Liberal democracy versus fascist totalitarianism in Egyptian intellectual discourse: The case of Salama Musa and al-Majalla al-Jadīda

In his book Egypt in Search of Political Community, Nadav Safran sketched the pro-fascist and pro-Nazi sentiments that, in his estimation, dominated both the intellectual field and popular opinion in Egypt at the end of the 1930s: By the late 1930s, democracy as such was badly discredited in Egypt as a result of the crisis suffered by the Western nations that practiced it. The great depression had given credence to the claims of Fascism, Nazism, and Communism that liberal democracy was a decaying system. The contrast between the misery, despair, and social discord that pervaded the Western democracies and the discipline, orderliness, and aggressive confidence that appeared to characterize the totalitarian regimes made a deep impression on Egyptians, who had seen in their own country a record of unmitigated failures of democracy.1.