The Egyptian revolution: towards a real regime change?
The 25th of January 2011 is already known as the birthday of the Egyptian revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak. Despite the fact that the revolution is ongoing, western media have shifted their attention to neighboring countries. Time for an update. How did it start? Have the demands been met? What are the challenges? Some personal views, in English this time – as to not exclude my English speaking friends from this blog.
We are all Khaled Saeed
Despite what most people think, it is not poverty that causes revolutions. The famous Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky once remarked that if it was poverty, the world would face revolutions continuously, since most people in the world are poor. So what does trigger a revolution? Of course every revolution is different from another one, but most revolutions do have something in common. An innocent death that is linked to state violence and that becomes a symbol of the state’s failure to protect its citizens has been the most common catalyst of creating revolutions throughout history. In the case of Egypt this innocent death was symbolized by Khaled Saeed, a middle class young man from the city of Alexandria who was beaten to death on the street by Egyptian police forces in June 2010. Photos of his disfigured body were highly spread and as a reaction, a Facebook group called ‘we are all Khaled Saeed’ was created, quickly attracting thousands of hundreds members, with the middle class realizing they were no longer safe from state brutality. The internet geared, an apolitical middle class finally joined the subtle struggle against the state that was started years ago, in 2005, by political activists with the Kefaya movement, and that was slowly and strenuously gaining momentum. One important actor of this struggle was the workers’ movement which engaged in a real struggle with the state since 2008, constantly pressuring through strikes, sit-ins and legal actions. Young people started mobilizing in support of these workers, sometimes in well organized ways… and so came to being the 6th of April movement, that was one of the callers for the 25th of January demonstrations. Also the return of Mohamed el Baradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2005, to Egypt last year and the launch of a massive campaign for change in his name was an important factor of mobilization among the Egyptian middle class.
Back to innocent deaths, it is probable that the violent death of the Tunesian vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi and the subsequent success of the Tunisian revolution of January 2011has highly contributed to an emboldened spirit and a sense of opportunity for many Egyptians who wouldn’t have previously considered to participate in such action.
The revolution’s high days
When Egyptian activists from various groups called for a mass demonstration against police brutality on the National Celebration Day of Egyptian Police Forces on January 25th, only few people had expected that that day would be the start of a true Egyptian revolution. In the early hours of the demonstration only a few hundred of people showed up. Egypt has a very repressive and violent history of dealing with demonstrators. Many people were too afraid to join. But the demonstrators strategy of starting in poor areas and walking through residential neighborhood, chanting the slogans “Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice” succeeded in attracting more and more people, until thousands of people were marching the streets of Cairo and other big cities in the whole of Egypt. While the day ended in police violence, the numbers that showed up clearly indicated it was time to seize the momentum and call for extra action. So the call was made for massive demonstrations on Friday the 28th, which became known as the “Friday of Anger”. It was a day of extreme police violence and which caused more than 300 deaths and thousands of injuries. Yet at the end of the day, the people had “conquered” police forces, which withdrew from all public places. The army took control of the streets, while the demonstrators victoriously started their first Tahrir sit-in that would continue for 18 days. Throughout the 18 days, President Hosni Mubarak made 3 TV appearances in which he refused to resign and instead tried to ease the demonstrators by some minor regime changes and by stating that he neither his son would join in the next presidential elections that were planned for September 2011. This only increased the anger of the masses in the streets, who felt that they were not taken seriously in their demands. By early February millions were marching all over the country to demand the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and to demand free and democratic elections among others. By the actual overthrow of the president on February 11th, more than 900 citizens had lost their lives, despite the fact that the protesters themselves had been mostly non-violent in their actions.
Original demands
What were the demands of the Egyptian demonstrators? The anger that lead to the revolution was of course not only driven by calling an end to police brutality, but also by social exclusion, growing unemployment, rising prices and anger at the corruption that was widely spread among the political elite. Making an end to 30 years of authoritarian ruling by the regime of Hosni Mubarak was of course the first and foremost demand. People also voiced their desire for free and democratic elections and a new constitution to limit the powers of the president. Another demand was the end of the emergency law that was imposed upon Egyptian society after the killing of former president Sadat in 1981. This emergency law had paralyzed political and societal life for decades. Thousands of people who had dared to criticize the regime had been arrested and imprisoned without having faced fair trials. Political opposition parties were banned and there was no freedom of speech. The latter, freedom of speech, is another demand of the protesters. Linked to this, they also demanded free and independent labor unions, as a tool to protect the rights of workers. In a country with a huge unemployment rate, the wages of the average people were easily kept extremely low and were even insufficient to survive on. Another major demand of the revolutionaries was an increase of the minimum wage. The last major demand was justice, meaning that those responsible for corruption and for the killing of citizens should be brought to trial. This includes members of the presidential family, big business men and top politicians.
Demands met?
The central square of Cairo, the so called Midan Tahrir or Liberation Square, became the epicenter of the revolution, daily uniting hundreds of thousands of people from diverse backgrounds, gathered around the same list of demands. The square marked the beginning of Local Community Councils and other unions, that started discussing politics and a societal restructuring. It was amazing how so many and so diverse people were able to work on the same list of demands, within a framework of dialogue, peace and respect. To many activists the ‘Tahrir experience’ or the “Tahrir Utopia” proved that there was hope for Egypt and that Egypt could become a democracy at last. Even now, in the heat of the summer, Tahrir still proves to be a major instrument for change. Thousands of activists are still occupying the square in order to have their ongoing demands heard. After all, only few demands have been met so far, reflecting a lack of political will towards real change. What follows is an update of the demands that have been met so far or have not been met yet:
- The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, but not of the ‘regime Mubarak’, since many members of the old regime are still in place. At the moment the State Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) is governing the country, headed by general Tantawi, who was a close ally of Mubarak.
- The overthrow of the State Security forces, but none of those responsible for the security apparatus abuses and/or the killing of peaceful demonstrators have been brought to trial yet. Police officers being charged with crimes are still in duty. Moreover, recent events are showing that state security is being managed with the exact same brutal, sinuous and destructive logic as before.
- The promise of free democratic elections, but there is no consensus yet about the procedures for political parties to participate or on how to monitor these elections.
- The old constitution will be changed. A referendum on constitutional amendments put this mission in the hands of a council of 100 people to be chosen by the new parliament. However, many details remain unclear, which raises the fear of having a non-representative body writing the constitution. Lately, as a result of national dialogue, the SCAF has accepted to recognize a document stating “pre-constitutional principles”, a sort of social contract that is to be respected by whoever will be in charge of the writing.
- The promise was made to bring an end to the emergency law, but until now thousands of people have been arrested and trialed before military courts and the SCAF imposed a new law, outlawing demonstrations and protests that ‘endanger national unity’. The protesters demand the annulment of this law.
- Heads of former state media have resigned and media try to present more diverse views now. However, there is no real freedom of expression yet. Journalists and bloggers who are being too critical towards SCAF face the risks of being trialed before military courts.
- Labor unions are organizing free elections and are playing a major role in the ongoing process of the revolution.
- The minimum wage has increased from 350 to 730 Egyptian pounds, but does not meet the increased food and commodity prices yet, estimated at 1200 EGP.
- The trials of the Mubarak family, former Minister of interior El Adly and police in charge of the killings of demonstrators keep on being postponed. While some of the regime’s allies – mainly businessmen- are being tried for corruption and abuse of public goods, Mr. Mubarak remains in hospital and there is no news of Mrs. Mubarak. Their sons are supposedly in prison, but no news about their trials has been released yet. The only police officer that was convicted of murder escaped from prison. However, due to Tahrir pressure, the SCAF accepted to have the trials of the actors of the old regime publicly held, aired on radio and TV.
- The protesters demand the sacking of some prominent figures in the judiciary, who are accused by the revolutionaries of deliberately bungling the prosecution on Mubarak regime figures and the family Mubarak itself.
Major challenges
As the above list shows, the revolution still faces major challenges. Many players are engaged and many of them do not share the same agenda’s. The major challenges come both from internal and external fronts, as will be explained below.
Internally, different groups are fighting over power. The SCAF wants to protect the army’s privileges and its allies who have been accused of corruption by the revolutionaries. The army is huge and forms the epicenter of power within Egypt as a country. Although some low ranking officers have publicly claimed to support the revolutionary demands, the high ranking officers want to protect their power. The role played by the army during the revolution days remains ambiguous. Although most will agree that the army did play a major role in the overthrow of the president, by refusing to crush the demonstrators, one can still not describe it as siding with the revolutionaries. It did not interfere when protesters were being slaughtered by police forces and thugs, neither did it try to protect the Mubarak clan. It just chose the way that would safeguard its own assets. Later on, after the overthrow of Mubarak, the army interfered violently to disperse the second sit-in at Tahrir. Highly financed by the US, the most stringent question now is whether SCAF will allow a new system that enshrines power in the hands of civilians. Another group that wants to keep its power are those related to the former Mubarak regime. They are still dominating the country at all levels, though the pressure of the revolutionaries to dismiss them is becoming stronger and bit by bit their demands are being met. A group that hopes to be able to gain influence is the Muslim Brotherhood. The group is especially popular among the lower middle class, because it offers good and free health care and other social services. The Muslim Brotherhood is very well organized and can easily mobilize its members, giving it a lot of power. Despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed during the Mubarak regime and could not form a political party, many of its members represented the group’s ideology as independent members of parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood was quite comfortable in this position, which was the main reason why it did not support the revolution in the beginning. According to many activists SCAF and Muslim Brotherhood are now working together behind the scenes to divide power among themselves. This however cannot be confirmed. Although the west easily expresses its fear for the Muslim Brotherhood, it is not likely that the Muslim Brotherhood would endanger any current agreement with the west. Amidst the chaos some small extreme groups are being formed, mainly based on dogmatic religious interpretations. They tend to fight each other over ‘The Truth’ and do not – so far – represent a meaningful part of the Egyptian population. During the revolution sectarian violence has increased in some parts of the country, though the revolutionaries always try to counterbalance this by publicly overcoming divisions and by stressing on one united Egyptian identity. The secular groups are at the origin of the Egyptian revolution, many of them already active for decades as critics of the neoliberal and corrupted regime of Mubarak. They now face the challenge to form political parties and to write political programmes in a very short time, which causes a lot of pressure on and disputes among its members. Both SCAF and Muslim Brotherhood tend to portrait the secular groups as agents of the west, despite the fact that most of them are very critical towards the imperialistic world order. The silent majority is another important actor. They may not be the active players, yet all other actors are trying to pull them on their side: whether the revolutionaries in Tahrir speaking in the people’s name, the Military Council using the card of the final guardian of Egyptian security and unity, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements speaking from the ground of Egyptian’s natural religiosity, and even the old regime players which keeps spreading the fear of economic crisis and the urgency of regaining stability. One wonders if the “silent majority” is really a majority at all, given that it is divided between all those tendencies.
Externally and as already mentioned above, the US has a great influence over Egypt in the form of military subsidies and development aid. As is generally known, the US is the protector of Israel. Despite the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, the anger over the colonization of Arab land and the continuous killing of Palestinian civilians remains high among the Egyptian people. While the Mubarak regime was selling off the Egyptian resources to Israel – in the form of gas export under the international market price among others – and hermetically closed the Egyptian border to Gaza, the Egyptian people supported the Palestinian struggle for independence. Many Egyptians were angry at the west for supporting the Mubarak regime and for neglecting the human rights violence by the regime committed against them and their Palestinian brothers and sisters. They doubted and still doubt whether the west really want democracy in Egypt. Apart from ‘the west’ and Israel, some other players also tend to be afraid of democracy in Egypt. Many other Arab countries are authoritarian and lack democracy. Since Egypt could trigger – and already does trigger – popular protests within these countries against their own regimes, their rulers are not welcoming the Egyptian revolution. Some rich Gulf States try to ‘buy’ the revolutionaries, by promising huge financial aid if Egypt pardons its former president. Until now the revolutionaries have not yet accepted any foreign aid, neither from the Gulf nor from IMF or Word Bank.
Evolution of the revolution
What has become of the Egyptian revolution after the world switched its attention away from Tahrir Square? The revolutionaries are determined to keep up the momentum as new parties play the power game and the old guard tries to preserve its influence. There are ongoing protests at Tahrir over the slow pace of reform and Tahrir houses fierce debates over the future of Egypt. Every night documentaries are shown and people are encouraged to voice their views. But also in the rest of Cairo and in the rest of Egypt the revolution is still alive. All over the country people engage in discussions about the role of the military in politics, about the economic model that can safe Egypt from poverty and about the best strategies to achieve justice, security and stability. Although some critics claim that what is happening in Egypt cannot be called a revolution (yet), because no real regime changes have occurred (yet), I believe that the Egyptian revolution is very revolutionary indeed. It is true that the old regime is trying to hold on to its power, but it seems the people won’t let that happen. The most revolutionary goal that has been reached so far is that people are claiming their rights again, after decades of repression. Even if you can’t call it a political revolution yet, what has happened and is still happening in Egypt, can definitely be called a revolution in the people’s mind, hopes and actions. Will the revolution lead to its major demand, towards real regime change? I do not know how long it will take, but I believe it will.
