Decoding the Revolution

“I hope the number of protesters reaches 10,000 and the protests last for one week in Cairo to change the regime,” Abd El Halim Kandil, the former general coordinator of the Kefaya movement, told Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper on January 21.

Rumblings for change had long been brewing, but few expected the tipping point would be reached so quickly. Once it hit, the population was more or less united in its growing frustration over Egypt’s economic and political conditions.

As the country ground to a halt over the days of the protests, people started to diverge in their views on where this movement was, or should be, going. Inside the square, the protesters seemed a monolithic voice of the people; outside, opinions varied regarding the legitimacy and feasibility of the demands, the wisdom of prolonging the protests or what will happen afterwards.

Analysts say the nation’s high unemployment rate (officially figured at 9.7 percent), an estimated 20 percent of the population living below poverty line, corruption, police brutality and rigged elections were a clear time bomb.

Jennifer Bremer, chair of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo (AUC), says that the country was already on the verge of a political transition due to the upcoming presidential elections, former President Hosni Mubarak’s advanced age and the possibility of his younger son, Gamal, taking over. This gave demonstrators a push to become more active, she argues.

Corruption is also listed as one of the triggers that brought about the downfall of the regime. Despite a growing gross domestic product, people have seen few economic benefits trickling down to the lower classes, heightening public suspicions of government corruption. Ahmed El Naggar, the head of the economic unit at the Ahram Center for Political and Social Studies (ACPSS), argues that the highly publicized sale of state land and policies of privatization further angered people against the regime.

The gap between the very rich and the very poor only added to the animosity toward the former government.This, explains Ragia Abd El Wahab, history professor at AUC, is the long-term result of illiteracy that dates back to the British occupation, in which there was no investment in the education sector. For years after the British occupation ended, and even after the 1952 coup d’état, illiteracy rates remained high, meaning a lack of awareness and a growing, increasingly impoverished population. This, Abd El Wahab notes, leads to a widening gap between social classes, ultimately leading to growing envy and anger between classes that has only gotten worse. “You read in the papers of weddings costing LE 15 million while others can’t find bread,” she says.

Apart from the long-standing issues of poverty, social inequality and corruption, there were several tangible milestones on the road to the 2011 uprising.

In June 2010, the local and international community was outraged by images of the disfigured corpse of Khaled Said, who was allegedly beaten to death in the street by police forces. His death, along with graphic images of his bruised and broken body, sparked nationwide protests and activists created a public group on the popular social networking website Facebook called Kulluna Khaled Said (We are all Khaled Said).

Meanwhile, months of profession-specific demonstrations over a stagnant minimum wage came to a head in October 2010. An administrative court had ruled on March 30 that the state must raise the minimum wage to LE 1,200, but in October, the government upped it to only LE 400, claiming further increases would trigger inflation.Demonstrators vowed to keep up the pressure on the government.

In December 2010, amid a media crackdown and widespread allegations of voting fraud and intimidation, the National Democratic Party (NDP) won 420 seats out of the People’s Assembly’s 518 seats, 10 of which are appointed by the president. Another wave of anger swept the country, not only from opposition parties effectively shut out of Parliament, but also from people with no political orientation angered by the allegedly rigged elections.

The final spark to the powder keg came from Tunisia. On January 15, 2011, after a month of public protests over unemployment, inflation and corruption, the 23-year regime of Tunisian President Zein Al-Abedin Ben Ali ended with Ben Ali fleeing the country to Saudi Arabia.

Inspired, Egyptian activists used the Khaled Said Facebook group to call for public protests throughout Egypt on January 25, a public holiday honoring the police forces. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.

On January 25, protesters first managed to get into Tahrir Square and staged a peaceful sit-in, calling for increasing the minimum wage, lifting the emergency law and social justice. Apart from sending in riot police after midnight to clear the square, the government largely ignored the protesters’ demands.

Clashes between protesters and police continued, with multiple deaths reported on January 28’s Friday of Rage. The violence galvanized the protesters, who occupied Tahrir and escalated their demands to include prosecuting all those accused of corruption, imposing judiciary supervision on elections, amending the constitution, and ousting the regime altogether.

While demands regarding the minimum wage, corruption and emergency law still enjoyed a consensus, the nation was split on the call for dismantling the government.

The night of February 1, Mubarak gave an emotional speech that essentially divided the population into two camps. Pointing to his 60 years of serving the country in the military and as president, Mubarak said he would not seek re election in 2011, but would stay at his post to oversee constitutional amendments and the upcoming political transition.

Many people left the square after the February 1 speech with a sense of victory, satisfied with Mubarak’s promises and relieved that there would be an orderly change of leadership. This group believed the demands were legitimate but unrealistic, given the six months left until the presidential elections.

Ramsis El Naggar (not related to ACPSS’s Ahmed El Naggar), a lawyer for the Coptic Church, was with the ‘wait and see’ camp, believing the president should have stepped down before his term ended in September, under the current circumstances.

The lawyer’s concerns focus largely on the constitutional issues related to the elections, noting that problematic articles could not be amended unless Mubarak stayed in power. Among them, articles 76 and 77 of the Constitution make it impossible for anybody other than a member of the NDP to run for presidency and do not limit the number of terms a president can serve.

Ibtissam Habib -- a member of the former Parliament, lawyer and member of the Egyptian Council for Human Rights -- agrees with Ramsis El Naggar. “He should have remained in post until the end of his term. Otherwise, there will be chaos,” she says. Habib notes that by law, there can be no reforms or constitutional amendments without a sitting president and a parliament to implement them.

Some felt that the protests should have ended with the February 1 speech to avoid further chaos and economic loss. According to a government report issued February 17, Egypt lost over LE 10 billion in its tourism, industry and construction sectors due to the 18-day revolution.

Businessman Mohamed Aly Hassan says that during the uprising, he was a “hostage to protesters in Tahrir Square,” referring to the effects the demonstrations had on business. “I am not against the demands,” he says. “I am against what is happening. We all agree Mubarak has [made] mistakes, but to continue in this chaos was just wrong.”

“There are reasonable demands, and reforms should take place,” says Ahmed El Sheikh, account supervisor at an advertising agency. “But people need to know when to start, when to negotiate and when to stop to preserve the country and not put it on hold, and how to respect others.”

While many support the protesters’ demands, some believe the protests were harming the image of the country.

El Sheikh was angered by the insults on a leading national figure. “Even if you don’t like the president, you should have respected him because he has been serving the country for 30 years,” he argues, noting that under Mubarak, the economy and foreign trade had grown, while foreign relations remained stable.

AUC professor Abd El Wahab was also unhappy with the tone of the protests. “I find it shocking and wrong; the insults were exceedingly rude,” she says. “I can’t insult the president on banners that are that rude while the whole world watches. I can’t have someone like American President Barack Obama asking my president to step down.”

El Sheikh says that keeping demonstrations peaceful does not only mean avoiding violence, it also means ensuring that people can resume their normal lives. “They needed to stop. It had turned into stubbornness,” he says. “Did we want reform or did we want to remove one person? He needed to take enough time to hand over an entire country.”

Some people feared a political vacuum would ensue if Mubarak stepped down immediately.

Abd El Wahab explains that although she was thrilled with the protests and reforms, she felt Mubarak had to stay for the stability of the country and keeping parties or foreign elements from “wanting a piece of the cake.”

In previous elections, traditional opposition parties had little success winning significant seats and still have limited experience with presidential races. People fear that early elections might allow groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood to gain an unfair advantage.

Hassan agrees, “Of course the Muslim Brotherhood could come to power, not because they are popular, but because they are very organized.”

Bremer notes that the Brotherhood is the strongest organization at the moment and could get around 15 to 20 percent of the vote. She adds that this is why a longer-term transition, with or without the presence of Mubarak, should occur to give other parties time to organize themselves and publicize their agendas.

For those who stayed in Tahrir after the February 1 speech, it was largely a matter of trust. Many had been injured in clashes with the riot police on January 28. Those police withdrew from the streets that same night in what many believe was a state-sanctioned move to terrorize the population.

Ahmed El Naggar, who wanted Mubarak’s immediate resignation, notes that the demands were justified after years of oppression, corruption, social injustice and torture. Waiting and amending the Constitution is not enough, he feels, for it is the product of a dictator’s regime and needs to be completely rewritten.

Those in the Tahrir camp simply did not trust the regime. Buoyed at winning the February 1 concessions from Mubarak, the Tahrir camp believed it was about time people called for their rights, which had to be upheld now or never.

Wednesday, February 2 cemented the Tahrir protesters’ mistrust and galvanized their resolve. Shortly after 1pm, a group of allegedly hired thugs charged into Tahrir and started attacking the protesters with sticks, rocks and other weaponry. The violence escalated throughout the night to include Molotov cocktails and reportedly gunshots. Protesters showed TV news crews the ID cards they confiscated which they claimed were proof the attackers were plain-clothed police.

From that Black Wednesday, protesters were unmovable in their demands for Mubarak’s immediate ouster. As Ahmed El Naggar notes, “Time is not on the regime’s side, no state can handle people revolting all this time,” he says. “A transitional government of opposition and the youth had to be formed.”

As events played out, the standoff over Mubarak’s resignation ended sooner than expected. After Mubarak insisted in a February 10 speech that he would stay in his post until elections, then-Vice President Omar Suleiman announced on February 11 that Mubarak had stepped down and handed power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

Since taking the reins of government, the SCAF has tried to move quickly to address the demands of the protesters and the concerns of those who want a stable transition.

The council dissolved Parliament, suspended the Constitution and created an eight-member panel tasked with drafting amendments to key articles related to presidential elections. (For more on needed amendments, see “Rewriting the Future” on page 106.).

Several former ministers and high-ranking NDP officials have been referred to the General Prosecutor for investigation. At press time, former Minister of Interior Habib El Adly, former Minister of Tourism Zoheir Garana, former Minister of Housing Ahmed El Maghraby and former NDP secretary Ahmed Ezz, had been arrested and charged with corruption.

As part of ongoing investigations, the bank accounts of several officials and businessmen were frozen. Mubarak has submitted his financial statements to the General Prosecutor.

SCAF also raised salaries by 15 percent, in response to a series of labor demonstrations that continued after Tahrir Square resumed normal business activity.

It abolished the Ministry of Information and added political diversity with several new Cabinet appointments, including Mohamed El Sawy as new minister of culture; Georgette Kellini, minister for migration and Egyptians’ affairs abroad; Wafd party member Monir Fakhry Abd El Nour, minister of tourism, and Tagammua member Gouda Abd El Khalek, minister of social solidarity. Yehia El-Gamal, a member of the Democratic Front Party, was appointed Vice Prime Minister.

The revolution, and the differences in opinion it engendered, has had social repercussions as well. There are anecdotal reports of friendships severed and family relationships strained over debates on whether someone is “unpatriotic” or a “traitor” for not supporting a certain approach to regime change or perhaps not supporting regime change at all.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) launched a website called the List of Shame, which names prominent Egyptians who reportedly “made statements against the revolution in all cities of Egypt,” according to a February 13 statement on the ANHRI website.Ironically, ANHRI claims it is “defending freedom of expression in the Arab World.” In its statement, the organization justifies its list, which also includes a “page of merit” featuring people who supported the demonstrations, by saying, “any person has the right to uphold any idea or stance, however, incitement and accusations of working as agents for foreign parties, is extreme oppression of others because of their positions against the dictatorship.”

Bremer thinks all speech, except for hate speech, should be tolerated in democracies, but this tolerance should be developed through public dialogue. And Egypt has a lot of work to do before it reaches that point.

“Advocates of the revolution are free to regard others as unpatriotic or even as traitors, as long as they don’t turn these attitudes into efforts to suppress them,” she says. “But free expression has been suppressed for so long that no one remembers how to have a civilized public debate.”