President Mohamed Morsi is expected to arrive in Brazil on Tuesday on what some suggest is the most important of his overseas missions since he took office about a year ago.
The trip to Brazil is not just about the first ever visit by an Egyptian head of state to this leading South American country, which is now the sixth strongest economy of the world, and home to a large and influential community of Brazilians of Arab origin.
Brazil is a leading political player on the international scene with an obvious interest in the Middle East, and with considerable support for Arab rights; it is a country with a recent and still unfolding success story of democratic transition and economic success; and it is a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries – an economic grouping that Morsi hopes Egypt will join.
For Egyptian diplomats, the visit to Brazil goes way beyond these factors.
“It is about the initiation of a true reformulation of Egyptian foreign policy making; it is a message to all concerned, not excluding Washington, that Cairo is keeping its options wide open and that it is no longer willing to succumb to the traditional framework of its foreign policy from pre-25 January revolution days,” said an Egyptian diplomat.
Diplomats say that ousted president Hosni Mubarak had shown close to zero interest in Latin America.
“He always referred to them as followers of Washington and thus assumed that it was enough to have good relations with the US; he was mistaken because that goes for some countries but not for others – Brazil is certainly one independent South American country.”
In 2005, Brazil, under the presidency of Lula Da Silva, Brazil hosted the first ever joint Arab–South American summit, but Mubarak declined the trip “although he was encouraged to do so by the then Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa,” according to one retired presidential diplomat. Mubarak also declined to attend the second summit that was held four years later in Doha.
Last October, Morsi was supposed to join the third Arab-South American summit in Lima, in the wake of his trip to the UN headquarters for the General Assembly, but he had to cancel the trip due to ongoing domestic concerns.
“That was a big dismay, especially as it was last minute, but now we are glad we have a fresh start and we are hoping that there are many things for Brazil and Egypt to work on together,” said a Cairo-based Brazilian diplomat.
What Egypt is seeking to get out of this ground-breaking presidential visit, according to Egyptian government sources, is not necessarily direct financial aid as much as it is direct investments. This is something that Brazil “would be keen to explore with our Egyptian friends,” according to the Brazilian diplomat.
Escorting Morsi on the road to Brazil is a delegation of prominent businessmen – with Hassan Malek, the top business advisor to Morsi on board. They will be meeting with Brazilian counterparts on the second day of the presidential trip in Sao Paolo.
“We are hoping to see the beginning of some serious match-making there,” said the Brazilian diplomat, who also reiterated the need for “political stability in Egypt, and we are hopeful about this, yes” and conducive business regulations. “We think Egypt has great potential and we are really hopeful that things will pick up,” he added.
Brazil has been reaching out to Egypt since Da Silva came to Cairo in 2005. Egypt, according to the Brazilian diplomat, might be suffering from “some issues” that were not there eight years ago, but it remains a key country in the Arab world and the Middle East “that is for sure.”
According to Amal Mukhtar, a South America specialist at Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, there are so many things that Egypt and Brazil could give one another “if there is serious political will.”
Mukhtar is convinced that the two countries could offer the beginning of an awakening of a third-world-oriented international foreign policy and economic agenda. The BRICS, she suggested, are certainly a vehicle in this respect.
With his visit to Brazil, Morsi will have completed visits to all of the BRICS countries. Egyptian governmental and business quarters are aware that this does not mean that the BRICS will become the EBRICS, with Egypt a member, any time soon; but rather it means that membership is a definite prospect.
“It is true that Egypt does not have the most advantageous economic situation today but it is also true that Egypt has so much to offer, not just in terms of economic potential, but also in terms of political weight, in the region [the Middle East] as in Africa,” explained an Egyptian diplomat.
Mukhtar, for her part, is hoping that Egypt will be able to pick up if it can get some inspiration from the transition of Brazil, which turned it from near-bankruptcy to leading economic power.
“We could look at what they did to encourage foreign and national investments and to prompt social justice; that is for sure,” Mukhtar said.
“We could even borrow and amend some of the successful social care programmes that they had during the economic transition phase, which inevitably helped the poor to be spared from accentuated suffering.”
Government sources say that Morsi is keen to listen and learn – not just about economic and democratic transition but also about the experiences of expanding agriculture and upgrading industry.
“We are keen to learn about the ‘zero hunger’ policy and the poverty fighting programmes,” said a government source.
“We are also keen to establish close cooperation with their agricultural institutes to benefit from their experiences of upgrading agricultural productivity and agricultural recycling.”
Egyptian diplomats insist that the Morsi trip to Brazil will be only the beginning of a new and keen interest in South America.
