Egypt’s Diplomacy in War, Peace and Transition

Nabil Fahmy

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030263874
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030263881
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica africana

   

Part IUncharted Destinies

© The Author(s) 2020

N. FahmyEgypt’s Diplomacy in War, Peace and Transitionhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26388-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Personal and Professional Alignments

Nabil Fahmy¹

(1)

Cairo, Egypt

Nabil Fahmy

Email: [email protected]

Born into international affairs, after initial reluctance I made a choice to pursue diplomacy professionally at a time when the world order was being transformed, which defined my life and my career as one of continuous realignment.

End Abstract

I was born in New York City in 1951 to Afaf Mahmoud and Ismail Fahmy , a diplomat at Egypt’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. This coincided with an era of global and national transformation. The cold war was coming to the fore, and a populist movement in Egypt soon sparked a revolution in 1952 that ended the reign of King Farouk and created a republic.

In 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the revolution’s heart and soul, succeeded the country’s first president and former General Mohamed Naguib. Nasser quickly established an even more progressive and assertive social domestic contract with the Egyptian people, more egalitarian in its approach but regrettably non-inclusive in its application. His foreign policy battles with old and new colonial powers were as challenging, if not even more so, than those on the domestic front. His regional leadership witnessed a meteoric rise and was increasingly perceived as a threat to the interests of old-world powers, particularly the European colonialists. Globally, Nasser’s foreign policy gradually tilted toward the Eastern Bloc but in fact only after he and the Free Officers¹ first courted and later rebuffed by the West.

My father Ismail Fahmy was known by friend and foe to have absolute professionalism, unwavering integrity, and unfailing commitment to always speak truth to power. This continues to be a strong part of his legacy and is widely applauded four decades after he left the office and over two decades after he passed away. As a mid-career diplomat, he had strongly argued against Egypt demanding the withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping forces from Sharm El-Sheikh, where they had been stationed since the armistice agreement at the end of the 1956 War, cautioning that Israel would use this as a pretext to initiate military operations against Egypt. Unfortunately, his warning was unheeded, and the 1967 War was to break out soon after the forces were withdrawn. A few years later, while serving as the Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, he again rocked the boat in a seminar hosted by Al-Ahram newspaper in the summer of 1971 by publicly speaking up against what he felt was Egypt’s excessively close relationship with the Soviet Union. He argued instead for the pursuit of a more balanced and independent foreign policy with open communications with all major players.

In light of my father’s profession, international affairs were part of my day-to-day intellectual harvest. He was a highly distinguished and strong-willed career diplomat who was later to serve as foreign minister (1973–1977). As he rose within the ranks, I had frequent opportunities to meet prominent international and Arab leaders, including United States President Gerald Ford, United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Soviet Union Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, President Anwar Sadat, and Vice President Mahmoud Fawzy, as well as Arab leaders who were to shape historic events throughout the Middle East.

Accordingly, my upbringing put high-profile international diplomacy and domestic politics in a lifestyle context that deglamorized the idea of meeting high-profile politicians or taking on positions of power. Throughout, it was underscored that public service was a solemn responsibility that required candid, honest appraisals irrespective of the risks or difficulties associated with that.

The diverse, intellectually and culturally privileged upbringing of diplomats’ children is something to be grateful for, but it does not come without some serious challenges. They often become patently attached to diplomacy, or reject the profession completely, preferring a more stable environment and a direct personal return on their efforts. Personally, I was somewhere between these two extremes, enamored by international affairs, but not initially inclined to pursue a career in diplomacy because of the pressures associated with the constant travel and displacement.

Egypt’s strategic geopolitical place mitigated for a traditionally proactive foreign policy. Its diplomatic service, which was established in 1923, played a prominent normative role in establishing the contemporary world order, being one of the founding members of the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity, and the Non-Aligned Movement. In addition, Egypt’s diplomatic activities were forward thinking. In San Francisco, while the United Nations Charter was being written, Abdel-Hamide Badawi Pasha, a prominent and distinguished Egyptian jurist, suggested that the United Nations Security Council membership and its rules of procedure should be reviewed after 25 years. He recognized that the global political model would be much different a quarter of a century later. Today more than seven decades later, the United Nations and its charter and rules remain essentially unchanged in a context of a much different geopolitical model, which is one of the reasons for its increasing inefficiency.

From World War II, through the subsequent Cold War, the collapse of the Berlin Wall to the end of the bipolar world order, Egypt’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York was always seen as omnipresent in the international affairs scene. I vividly remember in the middle of my diplomatic career, while serving in New York in the late 1980s, a French delegate telling me half-jokingly that Egypt acted as if it was the 16th virtual member of the Security Council, often more informed and influential from outside its chambers of the council than some of the member states. This was a flattering testimony to Egypt’s foreign policy advocacy and activism. It was not an exaggeration then to say that many considered Egyptian diplomacy as an indicator of emerging developments in the Arab world, the Middle East, and Africa. To be a member of the Egyptian Foreign Service was not only an incredible honor but also a solemn responsibility.

I appreciated all this and was enamored by it, but when I graduated with a degree in physics and mathematics from the American University in Cairo (AUC) in January 1974, my father advised me to follow my own path according to my own preferences, pursuing rational career choices which as much as possible ensured me multiple options. This was music to my ears. Entering the job market at a time that coincided with Sadat’s open-door economic policies in 1974, where he encouraged the private sector both domestic and foreign. I did not intend to join the Foreign Service, being more interested in pursuing a career in private business, either in banking or multinational companies.

My professional interests were on my mind, but I first had to finish my obligatory military service, which was to extend for 20 months. However, even before serving in the army, I temporarily took on employment at the Egyptian President’s Office of External Communications in February 1974.

My daily tasks included the ciphering and deciphering of the occasional cables that were exchanged at the presidential level with a few countries, or during overseas presidential trips. The work schedule extended over long hours, but the workload was light and very manageable. Consequently, on a parallel track, I studied for a master’s degree in management attempting to prepare myself for the marketplace once I had completed my military service.

In the summer of 1975, I had an unexpected fall-out with Ashraf Marwan, the young head of the office, who was the son-in-law of the late President Nasser. I had had a warm and amicable working relationship with Marwan until innuendo generated by petty office jealousies created a misunderstanding between us. Not being at fault and feeling unappreciated, I immediately resigned, fully prepared to return to active military barracks.

As a young graduate and political novice, I did not realize that as an employee at the Presidency, and even more so as the son of the foreign minister, my resignation would quickly become a big issue. I was called in to meet the then newly appointed Vice President Hosni Mubarak, who had oversight over the management of the presidential offices. I had not even had a chance to inform my father of my resignation. He was amused by my brashness but true to his words, he left me to independently navigate my way through my first career crisis, albeit while keeping a watchful eye from a distance.

This was not the first time I met Mubarak. My father had invited President Sadat to attend my wedding a few months earlier. The day before that important occasion, the president asked that we also invite Mubarak, who was still head of the air force, explaining that he was to be appointed vice president the very morning of my wedding, and therefore it would be a good opportunity for him to appear in his new civilian capacity.

Mubarak first patiently and amicably listened to my comments, even accepting my refusal to dwell on the details of the misunderstanding with Marwan , and my reluctance to join his own newly established office. Ultimately, he indicated that as long as I was in military service, I only had two options. I could either work in his office in military gear or in civilian clothes. I ended up completing the rest of my military service dealing with foreign media from the room across from the vice president’s.

While serving in Mubarak’s office, I received several jobs offers in the banking sector, which I was tempted to accept, but could only do so after the completion of my military service. In the meantime, a very close friend of mine, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, challenged me to take the Foreign Ministry’s difficult and competitive admission exams. Joining the Foreign Ministry was not my priority, but with youthful abundance, I impetuously succumbed to the challenge.

At first, my father did not expect that I would really sit for the exams. However, once he saw that I was seriously preparing, he reaffirmed his earlier career advice, adding that I would have to pass the difficult entry exams on my own merits without any support from him. To my surprise, he did not raise the obvious point that this would raise issues of perceived nepotism. He was placing the responsibility for success on my shoulders, but not encumbering me with issues that he would have to face.

Ramzy and I both passed the exams with high scores. I was slowly edging toward a career in diplomacy; I did hesitate for a moment yet one last time. On the very same day of our induction as new diplomatic cadets in the Foreign Ministry, I received a very lucrative job offer from Citibank with a salary 21 times what I was about to be paid in government. Nevertheless, in March 1976, I took the plunge into Foreign Service, fully committed and resolute to serving my country, approaching my new career not as merely another profession, but more as a vocation that one takes on with deep conviction and that comes with solemn responsibilities.

My father, who was now about to also become my boss, was very clear with me and his chiefs of cabinet Ambassadors Omar Sirry and Ossama El-Baz , his direct assistant Mohamed El-Baradei, and many other future stars of Egyptian diplomacy working in his office like Nabil El-Araby and Amre Moussa. I should work harder than anyone else without any form of favoritism. At times, I felt this was a bit excessive, but it was an important and valuable experience. To me, he simply said be yourself, get into the depths of issues that you have to work on, make well-thought-out decisions, and never compromise your credibility even at the cost of your career. A diplomat’s role, he truly believed, was to help in developing state policies that are in the national interests and then execute them to the best of his/her abilities.

Soon enough about 18 months later, he himself demonstrated how resolutely he lived by these tenets. In November 1977, my father resigned from his position as foreign minister to protest Sadat’s unilateral visit to Jerusalem, after years of Egypt working with other international players toward a comprehensive Arab–Israeli peace process. Although he was extremely close to Sadat, he did not hesitate to resign because he firmly believed this unilateral step would create a negotiating imbalance between Arabs and Israelis. Thus, it would derail the efforts to achieve comprehensive Arab–Israeli peace that does justice to all parties involved, including the Palestinians. In this way, Ismail Fahmy demonstrated how a foreign minister’s relationship with the president could become one of “assertiveness” as per Christopher Hill’s model.²

At that moment, the immediate question concerning my presence at the foreign ministry suddenly changed from potential perceptions of nepotism, to whether I would be the target of vindictive acts from government institutions, or officials who took exception to my father’s resignation. To the credit of the government institutions in Egypt, especially the Foreign Ministry, I was not subjected to any serious prejudice, with very few exceptions.

I continued doing my work under different foreign ministers, including in the cabinet of Ambassador Muhammed Ibrahim Kamel who directly succeeded my father, but also remember well Kamal Hassan Aly who gave me the opportunity to express myself in intergovernmental meetings even when knowing beforehand that I would argue against the policy position that he wanted to have adopted. I also had numerous engagements with Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Boutros Boutros-Ghali, initially with a rocky start, attributed by some to his opposing approach to that of my father’s, especially with regards to the Egyptian–Israeli peace talks.

My first full diplomatic assignment abroad was from 1978 to 1982 at the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations in Geneva. At first, I was the junior diplomat responsible for disarmament and political affairs, especially those related to the Arab–Israeli conflict, two topics in which Egypt was traditionally...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Uncharted Destinies
• Part II. Foreign Policy Challenges and Opportunities
• Part III. Egypt’s Continuous Transitions
• Part IV. Looking Forward
• Correction to: Egypt’s Diplomacy in War, Peace and Transition
• Back Matter