When the July 23 Revolution was born in 1952, he had not yet celebrated his first birthday. Thus, he does not remember Major General Muhammad Naguib and the statement number one. When he went to school, the president's name was Gamal Abdel Nasser. In the seventies, under Anwar Sadat, he excelled at university, graduated and then enlisted with the Muslim Brotherhood. And under Mubarak's long tenure, he took a seat in parliament; and a cell in prison as well. For this reason, it is difficult to compare the new president of Egypt to any of his predecessors. He did not read from the same rulebook or drink from the same wellspring. Yet the fact that he received his PhD in engineering from an American university, and that he taught there, does not mean at all that his culture is Western. What is more, Morsi did not come, as his predecessors did, from the Military Academy. He came from the mantle of the Supreme Leader. Yesterday, we saw something that no one would have dared predict two years ago or less. Morsi himself would have not dared perpetrate a dream of this order. No Brothers could have imagined that one of them would step in to occupy Nasser's chair, Sadat's porch or Mubarak's office in the Heliopolis Palace. For while Morsi was an energetic and diligent deputy, it was prison that lay in the offing for him, not the palace. One can say that Morsi is not lacking in good fortune. Angry youths had stoked the winds of change, before the Brotherhood pounced to seize the historic opportunity. For one thing, the group has deeper roots, greater abilities and a bigger experience in organization. The revolution thus fell into the arms of the Brotherhood. Luck then intervened, Khairat al-Shater was disqualified, and the group threw its weight behind the reserve player. Luck would then continue its journey with him. His rival in the run-off would be Ahmed Shafik, a former general and the last prime minister under the former regime. As a result, many faced a bitter choice. While Morsi is not exactly a solid guarantee for a civil state, Shafiq remains a vestige of the previous era. Thus, Morsi, the head of the Freedom and Justice Party, emerged from the ballot boxes the president of post-revolutionary Egypt. Egypt donned the mantle of the Brotherhood, but under the watchful eye of the military. Morsi's victory is supposed to put an end to the era of million-strong protests, chants and fists in the air. The time of dreams is now over, and the time for numbers and figures has come. The new president must now focus on reviving the beleaguered economy. He must reassure investors, tourists, allies and friends. All this needs bold and difficult policies, as well as flexibility and concessions. He must first reassure Egypt, which is sharply polarized today. He must reassure those who are concerned by the prospect of monopoly over opinions and practices; and the possibility of seeing issues of politics, economics, minorities and women being dealt with from the standpoint that is not appropriate for this time and age. Morsi must also tackle the questions of the constitution, the parliament and the presidential powers, given that the military council has trimmed the latter even before the president's name was announced. He must also give attention to Egypt's standing in the region, and her relations with influential countries and the concerns these may have. And he must think about Egypt's relations with Israel and the United States, and the European standards. Finally, he has to take into account the aid, loans and grants, as well as their costs. Morsi's journey will not be an easy one. It does not suffice for Morsi to suspend his membership in the Muslim Brotherhood and to propose bringing other factions in. He must move quickly to foster a comprehensive and serious reconciliation. For one thing, examining the number of votes Morsi received reveals that the mandate he was given is narrow and conditional. His party will henceforth bear the responsibility for people's demands, exigencies and their disappointments. Dreams are prone to be crushed, and the figures are both harsh and blunt. Time might therefore show that the Brotherhood risked a lot when it insisted on winning the presidential palace. Peculiarly, Egypt had risen up, then voted and held her breath waiting to find out the name of her next president. It was indeed an unprecedented sight in Republican Egypt. And such are the tough exercises of democracy and its challenges. Egypt voted and chose an Islamist for president, as though confirming the identity of the Arab spring, and the direction indicated earlier by the events in Tunisia. It would be no exaggeration to say that we are looking at a different Egypt. We can also say that we are on our way to see a different region too. The spring, which led Egypt to don the mantle of the Brotherhood, is now drowning Syria in a sea of funerals, and placing it in the crosshairs of a regional-international duel. The region is now in a fully fledged season of quakes, surprises and collapses. Fasten your seatbelts.
