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Cairo (AFP)
A video produced by the office of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi showed boxes of medical supplies, stamped in English and Arabic with the words “from the Egyptian people to the American people,” being loaded onto a military cargo plane.
The video released last month was Egypt’s latest attempt to project soft power globally by sending medical aid to countries that have included China, Italy, Sudan and the United Kingdom.
But analysts described these gestures of political goodwill as symbolic at a time when Egypt’s own health system is overburdened.
In March, before the pandemic had claimed more than 296,000 lives, Egypt’s health minister, Hala Zayed, was the first foreign minister to visit Beijing since the outbreak began.
Zayed appeared weeks later on a choreographed trip to Italy, an early European epicenter of the virus, personally handing over masks and gloves to the foreign minister.
Egyptians quickly derided her on social media, with a popular joke that Sisi was sending Zayed on mercy missions abroad in hopes of getting rid of her for his handling of the health crisis.
Online experts also criticized his ministry for ignoring the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) among health workers in Egypt.
“Health diplomacy has been one of the traditional strategies for the southern states of the world seeking to have a more prominent role in the global arena,” Gerasimos Tsourapas, a political scientist at the University of Birmingham, told AFP.
“I read this as a short-term strategy that may not necessarily be thought through to the end, given Egypt’s growing needs for protective equipment.”
“In terms of soft power, Egypt tends to prioritize foreign policy considerations over domestic ones,” added Tsourapas.
Egypt’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 have reached nearly 10,500 with more than 550 deaths, including nine doctors and six nurses. But some observers say the actual cost could be much higher due to low levels of proof.
– ‘No lasting impact’ –
Last month, Egypt sent a C-130 military plane loaded with medical equipment to the United States. It was a surprising change of role for a country that is the main recipient of American aid, which receives around $ 1.3 billion a year.
The plane brought 200,000 masks, 48,000 shoe covers and 20,000 surgical caps among other supplies, said Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives who heads a bipartisan group promoting relations with Egypt.
“This is why international diplomacy and maintaining relationships with allies like Egypt are essential not in times of crisis, but every day,” he wrote on Twitter.
But Yezid Sayigh, an expert on Egypt’s army at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, suggested that the donation reflected the “special fondness of the Sisi administration for public relations gestures and rhetoric.”
Sayigh said the message behind Egypt’s global reach was intended to “reinforce his claims about his superior wisdom and ability and his demands for respect at the national level.”
But such moves are unlikely to have a lasting impact on Egypt’s image abroad, Sayigh said.
“What will impress others is the success in containing COVID-19 and recovering the economy,” he added.
– “Foreign public, domestic consumption” –
Since taking office in 2014, following the military overthrow of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi the previous year, the General-turned-President Sisi has cultivated personal relationships with US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. .
These friendships have resulted in considerable arms purchases, with Egypt ranking third worldwide in arms imports.
Last week, the State Department cleared the way for Egypt to overhaul 43 Apache helicopters in a deal worth $ 2.3 billion.
The military plays a huge role in Egyptian public life, with activities ranging from highway construction and production of Ramadan soap operas to the most recent sale of personal PPE to citizens.
“While the gesture of sending medical aid abroad was directed in part at foreign audiences, it was also for internal consumption,” said Reem Abou El-Fadl, a political scientist at the Faculty of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
All analysts interviewed by AFP agreed that Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam was a factor in their latest round of medical diplomacy.
Egypt fears that Ethiopia will fill the reservoir with the new dam and could reduce the flow of the Nile, on which most of its water depends.
Analysts note how the main Italian and Chinese companies are hired to build the mega dam and that Egypt has asked the Trump administration to sponsor ongoing tripartite talks with Ethiopia and Sudan.
Abou El-Fadl argued that “in the recent context of the threat to the waters of the Nile, we see that Sisi revives the African diplomacy of Egypt.”
He argued that this carefully cared for diplomacy has ignored the needs of the Egyptians, with many hospitals overburdened by the coronavirus.
“Egyptians are well aware of the lack of investment in public health, among other shortcomings of the current administration,” he added.
© 2020 AFP
