2020: Sooner than you think

2020: Sooner than you think


The future will not wait and no one can stop its coming. It brings along
the opportunities it offers, writes Assem El-Kersh*




[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]
"The future comes apace." -- William Shakespeare
2010 will begin in a flash. Take a deep breath, close your eyes and
ask yourself the following: in the furthest realms of possibility what
might or might not change over the next 10 years? What is the worst, or
the best, thing that could happen to a country as prominent as Egypt,
with its diversity, its various states of stasis and of change, its
burdens and restrictions as it strives to realise its aspirations?
What lies ahead for the Arab-Islamic world, whose image and
complexity have always been the victims of mistrust and misconduct? In
what direction will the world be headed as it rushes headlong into the
future, propelled by its own instincts and interests, never pausing to
catch its breath or cast a look backwards? What shocks or prospects will
be borne on winds that blow in every direction? What dreams or
nightmares, and what defeats or victories?
In short, what scenarios can we envision from where we stand today,
10 full years into the 21st century and the third millennium? This is
the mother of all the questions that arise at the closing moments of a
difficult and tumultuous decade that swept by like a hurricane, leaving
in its wake a path strewn with wreckage and misery. It was a decade in
which political tempests, technological leaps and economic
miscalculations combined in extraordinary ways with the whims of the
climate and the surprises of life to toy with the fate of mankind.
The real start of the century -- waited for almost two years. It was
on 11 September 2001 that the world's greatest superpower received the
most stinging blow in its history in the form of an unprecedented
mainland attack. It was then that the world's psyche completely changed.

New types of conflicts superseded older, more familiar ones. The
following years brought confrontations by the dozen and hostilities of
every sort: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that changed the fate of an
entire region, the battles in Lebanon and Gaza, and campaigns to settle
scores in Sudan and Yemen. It hardly needs pointing out that all these
clashes took place in our own unfortunate part of the world, and with it
ushered in a new era of misperceptions of Islam.
Nature, too, made numerous entrances onto the world scene with
floods, landslides and destructive hurricanes. Its most powerful
vengeance took place in 2004 with the tsunami that struck eight Asian
countries, resulting in 200,000 fatalities and incalculable damage.
Then, as if to top it all, the calamitous decade closed with the
global financial crisis. Perhaps the dot-com revolution, the Olympics in
China and the election of the first African- American president of the
United States gave reasons for hope.
Egypt was certainly no exception to the general rule. In tandem with
constitutional amendments, various attempts were made to spur our
political and economic life forward, and more and more windows were
opened to fresh air. There were unique occasions for jubilation and for
hoisting the flag high, many involving a football victory, or a
noteworthy achievement scored by an Egyptian national on behalf of us
all.
There were also moments of unhappiness, brought about by misfortune
and crisis: the sinking of a ferry, a landslide in the heart of Cairo
that buried sleeping people in their homes, train accidents and fires,
assorted flu epidemics, not to mention waves of crushing inflation in
spite of an economic reform programme that has yet to deliver on all its
promises.
As today wanes, we can take comfort in the fact that these years
have passed, never to return. One might even derive some pleasure from
thinking up a fitting description for them -- summing up the past 10
years as the worst in American history, Time magazine called them
"The Decade from Hell". But do we have grounds for optimism today? Are
things going to look up, or should we continue to worry? The answer is
reliant on us. On how well we prepare for the future and, in so doing,
on whether we have learned anything from what we and others have gone
through.
For many generations the way we view the future has been governed by
confusion and apprehension with only a sprinkling of confidence.
Perhaps this has to do with an ingrained fatalism, with a belief that
what is "written" is indecipherable, an inscrutable mystery and,
therefore, confusing and disturbing. Many of us may have a feeling that
the future can only get worse and that the only way to deal with it is
to put our hands on our hearts and pray, or to close our eyes and hope
it doesn't see us.
Certainly this is one explanation of why we tend to prefer the
present and perhaps even the past. The devil you know is better than the
one you don't, as the Egyptian proverb goes. Unfortunately, when our
behaviour is shaped by this kind of gut reaction we end up forfeiting
opportunities. Maybe that is why some of us fear everything that's
different, resist change and balk at trying anything new. It is also
probably why some of us are so given to taking refuge in the past,
boasting of erstwhile glories, nitpicking over decades old details and
claiming wisdom retroactively without fully appreciating the lessons of
history.
With only rare exceptions, it has never been one of our basic
instincts to concern ourselves with the future in the sense of truly
appreciating its importance. We even think of it as some kind of luxury.

Although we all know that we can be certain of nothing when it comes
to the future, and that there is no escaping what the next few years
might bring, this should not prevent us from exerting ourselves to probe
the future, make forecasts and even try to shape the future to whatever
extent is in our power.
Nothing is certain when it comes to the stock exchange, politics,
petrol prices and affairs of the heart. They all appear as incalculable
as anything one sets one's hopes on, while life more often than not has
an entirely different view of the matter. Then, to complicate matters
further, everything is either possible or ruled out: war or peace,
victory or loss, love or hate, health or illness, stability or chaos,
happiness or sadness, and so on. All is possible, or impossible, to
stick with such dichotomies.
It was never the task of the forecasters of the 20th century to
predict the surprises that we ourselves ended up encountering at the
beginning of the 21st. Similarly, the futurists of today are not seers.
They have no crystal balls. Like specialists in other fields, the most
they can do is make educated guesses about the general direction of
events and the possible opportunities and risks, though not about the
exact where and when that these will arrive. Their role is to place
their knowledge, insight and analytical skills at the disposal of
decision-makers and planners, so as to help them prepare for the future.

In spite of many obstacles, Egypt offers some encouraging examples
of such respectable, scientifically sound attempts to forecast the
future. The most important are the Egypt 2020 Project and the Egypt
Future Vision 2030 implemented by the Council of Ministers Information
and Decision Support Centre. However, it is still unclear whether the
effort put into these projects has been accorded the praise it merits,
or whether their ideas and recommendations will be put into effect or be
consigned to an archive already so full of dust-collecting study papers
on the future that couldn't foretell their misfortune.
Whatever the case may be, here in Egypt we can take heart from the
only narrow gap, if gap there is, between the expertise that created
these studies and that which gave rise to counterpart studies in the US,
China, India and other countries that refuse to let the present divert
them from the need to look ahead and be as thoroughly prepared as
possible for the next half century or so.
We can be fairly confident that the next 10 years will not turn
Egypt into a different country, regardless of what these years will
bring (on p.5 see my personal list of things that will not change over
the next 10 years). However, the way we live might change, and life
might have a different flavour. Certainly with some hard choices,
challenges and opportunities are on the way.
Demographics will change as a new generation adds to the crowds.
Perhaps we will be no closer to building a modern and less noisy and
chaotic capital city. However, the country's geography, the sun, the
Nile and the far-flung desert will remain, as will the Egyptian nation
itself. None of the major players will vanish, and the weak and strong
traits of the people and the state will remain the same. Perhaps we will
see a new president and new cabinets, even as the forces that move
society, set the pace of life, sow corruption, solve problems or
aggravate them, pull the country forward or drag it backwards, will
still be here, with the balances between them possibly shifting one way
or another.
The overall picture of Egypt, with its government, people, religious
make-up, elite, sports, army, political opposition, capital, media,
crises, periods of recuperation and, even, improvement, will be here 10
years from now and even 100 years from now. What will change are details
and circumstances, whether for the better or for the worse depending on
how we deal with them, whether decisively or irresolutely, in
accordance with the nature and pace of the age.
In this spirit, we at Al-Ahram Weekly have decided to
undertake this exceptional edition of the paper as we stand on the
threshold of a new decade of opportunity and choice in a world
stretching miles ahead of us. Through a compilation of future-looking
projections, perceptions and discussions, we offer what we hope will be a
useful addition to efforts to understand the future and prepare for its
eventualities.
Throughout, we have been inspired by the hope of stimulating fresh
thinking on such crucial issues. Perhaps for this reason alone, the
beginnings of new years, decades or centuries should afford
opportunities for reflection -- before the trip goes on. Fasten your
seat belts.