On stage sat Mohamed Anwar Esmat al-Sadat. When inspecting his face it was hard to find features reminiscent of those of his uncle, the president of Egypt who took the bravest step in the last hundred years in the Middle East, and paid for it with his life. When you’re named after the first Arab leader who made peace with Israel, the name bears grave responsibility. Sadat arrived this week [Sept. 16] at the Wilson Center in Washington as the head of a delegation of Egyptian politicians in order to discuss the question: Is Egypt on the right path?
By Sadat’s side sat Mahmoud al-Said Tuson of the Muslim Brotherhood. He repeated his movement’s main argument, that the military’s removal of elected president Mohammed Morsi was a trampling of democracy and a negation of the will of the electorate. “There’s only one place you can protest,” he said, “at the ballot box on election day.”