The headquarters of the Arab League, built on the banks of the Nile, commands sweeping views over the centre of the greatest Arab city, Cairo. A teeming metropolis of approximately 18 million people, Cairo also constitutes the symbolic heart of the Arab world, the central artery from which over 150 years of revolutionary thought has developed and gone on to affect every other country in the Middle East. From Arab nationalism to Arab socialism and, more recently, Islamic fundamentalism, Cairo is equalled only by 60s Beirut and 80s Tehran in its ability to set the Arab political agenda.
It comes as a surprise therefore that Egypt, on the government or popular level, has not taken the lead in opposing the current US-led campaign in Afghanistan. The absence of impassioned demonstrations in the congested Cairo streets have struck a discordant chord with thousands of demonstrators in London, Rome and Athens - in fact, throughout the First World where individuals have been far more willing to take to the streets and protest against a war which they consider unjust.
So why the silence from the Egyptian masses? It is certainly not for lack of support for the anti-war, or at least the anti-American, cause. Egyptians form a large part of the Arab fighters currently forming the hardcore Taliban opposition. Egypt is also well represented in the leadership circles of al-Qaida. Recent victims of the US bombings in Afghanistan Tariq Anwar al-Said Ahmad, head of special operations for Islamic Jihad, and Muhammad Salah, an officer in Islamic Jihad involved in several of al-Qaida's operations, were Egyptians. Similarly, Osama Bin Laden's closest colleague, Ayman al-Zawahri, the erstwhile head of Islamic Jihad, is Egyptian and currently in hiding- his true fate unknown. Despite these connections between Egyptians and the current US campaign in Afghanistan, Egyptians are remaining quiet, and with good reason. The majority of them do not consider that there is any other tie between them and the aforementioned militants beyond that of nationality. Many Egyptians complain that it is such men who are high-jacking the image of true Islam - moderate, tolerant and peace-loving - and presenting it as the polar opposite.
Furthermore, such men are hardly celebrities in a country that has pursued a harsh and open-ended internal campaign against the politically and socially destabilizing influence of Islamic organizations. Zawahri has already served a three year prison sentence for his involvement in the assassinations of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, who was responsible for committing Egypt to a peace treaty with Israel, before travelling to Afghanistan to join Bin Laden in 1986. He has since been sentenced to death in absentiam and is suspected for planning the attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995, the killing of 67 tourists in Luxor in 1997, and the blowing-up of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
With such a track record, it is hardly surprising that Zawahri and his colleagues do not command much support in a country that has a great tradition of piety. What has caused a fierce debate within Egyptian society, however, has been the fate of Zawahri's family, two members of which (his wife and 13 year old son) were reported killed by US strikes on Kandahar.
His remaining four children, all girls, were said to be cold, hungry, and wounded somewhere in the freezing plateaus of southern Afghanistan. When a relative of Zawahri's made a personal appeal to the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, to safeguard the fate of the four surviving daughters, a lively debate began within Egyptian society. Oil was poured on the fire when the tabloid weekly Akhr Sa'a featured on its cover a photograph of Zawahri surrounded by images of his wife and children, accompanied by the title: 'Zawahri's last victim. These innocent children paid with their lives for his extremist ideas.'
The question of what is to happen to Zawahri's surviving children also broaches the broader issue of the fate of the families, estimated at 10,000, of the 3000 or so Arab fighters currently in Afghanistan. Except for a Libyan initiative aiming at saving the Arab fighters, many Arab governments have remained silent over the fate of their naitonals. Countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, all of which have had internal troubles related to Islamist activity, do not seem engaged with the issue.
Except for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait, which have offered amnesty to any of their nationals captured in Afghanistan, no other Arab countries have put forward any proposal dealing with their errant sons. But perhaps the greatest factor influencing the lack of popular demos against the ongoing US campaign in Afghanistan is the over-arching importance of the issue of Palestine.
There is also a tense air of expectation as, with each passing day, more reports filter through of threats against 'candidate' countries for the next phase of the campaign against terrorism. Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen have already been cited. And as the campaign against the Taliban ends with an even more derelict Afghanistan, the Arab world - and Egypt at its centre - waits with bated breath. One thing is for sure: Arabs, from Morocco to Iraq will not remain as silent over the bombing of a fellow Arab country as they did over the US campaign in Afghanistan.
