(4 of 5)
Most people are fascinated by outward success—their social position, financial gain, power, or, in a word, their image in the eyes of others. If their outward image is, for any reason, shaken, they are inevitably shaken and may even collapse. They lack fortitude because they are neither true to themselves nor honest with others. To them the end always justifies the means. However, I have been brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me.
I do not hold the presidency to be of greater value than Anwar Sadat. To me Anwar Sadat is always Anwar Sadat, whatever the circumstances—a man who has no personal demands, and, if you wish for nothing, you will need nobody!
There can be no doubt that man's value is absolute. If it were relative it would change from one person to another, from one society to the next, and from time to time. Furthermore, if it were relative, a man's value would depend on his material "weight" or worth and could vary according as people find him useful or otherwise. The same man may be viewed differently by different people and so end up without a human (absolute) entity, losing his very "self."
This is the case with all fascist communities—Nazi or Communist—where man's value is always determined by social needs. People may be reduced to serfs or elevated to demigods: man may be turned into an automaton, obeying orders and doing his work without thinking. A man's humanity is inevitably lost as he ceases to be an individual worthy of the Responsibility and the vocation entrusted to him by God. The holy torch which he was created to bear and to use in lighting the way both for his fellow men and for posterity is extinguished.
Most people today live in power-based communities, and the world has lost the lofty ideals which man has established down the centuries. Mankind has, I believe, no way out of its current predicament except the restoration of these ideals and vindicating them in all walks of life. This is why I tirelessly advocate the adoption of the values of the Egyptian village.
My friendship with God changed me a great deal. Only in defense of a just cause would I take up arms, so to speak. For now I felt I had stepped into a vaster and more beautiful world and my capacity for endurance redoubled. I felt I could stand the pressure whatever the magnitude of a given problem. My paramount object was to make people happy. To see a smile, to feel that another man's heart beat for joy was to me a source of immeasurable happiness. I identified with people's joys.
Some people have asked me to define politics. I have always found it puzzling and could not provide a precise definition. All I know is that I have been brought up to nurture certain values from childhood to maturity, even to this day when I am President of Egypt, and have been moved by the paramount desire to save Egypt from its besetting troubles and help it advance toward perfection and beauty.
Some define politics as the art of the possible, which I find unsatisfactory. Indeed, if the October War is anything to go by, politics may be defined, rather, as the art of the impossible! Which is the correct definition?