such formation. National political identities are thus plastic, reflecting both shifts in power relations between social formations and the dynamics of political institutions as their capacities and inclusiveness undergo change. The outcome of political contestation, national political identities are necessarily fluid and constantly subject to reinterpretation.

Although the characterization of national political identity as being other than immutable has become commonplace, it bears emphasizing within the Arab context because both scholars and political practitioners have sought to imbue it with a more transcendental character. The rise of Arab nationalism, culminating in the formation of Arab nation-states, is widely depicted as the fulfilment of a manifest destiny. Once the historic mission was accomplished, the issue of political identity in the “Arab” world was considered closed. For many, attempts to reopen the identity issue amount to heresy. This refusal to countenance an ijtihad (interpretation) of identity reflects the interests of most incumbent Arab elites, for whom an alleged, homogenous, unified national identity serves to obviate the need for political pluralism. In the absence of a pluralism of identities, no commensurate institutional pluralism is deemed to be required.

The Arab-centric view of political identity, however, is history written by the victors. The nationalist struggle entailed, possibly necessarily, the sublimation of particularistic, sub-national identities in order to mobilize and unify the population. For those leaders whose hands were on the levers of power when true independence was finally achieved, nationalism served as justification for the subjugation of competitive elites and the social formations they represented. In those heady days, the claim to be the true articulator of the Egyptian or any other variant of Arab nationalism was sufficient to legitimate the incumbent and, by implication, discredit any and all challengers.

But this political situation was inherently non-sustainable. In the first instance, the myth of the unified, homogenous nation could not long endure in the face of a heterogenous, disunited reality. In the second, fulfilment of the nationalist mission was beyond the capacities of the nation, thereby inevitably forcing accommodations and compromises, as well as bringing about disastrous defeats, thus undermining incumbents’ claims to rule and rekindling sub-national identities while intensifying the hostility of those social formations excluded from power. In sum, the radical nationalist phase was just that, a phase, the accompanying political identity of which was necessarily also transitory.

Challenges to Nationalism

The problem is that this phase has not yet been superseded by any clearly identifiable successor. Radical Arab nationalism is dead, but is yet to be buried. Its corpse is retained, like an El Cid, as a symbol of the earlier phase, the linkage to which serves as justification of claims to present incumbency. The rotting corpse cannot be interred until a new source of legitimacy is produced, a legitimacy which must rest on the recognition of three separate realities and accommodation to them, tasks to which the Egyptian leadership as well as that of most other Arab states, have thus far proven unequal.

The first “post nationalist” reality is that of sub-national political cleavages, many of which are taking on increasingly distinct political identities. The myth of national unity, steadfastly clung to by incumbent and even oppositional elites, is now so at variance with reality that it is more akin to a ritualistic prayer than a stimulus to action. Some of the cleavages are not new, as the emerging, still much vilified post-nationalist school of Egyptian historiography, led by Khaled Fahmy, Samir Rafat, and Anthony Gorman, is documenting. Although the mutamasriyyun, (Egyptianized resident minorities) have either fled, been assimilated, or retreated to their homes, few remaining social clubs, and places of worship, the chronicling of their accomplishments and contributions to the development of modern Egypt is just really beginning. No longer significant political or economic actors, the restoration of the rightful role of mutamasriyyun in 19th and 20th century Egyptian history by revisionist historiographers poses at least an intellectual challenge to those who seek to sustain the nationalist myth. Widespread recognition of the previous accomplishments of cosmopolitanism, or what might be thought of as Egypt’s response to the globalization of the imperial era, could ultimately also take on direct political connotations. It is diametrically opposed both to the standard nationalist historiography and to the legitimating myth of the incumbent leadership. It could also indicate, in broad, general terms, what a new development strategy might entail and who would, therefore, be appropriate to formulate and implement that strategy.

But the rediscovery of the important role played by mutamasriyyun in the development of Egypt poses less of a threat to the political status quo and its attendant “official” political identity than does the existence of significant social formations that are either virtually excluded from the administrative, political, and economic structures of the state. These formations are therefore unable to benefit substantially from private economic activity or are sufficiently globalized to be seeking identities beyond the bounds of a narrowly conceived Egyptian Arabism. Foremost in these categories are Christians, the poor, especially those resident in the non-touristic areas of Upper Egypt, and youths from the lower and lower-middle social classes who have already or are now being educated, but who are unlikely to find suitable employment. Their exclusion has stimulated flourishing sub-group identities that increasingly underpin either particularistic or, paradoxically, universalistic political ideologies, both types of which pose challenges to official political identity.

Saidi, or Upper Egyptian identity, has grown apace as the region has failed to keep pace with the development of the remainder of the country. Saidi identity is intermixed with religion and tribalism/familism, creating a lethal brew that Cairo considers as seditious and has responded accordingly. In the Hobbesian world of Upper Egypt only two things are certain. The first is that whether Islamist, tribalist, or regionalist, the motivating ideology is stridently anti-governmental. The second is that unlike Christian or Islamist/modernist identities and political movements, the Saidi identity and the individuals and groups that seek to translate it into political action lack extra-Egyptian connections. Theirs inevitably is a rural revolt, against which massive firepower can be deployed indiscriminately and successfully, for the world does not aid the insurrectionists, even by recognizing their plight. But Saidi identity is unlikely to be eradicated by force, whereas it probably would be tempered were the region to be more thoroughly and profitably integrated into the national political economy.