the quiet general

7/30/2019 The Quiet General

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The Quiet General

That Egypt has a new strongman is no longer in doubt. Since the Egyptian military

ousted the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi last month following

protests across the country, posters of Egypts de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-

Sisi, have become more ubiquitous on Cairo streets than Sphinx souvenirs. The head of

the Army stares out from caf walls and the windows of government buildings, the red

and the gold of his uniform remaining bright, even as the features of his face fade under

the relentless sun. He is the one we can trust, read some of the posters. Others call

him the eagle of the Arabs.

Its a ubiquitous imagebut an enigmatic one. More than a month after assuming

power, al-Sisi remains as opaque as his dark glasses. In Egypt, he is often compared

with the charismatic and ruthless leader of the 1950s and 1960s, Gamal Abdel Nasser,

yet few people know anything about his family or background. He hardly ever talks to

reporters, and his close friends and allies are reluctant to speakbegging off interview

requests, or agreeing to talk, only to cancel later after checking with the generals staff.


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Khaled Elfiqui/EPA

Al-Sisi was virtually unknown to the public before Morsi named him defense minister a

year ago.

But understanding al-Sisi is critical to understanding where Egypt is headedespecially

after this weeks bloodletting, which has seen his soldiers crack down on proMuslim

Brotherhood demonstrators. And one place to begin is in Cairos ancient Khan al-Khalili

bazaar, in a shop called Al-Sisi, where finely crafted Egyptian boxes made of intricately

inlaid mother-of-pearl grace the shelves.

THE GENERAL grew up in the Gamaleya district of Cairo, the same warren of alleys

among time-worn mosques and caravansaries that the Nobel Prizewinning novelist

Naguib Mahfouz wrote about in his landmark trilogy:Palace Walk, Palace of

Desire, and Sugar Street. Even today the precincts that include the bazaar are alive

with scenes that may appear exotic to a foreign visitor. Vendors of perfume and

hookahs, of brass palm trees and glittering bras for belly dancers, line the streets. In

some corners raw sewage spills into the road and garbage is piled high against

crumbling mud walls; in others, just steps away, the dust of spices hangs in the air like

mist. When Egyptians say that their country is the mother of the world, it is this

crumbling but intensely proud and immensely alive neighborhood that comes to mind.

Mahfouzs pages are filled with the same issues that face Egypt today: the frustrations

of young men, the oppression of women, the unpredictable thuggery and occasional

clemency of the police, and the idealism, fanaticism, and sophistry of the Muslim

Brothers. Islam is a creed, a way of worship, a nation and a nationality, a religion, a

state, a form of spirituality, a Holy Book, and a sword, preaches a sheik from the


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Brethren in Sugar Street, written in the 1950s and set in the 40s. It is language not

unlike that of todays Islamists.


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Mosaab Elshamy/EPA

The generals enemies, and there are many, see him as just another dictator, cut from

the same tinhorn template as so many Arab tyrants before him.

Al-Sisis family is religious, as are the vast majority of Egyptiansand pride of place in

the Al-Sisi shops showroom goes to a work of striking grace and delicacy with the

fundamental devotional phrase of Islam: There is no God but God. It was crafted by al -

Sisis father, Said Hussein Khalili al-Sisi, known as Hassan, the founder of the family

business and a true patriarch in the eyes of those who worked with him. The store

manager, Hussein Ali, says he has been told not to talk about the general, whom he has

known for years. But he cannot help talking about the father. You dont need me to

speak about Abdel Fattah, he says. When you speak about Hassan, you speak about

all his sons. They are copies of him.

Hassan loved to read about history and law, and he loved to listen to the powerful,

intensely nationalistic music of the great singer Oum Kalthoum. He also knew several of

the leading religious sheiks in Cairo, who were clients as well as friends, says Hussein.

He was conservative, but not radical in any sense of the word. He had three sons and

five daughters. All were university educated.

On the wall above the manager, a photograph of the old man looks down, framed by the

mother-of-pearl arabesques that exemplified his craft. Abdel Fattah is just like Hassan,

he says. Hassan was very good at inspiring everyone around him. When he looked into

your eyes, he knew what you wanted to say. He knew how to send messages when he


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spoke. If he was talking to a doctor, he knew how to talk to him. And if he was talking to

a worker, he knew how to talk to him. And his children took that from him.

Hassan liked business, so one of his sons, Hussein, followed him into that. Hassan liked

law, so his son Ahmed became a judge. And he was like a generaleverything

accurate, everything on time, everything in order ... And so his son became a general.

Hassan loved to tell jokes, says Hussein. Abdel Fattah, on the other hand, rarely kidded

around. He might sit there for a long time, but maybe say only one or two words. He

was a listener, but with authority: In fact, they used to call him the general since the

time he was young, says Husseins brother Tamer, who also works in the shop.

Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

For Egyptians who were disappointed in Morsi, al-Sisi represents the pharaoh who can

pull the country together.

Everyone, including the boys, visited the shop where the father taught and practiced his

painstaking craft, taking countless tiny pieces of seashell and embedding them in

delicately carved wood, creating an iridescent veneer of elaborate intertwined patterns

worked out in Hassans mind. The man, he had a vision, says Tamer. He created new

models; he didnt see old ones and make the same. He was extremely patient.

Typically the patriarch would imagine a grand projecta chair, a chest, a doorthen

delegate the work on different elements. The craftsmen were never supposed to look

up, never supposed to break concentration, as they applied themselves to their

assigned tasks. Usually, at the end, none of the workers knew what it would look like,

says Tamer. Then Hassan would put it all together. Gathering everyone around, hed


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reveal the finished piece and watch with pleasure the amazed expressions on the faces

of those whod worked on it.

UNLIKE THE countrys erstwhile strongman Hosni Mubarak, whose wife and family

were well known to the Egyptians, al-Sisi has been protective of the privacy of his kin.

According to his older brother, Ahmed al-Sisi, who only reluctantly agreed to talk, the

general has four children: three sons and one daughter. His wife is said to wear a

traditional head covering, the hijab, but, unlike the women of the previous generation,

these days most Egyptian women do. Like his wife, the generals five sisters dont have

jobs outside the home. Our girls dont work, they stay home and raise the kids, says

Ahmed.

For the boys in the family, though, it was always different. Life was outside the home,

where they pursued ambitious careers. As Ahmed proudly says: We come from a

family that leadsnot one that will be led.


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Mahmoud Ghany/EPA

A protester is removed from Nahda Square, near Cairo University, one location where a

sit-in was organized on August 14.

The little boy who would be general missed out on all of Egypts major wars. He was

born in 1954, two years before Nasser became president, and was not quite 2 when

Israel, France, and Britain attacked during the Suez Crisis. He was still only 12 when

the Israelis crushed the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies in the 1967 war. The

finest brief moment of Egyptian military glory, the surprise crossing of the Suez Canal

and the push to retake the Sinai from Israel in 1973, came four years before al-Sisi was

commissioned. Then the Camp David peace accords ended Egypts wars with Israel in

1978, and more than $1 billion a year from the United States started pouring into the

coffers of the Egyptian military.

The Army where al-Sisi made his career became less a war machine than a rigged slot

machine that paid out rich dividends for its loyal officers and its American suppliers. The

military draws on recruits from throughout Egyptian society, and in that sense it may be

the closest thing to a meritocracy that exists in a state habitually plagued by nepotism

and corruption. But as officers move up the ranks, they move ever-more deeply into a

world intentionally isolated from the rest of the country. They have their own

apartments, their own clubs, their own schools and stores. The Army has its own

manufacturing empire and a vast construction business that frequently shuts out the

private sector with little or no public accountability.


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Under President Mubarak, himself a former general, the Egyptian military-industrial

complex thrived as never before, and the very top officers, like Field Marshal Mohamed

Hussein Tantawi, the longtime defense minister, and many other members of the

Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, allegedly made great fortunes. By comparison,

al-Sisi is thought to be relatively clean.

Al-Sisi was selected to attend the U.S. Army War College in 2006 during a fraught

moment in the Middle Eastfor Americans as well as for Arabs. At the prestigious and

historic college in Pennsylvania, al-Sisi found himself confronted by U.S. officers fresh

out of Iraq, where the war was failing and American and Iraqi casualties were mounting.

While President George W. Bush promoted his freedom agenda in the Middle East, he

was spending about $2.5 billion dollars every week on the war in Iraqalmost twice as

much as the yearly aid to Egypt, where fraudulent elections had once more returned

Mubarak to power.


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Manu Brabo/AP

After days of violence, more than 500 people had been killed and almost 4,000 people

were reported injured.

According to Sherifa Zuhur, a professor at the War College when al-Sisi was there,

many of the shell-shocked American soldiers got into heated arguments with their Arab

and Muslim counterparts. Al-Sisi was ready for debate, but not aggressive, she said.

He can be angered, but possesses a lot of self-control and would choose not to

respond when others might do so. He was not quiet because he was passive, but more

contemplative, waiting, watching, and following along.

While at the War College, al-Sisi wrote an 11-page academic paper titled Democracy in

the Middle East. Whereas Americans believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness, Islamic cultures cling to principles of fairness, justice, equality, unity, and

charity, he argued. Americans look to their republics Founding Fathers for guidance;

Muslims cherish the memory of the ancient caliphate. However, this does not mean a

theocracy will be established, wrote al-Sisi, rather it means a democracy will be

established based on Islamic beliefs. In his paper, he pointed out the influence of

Christianity and its culture on American government, especially in its early days,

drawing a parallel with the role of Islam now in the establishment of nascent Middle

Eastern democracies.

He knew a lot and took pride in Egyptian and Islamic heritage, says Zuhur, and this

was also a line of defense against some [American] peers, students who sometimes

described Iraqis, for example, as little more than barbarians.


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Perhaps it is not surprising if this proud American trained general now makes it clear

that he doesnt need or love America. Since Morsis overthrow, al-Sisi has found the

Sunni royals of the Gulf states much more generous than the United States, securing

billions of dollars in aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have their

own agenda in Egypt.

In his view, Egypt got little support from the U.S. when Morsi turned autocratic and the

Brotherhood subverted the popular will. As he bluntly toldThe Washington Postin a rare

recent interview: You turned your back on the Egyptians, and they wont forget that. It

seemed a clear message to the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and

perhaps his old friends in the American military: Egypt is a country that leadsnot one

that will be led.Reuters

Morsi (second from right) seemed to think the generals would never turn on him.

IN THE early and still-heady days of the Arab Spring, Egypts high command was as

surprised as anyone by the size and determination of the protests in Tahrir Square.

Though the Army had supported Mubarak through his decades-long rule, military

officers realized that, to protect their own institutions, perks, and bank accounts, they

would have to step in on the side of the protesters against Mubarak. The defense

minister, Tantawi, who had long been closely identified with Mubarak, still managed to

linger on.

A few weeks later Egyptians saw a new face on TV: the youngest and least-known

member of the high command and the new head of intelligence, Major General al-Sisi,

who stepped in front of the cameras to defend the Army against charges that it was just


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as bad as before. According to several Egyptian journalists as well as former Mubarak

insiders, the aged Tantawi had already picked al-Sisi as his successor. But now al-Sisi

would have to prove that he could stay relevant in the new Egyptian political landscape.

As the country moved toward the 2012 elections, it became increasingly clear that the

Brotherhood had the best political operation and would likely win the popular vote. Ever-

pragmatic businessmen, the military officers realized that they had to negotiate with

their erstwhile enemies about how a Brotherhood victory might affect the Armyand

vice versa. Morsi was the Brotherhood representative in those talks; al-Sisi spoke for

the officer corps.


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Scott Nelson/Redux

We come from a family that leads, al-Sisis brother said, not one that will be led.

After Morsis election last summer, the new president moved quickly to change the

dinosaurs of the Army. Outsiders marveled at the seeming lack of resistance from the

high command, without realizing that this was a generational changea revolution

within the military itself, led by al-Sisi. Morsi appointed al-Sisi the new defense minister,

seemingly believing that neither he nor the other generals would turn on him as long as

he respected their economic privileges.

Whatever the scope of his original goals, al-Sisi reportedly started stealthily to

maneuver himself into a much more ambitious position late last year. As Morsi started

claiming more dictatorial powers, excluding rivals from his team, and declaring himself

immune to rulings by the courts, bloody riots broke out. The country, once more,

seemed to be spiraling toward chaos.

Even as security forces were called on to defend the increasingly unpopular regime, al-

Sisi began to behave in public as a player independent of the Morsi government. The

general called a meeting for talks among opposition groups, and military intelligence

officers began to communicate secretly through intermediaries with those who wanted

to force Morsi out of office, according to anti-Morsi sources.

In May, old-guard elites, including intellectuals and journalists, met with al-Sisi at a

military event and encouraged him to act. Dont rush, he said, in a way t hat suggested,

according to one of those present, all in good time. As the date approached for


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planned demonstrations at the end of June, activists were encouraged by intermediaries

speaking on behalf of the military to build pressure on the street, according to protest

leaders and one retired general who acted as a go-between. In the background, al-Sisi

silently waited for the right moment, giving Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood more and

more rope with which to hang themselves. Then finally, like his father in his workshop,

he stepped out into the light to reveal what he had carefully constructed.

the quiet general

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