Sadat Opens the Door

"For five centuries, our people and our Arab nation have lived in the cradle of defeat. Victory processions roamed the streets, but these were the processions of foreign invading armies, not ours. They hoisted the banners of victory in the squares, but they were the banners of occupying countries and not ours. Today I declare to our people and to the whole Arab nation that the centuries of backwardness and defeat are past and gone."

So declared Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at a parliamentary victory celebration in Cairo after the October war. Historians will long debate whether or not the Egyptian armies really won a military victory in that war. It is unlikely, though, that they will dispute the notion that the outcome of the war restored to the Arab world a needed measure of self-esteem that had been absent since the humiliating defeat of 1967 and provided a breakthrough to peace negotiations. Nor will they argue that the war made Egypt's Sadat--who had been judged the indecisive, second-rate successor to the great Gamal Abdel Nasser--the most prestigious leader of the Arab world.

It was Sadat who planned last October's assault on the Israeli-occupied territories as a desperate way of ending the "no war, no peace" stalemate in the Middle East. It was also Sadat who chilled Egypt's longstanding client relationship with the Soviet Union and wholeheartedly backed Henry Kissinger's peacemaking shuttle diplomacy. Sadat is gambling--with his prestige, if not his future--that the American Secretary of State will eventually produce a lasting settlement. What Sadat wants is a peace that will once and for all end the struggle with Israel, thus freeing him and his people to devote their energies to building a new Egypt.

Last week Kissinger was heavily engaged in another round of Middle East shuttle diplomacy, flying not only between Damascus and Jerusalem but also back to Egypt to give Sadat progress reports. Kissinger seemed to be making progress, but slowly. He met in Cyprus with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who indicated that Moscow would not oppose his peacemaking endeavors. The Israelis agreed to give up more captured territory on the Golan Heights, and the Syrians dropped rigid demands for a specific timetable for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory. At week's end the likelihood of a disengagement deal was still uncertain, but Sadat worked on as though the final outcome was inevitable.

Sadat has already begun what he describes as a "liberalization in all fields," meaning a far-reaching political and economic overhaul of Egyptian society. His predecessor, Nasser, tried to build Arab socialism by turning the country into a police state: newspapers were censored, telephones tapped and xenophobia was so encouraged that uncomfortable foreign businessmen went home. Today the concentration camps are empty. Moreover, fewer telephones are tapped, and the secret police are at least less visible. The new editor of the semi official Cairo daily al Ahram is Ali Amin, a journalist who spent nine years in exile during the Nasser era because he opposed the regime.

Sadat refers to this period in veiled phrases. "The 1952 revolution goes on," he said in a recent speech, "but we should understand that there have been certain passive aspects to it and we must correct them." There were a number of fresh corrections last week. The government, for the first time in 25 years, abolished the requirement that Egyptians obtain exit visas to travel abroad. The Council of State ruled that it was illegal for the government to seize individual property, as Nasser did. As a result of the verdict, at least 1,000 Egyptian citizens stand to recover property taken from them during the Nasser years. This week there will be a national referendum to approve Sadat's "October working paper," a broad-sweep charter that outlines the country's goals for the next quarter-century. Right now, Sadat is putting major emphasis on liberalizing the economic field. Unlike its oil-rich Arab neighbors, Egypt has few proven petroleum reserves, although it does have deposits of iron ore, phosphate, cobalt, nickel and copper (see map).

"Calcutta-ization." Following the Suez Canal's closing, which has cost Egypt an estimated $2 billion in lost revenues since 1967, the country has largely depended on tourism and agricultural exports for income. Egypt has also received subsidies and credits from Arab allies (notably Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) and substantial aid (mostly military) from the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Egypt's foreign debt is now about $7 billion. This year's balance of payments deficit will probably be the same as last year's: about $2 billion.

Egypt's problems are likely to get worse before they get better. In the past 30 years, the population has soared from 18 million to 36 million. About a fifth of the country's population are now clustered in and around Cairo; many newcomers are refugees from such once-prosperous cities as Port Said and Ismailia whose homes were ruined after the Six-Day War. Cairo is so overcrowded that it is approaching what Egyptian officials call "Calcutta-ization." At least 60% of its residents have no electricity, water and sewage. A badly managed distribution system has caused long queues and high prices for staple foods.

Egypt's priority program, as a result, is to rebuild its shattered cities and give the people some early measure of relief. But Sadat has even more ambitious projects for revitalizing the country. In essence, the President wants to free Egyptians from their centuries-old dependence on a narrow (average width: seven miles), 500-mile-long green belt on each side of the Nile River valley. The completion of the Aswan High Dam, with its water control and vastly increased production of electricity, will make that possible.

One of the architects of the new Egypt is Osman Ahmed Osman, 57, the principal contractor on the Aswan High Dam, who after the war was named Minister of Housing and Reconstruction by Sadat. Osman's first assignment is a $6 billion reconstruction of the Canal Zone, including the cities of Suez, Port Said, Ismailia and reclamation of land on both sides of the canal. Once that is completed, Osman wants to build a system of concrete culverts beneath the Suez Canal (which is now being cleared by teams of Egyptian, U.S. and British divers) that will carry water from the Nile to irrigate the Sinai desert. At least 350,000 acres of wilderness, he estimates, can be reclaimed by this process. "We wouldn't have done this before the building of the High Dam," says Osman. "If there had been a low Nile, we might have left the delta to dry up if we siphoned water over to Sinai. But now we have a guaranteed supply of water."

Along with the Sinai project and the reclamation of 800,000 acres of land below the dam, Sadat envisions an even more audacious project--the reclamation of nearly 2 million acres of the sand-swirling Western Desert, between the green belt and Egypt's western borders. He becomes excited when he talks about this new frontier. "That's it, the west, I am all for a drive to the west. You know how much I like your western movies. We need the same in Egypt."

Essentially the plan is simple. Underneath the desert, running from the Sudanese border to El Alamein in the north, is a series of underground reservoirs connecting the major oases. Egyptians refer to this as the "Second Nile," or, as it is officially called, "the New Valley." Electric power from Aswan will be sent to the desert and used to pump up the water and irrigate the land. In a test project, 100,000 transplanted Egyptians are now living in the Kharga Oasis at the southeastern end of the desert, where they successfully raise crops and livestock. One farmer, Mohammed Mahmud, happily told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn: "I used to live in a village in the Nile valley, where I was able to rent only two acres of land. I moved over here, and now I own six acres of land, two cows, four goats and a donkey. In the old village, there were 17,000 people and only 1,600 acres of land. Over here, there is enough land for everybody."

Changing Habits. The only jarring note in Mahmud's success story is that he now has eleven children and his wife is pregnant once more. Egyptian leaders are fighting to limit families. In doing so, they must dispel a traditional Arab conviction that many sons must be born for a family to prosper, because so many die of childhood diseases. Thanks to a growing system of state-run clinics in rural areas, the high fatality rate is declining. With support from more progressive Islamic leaders, the government has set up birth control clinics, where a month's supply of the Pill can be bought for about 12-c-.

In the long run, though, Aswan and its electricity output may turn out to be more effective. Within the next five years, more than 4,000 Egyptian villages will have electricity for the first time in history; in those that already have lights and television, there has been a change in nighttime habits. Already a slight drop in birth rates has been reported. "They have other ways to spend the time now," says a social worker.

Egyptians like to regard themselves as heirs of the pharaohs and the elite of the Arab world. In trying to solve some of Egypt's economic and social problems, Sadat can readily call upon the talents of a cadre of intellectuals, technocrats and artists, who in varying ways share his dream of what Egypt can become. Among them:

> Architect Hassan Fathy, 71, who has become world-famous by designing for the poor attractive, inexpensive homes that use cheap local materials. Educated at Cairo University, Fathy employs advanced Western technology but traditional designs. He has planned high-rise residential buildings for Cairo that do not require air-conditioning but instead use the central-courtyard cooling technique.

> Rashad Rushdi, 55, is a popular playwright whose none-too-subtle allegories on corruption infuriated Cabinet ministers in Nasser's day. Rushdi, who spent a year of postdoctoral study at the Yale School of Drama, is an artist whose plays incorporate elements of opera, dance and musicals. His latest play, Habibti Shamina (My Beloved Shamina), is an allegory based on the Song of Solomon, in which Egypt is the lover of Palestine (Shamina).

> Leila Abou Seif, 31, a TV director who uses Western cinematic techniques to explore Egyptian themes. Her latest film is Egypt's favorite subject now: a moving paean to the wounded soldiers of the October war.

> Leila Takla, 38, who holds a doctorate in public administration and is one of eight women members in Egypt's 360-seat Parliament. An active feminist, she held her own in a remarkable debate last year with Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, who had come to Cairo to explore the possibilities of a merger between Egypt and Libya. Takla, who is married to Police General and Criminologist Karim Darwish, rebutted Gaddafi's chauvinistic brand of Islamic fundamentalism by arguing that it reduced women to a secondary role. When Gaddafi protested that women were weak, Takla retorted that "only in weak societies are women weak." Among the feminists present who cheered her on: Jehan Sadat, 40, the President's attractive half-English second wife, who is probably one of the most liberated first ladies in the Arab world.

The contributions such talented Egyptians might make to their country will remain limited, however, unless Sadat is able to overcome Egypt's shortage of capital. For that reason he has conceived a plan called "al infitah " (the opening) to lure money from oil-rich Arab states and the industrial West. Already Egypt has signed a World Bank covenant that limits expropriation; it is negotiating with 50 nations to guarantee them freedom of operation for investors and repatriation of capital. Potential investors appear to be impressed with Egypt's earnestness. In slightly more than a year, Egypt has signed 13 agreements with international oil companies under which they will explore for oil in the Western Desert and offshore along the Mediterranean coast.

An increased foreign presence will mean far-reaching changes in the country's social structure. "We haven't fully decided how much freedom we really want," admits one Cairo editor. "How can you have a fully free press without pornography? How can you have social freedom without permissiveness? How can you give freedom to foreign industrialists and not to Egyptian industrialists?"

Abandoning Nasser. This new freedom will dramatically affect Egyptian women. Until recently, most girls stayed uneducated at home, in keeping with Islamic tradition. There is still a Moslem bloc that favors keeping women in this state. When the National Assembly recently debated a divorce bill, students from the 1,000-year-old Al Azhar University demonstrated in protest. But the liberation of women in Egypt's increasingly open society is inevitable. One-fourth of Egypt's 200,000 university students are coeds, and 74% of all women graduates are working. More pantsuits than veils are seen these days on Cairo streets.

One measure of the change that Sadat has already wrought in Egyptian society is that some of his policies are being openly criticized by the intellectual fringe of what is still a very loyal opposition. Some complain that he is abandoning Nasser's vision of Egypt as an Arab socialist community. Others charge that he has built up excessively high hopes based on what Kissinger's diplomacy may achieve, and is risking a bitter backlash. Even American diplomats have gently tried to warn him that U.S. aid may not be forthcoming in quite the amount he expects. Tacitly, Sadat concedes that he has taken a giant risk in staking so much on the U.S. "If there is no peace," he says, "then forget everything I have said."

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