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the 9/11 decade

Anti-government protesters celebrate in Tahrir Square after the announcement of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation in Cairo Feb. 11, 2011. A furious wave of protest finally swept Mubarak from power on Friday after 30 years of one-man rule, sparking jubilation on the streets and sending a warning to autocrats across the Arab world and beyond.DYLAN MARTINEZ/Reuters

On a steamy August morning, dozens of veiled women sat on a splintered wooden bench in the fly-infested mosque of a poor neighbourhood in Cairo, where they had gathered for the gift of free medical care.

Mothers queued cradling feverish newborns. Free drugs flowed from the gloved hand of a pharmacist whose face seemed swallowed by a black niqab.

It was the holy month of Ramadan. Weeks of solemn fasting had been punctuated by scrappy Friday protests in Tahrir Square by Salafis, who embrace a puritanical version of Islam. Like the country's powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement, Salafis believe in an Islamic state and sharia law. But a small, hard-core strain also espouses violent jihad.

So when tens of thousands of them turned out to agitate in the place considered the crucible of Egypt's future – and, in many ways, that of the Arab world – many Egyptians feared that the secular revolution that dislodged former dictator Hosni Mubarak was being hijacked by Islamist forces.

This clinic could be construed to embody that same nightmare – radical Muslims offering free health care to curry favour with the masses. Hamas used the same ploy to sweep to power in Gaza; Hezbollah used it in Lebanon. But what was going on here proved to be something altogether different.

The organizer was Mohammed Tolba, a bearded, thirtysomething computer specialist. The mosque did not buy this clinic's medicine; he and some friends did. The big Salafi protest in Tahrir Square? He slept through it.

"I am not going to vote until I feel like somebody deserves it," he said, shrugging as if to say he wasn't expecting that to happen any time soon.

Mr. Tolba conceived of the clinic with a group of young Salafis and Christians who meet over lattes at Costa Coffee, in defiance of their religious elders. The idea was to hold interfaith events – also including a picnic and a football match – to bring people together.

It is a small but significant experiment in moderation in the laboratory that is post-revolutionary Egypt.

The country's rejection of authoritarian rule has birthed a new Arab nationalism that transcends borders, cuts across sectarian lines and, crucially, cleaves generations. Young Arabs – the ones who came of age in the wake of 9/11 and, not coincidentally, led the Arab Spring uprisings – speak of shared beliefs in secular democracy, a kinder, gentler form of capitalism and a charter of rights not dependent on faith.

Yet they distrust the West as much as they do the jihadists who have been in a bitter tug of war over the region for the past decade. That conflict has shaped this emerging generation's identity and sparked its defiance.

In the wake of 9/11, al-Qaeda and the West each overplayed their hands. Radical Islamist groups used jihad to try to topple dictators, but scores of ordinary Muslims were also killed. Meanwhile, although the West deposed regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, elsewhere it propped up the dictators who obstructed the democracy it claimed to promote. All of this caused anger on the Arab street.

That anger ultimately led to the secular uprisings that have toppled more governments in the region in six months than either al-Qaeda or the United States managed in 10 years. In this way, the Arab Spring stands as the most significant and surprising consequence of the terrorist assault that changed the world that sunny September day.

Rebels without a plan

If the terror attacks on America and the Arab Spring bookend the 9/11 decade, what kind of Middle East will emerge in the vacuum left by the weakened al-Qaeda and West? And how will the leaderless Google kids of Tahrir Square reconcile their ambivalence toward politics with their ambition to create a modern, moderate Middle East?

The sheer momentum of the Arab Spring stunned even its most ardent supporters, but the revolutionaries' efforts to move beyond protest to building a new society are clumsy at best.

Even the modest proposal of that interfaith medical clinic in Cairo failed to create common ground: The Christian doctors who initially agreed to participate withdrew, inexplicably, at the last minute. And such efforts pale in comparison with the scope of the region's problems.

Before the revolution, for example, Egypt's economy was posting 5-per-cent growth. In the first quarter of this year, it contracted by 3.5 per cent. Under public pressure, the government has boosted the minimum wage, but done nothing to encourage productivity, while doubling down on spending. Inflation, always a problem in Egypt, threatens to become unbearable.

Badry Mohammad, a stunning 26-year-old woman, with a persistent cough, was holding a three-month-old in a lemon-yellow dress, as well as two boxes of the antibiotic Amoxil. She described how bleak things had become since "the Pharoah" had left, as the revolution staggered into political and economic uncertainty.

"When Mubarak stepped down, I was happy. I wanted our rights back. I wanted prices to drop. But it turned out the opposite," she said through an interpreter.

Her husband, a labourer, had seen his wages shrink by half at his under-the-table construction job. Yet at the shops, the price of food had doubled or more. Rice that once cost two Egyptian pounds now cost six.

She got a loan to buy two sewing machines, hoping to help support her four children, but the machines were stolen, leaving her crippled by debt and too broke even to afford the one-pound hospital around the corner.

She was asked what she thought about Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections, in which liberal democrats are vying for 500 seats against powerful Islamist parties like the Muslim Brotherhood's Truth and Justice Party, as well as upstart ones such as the Salafist al-Nour Party.

"Honestly, I am illiterate. I just want someone to take power" and lead the way out of the current disaster, she said.

It is likely that the coming elections in Egypt, Tunisia and possibly Libya will amplify the voices of Islamist radicals whose positions are wildly divergent from the more moderate aspirations of the emerging Arab generation.

The problem, argue observers such as Time Magazine editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria, is that these young people "really have no serious idea of what they are going to do and how they are going to do it. They are all trying to find a way to be modern without selling their soul to the West and retaining their identity. Beyond that impulse, they don't quite know where to go."

The West's mixed messages

Doaa Tolba – the wife of the clinic organizer, a poet and the mother of three – was 16 when the planes struck the World Trade Center. She was napping on her living-room couch while her brother was watching a TV movie. She didn't realize a state newscast had interrupted the program.

"I thought it was still the movie, a really gruesome scene," she recalled one evening over coffee. Her thoughts first flew to her friends in America, then spun into outrage. "What shocked me was that people blamed anyone that was Islamic. This attack was not part of our religion. It made me very sad."

With the Twin Towers and Pentagon still smouldering, then-U.S. President George W. Bush vowed vengeance, setting the stage for the epic "clash of civilizations" that played out over the next decade through two wars that killed hundreds of thousands and resulted in a financial debt burden for America that, depending on whom you ask, cost between $1-trillion and $4-trillion.

The attacks, devastating as they were, also presented the White House with an opportunity. The war on terror became hinged to new strategic imperatives, to spread democracy through the Middle East and diminish the threat the jihadists posed to Israel and other allies around the world.

At least one insider now describes those aspirations as a "fantasyland."

"The fantasy was that there was a brief moment in history where the United States was 'the only remaining superpower' – that's the line you kept hearing," said Richard Clarke at the nautical-themed headquarters of Good Harbour in Arlington, Va. He set up the private-security firm after resigning in 2003 from the Bush administration, in which he served as counterterrorism chief but also controversially objected to the war in Iraq.

"They believed there was no counterweight that could stop us – that we should take advantage of this moment and go in and change regimes, or at least one. But some of them had missions to change more than one," he said.

In various forms, the Bush doctrine was used to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, a "preventative" war in Iraq and the messianic idea of exporting democracy around the world. "They thought that what would follow would be some sort of series of social-democratic governments that would make the Middle East look a lot more like Europe," Mr. Clarke said.

But the Bush doctrine was never applied consistently. Washington would crush some dictators, like Saddam Hussein, but cozy up to others who had sold themselves since the Cold War as bulwarks against jihadists. A parade of aging tyrants – Egypt's Mr. Mubarak, Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh – were given a second wind, angering the Arab street in a way few in Washington anticipated or understood.

In Egypt, Mr. Mubarak renewed his government's crackdown on dissent, especially from Islamist parties, driving them further underground.

But even ordinary Muslims were punished for expressing their religious beliefs. Eight years ago, when Ms. Tolba herself decided to don the niqab "as a way to worship," she faced routine discrimination at the university where she studied English and commerce. One of her teachers refused to allow her into the classroom without identification.

"People used to look at me like I was low-class, narrow-minded and uneducated," she said in her perfect English.

Within the first few years after 9/11, the West's window of opportunity to engage the Arab world closed. The first flush of empathy for America had faded, the war in Iraq was not going well and Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib hardened Arab suspicions that America's foreign policy was shot through with hypocrisy.

One report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies found that the Iraq invasion substantially strengthened al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising. Its leaders, commanded by Osama bin Laden, had been denouncing the region's dictators for decades, arguing that only violent jihad would shake them from power. Their call for the creation of an Islamic caliphate to lift Muslims out of misery and stagnation briefly bolstered the ranks of jihadists, but never resonated with mainstream Muslims.

As the decade unfolded, and terrorist attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan killed growing numbers of civilians, there was a backlash. Even before the death of Mr. bin Laden, financing and support for al-Qaeda was on the wane. And ultimately, the Arab Spring made the jihadists look like accidental tourists in history, with absolutely no role to play. In February, the United Nations reported that al-Qaeda was "weaker than at any time since its resurgence in 2005."

Yet the West, too, has been exhausted by wars and is reeling from financial crisis. The epic clash of civilizations has ended in a stalemate.

"What changed in the last 10 years is that America, the last imperial power in the Middle East, lost the will and capacity to play its old imperial game," Mr. Zakaria said. "Now, Arabs for the first time have the chance to take control of their own destiny."

Like many in her generation, Ms. Tolba blames the Mubarak regime for dividing Egyptian society through fear. She also blames the Western powers that supported him. But, in retrospect, the dynamics created by 9/11 prompted her to reach out – she has become more vocal about her religion, particularly through her poetry, but Facebook also has allowed her to connect with Egyptians of other faiths.

After the revolution, she began meeting some of those new acquaintances for coffee.

Ms. Tolba's dream for her country has nothing to do with sharia law. "I do not want an Islamic president because I want everyone to feel free. You don't want someone to feel upset, living in his own country," she said. "I hope this country allows freedom for everyone."

Radicals, retrenching or retreating?

More than Tunisia and Libya, where revolutions have succeeded, or Yemen and Syria, where they have stalled, Egypt matters – it's the Arab's world's most populous nation, strategically bordering Israel. And it is here that Mr. bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, began his fight to overthrow the Egyptian government as a teenager.

Growing up in the quiet, middle-class Cairo suburb of Maadi, Dr. al-Zawahiri joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 14, becoming the leader of a small group of student militants. After completing medical school, he worked at one of the Brotherhood's underground clinics, and became more radicalized as he vaulted up the movement's ranks.

Eventually, he travelled to Peshawar, where he rendezvoused with Mr. bin Laden, whom he had previously met in Saudi Arabia. The two men immediately connected – the charismatic leader of a-Qaeda and the doctor who would become its prodigious networker and tactician.

This year, when Mr. Mubarak was ousted after just 18 days of protest, al-Qaeda seemed caught off guard. Dr. al-Zawahiri, then Mr. bin Laden's deputy, issued three incoherent statements from hiding, none of which made mention of Mr. Mubarak, whose government tortured him when he was in prison in the 1980s.

The Brotherhood, outlawed before the revolution, remains Egypt's most potent political and social force, but even its senior leadership is making gestures towards moderation. Its Freedom and Justice Party claims not to be seeking a majority in Parliament.

But the movement is deeply distrusted by Egyptian liberals, who believe it is softening its rhetoric only as a public-relations exercise.

Across the region, there are fears that while young revolutionaries are sorting themselves out, the Middle East will become a playground for extreme groups, bankrolled by Islamist elements in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

"One of the concerns that some of us have had privately is, 'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know,'" said Tom Ridge, America's former director of homeland security. "When they had that group of a hundred thousand Salafis in the square the other day, that sent a chill up and down my spine."

Tahany el-Gebaly, Egypt's first female judge, has argued unsuccessfully for a postponement of the election to give secular parties more time to organize. "After the revolution, it was like lifting a veil," she said. "Those organizations, like the Brotherhood, that had existed in secret for so long were strong and organized. The secular movements are not prepared."

Still, when that curtain came up, it revealed Islamist movements that are far less coherent than might have been thought. Indeed, the most significant challenge to the Brotherhood could well emerge from within its ranks, from its moderate youth who have a much more restrained vision of its future – to the point where, in a complete break from the movement's ideology, some are even advocating a fully secular state.

Generational rivalries among the Brotherhood

I first met Moaz Abd el-Kareem last February in a bloody mosque that served as a makeshift hospital across from the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Tahrir Square.

It had been a particularly brutal night for the revolution, whose outcome at the time was far from certain. Pro-Mubarak crowds were converging on the protesters' tent city from all sides. The army fired tear gas into the square as volleys of rocks and Molotov cocktails flew from all directions.

Mr. Abd el-Kareem cut an odd figure: young, bearded and pot-bellied, with a chipped front tooth marring his cherubic face. Yet he presided with regal authority over dwindling supplies of medicine, doling it out to whoever bled the most.

The 29-year-old pharmacist was one of the first members of the Brotherhood to play a prominent role, as the movement's youth wing broke rank with its elders to join the uprising.

Six months later, we meet again on the breezy rooftop of a five-star hotel, where he said he had decided to run for Parliament, on a pragmatic platform under the banner of a new party, the Egyptian Current.

His political views are braided: He believes women should not be forced to wear the veil, in the selective application of sharia law, and that the Koran should never supersede the power of a democratically elected president. He's a huge fan of Karl Marx, and even accepts Israel's right to exist.

His party so far claims 3,000 members and more joining all the time, but earlier this summer the Brotherhood's Supreme Guidance Council placed Mr. Abd el-Kareem and six friends under investigation for their unorthodoxy.

Such divisions scramble the West's typical take on the post-Mubarak Egypt as a straight-up battle between Islamists and secular revolutionaries. None of the established parties, whether liberal or religious, seems to represent what Egypt's youth really want. It's impossible to know whether the young, moderate revolutionaries will be hardened by the realities of the post-revolutionary Arab World.

Some older Egyptians view them as naive. Others are envious.

"Young people want to build a clean, equitable, democratic society. It doesn't matter where they come from or how conservative they are. They have a different understanding of freedom from my generation," said Hala el-Hosseiny, the 50-year-old mother of one of Egypt's more prominent revolutionaries, one evening in her apartment in the Cairo district of Zemalek.

She was six years old during the 1967 war and remembers standing on the streets weeping when Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mr. Mubarak's predecessor, threatened to resign after Egypt's defeat by Israel, as her parents and thousands of others called for him to stay.

"This younger generation, they do not read al-Ahram [an Egyptian daily newspaper]" she said. "They do not watch Egyptian television. They know the Internet and Facebook. ... My generation, we are a bit jealous of them, I think , because we have not been able to do what they have done."

The most oft-cited problem with the revolutionaries has to do not with their vision but with their disorganization. But the less obvious threat to the new, moderate Middle East may prove to be self-imposed isolation.

One of the most counterintuitive things about the Arab Spring is that the 9/11 generation's revolutionaries do not want outside help, least of all from the West.

Under popular pressure, the Egyptian government rejected an offer of $150-million from U.S. AID to overcome the economic losses triggered by the revolution. A $3-billion offer from the International Monetary Fund was also rebuked.

"The sentiment now is 'Just leave us alone. We are going to take care of this,'" Mr. Zakaria summarized. "What nobody seems to understand is that Arabs don't want to feel like the laggards of the world any more. They want to create a modern Muslim Middle East – and they want to create it by themselves."

And for the first time in their lives, young Muslims feel confident that they can, as they emerge from the long shadow of the 9/11 decade.

Posing for a picture, Ms. Tolba flashed the V sign – for peace, or victory – with a gloved hand. "Can you tell I'm smiling?" she asked from beneath her niqab. "I am."

Sonia Verma is a writer for The Globe and Mail.

Editor's Note: Fareed Zakaria is editor-at-large of Time Magazine. Incorrect information appeared in an earlier version of this article, which has been corrected.

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