Safety road

Voice of Belady

2 days ago

Safety road
Sikkat Al-Salama (The Road to Safety), by the famous Egyptian playwright Saadeddin Wahba, is about a group of travellers headed to Sharm El-Sheikh who lose their way in the desert. As they face the looming spectre of death, the characters are forced to reexamine their lives – which are not without failings and even scandal, in some cases – and search for a path to redemption both in this life and the next.
In Egyptian culture, a character who reaches such an existential dilemma is said to face one of three choices: the road to safety, the road to regret, and the road to no return.
This general motif of fateful roads acquires new meaning in the context of the perilous events that have swept the region in the relatively short timeframe since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 to the Israeli air and Mossad assault against Iran on 13 June 2025, dramatically culminating in the joint US-Israel strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. All this has brought the region to that critical juncture in the gruelling desert, where the choices are between the lesser of two evils and where humankind risks regressing further into an animalistic state of murder and destruction fed by hunger, hatred, and vengeance.
The current moment in the Middle East conflict – characterised by the ceasefire in the Iranian-Israeli war and another stab at halting the fifth Gaza war – forces us to ask: what next?
In Egyptian thought, the 'safe road' has never meant surrender. Rather, it denotes a confrontation with the self, a process of introspection and self-discovery. But it also entails dialogue with others and a collective search for a way to coexist as we find our way out of the desert in which we are deprived of shade, water, and food.
But the safe road could become a road of regret if we placed our hopes in mystical forces that everyone imagines differently in a desert full of mirages. This danger is compounded by the tendency to depend on the sudden emergence of the saviour, which may only happen after the soul has departed the body. In the Arab region, the US is often perceived as both mystical force and saviour. Often overlooked is the fact that the US has its own interests, which it prioritises. On top of those are the personal interests and ambitions of its president, whether on the global stage or domestically, especially with the Congressional midterms coming up and, not long afterwards, the presidential elections, should he succeed in having the US Constitution amended in favour of his dream of another term.
The road to safety will not present itself to us through waiting. As I have frequently stressed in this space and elsewhere, it is the road taken by relying on ourselves. By 'ourselves' here, I mean sovereign Arab states free of militias and civil wars and firm in their commitment to the modern nation-state model based on the equality of all citizens, male or female, Arab or non-Arab. These states believe in reform, participation, modernity and progress, and they are aware that time is not on their side, as other countries and regions are far ahead of us on the road to progress.
History has shown that major disasters have often opened horizons to better futures. World War II – the deadliest conflict in human history and the first to involve the use of nuclear weapons – led to the founding of the United Nations, NATO, the pacification of Japan, and the creation of the European Union, as well as to more than three-quarters of a century of peace and prosperity in Europe and the Far East. Likewise, the Vietnam War, which engulfed Laos and Cambodia in the late 1960s, ultimately led to peace in Southeast Asia and the establishment of ASEAN – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – now home to the world's fastest-growing economies.
The two-state solution to which we aspire requires three levels of reform. The first is within the Palestinian political order to become a Palestinian state, in which arms are aligned with the political authority, the people with the leadership, and religion with both state and society. The second is within Israel, where integration into the region and the recognition that its Hebraic and Jewish roots are part of this region's larger history must replace that state's hegemonic ambitions and mentality. The third is at the regional level, focused on ordering it in a way that prioritises progress on a bedrock of regional security and the promotion of the values of brotherhood and tolerance.
Sikkat Al-Salama (The Road to Safety), by the famous Egyptian playwright Saadeddin Wahba, is about a group of travellers headed to Sharm El-Sheikh who lose their way in the desert. As they face the looming spectre of death, the characters are forced to reexamine their lives – which are not without failings and even scandal, in some cases – and search for a path to redemption both in this life and the next.
In Egyptian culture, a character who reaches such an existential dilemma is said to face one of three choices: the road to safety, the road to regret, and the road to no return.
This general motif of fateful roads acquires new meaning in the context of the perilous events that have swept the region in the relatively short timeframe since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 to the Israeli air and Mossad assault against Iran on 13 June 2025, dramatically culminating in the joint US-Israel strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. All this has brought the region to that critical juncture in the gruelling desert, where the choices are between the lesser of two evils and where humankind risks regressing further into an animalistic state of murder and destruction fed by hunger, hatred, and vengeance.
The current moment in the Middle East conflict – characterised by the ceasefire in the Iranian-Israeli war and another stab at halting the fifth Gaza war – forces us to ask: what next?
In Egyptian thought, the 'safe road' has never meant surrender. Rather, it denotes a confrontation with the self, a process of introspection and self-discovery. But it also entails dialogue with others and a collective search for a way to coexist as we find our way out of the desert in which we are deprived of shade, water, and food.
But the safe road could become a road of regret if we placed our hopes in mystical forces that everyone imagines differently in a desert full of mirages. This danger is compounded by the tendency to depend on the sudden emergence of the saviour, which may only happen after the soul has departed the body. In the Arab region, the US is often perceived as both mystical force and saviour. Often overlooked is the fact that the US has its own interests, which it prioritises. On top of those are the personal interests and ambitions of its president, whether on the global stage or domestically, especially with the Congressional midterms coming up and, not long afterwards, the presidential elections, should he succeed in having the US Constitution amended in favour of his dream of another term.
The road to safety will not present itself to us through waiting. As I have frequently stressed in this space and elsewhere, it is the road taken by relying on ourselves. By 'ourselves' here, I mean sovereign Arab states free of militias and civil wars and firm in their commitment to the modern nation-state model based on the equality of all citizens, male or female, Arab or non-Arab. These states believe in reform, participation, modernity and progress, and they are aware that time is not on their side, as other countries and regions are far ahead of us on the road to progress.
History has shown that major disasters have often opened horizons to better futures. World War II – the deadliest conflict in human history and the first to involve the use of nuclear weapons – led to the founding of the United Nations, NATO, the pacification of Japan, and the creation of the European Union, as well as to more than three-quarters of a century of peace and prosperity in Europe and the Far East. Likewise, the Vietnam War, which engulfed Laos and Cambodia in the late 1960s, ultimately led to peace in Southeast Asia and the establishment of ASEAN – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – now home to the world's fastest-growing economies.
The two-state solution to which we aspire requires three levels of reform. The first is within the Palestinian political order to become a Palestinian state, in which arms are aligned with the political authority, the people with the leadership, and religion with both state and society. The second is within Israel, where integration into the region and the recognition that its Hebraic and Jewish roots are part of this region's larger history must replace that state's hegemonic ambitions and mentality. The third is at the regional level, focused on ordering it in a way that prioritises progress on a bedrock of regional security and the promotion of the values of brotherhood and tolerance.