The Violence of Failed States

The Egyptian state about 2200 bce suffered a shock the nature and course of which are still not clearly understood. Was it interference by forces outside the bounds of the Egyptian heartland? But if so, what foreign elements were powerful enough to take on the land of the pharaohs? Was it a species of systems collapse? But, then, what brought it on? Art and architecture, significant markers both in assessing the economic health of the state, show signs of sudden decline.

In the three centuries following the end of the Old Kingdom a type of oral discourse developed, some reflecting a truly oral creation, and some written parlando, which describe a situation of anarchy and violence in the land. Whether it reflects contemporary socio-political conditions is not being debated here; rather, the question these pieces may answer is: how do Egyptians describe the aftermath of the withdrawal of divine blessing and the dissolution of the state? What happens when ma'at is removed from the social equation? Three texts in particular describe a state thus handicapped: the ‘Admonitions of Ipuwer',^[724] the ‘Dialogue of a Man with his Soul'^[725] and the ‘Prophecy of Neferti'.^[726] The first describes, inter alia, what results from the removal of policy making and executive branches of government with the power to impose sanctions:

Behold! The councillors of the land are forcibly removed throughout the country, and there is a general expulsion from the royal departments...

The organs of government, formerly held in esteem because they worked, were now condemned and bypassed because they no longer worked. ‘The bosses of the land run away, they cannot govern because of want; every office is not functioning properly.' The elite, occupying the corridors of power, lose respect through their inability to affect the situation: ‘princes' offspring are dashed against walls... princes' children are thrown into the streets!... the magnates of the land are not reported to'. Neferty describes plague and the onset of civil war:

I give you the land in sickness: what has never (before) happened, has happened. People are taking up weapons of war and the land lives in uproar! Men will make weapons of bronze, and rations will be issued in the bread of blood. Men will laugh with the laughter of sickness, and no one will weep over death!... A man sits in his corner, his back while people slay each other. I give you a son as enemy, a brother as foe, a man slaying his father... One will produce hateful things in order to silence the eloquent mouth. A statement is answered with the blow of a stick, and a discourse with ‘Kill him!'

Nothing could shake the Egyptians' belief that their state was god­given and, at the outset, the best that could be structured. If it collapsed, this was the fault of foreigners, a negligent creator or criminals. Violence and the threat of violence, which initially were considered part of an essential mechanism for creating and sustaining the state, became the concomitants of state dissolution. Humankind now perpetrates acts of violence, not in accordance with justice according to ma'at, but rather as a fundamental violation of it. Such a society, riven by chaos and crime, had no place in the divine cosmos. Ma'at must be brought back: it was a moral duty.

And thus, out of ideological necessity, was born the figure of the Restorer, the saviour-king, sanctioned by the gods. Only he it is that has been selected to put matters right, only he should be trusted. Loyalty and trust are the watchwords. Mindless adherence to prescripted thought is counted as right­eousness; independent thinking is deemed dissent and terrorism. There is no middle ground.