The decade that is coming to an end opened in Egypt with a terrible explosion at the Church of the Saints in Alexandria. The bombing might as well have been planned as a harbinger of the profound disruptions to come. By 25 January 2011 people had taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers to demand change. On 11 February president Hosni Mubarak stepped down and the door was opened wide to changes that were unimaginable just a few months before.

The first decade of the 21st century had a similarly tumultuous opening, and the reverberations of the 11 September attacks in the US continued to generate aftershocks, including the unjustified US invasion of Iraq and the concomitant relocation of terrorist organizations’ centre of gravity from the mountains of Afghanistan to the heart of the Arab region.

As successive popular uprisings in the Arab world caught the world’s attention at the beginning of the second decade, the shift in terror’s centre of gravity to the region acted as a block on popular

moves towards democracy and the rule of law. The rules of the game had changed, and in Egypt the people’s experiment with Muslim Brotherhood ended in another popular revolution as the masses mobilised against the Islamists’ attempts to turn Egypt into a religious state. As civil wars ravaged fragile states such as Yemen, Syria, and Libya, and the situation in Iraq and Lebanon deteriorated following their own popular uprisings, a common denominator emerged: brutal groups hoisting the banner of the Islamic Caliphate. With hindsight, we can see that Egypt was among the luckiest states in the region. It began the arduous task rebuilding state institutions in time, and over the last seven years has retained an unstinting focus on fighting extremism and confronting terrorist groups in Sinai and other areas. It was able to launch major infrastructure projects, modernise its economy and health and education sectors, and develop the Vision 2030 of sustainable development.

Elsewhere, Occupy Wall Street demonstrations shone a spotlight on the injustices and inequality wreaked as globalisation ravaged classes and peoples, and the forces of terror escalated their operations, from the Boston Marathon to the crowded streets and cafés of Paris, London and Barcelona.

In the midst of these developments, a heterogeneous mix of populists, nationalists, the New Right, and others who reject globalisation began to make their voices heard. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and then Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, were killed by American forces: though decapitated of their heads, there is no indication at all that the brutal organisations they led are about to disappear.

The Syrian war displaced millions and pushed them to the gates of Europe, feeding the emergence of a wave of xenophobic European populism and Islamophobia.

As the second decade of the 21st century ends, milestones have been passed that will continue to inform the future. In the Middle East, the United States retreated, leaving China and Russia to compete to fill the vacuum. The era of American hegemony continues to unravel as new economic groupings emerge to pose a threat to American power. The last 10 years can also be seen as a preparation for the end of oil as a factor in Washington’s geo-political calculations: the Middle East in on the cusp of a post-oil era, with all the political, social and economic complexities that entails.

For the Arab world the most dramatic development of the past 12 months is the sudden rush by Arab states to normalise relations with Israel. Such is the momentum that it is easy to envisage Israeli missions opening in most of the capitals of the Arab and Islamic world within a few years at most.

And last, but not least, Covid-19, the painful conclusion of the second decade of the 21st century. The extent of the impact of the pandemic is as yet unclear, though it is certain to mark the future of humanity for years, if not decades, to come. Already things we once took for granted, including mass travel, the prosaic experience of embarking and disembarking an airplane, are being questioned. And what of the new patterns of work that the pandemic has brought? Are they now a permanent feature of our lives? There is, of course, an even more significant question, and one that must be asked: just how prepared is the world to confront a new pandemic?

*A version of this article appears in print in the 24 December, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly