HE lies entombed in the heart of Cairo, beneath a mausoleum which evokes the iconic pyramids of Giza, just west of the Nile, which held the remains of pharaohs 46 centuries ago.
But Anwar Al Sadat's legacy extends beyond the tomb. No visitor to that land of 80 million can fail to be touched by it.
While many in the West remember him as the man who made peace with Israel — and was ultimately assassinated for having taken that step — his countrymen remember him as the soldier who restored the pride of Egypt that was lost in the Six Day war of 1967.
On Oct 6, 1973 sappers of the Egyptian army used water cannons to blast an opening through the Bar Lev line and overtook the Israeli defenders. Israel suffered serious military reverses and while it ultimately regained the initiative, Sadat's war ended the careers of Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defence Minister Moshe Dayan.
A section of Cairo is named after Oct 6. April 25 is a national holiday commemorating the liberation of the Sinai. A museum in Heliopolis presents a proud panorama of the war.
At the diplomatic level there is peace with Israel. Beneath the surface there is simmering resentment, spurred by news coverage of the bloody Israeli incursion into Gaza and the earlier, equally bloody invasion of Lebanon.
Tourism is Egypt's second largest source of revenue, only exceeded by the Suez Canal. But fewer tourists are coming to view Egypt's archaeological treasures. The recession in Europe has taken its toll and heightened security concerns are taking a bigger toll.
There have been a few high-profile attacks against tourists during the last decade but the potential for new attacks is very real. To allay fears, Egypt has created a tourism police, clad in white, to complement its normal police, clad in black. Police of either colour are ubiquitous and one never knows if they are guarding you or suspecting you.
In many ways Sadat's successor Hosni Mubarak, the former air chief, has turned Egypt into a police state. Mubarak, who has sworn to govern until his last breath, has ruled longer than all but four of the pharaohs. His son Gamal is being groomed to succeed him, a sad reminder that it is not just the sheikhdoms in the Middle East where political continuity is ensured through blood ties.
Egypt is one of those democracies where parliamentary elections put a cosmetic gloss on a brutal dictatorship. The prime minister has no authority. As retired Gen Pervez Musharraf famously noted once, no one knows the name of the Egyptian prime minister but everyone knows the name of the president.
The main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, is banned. However, its members contest elections on an individual basis and won 20 per cent of the seats in 2005. The party subscribes to hard-line fundamentalist views which flourish because the people have no outlet against the oppressive regime. Its leadership and 400 members rot in jail and gain legitimacy.
Editors and reporters who challenge the regime are locked up. Ayman Nour, who challenged Mubarak in the last presidential elections, was released from prison for health reasons three years into a five-year jail term. He has been denied permission to travel to the US.
And yet despite all these problems Egypt remains the centre of the Arab world. US President Barack Obama gave his major policy address to the Muslim world in June from Cairo University.
Almost one out of four Egyptians resides in Cairo. Life in its back alleys was chronicled in the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, winning him the Nobel Prize in literature in 1988.
Cairo is home to Al Azhar, the 1,000-year-old Islamic university, and to the tomb of the jurist Al Shafi'i. It is also home to Salahuddin's citadel, from which that larger-than-life figure launched the campaign to evict the Crusaders from Jerusalem.
Since the Camp David accords in 1978, Egypt has been one of the top recipients of US aid. But despite that the average Egyptian views the US with suspicion. Much of the American aid never makes its way to the common man. Nor has the man on the street seen any shift in US policy toward Israel.
With the return of Benjamin Netanyahu, the hard-line rhetoric so grating to the Arab ear is again a staple. The US and Israel recently held joint military exercises to simulate a counter-response to a missile attack.
While they may have been intended to send a warning to Iran, they simply reinforced the notion that the US cannot be an honest broker of peace. In a symbolic break with its long-standing support for Israel, Turkey declined to participate in the exercise despite strong US pressure.
Egypt continues to be a poor country but one where the uber-rich live in close proximity to the uber-poor. Change is likely to come from the increasingly educated and Internet-savvy middle class. Caught between the extremes of wealth and poverty, it is driven by a desire to acquire the freedoms which are available to people elsewhere.
The Arab Development Report, published in 2002 and co-authored by Arab academics such as Egypt's Nader Fergany, documented the fault lines in the Arab world and the urgent need for reform. As The Economist noted in a recent cover story on the Arab World ('Waking from its sleep'), little has changed since the early 1980s. However, change is in the air. A recent survey of public opinion reported in Egypt Today found that 75 per cent of Egyptians want more democracy. Parliamentary elections are a year away and presidential elections two years away. By themselves these are unlikely to change anything. Barring a revolution, Egypt will stay where it is.
The last revolution took place in 1952. It deposed King Farouk, ending the line established by Mohammad Ali in 1805. But like most Third World revolutions, it was a coup d'étatand failed to bring about social change. Since then the military has governed Egypt through emergency laws.
Is a social revolution likely? Not so says Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Centre in Beirut. He told The Economist “you need an occasion for a revolution. The volcano is there, but it is held in place by the heavy mountain of the Arab state, which oppresses its people very well and has learned how to play the game of elections.”
AhmadFaruqui@gmail.com