Anatomy of a Revolution: the 2011 Egyptian Uprising
Mustafa Bal
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
under the Executive Committee of
the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2014
© 2014
Mustafa Bal
All rights reserved
ABSTRACT
Anatomy of a Revolution: the 2011 Egyptian Uprising
Mustafa Bal
This dissertation offers a diachronic analysis of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.
This study holds that, regardless of its sui generis nature, the January 2011 Egyptian
Revolution became possible as a combined result of a sociopolitical transformation in the
Egyptian society in roughly the last decade of Mubarak’s rule and several contingent
events that took place right before and during the January 25 events. Sociopolitical
transformations in Egyptian society were conceptualized along two dimensions: 1)
Gradual changes in Egyptian sociopolitical life that occurred particularly on the last
decade of Mubarak regime, and 2) Paradigmatic changes that took place during the 18
days of protests. This ethnographic account of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution –with
involved political processes and mechanisms; and human agency that transformed and
was transformed by those mechanisms and processes– aspires to contribute to our
understanding of 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and possibly revolutions in general, and the
ensuing political crises that arise in transition periods after major political
transformations.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST of MAPS, TABLES, and FIGURES ........................................................................ iv
List of Maps ................................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables ................................................................................................................. iv
List of Figures ................................................................................................................ iv
Map of Egypt .................................................................................................................. v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................. vi
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................. 1
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1
2. Statement of the Problem ......................................................................................... 2
Chapter 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY .......................... 8
1. Study of Political Change ........................................................................................ 8
2. Political Transformation in Egypt and the Concept of Social Dramas .................. 14
a. Mobilization of Political Capital ........................................................................... 15
b. The Encounter or Showdown................................................................................ 15
3. Revolution .............................................................................................................. 18
4. The Concept of Contentious Politics ..................................................................... 21
5. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 24
6. Limitations and Role of the Researcher ................................................................. 32
Chapter 3: BRIEF HISTORY OF MODERN EGYPT ..................................................... 35
1. Foundation of Modern Egypt ................................................................................. 35
2. The Nasser Years, 1952–70 ................................................................................... 36
3. Sadat’s Years: ........................................................................................................ 44
Part I: MOBILIZATION OF POLITICAL CAPITAL ..................................................... 51
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter 4. MUBARAK'S RULE ...................................................................................... 53
1. Mubarak’s Accession to Power and His Early Days ............................................. 53
2. The Political System in Egypt under Mubarak Rule ............................................. 55
a. The Presidency ................................................................................................... 56
b. The Legislative Branch....................................................................................... 57
c. The Judiciary ...................................................................................................... 58
3. Authoritarianism and Characteristics of Mubarak's Rule ...................................... 62
4. Key institutions of the Mubarak regime ................................................................ 65
a. Ministry of the Interior and the Egyptian Police Force ...................................... 65
b. The Intelligence Apparatus................................................................................. 72
c. National Democratic Party ................................................................................. 77
d. The Egyptian Military ........................................................................................ 79
5. State and Society Relations.................................................................................... 82
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 87
i
Chapter 5: PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION ...................................................................... 88
1. Kefaya Movement.................................................................................................. 88
2. Succession Question .............................................................................................. 92
3. Muslim Brotherhood .............................................................................................. 99
4. Salafism in Egypt ................................................................................................. 107
5. Youth Movements................................................................................................ 113
a. Phase One (2000-2003) .................................................................................... 114
b. Phase Two (2004-2006) ................................................................................... 115
c. Phase Three: (2006-2009) ................................................................................ 115
d. Phase Four: (2010-2011) .................................................................................. 118
6. Return of Mohamed ElBaradei ............................................................................ 119
7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 123
Part II: THE ENCOUNTER OR SHOWDOWN: 2011 TAHRIR REVOLUTION ....... 124
Chapter 6: 2011 TAHRIR REVOLUTION AS A SOCIAL DRAMA ........................... 125
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 125
1. Breach of Peace ................................................................................................... 128
a. Death of Khaled Said........................................................................................ 128
b. 2010 Parliamentary Elections ........................................................................... 131
2. Crisis: January 25, The First Day of Protests ...................................................... 136
Introduction ............................................................................................................. 136
Timeline of the January 25, 2011 Uprisings ............................................................... 138
Crisis: January 25, The First Day of Protests ......................................................... 143
a. Innovative Collective Action ............................................................................ 145
b. Contingent Events ............................................................................................ 149
c. Certification ...................................................................................................... 164
Revolutionary Trajectories: January 28, The Day of Rage..................................... 166
d. Constitution of New Political Actors and Identities ......................................... 170
e. Scale Shift ......................................................................................................... 172
f. Regime Defection ............................................................................................. 175
g. Decertification .................................................................................................. 186
h. Polarization ....................................................................................................... 189
Ritualized Protests as Rites of Passages ................................................................. 193
It Surprised us All ................................................................................................... 200
The Coptic Christians During the 2011 Revolution ............................................... 204
3. Adjustive or Redressive Mechanisms: ................................................................. 208
a. Threat and Intimidation ..................................................................................... 209
b. Attempts to Decertify the Protestors ................................................................. 213
c. Disinformation .................................................................................................. 215
d. Negotiations and Attempts of Reconciliation ................................................... 217
4. Restoration of Peace: February 11, Mubarak Steps Down .................................. 219
A Brief Overview of Post Mubarak Period and Morsi’s Short-Lived Presidency . 222
Revolutionary Romanticism ................................................................................... 239
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 241
Chapter 7: CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 245
ii
Post-Revolutionary Syndrome ................................................................................ 249
Muslim Brotherhood’s Failed Appeal as a “Party Open to All Egyptians” ........... 251
Contested “Legitimacies” ....................................................................................... 256
How Peaceful Was It? ............................................................................................. 260
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 262
References Cited: ............................................................................................................ 265
APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................... 287
Appendix: Informants ................................................................................................. 287
iii
LIST of MAPS, TABLES, and FIGURES
List of Maps
Map of Egypt…………………………………………………………………………….V
List of Tables
Table 1: Forms of Structural Change ……………………………………………………12
List of Figures
Figure 1: We came to kiss the feet of the revolution’s youth…...……..……….………166
Figure 2: Egypt belongs to all Egyptians; Muslims and Christians……..……………..173
Figure 3: The army and the people are one hand……………………………...………..185
Figure 4: Protestors welcome the Armed Forces on January 28……………….………185
Figure 5: Egypt Reborn…………………………………………………………………196
Figure 6: I am a revolutionary and therefore I am…...…………………………………206
Figure 7: I used to be Afraid I became Egyptian…………………………………….....197
Figure 8: Forgive me Lord; I was afraid and silent…………………………………….197
Figure 9: My Country, I am sorry it took me so long…………………………………..197
Figure 10: This is my shroud, for Egypt………………………………………………..198
Figure 11: More lentils, more chili, Where's the Kentucky, You son of a liar? ……….215
iv
Map of Egypt
Political Map of Egypt
Source, Nations Online Project.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would never have been able to finish my dissertation without the guidance of my
committee members, help from friends, and support from my family and wife.
First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Professor Lambros
Comitas, for his excellent guidance, caring, and patience. He continually and
persuasively conveyed a spirit of adventure in regard to research and scholarship.
Without his supervision and constant help this dissertation would not have been possible.
In addition, I would like to thank to Professor George Bond, Professor Charles
Harrington, and Hérve Varenne who introduced me to the field of cultural anthropology.
My special gratitude goes to my friends and informants in Egypt who opened
their hearts to me with great sincerity during my stay in Cairo. I would like to thank also
my friends Ismail Onat, Dr. Sevki Eldivan, Dr. Omer Demir, Dr. Rustu Deryol, Dr. Fatih
Vursavas, Erkan Cicek, Dr. Ahmet Can, Derin Akdeniz, Dr. Kamil Yilmaz, Dr. Sinan
Celiksu, Isa Karasioglu, Dr. Hudaverdi Balci, and many others for their generous support
and advice during my research and being there for me all the time.
Finally, I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my dear wife Zehra
and my parents, sister, and brothers for their love, patience and constant support in life.
vi
For the Miners Who Lost Their Lives in Soma, Manisa in May 2014
vii
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
On December 17, 2010, 26-year-old Mohammad Bouazizi, a street vendor in the
city of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia self-immolated himself to protest the humiliating treatment
he was subjected to after a female police officer slapped him on the face in public and
confiscated his cart and goods. The incident caused public outrage and nationwide
protests that began on December 18. The demonstrations transformed into a civil uprising
that resulted in the ousting of the Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. His 23year-long rule ended in 28 days on January 14, 2010. Following the events in Tunisia
similar wave of protests, which have been popularly termed the "Arab Spring", took
place in different countries in the Middle East and North Africa.1 The waves of protests
were of historical importance and marked a new beginning for many Arab countries.
Many of them shared similar tactics of civil disobedience that were organized extensively
through social media. These involved persistent campaigns consisting of demonstrations,
rallies, and strikes. Although not all were successful in achieving their goals, through
these protests people strongly expressed their demands for democracy against their
autocratic rulers.
Egyptians were the first to follow Tunisia. In the aftermath of a popular uprising
that lasted 18 days they overthrew their almost three-decade-long ruler Hosni Mubarak
on February 11, 2011. Egypt has been experiencing a historical transformation both on
1
After the Tunisian protests, similar uprising occurred in varying forms, intensity and
outcomes in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Sudan,
Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Oman, and Djibouti.
1
societal and political levels. Egyptians have new expectations, interests, concerns, and
new political rules.
2. Statement of the Problem
The 2011 Tahrir events, popularly termed the 2011 “Egyptian Revolution”, was
probably the most popularized and best-documented mass movement in human history.
The events were broadcasted live through major communication channels over satellite
TVs and the Internet. The events were widely discussed in academic, political, and
popular circles around the world. Nevertheless, very often, the salient theme that
dominated these discussions, and some of the published articles and books, remained
limited to the role of youth activism and social media in the process of ousting decadelong autocratic rulers, not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but also in countries such as Libya
and Yemen. In some popular accounts the role of the social media was almost sanctified.
In most cases, youth had played a leading role in forming these changes and they were
not intimidated by the repressive and brutal measures of the state security apparatus and
they extensively benefitted from the use of social media both as regards the organization
phases involved and during the protests. Yet, the events, with their background political
and societal dynamics and involved processes and mechanisms, were much more
complex and could not be adequately understood in the context of tangential reviews and
required more comprehensive analyses.
The removal of Mubarak was a new beginning, but it was only the first step. As
the anomalies of the post-Mubarak period became more evident, the initial euphoria
quickly dwindled. Although Mubarak and several key figures in the high echelons of the
regime were removed and the National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Mubarak
2
was banned, the entrenched power infrastructure of the old regime remained intact to a
large extent. Traditionally institutionalized political forces quickly sidelined
revolutionary forces, the bulk of which consisted of youth activist groups. The military
council who assumed the responsibility of overseeing the transition period was a
significant power center of the old regime and was unlikely to consent easily to complete
civilian supervision, as envisaged in full-fledged democracies.
Furthermore, the new political equation after the parliamentary elections led to a
new source of tension. The Islamist parties, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and the
Salafist Parties, took two thirds of the votes in the parliamentary elections. When the
candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi was elected as the president in
June 2012, there was already an increasing tension between the Islamist and liberalsecular political forces in the society. Two years after Mubarak was deposed,
improvements in the average Egyptians’ life were not at the expected levels, if there were
any improvements at all. Besides, some Egyptians, specifically the more politically
liberal and secular individuals, became increasingly concerned that the country was being
diverted from its revolutionary ideals.
It was on this political background that I set off for Cairo, Egypt in May 2012 for
my field study that constituted the focus of this dissertation. The initial project was about
Coptic Egyptians; their position in the post Mubarak Egypt that was likely to be ruled by
Islamists dominated governments in the near future. Preliminary research before arriving
to Egypt suggested there was an increasing concern among the Coptic Egyptians, who
were Christians, about the direction of the country, possibly with some unfavorable
repercussions for them.
3
Initial interviews and observations among Muslim Egyptians suggested that
similar concerns to those of Coptic Egyptians’ were also prevalent among many Muslim
Egyptians and that the state was on the verge of gaining a religious character under the
influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist groups. After roughly two years
following the ousting of Mubarak, Egyptians were highly politicized and the society was
becoming increasingly polarized along the pro-Morsi versus the anti-Morsi factions. The
Islamists were accused of “having hijacked the revolution” and the political groups were
being assessed on the bases of their contribution to the “revolution”. Based on these
initial assessments, I came to believe that understanding the 2011 Tahrir Uprisings,
without necessarily confining the focus to the Coptic community would be more relevant
than having a narrow focus.
A certain level of “overconfidence” among some Egyptian youth was particularly
noticeable during the initial interviews. The swift and relatively cost free success of the
2011 Tahrir Uprising probably cultivated this sense of overconfidence. After President
Morsi took office at the end of June 2012, the political polarization in the Egyptian
society gained a new momentum. As early as in his second month in the office, there was
already a discourse that focused on a “second revolution” circulating among some young
Egyptians: a “second revolution against the Ihkwan (Brotherhood) to reroute the country
back to the revolutionary track.” For some young Egyptians, who participated in the
protests in Tahrir or elsewhere in 2011, “revolution” was a readily available and
relatively costless political choice that could be used to change or amend a political
system or a ruler at will. However, given the fact that revolutions are quite complex
political processes and only a small percentage of revolutionary situations end up with
4
successful revolutionary outcomes (McAdam et al. 2001), this assumption was erroneous
and potentially destructive. This pervasive belief among the youth held that when a
certain segment of the population could be mobilized against the ruler, even if he/she was
democratically elected, revolution was inevitable. This clear lack of understanding of
“regime change” or “revolution” failed to acknowledge the fact that in cases when a
considerable segment of a society supports the ruler, civil uprisings and attempts of
forced removal of a ruler could possibly lead to violent conflicts and prolonged societal
fractures.
The tactics and strategies that the young activists employed in Tunisia, Egypt, and
elsewhere during the wave of protests in 2011 in the Middle East and North Africa were
to a great extent an application of Gene Sharp’s (1973) works of “non-violent resistance”.
The concept of non-violent resistance attracted the attention of the World once again. Its
successful application in Tunisia and Egypt inspired other disgruntled groups in different
parts of the World. As in the Gezi Park Events in Turkey2 in May 2013, there were many
parallels and references to Tahrir Revolution.
Based on all these considerations, this study intended to offer a diachronic
analysis of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. This study was based on the assumption that,
regardless of its sui generis nature, the January 2011 Egyptian Revolution became
possible as a combined result of a sociopolitical transformation in the Egyptian society in
roughly the last decade of Mubarak’s rule and several contingent events that took place
2
Gezi Park Protests started in Istanbul, Turkey on May 28, 2013 as a reaction to a
government based urban development plan that would destroy part of Gezi Park in
Taksim, Istanbul. The protests that started with environmentalist concerns quickly gained
an anti-government character and spread to almost every city in the country. Thousands
of students and young people joined the protests and demanded the resignation of the
Prime Minister Erdogan.
5
right before and during the January 25 events. Sociopolitical transformations in Egyptian
society were conceptualized along two dimensions: 1) Gradual changes in Egyptian
sociopolitical life which occurred particularly on the last decade of Mubarak regime, and
2) Paradigmatic changes that took place during the 18 days of protests
It was believed that a diachronic analysis of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, with
involved political processes and mechanisms; and human agency that transformed and
was transformed by those mechanisms and processes would contribute to our
understanding of 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and possibly revolutions in general, and the
ensuing political crises that arise in the transition period.
The research questions that informed this study were as follows:
1) Under what conditions and through what processes did the Egyptian people emerge as
a possible contender with a revolutionary claim against the Mubarak regime?
2) Under what conditions and through what processes did the Egyptian people succeed in
replacing Mubarak in 18 days, arguably in a very short time frame and in a peaceful
manner?
The design of this research was mainly based on the concept of Social Drama, a
theory that was originally conceptualized in his Schism and Continuity in an African
Society by Victor Turner (1957) and later slightly modified by Swartz, Tuden, and
Turner himself in 1969. Following a discussion of the theoretical framework (Chapter 1)
and brief history of Modern Egypt (Chapter 2) an analysis of the situation in question was
conducted and presented, as suggested by the concept of Social Drama, in two parts: 1)
The Mobilization of Political Capital; and 2) The Encounter or Showdown.
In Chapter 4, under Part I, Mubarak's Rule; namely the regime's general character,
6
its key institutions and mechanisms, state-society relations are discussed. In Chapter 5,
the Prelude to the Revolution, the development of rival political sentiments and groups
against the regime are presented.
Under Part II, the Encounter or Showdown section, Chapter 6 explores the
actualization of the Egyptian Revolution and provides an overview of the involved
processes and mechanisms that occurred in the context of the phases of the Social Drama
framework. Critical events that served as turning points in depleting the regime's
legitimacy and contributed to the further politicization of Egyptians against the Mubarak
regime are presented under the Breach of the Peace phase. Later, the Crisis phase, that
started on January 28, 2011, explores the processes involved and the mechanisms that
occurred during the 18 day long protests. The regime's response to the crisis attempts of
threat and intimidation, and the decertification process that followed constitutes the
subject of the third phase of the Social Drama, the phase of Adjustive or Redressive
Mechanisms. Under the fourth and last phase of the Social Drama, the Restoration of
Peace, the resignation of Mubarak and the nature of post-revolution period with a brief
overview of Morsi's Presidency and the ensuing military intervention is discussed.
7
Chapter 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY
The general theoretical framework that informs this research is based on the
processual paradigm used in the field of political anthropology. The processual paradigm
benefited extensively from political science and grew largely as a reaction to the
structural functional approach in anthropological thought, particularly in the context of
political anthropology. Practitioners who follow the processual paradigm have argued
that an appropriate focus of analysis in this field should involve agent-driven politics and
political processes; not the sociopolitical structures, and social unity and maintenance of
order as the structural functionalists believed (Kurtz 2001). The main concern of the
processual paradigm has been to show that the political process is fraught with conflicts
and political processes and conflict can lead to changes in the political system (Kurtz
2001). In the processual paradigm, the government or any other type of structure did not
present an issue of special importance for purposes of the political analysis (Swartz
1969). Processualism studies how relevant institutions or groups engage in the political
processes without necessarily examining such groups or institutions such as, villages,
lineages, or government.
1. Study of Political Change
The 2011 Egyptian Revolution arguably created and made evident two forms of
sociopolitical transformation. The first was the political change through years of
mobilization that paved the way for the initiation of the January 25 protests and the
ensuing revolution. This change occurred in a gradual and incremental manner and
among limited circles in Egypt. The second was the political transformation that actually
occurred and culminated in the performance of the revolutionary movement during the 18
8
days of protests, en masse and in a sudden manner through ritualized protests that can be
conceptualized as ‘rites of passages’. These two types or levels of changes are
interrelated and interactive processes.
Smith (1974) suggested that the concept of change should be analyzed with care:
“analytically change and continuity are complementary and mutually exclusive concepts
that serve to define one another" (p.170). In addition, for Smith, claims of total novelty or
complete stasis are unfounded because very often, social processes accommodate change
and continuity concurrently.
Another fact is that in a political unit, regular transactions that denote
redistribution of some elements are described quite often as acts of change. Sometimes
the same event can be interpreted as an indication of continuity and change by different
observers (Smith 1974). For instance, members of one community may perceive the
replacement of an official in the political unit as change, while – if no other modifications
occur in the system at that site– others may also describe this replacement as an
indication of continuity. We obviously need additional data about the political unit and
the political processes involved.
Without clear measures and concepts, recognizing change accurately is a difficult
task. Smith defined political change as "either some alteration in the state of a system of
social relations, or the processes by which those alterations occur" (1974:170). Yet, with
this proposition, another difficulty arises; that is, is any alteration in the state of social
system evidence of change? In other words, does any modification in the quantity of the
members or material resources or any modification in the arrangement of members and/or
competences of a social unit represent change? For Smith, given the fact that the social
9
systems have 'temporal duration' that expand and contract with the numbers of their
members and with circulation of their roles, this is a significant question that has to be
taken into consideration.
To overcome this difficulty, Smith (1974) suggested, we differentiate the
economic, demographic, or technological aspects of a society as an analytical system
from the social system as 'a system of social relations'. Statistical changes in the
economic, demographic, or technological variables of a society do not necessarily require
alterations in the structure of a social system. Depending on the context, changes in these
dimensions of society may considerably transform, or even destabilize the social system.
These alterations could provide evidence of continuity and regular development, but this
is difficult to determine without further analyses. Specifically it is difficult for the
members of a society to recognize when these alterations are latent and extends to a large
time span.
In sum, in accordance with Smith's (1974) formulation, by change, I refer to
"those alterations in the structure of the system, which involve changes in its
characteristic processes and operational conditions,” (p.171). Modifications, be it large
scale, in the state of the system or in the processual context in which these modifications
take place, may not lead to changes in the structure of the system. Smith emphasized that
although these two processes concur very often, it is necessary to differentiate structural
change from those states or processes that only comprise evidence of changes in scale.
Smith conceptualizes structure as "the set of units and their interrelations, which gives a
system its characteristic enduring form, boundaries, and operational modalities"
(1974:171). Two main constituents of structure are distinct units and relations and he
10
classifies these two components under the broad headings of entities (sets of units) and
processes (sets of relations). The particular nature of units and their relations differs with
the unit or system under question. Smith described the system roughly as sustainable
units that consist of interacting parts with their own structures, membership and
boundaries. His example of family as a system is helpful; a family has a structure with
certain attributes of status and roles, but at the same time, families are parts of larger
aggregates that constitute the key structures of the social system. He emphasized that
these concepts of system and structure, with their constituent element of units and
relations, are complementary generalizations and they can be utilized for analysis aptly at
any level of societal organization. In Smith's conceptualization, changes in system
structure arise and are manifested through changes in the conditions and processes of the
constituent units and these interact in the larger social system. For Smith, the social
system is "a set of interconnected social processes and the structures they engage and
sustain or modify" (1974:172).
These concepts are particularly useful in differentiating the routine circulation of
personnel that does not necessarily involve structural transformations –in token
continuity– from similar changes in circulation that create alterations in the norms and
procedures of allocation. In cases in which the circulation of personnel involves
alterations of procedures, norms, and status relations, this process indicates that some
structural change has occurred. Nevertheless, Smith stated that change (continuous or
episodic) in one respect may or may not lead to modifications in the wider system and
structure.
11
Table 1: Forms of Structural Change
According to Smith (1974) structural changes can be analytically classified as
pendular, cyclical, and as linear or vectorial transformations. In any kind of change,
structural changes contain substantial reorientations of the structure in which the original
structural arrangements face alterations that are advanced by various processes or series
of events. Smith argued that transformations may advance in piecemeal through lengthy
processes or; may emerge "abruptly, episodically, or radically with or without violence"
(1974:172). If the structure changes between two distinct ends, as between gumlao and
gumsa in Kachin as illustrated by Leach in Political Systems of Highland Burma (1973),
this is an example of pendular transformation. Smith described cyclical transformations
as changes in which the system repeatedly acquires 'a series of three or more different
forms of structures. If structural alternatives follow one another in a fixed sequence this
may be defined as a stable cycle and if the succession occurs on an irregular basis, Smith
described these as unstable cycles. The extent of structural change in both pendular and
12
cyclical transformations is limited and consistent with the capacities and form of the
initial system.
Linear or Vectorial transformations are those structural changes that are neither
pendular nor cyclic. They generally follow an irregular direction and degree and may
manifest as a series of alterations or as episodic and discontinuous. Either through
structural series or episodic and discontinuous forms, structural changes may have
extensive effects on the boundaries, internal cohesion and the distinctiveness of social
units. Structural changes may occur as a result of changes in internal dynamics or may
be arbitrated to historic events such as wars, conquests or natural disasters.
Socio-ecological context, population size, composition and distribution of
economic resources, technology and historic experiences are among the primary external
dynamics that effect political action and provide the incentive for change or to preserve
the political system (Smith 1974). Beside these external factors, Smith emphasized the
reciprocal relationship between the political system and the political culture that can
potentially lead to change.
As the phenomenon of change emerges and advances as a process, and sequences
of events arise, some events or conditions may not manifest their significance without
careful observation and analysis. In some instances, while initiating structural
transformations by piecemeal manifestations, change itself may appear to be latent. Thus,
as Smith suggested, in studying change we should also trace these latent dynamics.
Moreover, if the term 'political modernization' refers to the mean adaptive administrative
and multiparty political qualities typical of modern industrial states, Smith emphasized,
“structural change is neither synonymous nor coterminous with political modernization or
13
development” (1974:174). There is a rich body of ethnographic and historical accounts
where structural changes did not bring about political development or modernization.
Smith (1962) argued “the proper field of anthropologic inquiry is a unit over time,
not merely a unit at a particular point in time" (p.81). Swartz et al. (1966) adopted
Smith’s proposition; yet they suggested that, for methodological convenience, we must
choose a particular point in time for an acceptable exploration of a political continuum.
This study traced the sociopolitical transformation in Egypt through roughly the last
decade, particularly from 2004 to 2011, during the tenure of the Mubarak regime.
2. Political Transformation in Egypt and the Concept of Social Dramas
Having borrowed the central framework of Victor Turner’s (1958) concept of
‘Social Drama’, Swartz et al. (1966) offered a diachronic model of analysis as a tool for
studying political change. In their book, Political Anthropology, Swartz et al. (1966)
argued that their model, which was developed through an in-depth examination of
anthropological and sociological ethnographic data, allows for the understanding of both
instances of persistence and change in political field that is comprised of political
processes that flow in a spatial-temporal continuum. They hold that although various
kinds of political fields produce various kinds of patterns, a set of patterned processual
phases is likely to develop and follow one another in power struggles both at the inter
societal and intra societal levels.
They explained the model under two titles; (1) ‘Mobilization of Political Capital’,
a preparatory phase in which the groups and persons mobilize their political capital to
challenge the adversary/dominant structure. (2) ‘The Encounter or Showdown’, where the
phases of the social drama unfold. The phases of the drama include: a) breach of the
14
peace; b) crisis; c) countervailing tendencies; d) deployment of adjustive or redressive
mechanisms; and e) the restoration of peace. The social span and duration of these phase
developments varies depending on the peculiarities of the social setting and in some
instances, any of the phases can result in the restoration of the status quo. They consider
that this model can be applied successfully to the study of any changing system from
factional conflicts in tribal societies to international crises, such as the Cuban missile
crisis.
a) Mobilization of Political Capital
In this preparatory phase in which groups and individuals mobilize their political
capital to challenge the adversary/dominant structure, this study analyzes general
characteristics of the Mubarak regime, and some political developments in Mubarak’s
last years, with particular attention to his rule from 2004 to 2011, during his presence in
public office. From the viewpoint of the general theoretical framework of processual
paradigm, the study of politics is the study of political processes. These processes may
include issues such as ensuring compliance and using force to this end, achieving
support, weakening or eliminating rivals, fulfilling public goals and are of primary
interest in this analysis. These processes are important for the survival of a political
system and by analyzing them we can understand how the course of a revolution
progressed.
b) The Encounter or Showdown
In Turner’s (1958) conceptualization, social drama progresses in five phases: a)
breach of the peace; b) crisis; c) countervailing tendencies; d) the deployment of
adjustive or redressive mechanisms; e) the restoration of peace. However, Swartz et al.
15
(1966) explained that the full pattern as suggested above is an ideal abstraction and may
be interrupted at any point and in some cases the process may never be completed.
In explaining the phase of ‘Countervailing Tendencies’ Swartz et al. (1966)
referred to the potential role of customs and religion to contain crises. They cited a
passage from Gluckman that stated:
Men quarrel in terms of certain of their customary allegiances, but are restrained
from violence through other conflicting allegiances, which are also enjoined on
them by custom... Conflicts are a part of social life and custom appears to
exacerbate these conflicts; but in doing so custom also restrains the conflicts from
destroying the wider social order. (Gluckman 1956:1-4 cited in Swartz et al.
(1966:34).
Nevertheless, Swartz et al. (1966) reminded the reader that Gluckman's
proposition might not be applicable to larger industrial societies, which are characterized
by high levels of socioeconomic stratification and the existence of various interest
groups. In such societies, under the influence of competing factions subgroups have
various political allegiances, and as Coser (1956) suggested, the role of customs is quite
limited: "Internal conflicts in which the contending parties no longer share the basic
values upon which the legitimacy of the social system rests threaten to disrupt the
structure” (Coser 1956:151).
In the first of the 18 days of demonstrations, prominent religious leaders both
from Muslim and Christian communities discouraged people from joining any protests
against the state. Yet, their influence was limited and their request did not prevent
increasing numbers of Egyptians from attending the demonstrations. Moreover, in times
of crisis, particularly during and after historical events such as revolutions, a state of
uncertainty and insecurity prevails. In such times of uncertainty, shared values of society
may not be observed by its members. There are numerous examples of previously
16
unthinkable and unacceptable practices in Egyptian ethical and moral norms that
occurred during and after the revolution. For instance, on various occasions, informants
explained and were also observed by the researcher where people began fighting in
mosques, and that was something unimaginable before the revolution. In sum, I believe
that in the face of unprecedented level of dynamism, determination, and rage that
surfaced as January 25 onward, the role of religious or any other customary institutions
were limited. Thus, the phase of ‘Countervailing Tendencies’ was excluded in the present
analysis.
As suggested earlier, the social span and duration of phase developments varies
depending on the peculiarities of the social setting and in some instances, any of the
phases can result in the restoration of status quo. Swartz et al. (1966) explained that this
model can be applied successfully to the study of any changing system from factional
conflicts in tribal societies to international crises, such as Cuban missile crisis.
Turner (1958) presented their model of social dramas as processes that occur
between two major parties, namely two adversaries while one is relatively dominant in
terms of power and the other is the antagonist who challenges the first. In line with the
theory, I consider ‘the state of the Mubarak regime’ and the ‘Egyptian people’ as the two
rivals of power struggle.
The January 25 events are termed differently in the media, public parlance, and
academic publications. The 2011 Tahrir Revolution, 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Tahrir
events, or Tahrir Uprisings all refer to the same 18 days of protests. In this study these
terms were used interchangeably. I also analyzed the entire protests using the different
phases embedded in the concept of ‘Social Dramas’. Each phase corresponds to a critical
17
threshold with specific, and sometimes recurring, mechanisms at work:
(a) Breach of the Peace: Death of Khaled Said on June 6 and Parliamentary Elections in
November – December 2010
(b) Crisis: January 25, Protests on National Police Day
(c) Deployment of Adjustive and Redressive Mechanisms
(d) Restoration of Peace: February 11, Mubarak Resigns
3. Revolution
The literature offers a variety of definitions of revolution (Goldstone & Useem
1999; Halliday 1999; Stinchcombe 1999; Schock 2005; Tilly 2006). This study adopts
Charles Tilly’s description (2006:159) of revolution:
Forcible transfer of power over a state in the course of which at least two distinct
blocs of contenders make incompatible claims to control the state, and some
significant portion of the population subject to the state’s jurisdiction acquiesces
in the claims of each bloc.
Tilly (2006) suggested that a successful revolution involves both a revolutionary
situation and a revolutionary outcome:
Revolutionary situations include;
1. Contenders or coalitions of contenders advancing exclusive competing claims
to control of the state or some segment of it.
2. Commitment to those claims by a significant segment of the citizenry.
3. Incapacity or unwillingness of rulers to suppress the alternative coalition and /
or commitment to its claims.
Revolutionary outcomes include;
1. Defections of regime members.
2. Acquisition of armed force by revolutionary coalitions.
3. Neutralization or defection of the regime’s armed force.
4. Acquisition of control over the state apparatus by members of the revolutionary
coalition (Tilly 2006:159)
Moreover, Tilly (2006) suggested underlining the difference between a
revolutionary situation and a revolutionary outcome offers a convenient methodological
approach because it prompts the researcher to utilize the most relevant processes to
analyze a revolution. In the context of a revolutionary situation, the researcher is required
18
to explain the rise of contending blocs, the securitization of support for allocating
important sections of the public to each pertinent bloc, and the incapacity or reluctance of
the rulers to subdue the contending bloc. Using the same reasoning, Tilly argued that to
explain revolutionary outcomes, the researcher must explain the defection of the regime’s
elites, most importantly the armed forces, and/or the control of the armed forces by the
revolutionary bloc, and the seizing of control of the key state institutions.
According to Jack Goldstone (1980), who extensively researched the phenomenon
of revolution, studies of the revolution in the social sciences developed through several
different kinds of approaches or traditions. The descriptive studies in the first approach
(circa between 1900 and 1940) were directed either to determine the major phases of the
revolutionary processes or to identify the accompanying demographic and social changes.
In a contrary fashion, having ruled out the involved processes entirely, the second
approach (circa between 1940 and 1975) sought to explain revolutions on the basis of the
degree of underlying social strain. From about 1975 onwards, a third tradition began to
dominate the field with an emphasis on holistic and comparative analysis that was
intended to explain the causes as well as the diverse results of revolutions.
Skocpol (1979) has been the leading scholar in articulating this line of third
generation theories of revolution. According Skocpol, despite the significant role of
marginal elites, the major determinants that make revolutions possible are the structural
variables of states and the international system (Goldstone 2001). This paradigm
considers regime stability as the normal state and thus treats conflict in a political system
as a breach of normalcy. Hence, the theory seeks to identify the factors and conditions
that undermine the stability of a regime and as a result, factors that lead to popular
19
mobilization.
Nevertheless, Goldstone argued, after 20 years and with the occurrences of some
later revolutions, that the central arguments of Skocpol’s approach fell short in explaining
the phenomenon adequately. As argued in McAdam et al. (2001) despite its significant
contributions, the general structural framework of the third generation approach, in which
structural weaknesses of regimes were considered as the basic triggers of revolutions, did
not give due weight to actors; their roles, strategies, and interactions with each other. A
significant number of scholarly work of revolutions began to point to this theoretical
deficiency. Goldstone underlined the need for a fourth generation theory of revolution
that would rule out the preconception of stability as a departure point and would
recognize the role of group identification, leadership, networks, coalitions, ideologies,
foreign powers, and elite interactions in producing different processes en route to
revolutions. In a similar vein to Goldstone, and around the same time, McAdam et al.
(2001) recognized the nascent development of a fourth generation of revolution theory.
Yet, McAdam et al. (2001) stated that despite the corrective contribution this new
approach with a more cultural orientation, which "grants more attention to the role of
human agency and cultural construction in the emergence of revolution" (p.194), this
theory could not avoid some of the same setbacks of the third generations of theories of
revolution. As in the third generation of scholarly work, the researchers who adopted the
new approach paid extensive attention solely to social revolutions and omitted the
analysis of the "transformative mechanisms that produce revolutionary outcomes out of
revolutionary situations" (McAdam et al. 2001:194). Thus they overlooked the shared
features, as argued by Goldstone (1998), between successful social revolutions and failed
20
revolutions, social movements, rebellions, and series of protests.
McAdam et al. (2001) cited the tendency of mixing revolutionary origins with
revolutionary trajectories (course of contention after a revolutionary situation emerges) as
a persistent weakness in the fourth generation of revolution theory. This group, they
contended that despite its increased attention to agency, the fourth generation of
revolution theory still failed to duly analyze these critical interactions.
In an attempt to overcome the weaknesses of the revolution theory, McAdam et
al. (2001) formulated a more refined approach termed the 'contentious politics'. They
asserted that the concept of contentious politics is applicable to a wide variety of
collective movements of contentious nature such as any social movements, revolutions,
rebellions, movements of nationalism, and so on. It is an exploratory model that seeks to
identify mechanisms and processes in different episodes of contentious politics.
4. The Concept of Contentious Politics
Through their comparative analysis of a large and mixed sample of successful and
failed revolutions, nationalism movements, and rebellions, McAdams et al. (2001)
showed that certain processes and mechanisms consistently emerge as significant in
different types of contentions politics. In their seminal book, Dynamics of Contentious
Politics, they defined contentious politics as “episodic, public, collective interaction
among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant,
an object of claims, or a party to the claims and (b) the claims would, if realized, affect
the interests of at least one of the claimants” (McAdams et al. 2001:5). The authors
emphasized that their concept was not a general model of contention, but it was an
exploratory model that sought to identify mechanisms and processes to account for
21
different episodes of contentious politics.
By the term ‘episodic’, the authors leave out events such as elections, periodic
congresses, and associational meetings that are held regularly. Furthermore, the term
‘public’ excludes political struggles or claims making initiatives that take place within
organizations such as companies, factories, or religious organizations. Although it is hard
to identify the boundaries between institutionalized and non-institutionalized politics,
McAdam et al. (2001) argued that their conceptual framework was applicable to both
institutionalized and non-institutionalized politics; that is "official, prescribed politics and
politics by other means" (p. 6). Yet, their analysis showed that almost all social
movements and revolutions developed as a result of some instance of institutional
contention. The authors also acknowledged the role of cultural processes and human
agency embedded in revolutionary processes. However, they emphasized, “history,
culture, and interpretive processes operate not like external shrouds but through the
interactions of the major players in each drama” (McAdam et al. 2001:225).
McAdam et al. (2001) differentiated between contained and transgressive
contention. Contained contentions are episodes of contention that takes place among
formerly established actors who employ well established means of politics. On the other
hand, transgressive contention refers to contentious politics where (a) "at least some
parties to the conflict are newly self-identified political actors, and/or", (b) "at least some
parties employ innovative collective action" (p. 8).
This distinction is significant for two reasons. First, there is a close relation
between the two so that in many cases transgressive contentions emerge from instances
of contained contention. Second, very often, outcomes of contained contentions are more
22
or less reproductions of the existing system. In this respect, the 2011 Tahrir Uprising can
be described as a transgressive contention. The results of these events changed the
political system significantly and involved episodic, public, and collective claims making
against the Mubarak regime by newly emerged and self-identified political actors who
employed innovative collective actions.
McAdam et al. (2001) suggested that the researcher should not consider
recurrently observed processes in different episodes of contentious politics, such as
mobilization, actor constitution, and trajectories – that is, the course of the contention
after the revolutionary situation emerges– as different phenomena. Rather, they argued, it
is necessary to examine the constant interplay among mobilization, actor constitution,
and trajectories, through which new actors are introduced, alliances are formed and
dissolved, and identities are created and recreated. It is possible to trace these processes
and mechanisms in the 18 days of protests of the January 25 Egyptian Revolution.
According to McAdams et al. (2001) mechanisms and processes are constituents
of a continuum. They define these mechanisms and processes as follows:
Mechanisms are a delimited class of events that alter relations among specified
sets of elements in identical or closely similar ways over a variety of situations.
Processes are regular sequences of such mechanisms that produce similar
(generally more complex and contingent) transformations of those elements. (p.
24)
They are not very strict descriptions. Revolutions, democratization, and
nationalism can be considered as macro-processes, while identity shifts would constitute
a mechanism. This study holds that the concept of contentious politics can be aptly used
for the analysis of the processes and mechanisms involved in the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution.
23
5. Methodology
This study was based on ethnographic research that was conducted in Egypt
between May 2012 and August 2013. It draws on two major sources of data: 1) field
notes that were recorded through participant observation techniques including, semistructured interviews, unstructured interviews, and direct observation; 2) archival
research. During the research, photography and video-recordings were made to capture
relevant information for different events and environments. In most cases the interviews
were audio recorded. However, some interviewees did not want the conversation to be
recorded.
Revolutions, like all social and political transformations, do have antecedents and
a diachronic analysis was necessary in order to clearly understand those piecemeal
gradual sociopolitical changes, significant psychological, societal, and political events
and turning points that preluded what might be termed as ‘final encounter’ between
Egyptians and the Mubarak regime in January 2011. To this end, the interviews sought to
understand –from the perspective of the interviewees– the objective and subjective
conditions that prepared people on psychological and cognitive levels for the January 25
Uprisings in 2011. In light of the concept of Social Dramas that guided this study, social
and political transformations that roughly occurred in the last decade of the Mubarak
regime that culminated in the actualization of the 2011 Tahrir Uprising were analyzed
under two parts.
Part I is the Mobilization of Political Capital; the preparatory phase in which a
gradual mobilization of political capital and certain ‘contingent events’ prepared
Egyptians to challenge the Mubarak regime in January 2011. Part II includes the
24
Encounter or Showdown phase, as termed by Swartz et al. (1969) that mainly analyzes
the actual 18 days of protests and some preceding events. From the perspective of the
processual paradigm, this study adhered to the idea that the study of politics is the study
of political processes. Accordingly, those processes –such as ensuring compliance and
using force to maintain compliance, achieving support, weakening or eliminating rivals–
which the Mubarak regime depended on so profoundly for its survival; and the
development of contending sentiments, processes, and political forces in the society that
eventually challenged Mubarak were the topics of primary interest of inquiry in this
study. Those issues are analyzed mostly through an archival-literature review and partly
on the basis of informant accounts in the first part of this study.
For the second part, the Encounter or Showdown (mainly the eighteen days of
protests), and the phases of the framework of Social Drama, namely a) Breach of the
Peace, b) Crisis, c) Adjustive or Redressive Mechanisms, and d) Restoration of Peace,
were subjectively designated to certain key events and turning points by the researcher.
These key events and turning points that were attributed to the different phases of social
dramas were determined, to a large extent, in accordance with key informants’
descriptions of the socio political developments in Egypt and with reference to the
archival-literature review. For instance, many informants referred to two events as critical
on the eve of the January 2011 Uprising: 1) the death of Khaled Said in June 2010; and 2)
the parliamentary elections in November - December 2010. Specifically, the beating
death of the 23-year-old Khaled Said in public by two plain-clothes police officers in
Alexandria created a traumatic effect in the larger society. Given the deep resentment it
caused, Egyptians, particularly young people, were becoming increasingly politicized in
25
online platforms, such as Facebook, twitter, and personal blogs. Hence, these two
incidents were determined subjectively to designate the phase of “Breach of Peace” in the
analysis of 2011 Egyptian “Revolution” as a social drama.
The exploratory model of ‘contentious politics’ by McAdam et al. (2001) proved
to be very useful in identifying significant mechanisms and processes that were at play in
the 2011 Tahrir Revolution. From the accounts of the informants, and by asking them
questions such why and how it happened in January 2011 after almost three decades in
January 2011 and why and when they decided to join the protests –if they ever joined–, it
was possible to determine those relevant mechanisms and processes that brought the
successful revolutionary outcome in just 18 days. Varying and sometimes conflicting
depictions of interviewees of the antecedent events before the revolution and during the
protests offered information about the sources of contentions in the post-Mubarak period.
For instance, ‘who joined and when to the protests’ served as a source of legitimacy and
perceived by many Egyptians as a sort of a touchstone to determine one group’s right to
claim the leadership in the post revolutionary period. In this respect, in collecting the data
it was essential to meet with people of different ages, political, and religious orientations.
Politics inherently involves various groups with competing interests, claims, and
concerns. Despite the occasional, ad hoc based coalitions that existed against the
Mubarak regime before and during the Tahrir Events, Egyptian oppositional politics had
been marred by fragmentation, specifically along secular versus Islamists lines
(Hirschkind 2012). Conducted interviews showed that individuals from various groups
had different accounts and constructed differing narratives of different events in their
26
assessments of socio political developments in Egypt. Likewise, differences of opinion
were also evident along different social classes and generations.
Some of the differences of opinions and accounts stem from the way that people
from various social groups and categories prioritize their needs, interests, and concerns
differently. For instance, for a bawwab (janitor), who earns around 500 Egyptian Pound a
month (roughly $70) and depends highly on small tips, the price of bread was likely to be
more important than reforms regarding political freedom. It was the middle class youth,
not the poor classes, who spearheaded the Tahrir Uprising. For them, political freedom
and accountability of government officials in economic and political affairs mattered
more for providing them with a dignified life. For Coptic elites, who were financially
more secure, arguably the “security” that Mubarak offered the Coptic Church and Coptic
Community against the “religious extremists” in the larger society were more significant
than, for instance, a “transparent presidential elections” in which candidates –other than
those determined by the regime through some legislative manipulations– could run freely
and equally.
Politics in modern societies usually involve complex mechanisms and processes
that might not be easily discernable to everyone. Particularly in undemocratic settings,
like Egypt under Mubarak, in which accountability of officials and the lack of
transparency and backstage deals and manipulations prevailed, deciphering the involved
political mechanisms and processes might require more engaged (professionally,
intellectually, or academically) inquiry. For instance, conducted interviews showed that
the average Egyptian had a relatively benign –yet equally significant and relevant– view
27
concerning the role of the Egyptian military in the Tahrir Uprising than those of most
intellectuals who have been conventionally more critical and informed observers.
In sum, given all these considerations, in order to reflect these possible varieties
of opinion, this study selected informants, to the extent possible, from different socio
political backgrounds. Yet, entry to the field was not without difficulties and would have
been very difficult without the help of my research assistant and several other Egyptian
friends who became my primary informants. Especially in the first few months in the
field, because of the ‘xenophobia’ that the temporary military administration tried to
instill in the society, the snow balling technique did not serve well. During the initial
weeks in Cairo, the interviews were generally conducted with average Egyptians through
a snowballing technique. Later, a journalist, who I met first time in Cairo, helped the
researcher enrich the diversity of the interviewees. As he was a long-time and reputable
resident reporter of an international media organ in Cairo, he had a large circle of
possible informants. Upon my request from him to introduce me to Egyptians from
variety of socio political backgrounds, we created a list of people, having written the
(subjective) category that they were believed to belong to beside their names. My list
included renowned Egyptians from the media, political world, bureaucracy, and
academia. With the help of my Egyptian research assistant I began to contact them one by
one.
Until the November 2012 Constitutional Decree Crisis (during President Morsi’s
term), which later proved to be a turning point in the post-Mubarak period, I was able to
arrange meetings without much difficulty in most cases. Yet, after the constitutional
decree, the sociopolitical tension in the society began to rise gradually and because of
28
their increased daily schedule, my potential informants became largely unreachable.
Nonetheless, I was able to meet senior oppositional political figures, activists, retired
generals, and bureaucrats of the Mubarak period, intellectuals, religious scholars, and
journalists. They provided me with first-hand information and insights – yet sometimes
conflicting– both from the perspective Mubarak regime and oppositional groups. Because
of their professional or intellectual engagements, some of the key informants had been at
the center of political transformation in the last decade. Some of them were very close to
the Mubarak family. For example, one of the interviewees stated that he had met three
times with Mubarak in his last month of his presidency. Some of the informants were
imprisoned on various charges and tortured under the Mubarak regime.
Among the numerous semi-structured interviews conducted during this study, 47
were considered highly significant from key informants. Not all of the informants are
referred to in the present text. For various reasons, some of the informants are referenced
with pseudonyms and they are specified as such in the informant list in the appendix. In
the text, for the sake of clarity for readers, an abbreviation that represents the category of
the informant was written in brackets immediately after their names.
These categories included:
Members of various Salafist Groups (S): Four informants
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB): Six informants
Bureaucrats, intellectuals, and former politicians who were affiliated with the
Mubarak regime (FR): Seven informants
Coptic Egyptians (C): Six informants
29
Islamists politicians other than those from the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafist
parties (from the Wasat Party) (WP): One informant
Young Activists (Liberal/Secular) (A): Seven informants
Liberal intellectuals (LI): Seven informants
Relatively religious intellectuals who are not affiliated with any Islamist political
organization (NA): Three informants
Average Egyptians (AE): Six informants
As the political and social tension rose after the issuance of the November 2011
constitutional decree, the number of protests and demonstrations increased and the
country became increasingly polarized along pro-Morsi and anti-Morsi lines. I
participated in some of these demonstrations and made direct observations, took notes,
photographs, videos, and conducted occasional unstructured interviews. Although my
primary focus was the 2011 Revolution, observing the post Mubarak period was very
significant mainly because the reorganization of the Egyptian politics in the post
Mubarak period was marred with controversies of the revolutionary processes. For
instance, the young activists who were the initiators of the revolutionary process were out
of the political equation in the new period. In a more ‘controversial way’ for most liberal
oppositional groups, the Islamists, who were not “revolutionaries” and not present in the
first days of the demonstrations, reaped the benefits of the “sacrifices” that were made
against the Mubarak regime. The post-Mubarak politics in Egypt, to a great extent,
mainly focused on these controversies. Thus, observing the present situation in Egypt
helped considerably in understanding the revolutionary process as a whole, which was,
arguably, “not finished” and was “still in progress”. I also participated in private and
30
public meetings of different activist, political groups, and research centers, such as the
Ibn Khaldun Center under the direction of the renowned sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
I had difficulty especially in getting in touch with the Coptic Egyptians. Thus, my
interviews with the Copts remained limited to only six individuals. In my interviews with
the Coptic Egyptians, I sought to understand their relations with the Muslim Egyptians,
the state, and their role in the 2011 Tahrir Revolution. Thus, questions about dating,
marriage, and schooling patterns were posed and information about issues such as the
occupational patterns of Coptic Egyptians, employment opportunities in the public sector,
whether there was any differential treatment in legal issues, their representation in the
political arena, the role of the Coptic Pope and the Church in their relations with the state
were gathered. I also inquired as to whether Copts joined the protests during the 18 days
of uprising and about their expectations and concerns regarding the post-Mubarak period.
In presenting the findings, in most cases, a few informants who might be
considered representative of their attributed category are quoted. When relevant,
conflicting narratives of an event or process are presented from different perspectives.
Contingent events, which had unexpected affects on the course of the revolution –and
without being perceived as such by most of the informants– are also traced.
The interviews were conducted in Arabic, English, and Turkish languages and
lasted between 20 minutes to 3 hours. I met with some of the interviewees more than
once. My research assistant was a young Egyptian male who recently graduated from
Cairo University. He introduced me to university professors and to many young male and
female university students, and new graduates, most of whom actually participated in the
protests during the 2011 Revolution. My research assistant usually accompanied me in
31
my meetings with informants that took place in different places, such as cafes, restaurant,
offices, and university campuses. During most of my field work I stayed in a rental
apartment in Nasr City, a middle-class and one of the largest neighborhoods located on
the east of Cairo.
6. Limitations and Role of the Researcher
Field research for this study started in May 2012, at a time that might aptly be
described as ‘period of transition’; a period that is likely to continue for some time in the
near future. Transition periods are inherently times of uncertainty in which insecurities
prevail and high expectations for a brighter future accompany societal and political
tensions. Accordingly, the political environment was highly charged at the time of this
research. One corollary of this politically tense environment was that there was a certain
level of xenophobia that prevailed in the society particularly during my first few months
in the field. Thus, at the beginning of my stay in Egypt, as a researcher from an American
university, I had difficulty in establishing a channel of connection that I could proceed
through for my research. At various times, my requests for an informal meeting or
interview were denied or simply ignored by different potential interlocutors. In one
instance, I was questioned by a group of young activists as a suspected “Israeli agent”.
Nevertheless, I could get over this initial hardship through references of some prominent
informants who I was able to get in touch with after several months of pursuit. Once I
met with several well-known and trustworthy interlocutors, the snowballing technique
worked well to reach a larger number of people in different social and political
environments.
32
Particularly, getting in touch with Coptic Egyptians was difficult. This was partly
because the Coptic Community in general has a distrust of foreigners. Probably, my own
identity as a Muslim researcher exacerbated this ‘distrust’ in my attempts to arrange an
interview. Against my request to introduce me some of other Coptic Egyptians, a female
Catholic Coptic Egyptian3 –with her own expression “a minority among minority”–
clearly explained that she would try but it was very difficult to persuade Copts to meet
with a foreigner and ask them questions that are political in nature. A second challenge
was the fact that the Coptic Community has been a relatively closed community that has
maintained limited relations with the larger Muslim society. For instance, when I asked
my research assistant Hussein (A), a young middle class liberal Egyptian who recently
graduated from University, about the relations between the Coptic and Muslim
Egyptians, he explained that (as most of Muslim informants stated) he had Coptic friends
and Copts and Muslims did not have any problems and they lived and worked together as
equal citizens of Egypt. Yet, when he was asked whether he could introduce me to one of
his Coptic friends he hesitated for a moment and said that he would try. Unfortunately, he
could not introduce me to any of his Coptic friends. This was a very common experience
that I had with most Muslim informants. In several similar cases, it became more evident
that Muslims do not have too many Coptic friends and their relations with those they
know are only limited. More interestingly, Muslims are not aware that their social
relations with their Coptic compatriots are usually limited.
Roughly from August 2012 until the end of November 2012, I was able to meet
with people from various sociopolitical leanings without much difficulty. Nevertheless,
3
Majority of the Copts in Egypt are Orthodox Christians.
33
after the ‘constitutional decree crisis’ of President Morsi on November 22, 2012, societal
tensions increased considerably and meeting with people, specifically with politicians
and intellectuals, became more difficult. After December 2012, increasing protests and
demonstrations polarized the society and the security situation deteriorated which
restricted my mobility after certain hours at night.
Another important limitation was the language barrier. The majority of the semistructured interviews were conducted in in modern standard Arabic that I could
understand well. Most educated Egyptians speak and understand modern standard Arabic
without any problem and in my interviews they switched to modern standard Arabic.
However, the daily language on the streets is an Egyptian dialect of Arabic of which I
have only limited knowledge. Thus, in my interviews with the average Egyptian I needed
the help of my research assistant.
34
Chapter 3: BRIEF HISTORY OF MODERN EGYPT
1. Foundation of Modern Egypt
Mohammad Ali is considered as the founder of the modern Egypt. He was an
Ottoman pasha of Albanian origin and was appointed as the governor to Egypt by the
Ottoman Sultan in 1805. His appointment as a governor coincided with the period of the
Ottoman Empire’s decaying power. Before his appointment in 1805, Muhammad Ali had
already gained the trust of Egyptians and had built a power base for himself militarily
(Vatikiotis 1980). He began acting independently far from the Ottoman capital. Despite
his intention and efforts he never succeeded in gaining formal independence for Egypt
from the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, during Muhammad Ali’s rule from 1805 until
1848 Egypt was a de facto independent state and had a precarious relation with the
Ottomans where Ali was sometimes fully loyal and sometimes warred against them
(Dodwell 2011).
After years of British occupation from 1882 onward, Egypt became a
constitutional monarchy in 1922. Nevertheless, the British continued to have privilege
and authority in the context of four issues; the defense of Egypt against external
aggression, the Sudan, the security of Suez Canal, and the security of minorities and
foreign investments (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). Mustafa Nahhas, who became the Prime
Minister after the 1950 elections, unilaterally annulled the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
and announced Farouk as the king of Egypt and the Sudan. The Wafd were always
against British imperialism and supported the idea of a Nile unity in which the Sudan was
projected as a part of Egypt (Deeb 2007). However, Sayyid-Marsot stated that this move
was partly intended to divert public attention from internal ills and incompetence of the
35
government. The British continued to control the Sudan until 1956. In the following days,
Egyptian nationalists attacked the British Forces in the Canal area. The intention of these
guerilla attacks was to force the British to leave. The British reacted harshly to these
attacks. Having believed their role in these clashes, the British forces besieged a police
station in Ismailia, a town along the west bank of the Suez Canal. As a consequence, 40
policemen were killed and many more wounded by the British artillery and tanks
(Sayyid-Marsot 2007).
This incident led to mob attacks against foreign enterprises. Particularly Britishowned stores, clubs, and businesses were raided and looted by angry mobs. Parts of Cairo
were in virtually flames and the day this took place, January 26, 1952 was named 'Black
Saturday' (Deeb 2007). In the ensuing months, the monarch and the government were
unsuccessful in restoring order. Eventually, on July 23, 1952, a clandestine group of
young army officers known as the Free Officers Movement organized a coup d’état and
took over the rule of modern Egypt.
2. The Nasser Years, 1952–70
The Free Officers Movement took over the power and sent King Farouk into
exile. They ruled through the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) under the
leadership of General Mohammed Naguib. For many Egyptians, the 1952 revolution
meant the end of British influence in Egypt and the new cadre represented the first native
Egyptian rule in over two thousand years (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). From their early years,
the Free Officers Movement had deliberately infiltrated various political groups in Egypt
to in order to learn about their strategies and tactics. Interestingly, at various times both
Nasser and Sadat were members of clandestine cells of the Muslim Brotherhood (Deeb
36
2007).
Although the monarchy had lost its reputation and legitimacy, many Egyptians
valued constitutional rule and representative government (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). The
RCC banned all political parties and confiscated their assets. The 1923 constitution was
suspended and the RCC announced that for a three-year period an interim government
would be in charge. An interim constitution inured for the interim period bestowed
power to the RCC.
In 1953, Egyptians elected Naguib as the first president of the Egyptian Republic
and the reign of the monarchy ended officially. The Free Officers Movement did not
know exactly what the next step would be and there were in fact conflicting trends among
them. While one group favored pursuing the liberal experiment with a civilian
parliament, the other group, under the influence of Nasser had a different vision that
involved their direct hold on power. Soon it was revealed that Nasser was the real leader
of the Free Officers Movement. In February 1954, after a disagreement with several
members of the RCC, President Naguib resigned from his post; however, the problems
were resolved soon and the RCC reappointed him again as the President. On April 17,
1954 the RCC appointed Nasser as the Prime Minister while Naguib remained on as the
President.
In October 26, 1954 an assassination attempt took place that targeted Nasser
while he was giving a speech in Alexandria. The claim was that the Muslim Brotherhood
organized the attack. The attacker shot eight rounds from a relatively close range but
missed Nasser. Nasser showed no trace of panic, preserved his stature and remained calm
and his speech in the scene thrilled the crowd and he became the nation's hero (Rogan,
37
2011). Apparently, the Muslim Brotherhood was disgruntled by the indifference of
Nasser and his fellow officers, who had been helped by them to accomplish the coup
d’état. They had hoped to play a role in the rule of Egypt. In other words, the Muslim
Brotherhood felt betrayed by Nasser (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). This incident instigated a
large political oppression campaign that resulted in the arrests of more than 20,000
Egyptians, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, but also included some citizens from
the banned Wafd Party and the Communists (Aburish 2004). Nasser was convinced about
the role of the Muslim Brotherhood. A military tribunal sentenced eight members
including Sayyid Qutb, one of the major ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood, to death.
Later, Sayyid Qutb's sentence was reduced and he was released from prison, only to be
executed in 1966 on similar charges. As a result of this act, the Muslim Brotherhood was
discredited in society and banned by the state.
Nasser believed that Naguib was been involved in the attack indirectly. Upon this
development, the RCC discharged Naguib from the presidency on November 14, 1954
and placed him under house arrest. He was never brought to court on any charges.
Initially, Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, an esteemed intellectual and politician, was proposed as
president by the RCC, but he refused this and Nasser assumed the position and later in
June 1956 he was elected the second president of Egypt after a poll through which he
gained support of the majority of Egyptians (Sayyid-Marsot 2007).
Meanwhile, in October 1954, official talks with the British government over the
evacuation of British forces of the Suez Canal Zone resulted in an agreement. The British
government agreed to leave completely by June 1956. The British government had earlier
agreed to allow the Sudan to hold elections in 1953, which would be followed by a three-
38
year transition period. After the transition period ended in 1956, and a referendum, the
Sudanese decided to become independent from Egypt.
Egyptian leaders had always considered Egypt as the leader of the Muslim world
(Sayyid-Marsot 2007). Nasser wanted to increase the military capability of Egypt and to
that end he negotiated with the Russians. The arms deal was handled through the Czechs,
not Russians. The US administration was disturbed by the arms deal and they retaliated in
an indirect way by obstructing a credit agreement and loan that Nasser was expecting to
receive from the World Bank and the USA. The loan would be used to finance the High
Dam project that the Egyptian government deemed vital for their development project.
As a response, apparently in order to find alternative financial sources for the High Dam
project, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. This move enraged particularly the British
and the French governments. Together with Israel they attacked Egypt in October 1956.
The British and the French believed that a military strike would delegitimize the
leadership of Nasser in the eyes of Egyptian people (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). But, the
participation of Israel in the war proved their assumption to be ungrounded and Egyptians
united with Nasser. Within a few days, the Egyptian air force was destroyed; the city of
Port Said and Sinai Peninsula were occupied. The Soviet Union and the United States
intervened to end the war. Egyptian losses were high and the United Nations mediated
ceasefire negotiations. Nasser presented himself as a leader who honorably defended his
country against the atrocities of three foreign countries.
One of the declared aims of the 1952 Revolution was to realize economic and
social justice in society. According to one account, in 1945, approximately 36.9 percent
of the land was owned by 0.5 percent of the population and more than 75 percent of the
39
total population was comprised of poor peasants, most of whom did not have any piece of
land (Deeb 2007). Thus, land and agrarian reform was an important priority of the new
regime. To this end, after several regulations, the state restricted the maximum ownership
of land by 50 feddans (51.9 acres) and confiscated the excess of 50 feddans from the
landowners with compensation. Some of these lands were redistributed to the landless.
Nasser tried to establish a welfare state. He expanded the medical services, electricity and
drinking water, which were mainly a priority of urban centers, to rural areas (Deeb 2007).
There had been several ambitious projects such as establishing a steel and iron
industry complex near Cairo. However, most of these projects had rarely materialized as
initially projected. Inadequate planning, mismanagement, and corruption, which had
become widespread in the bureaucracy, severely limited the expected returns of these
projects. By the end of 1950s, the government had begun to adopt a socialist economic
stance and in 1961, with several new regulations, the state nationalized all major industry,
business, and financial institutions (Deeb 2007). The government appropriated almost all
foreign companies. The economic system had evolved into a mixed system "with a large
public sector (including all foreign trade) and with the remaining private economic
activities subject to various kinds of direct control" (Deeb 2007:411). The government
imposed strict control on production, allocation of resources, and prices.
In the political field, the government increasingly assumed the characteristics of a
one-party system. Old politicians of the pre-revolution period and potential opposition
figures were forbidden from entering politics. The government strictly screened the
prospective candidates for public offices. The national assembly was far from being a
true representative of public (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). As Sayyid-Marsot asserted, the
40
government successfully manipulated people and did not allow any political mobilization
that could eventually target the regime to be formed.
The military, particularly under the management of Abd al-Hakim Amir
consolidated its place as the major power foci. Amir had a privileged coterie in the army
that he protected and valued exclusively. Sayyid-Marsot (2007) stated that when Nasser
recognized Amir's increasing popularity within the army he began to regard him as a
potential rival. As a precaution, to counterbalance the military and to undermine any
potential political rival, Nasser founded the Mukhabarat, or state intelligence service.
The Mukhabarat soon became a very notorious state apparatus that targeted
dissidents, potential rivals of Nasser's government and specifically the communists and
members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many people were detained and tortured on
suspicion without any evidence or trial. Sayyid-Marsot’s (2007) analysis on the
repercussions of Mukhabarat’s extrajudicial activities is arguably very relevant for postMubarak Egypt.
The mass of the Egyptian population was solidly behind Nasser and his regime,
and the Muslim Brethren or the communists could do little damage in face of the
man’s overwhelming popularity. The arrests simply served to polarize the country
and set one group against the other, their function being to act as a means of
keeping the country off-balance, the better to dominate it. Nasser spied on his
own associates and even had their houses bugged so he could be kept informed of
everything they said and thought. Such paranoia created a fragmented society
with several political foci of power…an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and
distrust on the part of all the people, whether in government or out of it. (SayyidMarsot 2007:146).
Nasser’s successors, namely Sadat and Mubarak, maintained the same use of
intelligence apparatus – by further expanding their capabilities and reach– and made this
the most significant pillar of their rule.
Nasser created a defensive military pact with Syria in 1966. This rapprochement
41
led to tension and security concerns in Israel. The Syrians provoked Nasser by blaming
him of being dependent on the United Nations Emergency Forces (Sayyid-Marsot 2007).
Around the same time, the Russians shared an intelligence report that there was unusual
mobility of the Israeli troops on the Syrian border and possibly that they intending to
attack Syria and Egypt. According to Sayyid-Marsot, this was a false intelligence report
that was possibly fed by Israelis to lure Nasser into a provocative confrontation that
would be justified as a casus belli. The Israelis intention was to wage a war at a time that
they were militarily superior to the Arabs. Nasser could not decipher the background
intention of the Israelis and his reaction to mobilize the armed forces was interpreted as
casus belli by the Israeli government. Consequently, the Israeli Armed Forces carried out
a preemptive military attack against Egyptian air bases on June 5, 1967. Almost entire
Egyptian air force was destroyed on the ground. Thus, without the cover of air forces,
Egypt became extremely vulnerable against the Israeli attacks. According to Cooper
(2012), Nasser was tempted into a war that was presented to him as 'unavoidable'.
The Israeli Army occupied the Sinai up to shores of the Suez Canal and the West
Bank in Jordan and the Golan Heights in Syria (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). Causalities were
high in the Egyptian army and the result shocked the entire nation. Nasser resigned
shortly afterwards. Nevertheless, immediately after his resignation, large numbers of
people demonstrated4 in Cairo asking him to stay in power (Cooper 2012). Consequently,
Nasser returned to office; however his leadership and charisma were severely damaged
4
Sayyid-Marsot claimed that some of the demonstrators were paid to participate
(2007:148). These kind of allegations of paid thugs as paid participants of demonstrations
are widely common in modern history of Egypt.
42
(Ansari 1986). He immediately turned his attention to the army and sent high generals
into trial. The army believed that they were being used as a scapegoat.
The war's economic consequences were grave and that hindered the country's
economic development and destroyed the relative gains of Nasser's earlier years (SayyidMarsot 2007; Cooper 2012). There was a visible reorientation to religious sentiment both
among the Muslim and Christian Egyptians (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). The defeat was
traumatic for Egyptian society. Accounts of the apparition of the Virgin Mary over a
church in a Cairo suburb spread rapidly throughout the country.
Nasser died of a heart attack in September 1970. Nasser's death led to a great
sorrow in the country. He had partially improved the conditions of the poor and there was
relative structural improvement in the economy. Nevertheless, he ruled the country with a
one party system and his regime was oppressive. Many people were detained, tortured,
and imprisoned on false charges or even without proper trials. He widely depended on the
notorious Mukhabarat, the intelligence organization. He used media for the promotion his
own rule without allowing any press freedom in any true sense. Corruption and
clientelism became widespread.
The rise of Nasser marked the advent of a new elite into Egyptian politics. He was
an ordinary Egyptian from an underprivileged background that had reached the power
center through his recruitment into the military academy. After Nasser, the military
became a potential venue of social mobility for lower or middle class Egyptians. SayyidMarsot (2007) stated that with Nasser three different centers of power became prominent
in Egyptian politics; military, intelligence network, and the chef de cabinet of the
president. The heads of these three institutions constituted the indispensable tools of
43
Nasser's one-man rule and by virtue of this, they personally acquired considerable
amounts of power.
3. Sadat’s Years:
Anwar el Sadat succeeded Nasser as the third president of Egypt. Sadat was vice
president of Nasser and was the only active remaining member of Free Officers
Movement who managed to stay close to Nasser for 18 years. Because of his ostensibly
low and submissive profile under Nasser, many people believed that his presidency
would be short (Meital 1997).
As soon as Sadat assumed power as president after a popular referendum in
October 1970, he eliminated his potential rivals by arresting many people who were close
to Nasser. After he became president, a new constitution was approved by the nation in a
nation wide referendum held in September 1971. Although the constitution extended the
authority of the National Assembly, it gave the president a dominant role. Presidential
decrees were defined as law in the constitution. As the head of state, the president had the
right to declare a state of emergency and had the authority to appoint heads of almost
every important institution including his vice presidents, prime minister, governors,
judges, presidents of universities, and representatives of religious organizations (Deeb
2007).
In his early days Sadat wanted to distance himself from certain aspects of Nasser's
legacy in economic and political fields (Wagner 2007). He declared he would tolerate
criticism of his government and the intelligence service would be controlled tightly. He
released members of the Muslim Brotherhood from prison and used them as a bulwark
against Nasserist ideology (Sayyid-Marsot 2007).
44
Sadat sought to develop his ties with the West, particularly with the US. He
believed that he could convince the US to push Israel to desert the occupied Sinai
(Sayyid-Marsot 2007). However, when he realized that this was not likely to happen, he
decided to wage a limited war to force the Israelis to negotiate. In 1971, Sadat agreed
with the Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad to act together against Israel.
In October 1973, Syrian and Egyptian military forces launched a surprise attack
on Israeli military positions. It was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the
Israelis caught completely by surprise by ignoring early signals of a war that Sadat was
preparing for. Despite the initial success of joint Arab forces and Israeli forces, the
Israelis mobilized rapidly and managed to stop the Egyptian offensive and to push back
the Syrians as well to pre-war lines. The United Nations mediated a cease-fire agreement
between the parties on October 22, 1973. The United States was initially hesitant as to
any involvement or degree of involvement in the war, but eventually after the Soviets
decided to resupply the Arab armies, the US administration authorized a massive airlift of
military weapons and supplies including tanks. This airlift changed the fate of the war to
the advantage of Israel (Boyne 2002). Israel did not observe the armistice for two days
and when they finally stopped the fight, the Israelis were 60 miles from Cairo and 25
miles from Damascus (Wagner 1999). An early Arab triumph ended with what might be
called at best a stalemate. Nonetheless, the 1973 War had significant repercussions
particularly in the Arab world. Psychologically, after the damages of the Six-Day War of
1967, for Arabs it restored the broken honor. Sadat's intention was multidimensional. He
wanted to relieve Sinai from occupation. Besides, with a diplomatic solution he sought to
ensure "American support for his objectives to reorient Egypt's priorities (Wagner
45
1999:X)
With Sadat's presidency, the Egyptian economy made some structural shifts from
the state capitalism of Nasser's era towards an open door economic policy that basically
meant opening the economy to domestic and foreign capital and investment (Cooper
1982). Cooper argued that this shift was, to a large extent, due to the augmented internal
economic and political tensions at the time in Egypt. Sadat attempted to reduce the share
of the public sector in the economy.
Baker (1980) argued that Sadat's management was notably different from Nasser's
in two respects: the welfare aspect, and Nasser's skill at weakening the opposition by
dividing them. The economy had deteriorated particular after the 1967 War and this trend
had severely affected the welfare dimension of the state, which was one of the most
significant sources behind Nasser's popular support. Sadat had not provided the poor
masses with adequate public services in the face of the rising inflation, housing problems,
and unemployment rates. Sadat's precarious foreign policy standing, particularly the
failed peace initiative that meant, for many Egyptians, continuation of the Israeli
occupation in Sinai, that served as base to unite the opposition. Besides, the internal
problems, a growing class gap that crystallized with the advent of open-door policy
emerged that added to the building resentment among the opposition. Rampant
consumerism made the growing class gap more visible when luxurious cars and huge and
ostentations houses emerged in Cairo and other big cities. In 1977 there was a certain
amount of capital flowing into the Egyptian economy. The US yearly aid alone was $2
billion. Foreign monetary aid in 1977 was $2.9 billion in total (Zetter & Hamza 1998). In
addition to supplying its own oil needs, Egypt was exporting oil worth $2 billion.
46
Tourism and the Suez Canal revenues were about $2 billion. Nevertheless, these were not
enough to balance the budget deficit. High inflation had become a chronic problem with
the open door policy (Sayyid-Marsot 2007).
Under the burden of increasing foreign debt, the state could not afford to pay
interest payments alone any longer. To provide further funds the International Monetary
Fund required some structural changes in the economic management and removal of the
food subsidies. After the government declared the cutting of food subsidies in January
1977, mass demonstrations started in Cairo and several other major cities. These two
days of protests were registered in Egyptian history books as the Bread Riots of 1977.
Before the Bread Riots of 1977, Sadat had not allowed the establishment of
independent political parties (Deeb 2007). After the Bread Riots, political parties were
founded; yet their participation in the political process was limited. Freedom of the press
was a short-lived luxury under Sadat's rule. The New Wafd Party was founded in 1978
but was banned only a few months later when Fuad Siraq al-Din criticized Sadat and the
membership of the party reached about one million in several months (Deeb 2007).
Sadat, like Nasser before him, wanted to create a political organization but was unable to
tolerate the loss of the political control that would occur if these "parties" were to become
genuine vehicles for mass participation (Deeb 2007:415).
Given these circumstances, Sadat decided to take a more courageous initiative. He
announced his intention to visit Israel. This was fairly surprising both domestically and
internationally. Sadat explained to the Egyptian the necessity of such for the peace to be
achieved. Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977 was an important step that "broke
psychological barriers" (Wagner 1999:XI). Finally, through mediation of the US
47
government, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin signed the Egyptian Israeli Peace
Treaty in March 1979. Sadat had surprised everyone including his allies and as well as
his enemies (Wagner 1999). Israel evacuated the Sinai after more than a decade of
occupation. However, having been frustrated by Sadat's move, the Arab League decided
to suspend Egypt's membership until readmitting her in 1989. There was widespread
discontent inside Egypt as well, particularly with articles regarding the Palestinian issue.
Sayyid-Marsot (2007) argued that with the passage of time, especially when his
international credibility grew, Sadat became increasingly detached from the general
population and their problems. He mostly depended on his own decisions and rarely
sought advice from his cabinet. Israel’s attitudes toward Arabs undeniably contributed to
the growing discontent against Sadat. Israel had blown up Iraq's nuclear reactor and had
carried out several raids in Lebanon and most significantly, many Egyptians considered
the Palestinian issue as a ramification of Sadat's Camp David negotiations that provided
Israel the relative freedom of movement in the region.
When the numbers of critics of his policies increased, a new law entitled the "Law
of Shame" was invoked in April 1980. According to this law, a Court of Ethics would be
formed to prosecute behaviors such as "inciting opposition to the state's economic,
political, and social system, and disseminating false or extremist statements that damage
national unity or social peace" (Sullivan & Abed-Kotob 1999:93).
As stated earlier there was already an awakening of religious sentiment after the
1967 war. There was even a visible change in dress code of the general public among
Muslims, men and women. Women, for example adopted increasingly more covered
dressing styles with long sleeves and veils. New Islamic organizations appeared
48
throughout the country and they were becoming an opposition in the sense that they were
projecting an alternative worldview; an Islamic society “with a return to their traditions
and religious values” that would cure the many social and economic ills of the modern
day (Sayyid-Marsot 2007:165). These religiously inspired groups were different in their
orientation and methods. Sayyid-Marsot identified two separate orientations in these
groups. In the first group were those who believed that the current corrupt system could
be healed through reviving society's own values and through using available channels of
political participation. The other group was comprised of people who did not accept the
value system of the society and believed the necessity of a totally new system. Those in
the second group justified the use of violence. These groups were from some Salafist
currents and their interpretation of Islam was quiet different from that of the mainstream
Egyptian understanding and they were in fact somewhat alien to the moderate nature of
Egyptian people.
Sadat was detached from the realities of society. This was also a characteristics of
Nasser's rule; both men ruled through a small coterie of people whose first and foremost
objective was to perpetuate the rule of their leader, thus perpetuating their own
prosperity. He misinterpreted this religious activism as groups of people who were
longing for an Iranian style revolution (Sayyid-Marsot 2007). Thus, Sadat failed to notice
that the growing resentment was, to a great extent, the consequence of internal economic
and political problems. Following several days of violent street clashes between mobs of
Copts and Muslims in the North of Cairo in June 1981, Sadat ordered – under the pretext
of Law of Shame– a massive clampdown in which 1536 people were arrested. Although
most of the detainees were Islamists activists, there were also individuals from different
49
political orientations and religions, including leftists and Christians. Sadat accused them
later in a speech to be instigating religious strife, directly or indirectly (Murphy 2002).
Worst of all was the hearsay that Sadat had another a list of 15000 people to detain
(Sayyid-Marsot 2007). Besides, rumors became widespread inside Egypt that some
family members of Sadat and some of his friends were acquiring personal benefits by
using their connection to Sadat (Goldschmidt 2000). He became increasingly unpopular
in Egypt. Widespread corruption in most governmental institutions completely eroded
peoples’ trust in the regime. According to Goldschmidt his luxurious lifestyle especially
in his last years, his perceived aversion to Islam, which was arguably most striking in the
eyes of the Islamist opposition with his mass prosecution of Islamists, and with his peace
agreement with Israel were important elements that resulted in his assassination by an
Islamist militant.
He was shot dead during a military parade on 6 October 1981 in Cairo. The
assassin was Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, an army officer who was affiliated with the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement (Ansari 1986). To the contrary of the grief that was
displayed internationally, particularly in the US media, Egyptians accepted the death of
their leader with a certain attitude of indifference; they "shed not a tear for the departure
of their leader" (Sayyid-Marsot 2007:166). Although he had declared otherwise at the
beginning of his rule, Sadat's regime was autocratic and repressive and did not allow
opposition or any normal channel of communication through which criticism and
resentment could be expressed to develop.
50
Part I: MOBILIZATION OF POLITICAL CAPITAL
Introduction
The brief review of the history of modern Egypt with particular interest on Nasser
and Sadat eras serves two purposes: First, in line with the processual framework, this
study handles viewed politics as a diachronic and historical process. Thus, a historical
review helps us situate the political phenomena in its social and political historical
context. Second, although three successive leaders, namely Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak,
had different personal characteristics, their modus operandi in essence showed
similarities. In a sense, there is continuity –to a significant extent– in terms of the
methods of their rule. In this respect, it is plausible to claim that some repressive
practices have been institutionalized and each successive president excelled the inherited
method to undermine new “socio-political challenges” most effectively. In short, a
historical review helps us identify these continuities, similarities, and the direction of
change in the methods of rule of three presidents. Following discussions in this chapter
hopefully will make the relevance of these points more intelligible.
In what follows, the general characteristics of Mubarak’s rule, with involved
strategies and institutions, will be analyzed. In a broad sense, as Swartz et al (1969)
suggested, politics include parties of differential power, and thus a power struggle
between them for the attainment of certain goals that have some sort of public nature is
common. In this regard, this study considered Egyptian politics, of which the Egyptian
revolution was fragment of a political continuum, as a power struggle between the two
contenders, namely the Mubarak regime and the Egyptians. In this power contest,
processes such as acquiring support, undermining or eliminating opponents, and
51
achieving goals were conceptualized as important elements of political activity. The
analysis sought to answer particular questions, namely: What were the resources and
strategies he used to maintain his regime? What constituted the sources of Mubarak’s
power? Was this force, absolute force or coercion? Did his regime have any type of
legitimacy? What were the sources of his regime’s legitimacy, if any?
Understanding the approaches of Mubarak’s rule, which is applicable for most
authoritarian settings, is important in several ways: First of all, some of the problems of
the post-revolution or transitional period stem from the problems of the past. For
instance, the political polarization that characterizes the post-revolution period is partially
a consequence of some of Mubarak’s strategies. Thus, conceivably, an analysis along
these lines might help us to better understand the transition period.
Secondly, the strategies and methods that Mubarak used to maintain his regime
developed antithetical or contrary processes in the long run. For instance, his use of the
intelligence apparatus as an instrument of oppression developed into a deep-seated
aversion against the security forces among the public that in turn, mobilized people
against the state. In this respect, it is possible to trace the sources and courses of rival
processes; explicitly, the processes that the Egyptian people were a part of in their
struggle against the Mubarak regime.
52
Chapter 4. MUBARAK'S RULE
1. Mubarak’s Accession to Power and His Early Days
When President Sadat was killed during a military parade on October 6, 1981,
Vice President Hosni Mubarak was in the front row and himself was slightly wounded.
The incident left nine people dead, including several foreign dignitaries and guests, and
38 people were wounded. The attackers, Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, the mastermind of
the plot, and the three other army officers recruited by him, were members of the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement (Ansari 1986). The assassination occurred after a
massive government clamp down of political activists, most of whom were Islamists.
After the assassination, in Asyut, a city in Upper Egypt harsh clashes took place between
the members of Islamic Jihadists organizations and the police in which more than 50
police officers and many insurgents were killed. The city remained under the control of
the insurgents for several days until the army intervened and reinstated security (Darraj
2007). In the following days more than 2500 people were arrested and were accused of
involvement in religious extremism or terrorist activities.
On October 13, 1981 Mubarak gained 98.4 percent of the votes in a referendum
and replaced Sadat as the new president of the Republic of Egypt by (Roussillon 1998).
Mubarak was born in a village in the Nile Delta Province of Menoufia in 1928. After his
graduation from the military academy in 1948, Mubarak completed his pilot training
program and was assigned to Air Force Academy as an instructor in 1950 (Cook 2011).
In 1962, he took part as the commander of the Egyptian squadrons to help the Republican
side in the 1962- Yemen Civil War. In 1964, Mubarak attended at the Frunze Military
Academy for post-graduate studies in the Soviet Union. Nasser promoted Mubarak to
53
Brigadier General in 1969. Later, in 1972 Sadat appointed him as the Air Force
Commander at the age of 44. He proved his merit to Sadat with his successful role in the
early days of the October 1973 war. After the war, he was awarded with three highest
military honors by Sadat and was promoted to the rank of air Marshal (Cook 2011). Later
in 1975, Sadat appointed Mubarak as Vice President. When Sadat was shot, Mubarak was
himself was slightly wounded.
In the first days of his presidency, Mubarak exhibited a modest profile and
assured Egyptians he would employ the Emergency Laws to a limited extent and only
when necessary (Cook 2011). He announced he would allow opposition groups from
every political spectrum, with the exception of religious extremists, to express their views
(Ansari 1986). He released the people who were arrested in September 1981 by Sadat. On
the day of their release, in an attempt to show his goodwill for reconciliation, Mubarak
invited many prominent figures of the religious and secular opposition to his palace.
However, he did not take any concrete steps to revoke any of the regulations that
remained against personal freedoms (Ansari 1986).
Mubarak assured everyone Egypt would continue to abide by all international
treaties and agreements that were signed by Egypt (Ansari 1986). Mubarak had inherited
a country that at peace with Israel and this was applauded in the US and Europe, yet
condemned by her Arabic neighbors for the same reason, and had serious economic
problems internally (Goldschmidt 2000).
Even though he was the Vice President –for the last five years– and the secretary
general of the NDP, he did not have the political expertise that would match his bright
military career. He had kept his professional integrity and had avoided, with utmost care,
54
not to be affiliated with any faction in the NDP (Ansari 1986). Probably this was the
reason that made Sadat keep Mubarak close to himself. One informant from the
organization of the Muslim Brotherhood had once stated; "Mubarak was not a very smart
man, but he was a survivalist". As the coming years in presidency proved he was capable
enough to design his own game.
Ansari (1986) noted that Mubarak gradually detached himself from important
members of the NDP. Some members of the ruling party had become quite notorious
with allegations of corruption and nepotism. Some members and their relatives had
acquired significant wealth through illegitimate means. From his early days onwards,
Kienle (2001) argued, Mubarak was adamant not to allow any one around him, whether
from the NDP or the military, to build a power center that could pose a threat to him in
the future. He had closely observed and learnt his lesson as to how Marshal Abd alHakim Amr’s reputation in the army had reached the point where could undermine
Nasser’s power, particularly after the June 1967 War. Having recognized Abd al-Hakim
Amr’s potential, Nasser had astutely sidelined him (Cook 2007). Accordingly, Mubarak
frequently rotated senior officials to different posts and assignments. Everyone in the
hierarchical structure knew that their positions were never secure and they were subject
to dismissal in case of any small doubt of loyalty. By the same token, Mubarak did not
have a Vice President until he appointed Omar Suleiman on 29 January 2011, 12 days
before his forced departure from the presidency.
2. The Political System in Egypt under Mubarak Rule
In what follows, a brief review of the Egyptian political system with its three
branches, the executive, the judicial, and the legislative under Mubarak rule is provided.
55
According to the 1971 Constitution5, the executive branch was composed of the President
and the Cabinet of Ministers.
a. The Presidency
According to the 1971 Constitution that was in effect during the entire rule of
Mubarak, as the Head of the State, the President had exceptional powers that undermined
a healthy separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches.
According to article (a) number137, the President was the head of the executive body.
The constitution granted the President the right to issue laws or revoke them under
normal or exceptional situations (a112 &147). The President had the right to declare a
State of Emergency (a148) and had the right to veto proposed laws by the National
Assembly. The President was the head of the Supreme Council of Judiciary
Organizations (a173), the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (a 150 &182) and
Supreme Chief of the Police (a184). Moreover, the President had the right to appoint the
Prime Minister and Ministers and their deputies (a141). As these articles of the 1971
Constitution demonstrated, President Mubarak had accumulated significant aspects of the
power structure of the legislative and judiciary branches under his authority. Thus, the
legislative and judiciary had only limited independence (El Borai et al. 2001). Such an
arrangement was a clear repudiation of the idea of separation of powers. The President
was also the head of the dominant NDP party and he had he right to appoint the speaker
of the People’s Assembly. Hence, as Fahmy (2002) argued, the legitimacy of the
5
The 1971 Constitution stayed in effect until it was suspended on February 13, 2011 by
the SCAF. There were several amendments in 1980, 2005, and 2007. On March 30, 2011
the SCAF drafted a provisional constitution that stayed in effect until the new
constitution was accepted with a referendum in December 2012.
56
parliament in its role to control the executive branch was undermined. Moreover, the
constitution granted the President enormous powers without any reference to President’s
accountability.
b. The Legislative Branch
The Egyptian Parliament had been a bicameral one that consisted of the People's
Assembly (Maglis El-Shaab) and the Shura Council (Maglis El-Shura). The Shura
Council was established with a constitutional amendment in 1980. It is the upper house of
the Parliament and it is a consultative council that does not have any legislative power.
According to Article 86 of 1971 Constitution, the People’s Assembly was the
primary legislative authority. As discussed earlier, the constitution granted the President
the right to promulgate laws or the authority to object to laws. Besides, the President had
the authority to issue presidential decrees (El Borai et al. 2001). The constitution
specified the number of the members as a total of 454; 444 elected members and 10
members appointed directly by the president. The People's Assembly was vested in the
task of approving the general budget, the social and economic development plans, and
public policies of the state (Fahmy 2002). Yet, given the Presidents overwhelming power
and role as the head of the dominant party, even a supervisory role of the People's
assembly was dubious (El Borai et al. 2001). Fahmy showed in an analysis of seven years
of Parliamentary performance (from 1990 to 1996) that there was not even a single
attempt to pass a vote of no confidence by the Cabinet or its members. This conclusion
suggests that the People’s Assembly did not have the intention or the structure to serve as
a control mechanism over the executive branch of the state. Considering the absence of
any disagreement between the Prime Minister and the President since time of Sadat,
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Fahmy (2002) argued that during the Mubarak’s rule, the Cabinet served as “a part of the
expanding Egyptian bureaucracy which executes the decisions taken at the apex of
authority pyramid” (p.46).
c. The Judiciary
In Articles 165 and 166 of the 1971 Constitution asserted the independence of the
Judiciary. However, Article 173 identified the President as the head of the Supreme
Judicial Council and this contradicted the principle of Judicial Independency. Article 44
of the Judiciary Law granted the President the authority to appoint judges. As El Borai et
al. (2001) argued the President's interference was most evident in the creation of Special
Courts. In some cases, half of the members of Special Courts were appointed outside the
Judicial System and were not professional judges.
The President selected the president and the members of the Supreme
Constitutional Court. El Borai et al. (2001) asserted that in more that several cases, the
Supreme Constitutional Court played a political role in favor of the ruling NDP and the
President by adopting double standards and making contradictory decisions. According to
El Borai et al. President Mubarak used the Judiciary very often to gain legitimacy for his
disputable political actions.
Nevertheless, overall, the judiciary's stance during Mubarak’s rule was somewhat
ambivalent in terms of judicial independence. Given other accounts and examples in
which the judiciary exhibited a firm stand with its decisions against the NDP's and
president Mubarak's unconstitutional acts and legal arrangements, it is plausible to claim
that had been a stream of judges and attorneys who stayed out of the influence of the
executive branch. For instance, in the Parliamentary elections of 2000, after the Supreme
58
Constitutional Court (SSC) decided that every polling station had to be monitored by a
member of the judiciary during the voting process, the judiciary executed its supervisory
function (Brownlee 2002). Yet, this did not change the result very much:
…it simply moved electoral manipulation outside of the polling station,
sometimes by just a few feet. With judges only able to supervise the balloting
itself, other aspects of the election process fell completely outside of their control.
Opposition candidates and movements complained of official harassment (such as
disconnected telephone lines), intimidation by security forces. (Brown et al.
2007:3)
In non-democracies, the judiciary institutions scarcely perform as an independent
state organ (Ginsburg & Moustafa 2008). According to Moustafa (2007), authoritarian
regimes manipulate the judicial institutions for several purposes such as for purposes of
asserting social control, discouraging and eliminating opposition, claiming legitimacy
through legality, and fostering compliance to maintain internal order within the state
bureaucracy. Nevertheless, Ginsburg and Moustafa argued that in rare cases under nondemocratic settings, judicial institutions can serve as important political avenues by
challenging the regime. In his analysis, Moustafa (2007) cited the Egyptian judiciary as
one of these rare cases of “judicialization of politics” (p.132) in which the judicial body
could maintain a certain degree of independence. For example, against the will of the
regime, the SCC annulled several laws that would harm press freedom and the
nongovernmental sector (Cook 2007; Moustafa 2008). Nevertheless, it would be naïve to
depict Mubarak’s rule as a hassle free environment for the judiciary. For example, at
times, “respected judges have been publicly beaten for being openly critical of the
President and the preparations for the succession of his son” (Abaza 2013:93). Given the
relative strength of the judiciary, Moustafa argued, the opposition parties and human right
organizations adopted legal mobilization as an important strategy against the Mubarak
59
regime. Yet, Moustafa recounted that, despite the SCC’s bold decisions against some acts
and decisions of the Mubarak regime, the SCC did approve that Emergency State
Security Courts (ESSC), which the Mubarak regime used extensively and without much
limitation and safeguards, which were constitutional. Thus, Mubarak could sideline the
civil courts through the ESSC and later –when some inconveniences became salient– the
Military Courts that served as “parallel legal system” (Moustafa 2008:151). In spite of
strong expectations from the public, the SCC avoided challenging the regime by
defending the right of appeal to regular civilian judicial institutions.
According to Moustafa (2008) the transfer of civilians to military courts was
another disappointment that arose during Mubarak’s rule. The military courts were used
initially for terrorism trials; yet, a few years after their formation the regime began to
send civilians to this, particularly Islamists, based on their mere affiliation with Islamist
organizations. The judges of the Military courts were military officers who were
appointed by the Minister of Defense and the President. Under the provisions of the
emergency law, which took effect from 1967, with an exception of six months until
Mubarak left, prosecutors could detain anyone for up to 30 days without any charge.
Many Egyptians were imprisoned for years on false grounds or without a proper trial.
Their trials were not held publicly and the defendants did not have the right of appeal
(Moustafa 2008).
All in all, Moustafa (2008:155) portrayed the ambivalent stance of the judiciary as
follows:
The Supreme Constitutional Court and the administrative courts were able to push
a liberal agenda in less significant areas of political life and to maintain their
autonomy from the executive largely because the regime was confident that it
ultimately retained full control over its political opponents. Supreme
60
Constitutional Court activism may therefore be characterized as “insulated
liberalism.” Court rulings had an impact upon state policy, but judicial institutions
were ultimately bounded by a profoundly illiberal political system.
The ambivalent position of the judiciary was reflected accordingly in interviews
with interlocutors from different political leanings. For example, Dr. Said, (FR) who was
very close the Mubarak regime said:
Nobody is perfect, however the Egyptian Judiciary proved to be very solid and
powerful. They were actually making checks and balances on Mubarak. Like
when you have a so-called tyrant, between 1980-2002, High Constitutional Court
(HCC) annulled, I stopped counting, more than two hundred laws that Mubarak
made and signed. They also dissolved the People’s Assembly of 1984, 1987, and
1995. The HCC was really a blow to Mubarak and also to Morsi.
According to Aly’s (2012) assessment in a report, the Judiciary’s struggle for
judicial independence and an independent budget intensified particularly in the last few
years of Mubarak’s rule and took the form of a “semi-rebellion” (p.50). On the grounds
of the lack of necessary judicial supervision, the SCC ruled that the 1984, 1987, 1990,
1995, and 2000 elections to the People's Assembly were illegal (Cook 2007; Moustafa
2008; Aly 2013). As argued by Cook (2007), to override this relative independence of the
judiciary, which the regime considered as a threat to his power, Mubarak increasingly
used State Security Courts and Military courts as alternative venues for carrying out the
states’ repression.
Contrary to the assessment made by Dr. Said (FR), Dr. Shevki (NA) from Cairo
University, (a religious Muslim not affiliated with any political Islamic organization)
expressed the view that “given their stance against President Morsi and the FJ Party in
the post-revolution period, there has been a significant pro-Mubarak element current
present in the judiciary.”
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3. Authoritarianism and Characteristics of Mubarak's Rule
The vast literature on authoritarianism (Cardoa 1979; Diamon 2002; Geddes
1999; Karl 1995; Levitsky & Way 2002; O'Donnell 1973, 1994; Schedler 2009) offers a
variety of typologies and definitions. A common emphasis in the literature is that
differences in types are important because each type somewhat follows different courses
and strategies of survival, transition, or transformation (Anderson 2011; Hadenius &
Teorell 2007). For example, Geddes (2003) differentiated between military, personalist,
and single-party regimes, each of which had different implications for the stability and
the course of the regime with a possible end towards democratization.
The studies on this field also focus on types of ‘hybrid’ or ‘mixed’ authoritarian
regimes that show some democratic characteristics with the presence of some nominal or
limited democratic institutions such as the presence of parliament and elections. As
Levitsky and Way (2002) argued, some authors differentiate the names of these types of
regimes using terms such as 'electoral authoritarianism', 'illiberal democracy', 'pseudodemocracy', 'semi-democracy' and so on. Levitsky and Way observed two significant
flaws common to many of these studies. The first was a 'democratizing bias' that was
implicit in much of this literature. These mixed or hybrid regimes were presented as
limited forms of democracy, an early phase of democratic transition or cases of extended
transition. The underlying implication of this was that they were eventually expected to
evolve into democracies. However, as some studies convincingly showed this was not
necessarily the case (Herbst 2001; Carothers 2002; Hadenius & Teorell 2006). Very often
such regimes ended up with new types of authoritarianism.
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For Levitsky and Way (2002), the second weakness in the literature was that some
researchers failed to recognize significant differences among the types of
authoritarianism. Thus, they tended to lump them together using terms such as 'soft
authoritarianism', 'semi-authoritarian', or semi-democratic'. Levitsky and Way examined
'competitive authoritarianism' that they defined as a specific type of mixed regime. In line
with Linz (2000) they considered these mixed types of authoritarianism – contrary to the
approach that treated them as "diminished forms of democracy"– as "diminished form of
authoritarianism" (p.52).
In his masterpiece Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes Linz (2000:51) argued
that:
One of the easiest ways to define a concept is to say what it is not. To do this
obviously assumes that we know what something else is, so that we can say that
our concept is not the same. Here we shall start from the assumption that we know
what democracy is and center our attention on all the political systems that do not
fit our definition of democracy...we shall deal here with nondemocratic systems.
For Levitsky and Way (2002:53) a modern democratic regime must necessarily
have, at a minimum, all of the following four criteria:
1) Executives and legislatures are chosen through elections that are open, free,
and fair; 2) virtually all adults possess the right to vote; 3) political rights and civil
liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom to
criticize the government without reprisal, are broadly protected; and 4) elected
authorities possess real authority to govern, in that they are not subject to the
tutelary control of military or clerical leaders.
In addition to above cited four criteria, Guillermo O'Donnell (1993), a prominent
scholar who published extensively on the transition from authoritarianism and democratic
consolidation, argued that for a regime to be considered a political democracy; its term,
once elected, should not be subject to any arbitrary risk of termination before its
mandated term. This abstraction of democracy is in parallel with Robert Dahl's (1971)
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notion of "polyarchy" by which he refers to examples of existing ‘political democracies’
as “imperfect approximation of an ideal” (Coppedgeand & Reinicke 1990:51)–is similar
to the ‘ideal type’ of Weber– where democracy is considered as “a host of ideals that no
actual political system has ever approached” (p.51). In other words, polyarchies, where
certain existing modern democratic regimes perform democratically to varying degrees,
display only some but not all of the essential attributes of institutions of democracy in
their perfect form. Dahl also emphasized "the right to run for office" (1991:221) as an
essential attribute of polyarchy.
Following Linz's lead, it would be appropriate to describe the Mubarak regime by
describing what it was not. Based on the above description, the Mubarak regime was
neither a polyarchy, as termed by Dahl (1971), or a democracy. At the same time, the
Mubarak regime also conveniently fitted Linz’ (1964:225) description of
authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism “political systems with limited, not responsible, political
pluralism, without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with distinctive
mentalities, without extensive nor intensive political mobilization, except at some
points in the development, and in which a leader or occasionally a small group
exercises power within formally ill-defined limits but actually quite predictable
ones.
Linz (1964) himself also offered a variety of different typologies such as
‘bureaucratic-military authoritarianism’, ‘organic statism’, ‘postdemocratic’,
‘postindependence mobilizational authoritarianism’, and ‘post-totalitarian
authoritarianism’. Given the variety of available definitions of authoritarianism in the
literature, often with nuanced differences among them, it is no easy task to classify the
Mubarak regime and I believe such a task is not necessary in the context of this present
64
study. I will argue it will suffice to indicate that the Mubarak regime was nondemocratic
and authoritarian.
In his publication entitled the Rise of the Authoritarian State in Peripheral
Societies, Clive Y. Thomas (1984) suggested examining the material basis of the state in
order to study the methods of rule by which authoritarian regimes operate. Thomas
suggested that those particular methods were "the most common ways in which both the
rulers and the ruled perceive the state" (1984:89). This idea provides valuable insight for
the Egyptian political context. In his ethnographic study conducted in Cairo, Salwa Ismail
(2006) made a similar observation and argued: "the quotidian encounters between people
and agents and agencies of the state that tell us about the effects of practices of rule in the
everyday life of residents of lower-income urban neighborhoods" (p.130). The police
officers' harassment of citizens based on the state's legal concept of mahdar ishtibah wa
tahari (suspicion and investigation) on arbitrary grounds created an aversion against the
Egyptian police and the state. Worse were the experiences of mistreatment in police
stations. These encounters left people humiliated and injured. Ismail claimed: "the
encounters with the state destabilize their masculine constructs and necessitated a
renegotiation of their masculinity" (2006:127). In sum, a brief overview of Mubarak
regime’s ruling strategies and key institutions and mechanisms that it depended on might
help one better understand the societal dynamics that led to the 2011 Tahrir Revolution.
4. Key institutions of the Mubarak regime
a. Ministry of the Interior and the Egyptian Police Force
During the Mubarak regime, the police force was under the administrative control
of the Ministry of Interior (MoI). In each of the 27 provinces of Egypt, there was a
65
security directorship that was responsible for operating against the MoI. There had been a
tremendous increase in the number of police personnel over the years since Nasser. The
number in the police force in 2009 were 850,000; 450.000 paramilitary Central Security
Forces (CFS) personnel and 400,000 members of the State Security Investigations
Services (SSIS) (mabahes amn al-dawla) (Brumberg & Sallam 2012).
Torture cases, the arbitrary detention of citizens, and cases of mistreatment under
police custody were widely documented by various international organizations such as
the UN Committee Against Torture (UN/CAT 2002) and Human Rights Watch (HRW
2007). On many occasions, interviewees from various political spectra explained that
police brutality and corruption that resulted in humiliation and injury for many ordinary
citizens were among the major reasons for the mass participation in the protests. The
Mubarak regime used the police forces extensively for the surveillance of the opposition
figures, particularly the Islamists and oppositional parties and civil society organizations.
Dr. Ahmad (MB) who is a medical doctor and an active member of the Muslim
Brotherhood claimed that the security forces were particularly cruel to the Islamists:
The seculars and liberals were treated differently (than Islamists). NGOs were
allowed to work with freedom except for the Islamist. For example, I witnessed in
many different instances; ten guys were demonstrating in front of a government
building. They were shouting and saying things that we could not imagine. The
police surrounded them, chatted with them and they left for home safely. Even if
they were taken to police station they were not tortured.
Some other accounts in interviews and the literature contradicted Dr. Ahmad’s
point. Tareq (LI) who had been working as a journalist in Cairo for almost a decade,
asserted that he had witnessed many instances of brutal police intervention to peaceful
protests of liberal or leftist groups. The security services’ hostility was not restricted to
Islamists or political opponents from a specific branch of the political spectrum. The
66
oppression had extended to include almost every citizen, particularly prominent figures in
all domains of social life (Arafat 2009; Kandil 2012). Even high ranked military officers
were vulnerable in that an intelligence report about them could easily lead to early
retirement at best (Kandil 2012). Renowned sociologist Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim (LI), a
liberal activist explained that he was imprisoned and was subjected to police violence
after he criticized the President Mubarak.
Three members of his (Mubarak) family were my students. When one of them
graduated or when they had a party and they invited the professors to their
graduation party. So, in such occasions I was in and out of their house many
times. Furthermore, I have known Mubarak since he was a vice president. But,
when I criticized Mubarak one night I was taken from home and imprisoned on
ungrounded charges and stayed in prison for about 3 years until I was officially
acquitted.
It was no coincidence that the young activist groups chose 25th of January as a
day for nation-wide protests. It was the National Police Day and the activist groups knew
the deep resentment of the Egyptians against the police. The protestors had planned to
gather in front of the MoI and they initially demanded the removal of the Minister of
Interior, Habib el-Adly. All of these initial arrangements around the MoI and the police
indicated the importance of the central locus of police and MoI in the Egyptians’
perception of the state.
On many occasions, the informants reported instances of police repression, such
as being taken into custody just on "suspicion"; instances of police officers demanding
money impudently; or getting merchandise without paying from shop owners or street
vendors. Salih, (A) 23 year-old Egyptian who recently graduated from Cairo University,
explained:
The excesses of the state, with all its cruelty and recklessness against its own
citizens, were sort of embodied in police forces. A police officer was like a king.
67
I remember once seeing an officer on a motorbike; he was blocking a whole busy
street in downtown Cairo just because he came across someone he knew in a car
and he kept talking without showing any hint of shame or concern regarding
people waiting behind him. Well, in fact, it was not much different in any
government office. Even in the hospitals…The system was corrupted from top to
the bottom. Anyone who had somehow some level of governmental authority
abused it. We were like objects, like captives of Mubarak. We were just powerless
and helpless…worse than that; I think we were not even able to face that reality…
Thomas' (1984) argued that terror and repression in well-organized and systemic
manner, is the most distinctive characteristics of authoritarian regimes. Given the
widespread electoral riggings, it is difficult to estimate the real rate and extent of public
support for the regime during Mubarak’s tenure. Since authoritarian regimes lack an
adequate base of legitimacy and public support, which is usually granted to rulers by the
society through traditional, religious, or democratic institutions, they extensively depend
on coercive power (Diamond et al. 1989; Bermeo 1990). To this end, in order to control
the society, Thomas suggested that authoritarian regimes allocate disproportionally large
budgets for the security apparatus. Even in desperate economic conditions, authoritarian
regimes continue employ a large military. In the same vein, Kassem (2004) argued that
authoritarian regimes use their coercive apparatus extensively in the political realm. This
is a valid assessment for Egypt. The regime kept a large army and huge security
apparatus, with separate police and intelligence organizations. The Egyptian Army’s
manpower consisted of roughly 310.000 conscripts and 375.000 reservists and its annual
budget was $4.56 billion in 2010 (Sharp 2011). The exact number of officials who were
employed by the security agencies during the Mubarak regime was not publicly known,
but it is estimated to have reached approximately two million individuals (among a total
population of 83 million people) during Mubarak’s last decade in power (Kandil 2012).
Based on the fact that the three preceding presidents, Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak,
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were all from the military, popular analyses tend to describe Egypt as a military regime.
Beginning with Sadat, the political role of the military in the state’s affairs gradually
declined. When Sadat became president he initially deposed some influential military
figures who belonged to Nasser’s close entourage. Mubarak followed the same path and
eventually the power structure of the state became police centered (Kandil 2012).
Mubarak always approached prominent military leaders with suspicion and made
military personnel rotate to different posts frequently. Thus, he increasingly depended on
the police and the intelligence service Mukhabarat that proved to be dependable and loyal
over the passing years. Nevertheless, at the same time Mubarak benefitted from the
strong public image of the Egyptian military and their well-trained and disciplined cadre
of officers for sensitive posts. Yet, through different strategies Mubarak contained their
influence among the military and public so it would not reach a level that would
challenge Mubarak’s position. The share that the officers had been receiving from the
economic activities of the military was an important incentive for them. Mubarak
successfully sidelined the military and used the police and the intelligence apparatus to
forge the backbone of the regime’s coercive power.
Given the fact that Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak were all from the military and
they were all authoritarian leaders, this present researcher expected to hear at least some
level of resentment about the Egyptian military. Moreover, the Armed Forces have long
benefitted from extra state subsidies and proceeds that they were obtaining through the
military’s allegedly substantial economic investments. Yet, in early days of this study in
Cairo, it was surprising to notice the high level of respect and admiration that most of the
informants expressed about the Egyptian Army. This was partly a consequence of the
69
army’s vital and constructive role in ousting Mubarak, which, as my analysis revealed,
was taken for granted popularly as the “Egyptian Army’s loyalty” to its own people. Yet,
the Egyptian’s high level of admiration against the Egyptian Armed Forces’ was not a
new phenomenon. Over the years, in somewhat a controversial fashion, the military
managed to keep its organizational status respectable and remained untouched by the
ailments and defects of the regime. Mubarak ran his regime through the police and
particularly through the notorious main intelligence unit, Amn ad Dawla, the State
Security. Most average informants referred to the police brutality and the excesses of the
State Security, particularly the members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups, as
one of the reasons for the public anger against the regime that paved the way to the 2011
Revolution. The reputation of the military to a great extent remained undamaged. Thus,
in comparison to the “cruel” police that most Egyptians disliked, the army remained a
widely respected institution.
Emergency law in Egypt, law number 162 of 1958 was imposed during the entire
rule of Mubarak with renewals every three years since 1981. The Emergency Law
granted the security apparatus the right to take anyone into custody without any
reasonable cause or evidence and imprison individuals without trial (Sharp 2011). The
emergency Law provided the police and the intelligence apparatus with a sort of a “carte
blanche” (Kassem 2004:40) to detain and arrest anyone at will. During Mubarak’s rule,
the military courts served as venues of suppression of political opponents. Kassem
(2004:42) reported that from 1992 to 2000 1,033 civilians were tried in military courts
and 92 of them received death sentences while 644 received varying years of sentences.
The Emergency Law was lifted by the SCAF in May 31, 2012 after the 2011 Revolution.
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Thomas (1984) argued that as a response to growing unpopularity, authoritarian
regimes hinder "opposition's legal or constitutional access to power" (p.88) and these
counter precautions by the ruling regime "at a certain point…lead to a "constitutional"
restructuring of the state" (p.89). Arafat (2009) argued that “by blocking all legal and
peaceful avenues of change”, Mubarak’s manipulation exposed the Egyptian state to
either a revolution or a coup d’état. Against the threat of a mass uprising, authoritarian
rulers might occasionally choose democratic reforms, however limited, (Boix 2003;
Acemoglu & Robinson 2006; Gandhi & Przeworski 2006). Around the time of the
presidential elections in 2005, Mubarak initiated some nominal political reforms (Sharp
2011). According to Kassem (2004), Mubarak’s occasional ostensible political reforms
were not signs of his true dedication to democratization, but were mostly a part of a
survival strategy. They soothed the increasing domestic tension and with its “controlled
and contained” nature extended the life of the regime (Kassem 2004:3). Nonetheless,
these minimal changes toward liberalization served to incrementally influence opposition
against the regime in the long run. Over the years, particularly after 2004, opposition
groups began to be more vocal against Mubarak.
According to Thomas (1984), another strategy that authoritarian rulers employ
through intelligence and use of the media apparatus is to instill suspicion and distrust
within and between opposing groups. Arafat (2009) referred to some examples of this
type involvement of state security that occurred in the Labor Party in 2000, in the AlGhad Party in 2005, and the Wafd Party in 2006 (p.140). As Kassem (2004) asserted, the
Mubarak regime employed methods of exclusion of the opposition movements through
the legal arrangements and the coercive capabilities of the state. The regime did not allow
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political Islamists to take part in political competition as an organized group. They were
denied the legality to form a political party. The Muslim Brotherhood was a banned
organization during the Mubarak regime and it was only recently granted legal status
after the 2011 revolution.
b. The Intelligence Apparatus
The Egyptian intelligence community is composed of three distinct organizations.
The General Intelligence Service (Gihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma) was established in
1957 by Nasser and was responsible for providing intelligence domestically and
internationally in the context of Egypts national interest. The GIS was also termed the
Mukhabarat. The Mukhabarat represented a “symbol of state power and was widely
reputed to be the oldest, largest and most effective in the Arab world" (Sirrs 2010:13-14).
Sirrs indicated that principally, Coptic Egyptians –numbered between 6 to 10 percent of
general population– were not employed in the Mukhabarat. The Military Intelligence
Services and Reconnaissance, Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Harbyya wa al-Istitla was
another intelligence agency that worked under the Ministry of Defense. The third and the
most notorious organization was the State Security Investigations Service (Gihaz
Mabahith Amn ad-Dawla). The SSIS, often called the Amn Ad Dawla in daily use among
Egyptians was. “a formidable instrument of state repression” (Sirrs 2010:164). In an
attempt to evade any link from its notorious past, its name was changed to the Egyptian
Homeland Security organization after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution (Kandil 2012). State
Security has a nationwide presence and has directorates in provinces that report directly
to the Headquarter in Cairo. Its budget is not publicized. Besides, that, it employs a large
number of official cadres, it employs thousands of people unofficially and in some
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accounts this number has exceeded a million (Kandil 2012). The primary focus of the
intelligence apparatus during the Mubarak regime was Islamist groups (Sirrs 2010).
Intelligence organizations are known to employ individuals as agents –recorded or
unrecorded–from outside their organizational body. The Mukhabarat is known to follow
this practice extensively employing paid thugs for different purposes (Sirrs 2010;
Brumberg & Sallam 2012; Kandil 2012).
They include doormen at hotels and apartment complexes and sweepers…taxi
drivers. Additionally, the SSIS recruits informants from the legions of
unemployed young men who lounge at cafes or on the streets near major hotels,
tourist sites and foreign diplomatic facilities. Sometimes the informants are
ordered to maintain an overt presence to deter and intimidate their targets (Sirrs
2010:164).
Use of these informants and agents off the record provided the State Security with
a sort of ‘juridical immunity’. There had been a widespread belief among Egyptians that
many of those unrecorded paid thugs were used by the regime during the 18 days of the
2011 Tahrir protests. After the first few days of the protests in late January 2011 the
police lost control over the demonstrations and withdrew from the streets. When the
police virtually disappeared from the streets, groups of looters raided stores and some
governmental offices particularly in the relatively wealthy quarters of Cairo. Many
people believed that this was a deliberate strategy of the State Security to instill anxiety
and fear among the general population and to discourage them from supporting the
protestors. From the first days, the state attempted to marginalize the protestors by
propagating through its media organs the idea that the protestors were criminal thugs and
irresponsible youngsters who were harming the public order. Many believed that the
State Security and the police encouraged the thugs deliberately to raid stores and steal
everything they could get hold of. Supposedly, the regime expected that Egyptians would
73
blame the protestors for the insecurity and instability that occurred after the police
withdrew from the streets.
The Emergency Law and Anti-terrorism Law of 1992 enabled the security
apparatus to override the legal framework that regulated the work of intelligence services
(Sullivan & Jones 2008). Thus, during the Mubarak regime the State Security worked
with unrestricted authority. A slight suspicion was adequate for the State Security to
arrest someone. The detainees were exposed to long terms of interrogation and torture
before they were brought into court and the period before the court appearance went
unrecorded (Sullivan & Jones 2008; Sirrs 2010). The organization was also good at
electronic and cyber surveillance. Tapping lines without court orders and raiding private
properties of citizens without a search warrant were common practices.
The notoriety of the State Security has left a deep injury in the minds and hearts
of the Egyptians, particularly among the Islamists. Several times in my interviews with
Dr. Ahmad (MB) he asked me to pause the recording when he talked about “sensitive”
issues. He believed that the Amn Ad Dawla (State Security) was active and as
“dangerous” as ever. His uneasiness was apparent at these moments. He expressed his
concern: “they knew every heart beating in the country”. When he referred to
“differential treatment” of the Islamists by the Mubarak regime Dr. Ahmad (MB)
asserted that the regime tortured thousands of people and a lot of them were disappeared.
In his account, some people were left to die with untreated injuries in detention centers. It
is also noteworthy that in our audio recorded interview with Dr. Ahmad (MB) (about
three and half hours long) –although we were not specifically talking about the State
Security or the issue of torture– he used the word “torture” nine times. His use of the
74
word “torture” in an example in an unrelated context is interesting:
…Also the issue of heritage (the expected transfer of rule from Hosni Mubarak to
his son Gamal Mubarak) was annoying. It caused fear among people. He was not
qualified for anything. Besides, Mubarak was an experienced dictator, but his son
would be an “inexperienced” dictator. Someone can torture you but you can go
home safe after a month. A young boy in the police force; when he tortured, you
maybe he will cut a finger. Mubarak or his son Gamal; were bad and the worst.
Gamal and his brother Ala, had some popularity at the end of the 2009 Egypt –
Algeria match. It was a trial for popularity. But people forgot. Mubarak’s
popularity was almost nothing. He was retiring in September 2011. We were
captured under the regime and Mubarak family. We were not even citizens. We
would face either with Gamal or Omar Suleiman.
Sirrs (2010) suggested that an analysis of human rights reports about torture cases
by the State Security revealed a systematic pattern in the application of their cruel
methods of interrogation and punishment that caused terror throughout the Egyptian
society (Human Rights Watch 2004, 2007). Torture was also common in police stations.
According to a report by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) (cited in
Sullivan & Jones 2008) in 2007, there were 567 cases of torture and 167 death cases that
were suspected as being the results of police torture in police stations. According to a
2009 Amnesty International Report, as of 2009 about 10000 people were kept under
detention in various detention facilities without any charge or trial in Egypt, some of
them, for years (AI Report 2009).
Robert Bowker (2010) who was Australia’s former Ambassador to Egypt and
spent many years in different states in the Middle East, stated that for a comprehensive
analysis of the ‘state’ in Egypt –and in the Middle East in general– it is necessary to take
the informal structures, namely the ‘shadow state’ into consideration:
An important distinction needs to be made between the public apparatus of Arab
states –ministries, armed forces, political parties and so on– and the less visible
‘shadow state’ which is subject to different dynamics…It is within the shadow
state, an array of informal networks providing access to the state largely beyond
75
public view, that the concerns of key stakeholders are more likely to be managed,
through mixtures of accommodation, interest sharing and when necessary,
coercion. (Bowker 2010:65)
In interviews with different interlocutors, Egyptians referred to the ‘shadow state’
or ‘deep state’. Interestingly, in almost all cases in which the interlocutors talked about
the deep state they referred to the Ergenekon Criminal Case in Turkey6. The Ergenekon
Case began in June 2007 and legal hearings were ongoing as of 2013. The indictment
that was accepted by the court refers to the Ergenekon Organization as a ‘terrorist
organization’ that is claimed to be the upper organization of the Turkish ‘deep state’,
similar to Gladio in Italy. In fact, given the nature of interactions of Egyptians with the
state during Mubarak regime, one can appropriately claim that in given the terms of the
state’s policies and actions of its agents the line between the legal and illegal was hardly
discernible. Pervasive corruption, police brutality, and rigged elections, and worse than
those, the impudence that representatives of state adopted hardly required the “dirty
business” to be outsourced to a clandestine deep state. For instance, based on the
accounts of some interlocutors, in case of a sudden disappearance of a relative or a friend,
if one can blame the intelligence apparatus of the state without much hesitation then there
is no reason to look for an invisible wrongdoer to name it a deep or shadow state. If the
deep state is an organization that acts beyond the legal framework of the state, for many
Egyptians the state during Mubarak regime was hardly bounded by any legal framework
anyway.
6
Ergenekon is an alleged clandestine ultranationalist group that aims to govern the
Turkish state and society through extra legal processes. It is said to consist of elements of
the military and police, terrorist or paramilitary groups, nongovernmental organizations,
organized crime, journalists, politicians, judges, and government officials.
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c. National Democratic Party
As Swartz et al. (1966) suggested, using force as the main tool for controlling a
society is costly and unsustainable. For authoritarian regimes, the political party and
elections can serve as alternative institutions to provide support and cooperation, however
limited, from the public. Gandi and Lust-Okar (2009) argued that elections serve as a
convenient mechanism to distribute the spoils and make policy concessions. In a similar
vein, Friedrich and Brzezinski argued "It is the role of the party to provide a following for
the dictator" (1961:29).
Kassem (1999) argued that in Egypt’s ‘multi-party’ electoral system (from Sadat
to Mubarak, however nominal or restricted) election campaigns were predominantly
personally oriented. In other words, every electoral candidate sought the support of the
constituency through personal assurances in terms of communal services or private
benevolence. One repercussion of this method of voter recruitment, Kassem concluded,
was that it prevented the emergence of a party in any real democratic sense in which
party officials were supposed to gain the support of a constituency at the grass-root level
through party programs and projects. Arafat (2009) asserted that the NDP was “truly the
president’s party” (p.41) and that made his reelection possible over the years and would
facilitate Gamal Mubarak’s take over of the presidency. The NDP lacked a concrete
ideology, program or symbols that might otherwise have endeared it to the public. Arafat
argued that the nature of the relationship between the Mubarak regime and the NDP were
of prime importance in promoting their mutual interests, rather than that of the society.
The NDP was an instrument for gaining the support of the constituency in exchange for
providing communal and private services.
77
Based on his ethnographic research7 on an Egyptian parliamentary campaign
Shehata (2008) concluded that for most Egyptians, the electoral program, ideology, or
party affiliation does not play a significant role in determining how an electorate will vote
in the elections. She argued that many Egyptians vote on the basis of their anticipation of
services to the residents of an electoral district. Besides public services, such as better
roads, sewage systems, an improved local clinic or school, an electorate expects to obtain
individual services, such as finding employment and securing housing, as a return for his
vote. In the socioeconomic context during the Mubarak regime, having influential
political connections meant everything. As one key informant suggested, “the system
during Mubarak did not value your qualifications, it was not about who you were, it was
about who you knew in the government.”
Shehata (2008) also observed that there was inverse relationship between the level
of education and income and the participation in elections and vote. She suggested that
the wealthy and better-educated Egyptians, who can roughly be categorized as middle
and upper-middle class Egyptians, are less willing to go the polls. Because, he suggested,
unlike the poorer Egyptians, the wealthy and better-educated people are less likely to
demand a parliamentarian to provide better services for their district or provide mediation
in the bureaucracy for himself or herself. According to Shehata, this general voter
tendency reflected the disbelief in the Egyptian political system that a parliamentarian is
able to make significant policy decisions on behalf of the general population.
The candidates of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (at times when they were
allowed to run in elections) followed generally a different path by working through grass7
Shehata conducted his research in 2005 during the Mubarak regime. Thus, his remarks
may not reflect the voting behavior that took place in the post-Mubarak period.
78
root forms of support. Although the Islamists candidates as well lacked a thorough party
program and a detailed project goal, they exhibited one major difference in that they
communicated through what could be called an ideology, namely an ideal of an Islamic
order (Kassem 1999). In the final analysis, Kassem suggested that the multi-party system
could not develop sufficiently to challenge the existing power structure with the Mubarak
at its top.
Mubarak skillfully tried to balance his regime’s unpopularity internally with
Egypt’s international posture by presenting himself as an indispensible ally, particularly
after September 11, and in the context of containing the “threat of political Islam” and the
“war against terrorism”. In this vein, Kassem (2004) argued that the United States’
controversial attitude towards authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, while promoting
democracy rhetorically on one hand, and supporting the autocrats on the other hand
contributed to the resilience of Mubarak regime.
d. The Egyptian Military
The Egyptian Army’s manpower included roughly 310.000 conscripts and
375.000 reservists and its annual budget was $4.56 billion in 2010 (Sharp 2011). Military
service is mandatory for every Egyptian male except for some exceptions such as medical
or familial exemptions and in cases when the male is the only sibling in the family able to
look after his parents (Geddes 1999).
Although the three presidents of the Egyptian Republic, until President Morsi in
2012, were from the military, the Armed Forces’ role in Egyptian politics was indirect
and limited (Brumberg & Sallam 2012). After the defeat of the Egyptian Armed Forces
against Israel in 1967, Nasser dismissed some high-ranking officers and took some
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initiatives to reconstruct the army. When Sadat became president he discharged some
influential military generals who were close to Nasser and after Sadat, the army’s
influence in Egyptian politics declined significantly (Cook 2007). There was a decreasing
proportional representation of legislators who had military background from Nasser to
Mubarak period (Kassem 2004). Empowered by the 1971 Constitution, Mubarak
followed Sadat in that the presidency became the real power center in Egyptian politics.
Nevertheless, like his predecessors, as sort of a payoff against the military’s low
profile in politics, besides the huge economic investments that they benefited from,
Mubarak continued to provide the military with certain incentives. After retirement,
many military officers were employed in some of these economic enterprises with high
salaries (Kassem 2004). Mubarak also appointed retired army generals and police chiefs
as governors of provinces.
El-Borai et al. (2001) explained that the establishment of the Civil Service
Authority (CSA) after the implementation of law number 32 of 1979 expanded the reach
of the military into the domain of the civil service. Under the provision of this law the
military assumed a new role in implementing large projects in the areas of infrastructure
and development, which were formerly performed by civilians only. The Egyptian
military controlled a large and diversified economic enterprise that included highly
lucrative and state subsidized areas with high revenue returns (Brumberg & Sallam
2012). The military’s economic investments encompassed investments in tourism,
construction, security sector, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, food, and transportation
(Cook 2007). Cook suggested that this diverse portfolio “ rendered the military perhaps
Egypt’s single most important economic entity” (2007:19). Moreover, the military
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benefitted from significant tax exemptions and occasional privileged deals such as buying
or renting large lands owned by the state under their real market values (Brumberg &
Sallam 2012). More importantly, Brumberg and Sallam argued, there has not been
enough transparency regarding the military budget and how the economic revenues are
used. Because of this lack of transparency, the exact size of the military’s economic
investment is not publicly known. Despite the official sources’ claim that holds the
military’s share in the economy to be less than 10 percent of the gross domestic product
of Egypt, some experts offer varying estimates from 5 to 40 percent (Brumberg & Sallam
2012).
The military has been reluctant to accede to the economic reforms which were
initially suggested by Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif in 2004 and included significant
privatization plans that would affect the major investments of the military (Cook 2007).
Since the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the Egyptian Armed Forces receive $1.3 billion
in military aid and $450 million in economic support from the US Government annually
(Cook 2007). According to Cook, the official nationalist narrative of the Egyptian army
provided considerable legitimacy for the Armed Forces:
In 1952, the military toppled an alien and corrupt dynasty. Four years later the
armed forces heroically defended Egypt’s independence when it repelled the
Israeli, British, and French invasion of 1956. The loss of Sinai in 1967 was the
result of Israeli aggression and came at a time when one-third of the armed forces
was fulfilling its Pan-Arab duty in Yemen. The heroism of the officers and
soldiers of Egypt’s military made the Crossing of the Suez Canal possible in
October 1973 successfully restoring Egypt’s collective national honor and
ultimately its land. The Egyptian military is the guarantor of domestic stability
and a source of regional stability (Cook 2007:28).
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5. State and Society Relations
Fahmy (2002) identified three characteristics as significant regarding the nature of
the Egyptian state and society under the Mubarak rule: First, the Egyptian state had
similar features to a bureaucratic authoritarian (BA) state, as described by O’Donnell
(1979), due to the fact that “it is based on an alliance between the state, the military, and
selected segments of bourgeoisie who have established direct links with foreign business
interests”. (Fahmy 2002:242). In O’Donnell’s description, a BA state lacks legitimacy.
Thus, coercion and repression become the state’s indispensible tools for achieving
compliance over the masses. A BA state’s exclusionary practices in both the political and
economic domains fosters a society that is “depoliticized and apathetic” (Fahmy 2002:27)
in which individuals are forced into a constant preoccupation with their quotidian
struggle of subsistence. On many occasions, various informants stated during the
interviews and informal conversations, that Egyptians, particularly the youth were known
to be ‘apolitical’ prior to the 2011 Tahrir Revolution. Nevertheless, in the last decade of
the Mubarak regime, Egyptian youth became increasingly more politicized. Youth
movements and online platforms provided alternative venues for engaging in oppositional
movements. In the post-revolutionary period, many of the informants explained that
Egyptians had become increasingly more interested in politics everywhere, in cities as
well as in villages, and almost across every age.
According to O’Donnell (1979), the BA state is constituted by an unreliable
alliance among parties (state, military, and the bourgeoisie) with differing interests and
orientations that come together on the basis of a fragile and provisional deal. For
instance, the state depends heavily on the coercive power of the military, but can hardly
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guarantee its unconditional support. Besides, as in the case of Egypt, the selected
segments of the bourgeoisie might have incompatible economic prospects. While the
bourgeoisie prioritize a transnational orientation and benefits from the states’
privatization policies, the military establishment does not want to lose its privileged
status in the economy (Fahmy 2002). Thus, O’Donnell (1979) concluded, the BA state is
troubled by an inherent tension that is exacerbated due to its lack of popular legitimacy.
Moreover, the BA state does not allow venues of mediation between the state and the
society.
In view of all these characteristics, O’Donnell suggested, the BA state is a weak
state, “which fears the silence of the excluded masses, who may be suddenly activated to
revolt…to destroy bureaucratic authoritarian state” (Fahmy 2002:28). O’Donnell also
argued that, in search for a source of legitimacy, the BA state adopts a form of democracy
with well-defined and controlled limits and schemes that would not endanger the
regime’s domination over the masses. In a nutshell, the Egyptian state under Mubarak
rule resembled O’Donnell’s BA state in many ways, and thus, as Fahmy argued as a
second characteristic, Egypt was a weak state that had a fragile and untenable connection
with its citizens.
Based on his own study of Arab states Ayubi (1995) argued that the "the Arab
state is...often violent because it is weak" (p.450). As Arabs states in general have not
enjoyed popular public support, they don't rule by popular consent through the will of the
people for the people. Because of this inherited weakness, Arab states in general, rule by
force against the will of the people. Ayubi concurs with Khalil (1984:169) who
emphasized the difference between “quwwat al-dawla and dawlat al-quwwa” that is;
83
‘force (strength) of the state’ and ‘state of force’. Since the incumbents of power in Arab
states usually lack the means or basis for providing legitimacy, which might be
considered as consensual power in Swartz et al.’ terms (1966), they rule by using
coercive power. Egypt under Mubarak’s rule seems to be consistent with Ayubi’s
description of Arab states.
Beginning with Sadat, the representation of the armed forces in the cabinet and
high-level administrative and political posts decreased. Mubarak followed the same
policy of Sadat in a consistent fashion to contain the armed forces influence in politics
(Fahmy 2002). The Egyptian military maintained a certain level of professionalism and
stayed submissive to the president. For example, without any visible opposition from
within the army, Mubarak was able to make unexpected appointments that affected the
regular chain of hierarchy in the armed forces. Removal of Field-Marshal Abu Ghazala
by Mubarak in 1989, at a time when he was very influential and popular, did not cause
any trouble within the armed forces. The military’s apparently apolitical stance was also
related to its vast economic activities that provided it with a significant source of extra
income. In the same fashion, the prominence of businessmen in the political arena and
thus in business deals was dependent on the discretion of Mubarak. All in all, Fahmy
concluded that the Egyptian state under Mubarak operated in relatively autonomous way
in respect to the military and the privileged segment of the bourgeoisie. Thus, Fahmy
argued that the Egyptian state under Mubarak’s rule was relatively autonomous.
The 1971 Constitution that was in effect during the entire rule of Mubarak granted
the president immense powers. Mubarak frequently used his authority to issue
presidential decrees granted to his office by the constitution. The legislative body was
84
subordinate to the executive branch, which was under strict control of Mubarak. Mubarak
was the head of the NDP that dominated the parliament and appointed its own member as
the Speaker of the Parliament (Fahmy 2002). In the same vein, through different laws, the
regime employed a process that involved the centralization of power under the office of
appointed governors and the influence of elected local councils was severely undermined.
Fahmy (2002) argued that state’s repression of opposition movements, including
civil society and the political parties through its security apparatus and legal and
administrative measures prevented these intermediary institutions and processes between
the state and society from bringing about a significant change in the regime. The labor
unions and professional syndicates had limited influence against the regime. The regime
managed to co-opt their leadership in most cases. They were usually plagued by internal
corruption. Given all these conditions, Fahmy concluded that the state shaped the society
in Egypt under the Mubarak rule. The state provided certain channels of opposition and
political freedom. However, these channels of political opposition were limited, often
interrupted and manipulated by the regime through arbitrary legal regulations, judicial
interference (particularly through military courts), by intimidation; and this might have
served to on of the increasing societal tension. There were elections held regularly for
both the parliament and the presidential office. However, as is widely known and
expressed by many informants the elections were rigged. The regime used every possible
method to guarantee its own success in the election results. Yet, the availability of
political channels (although they were virtually defunct) kept most political forces on
track with the hope that reforming the system through existing institutionalized channels
was possible. But, in fact, the regime was not ready for any reform and did not allow any
85
political force to reach a point that would directly challenge Mubarak. Thus, for instance,
the state did not allow the Muslim Brotherhood to be recognized as a formal political
party. As the largest and most organized oppositional movement of Mubarak period, the
Muslim Brotherhood kept its commitment to making a change largely through existing
political institutions. Thus, one interlocutor, Dr. Nadia Moustafa (NA), a political
scientist at Cairo University, suggested that the Muslim Brotherhood was not a
revolutionary movement. In her assessment the organization of Muslim Brotherhood
could be depicted (in relation to organization’s involvement in Tahrir Revolution), at
best, as a “reformist” group. The Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success, however
limited and unguaranteed, allowed the organization and its large base of supporters keep
their belief in the system8.
Having followed his predecessors Nasser and Sadat, another strategy that
Mubarak depended on was state subsidies for basic food and energy, namely natural gas
for domestic consumption and subsidies on gas. The state subsidies were a sort of a bribe
from the regime to its citizens, but they enabled a minimum livelihood for millions of
Egyptians. Besides, there was certainly a small group of the population who benefited
from the regime’s institutionalized distribution of privileges directly or indirectly through
the patronage system (Fahmy 2002). Because of their political and/or economic status,
they were either immune to the state’s coercive power, or they were part of the coercive
apparatus. Various informants’ different appraisal of Mubarak regime and the 2011
8
In the 2005 parliamentary elections, through independent candidates the Muslim
Brotherhood gained 88 seats. Nevertheless, the organization could only secure one seat in
the 2010 elections. For many Egyptians, this result alone showed the dimensions of the
electoral fraud and the 2010 parliamentary elections were consequently the ‘worst’
elections in Egyptian history.
86
Revolution supports this proposition. For informants, informants who were part of the
state apparatus through their bureaucratic or political positions and some relatively
wealthy liberal Egyptians did not express much discontent regarding the past regime. On
the contrary, most of them seemed disturbed by the uncertainty that dominated the
political and social domains in the transition period.
Conclusion
In sum, Mubarak regime’s main pillar of governing was its coercive power. In
addition to that, the regime made use of democratic venues, however limited and
restricted, as a mechanism of relief for increasing societal and political tension and as a
means of providing legitimacy at the international level for its ostensibly “democratic
rule”. Moreover, the state subsidies enabled the regime, for a relatively long time, to
control a possible societal uprising.
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Chapter 5: PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION
This chapter will review some of the significant developments and key events
–roughly in the last decade of Mubarak– which led to the socio political setting that
precipitated the January 25 Uprisings. The analysis of the data (mainly interviews)
revealed several developments and some key events some of which served as turning
points enabled Egyptians to challenge the Mubarak regime in January – February 2011.
1. Kefaya Movement
Almost unequivocally, most informants, regardless of their political orientation,
described the Kefaya Movement as an important step en route to Tahrir. The Kefaya
Movement was founded in an informal gathering in the house of Ebu Al Maadi, the
leader of the moderate Islamist Wasat Party, in 2004. It was the month of Ramadan and
after the iftar, the dinner that Muslims break their fast in Ramadan, a group of Egyptian
intellectuals from various political leanings, who were gravely concerned with the
conditions in the Middle East region (the ongoing second Palestinian Intifada and the
Occupation of Iraq) and in Egypt, decided to form a new political initiative (Shorbagy
2007). The central agenda of the movement was aimed to create public awareness against
the possible succession scenario of Gamal Mubarak to replace his father Hosni Mubarak
as the future president of Egypt. Kefaya’s message was effectively expressed in one
word, Kefaya, which means 'enough' in colloquial Arabic, was well received among
Egyptians (Shahin 2005).
George Ishak, (C) a Coptic Christian and a senior activist, was among the
founders of the Kefaye Movement. In our interview he explained his impressions about
the initial meeting and demonstration.
88
For the first time we had rights to criticize the president. The slogan was very
interesting; kefaye, (enough). It was a very common word. Before Kefaye, no
body could talk anything about the President. The instruction for the newspaper
was that “you can talk about everything except Mubarak, his wife, and his sons”.
The people could protest, to be pro-Palestinian, pro-Iraq and the government let
the people express themselves, but were not allowed to criticize the government
or the regime…
In the first demonstration, we chose six people to declare our demands. The six
persons were; one communist Ahmad Bahaa, one from the Muslim Brotherhood
and one of the Nasserists and one from Kavmiyye Arabiyya, a liberal, and myself.
The demands of the declaration were the same demands of the 25th of January.
The same; cancel the emergency law, new constitution..
It was silent demonstration. No shouting.. People were surprised: “How dare
you?” Hayman, one of the founders said; “If 100 people come to our first
demonstration, we can consider ourselves successful.” I was a little bit frightened.
There were thousands of police officers. When we got there we found around
1000 people.
All the young generation who took a central role in the January 25 Revolution
were from the cadre of Kefaya.
Amr Farouk (WP), the spokesperson of the Wasat Party, emphasized the
important contribution of the Kefaya Movement to Egyptian politics:
It was Ramadan and I had the honor to be in this first meeting. The first name was
Egyptian Movement for Change and the word Kefaya came after that. The
spokesman was Christian activist George Ishak. Hamdeen Sabahi9 some other
important political figures were there. By this first step, we started to make a hole
in this big wall of fear. There was a very big wall of fear between the people and
the regime. The Kefaya movement broke a taboo in politics.
Shehata (2011) argued that Kefaya represented a novelty in the opposition
movements in that they realized the futility of demanding the regime to realize reforms
within the system. The existing channels of opposition politics through elections, party
politics, activities of non-governmental organization proved to be ineffective within
Mubarak’s authoritarian system. The established opposition parties typically suffered
from restrictive governmental scrutiny, lack of funds, and internal fragmentation; yet,
9
Hamdeen Sabahi is a Nasserist politician and was a presidential candidate in 2012
Presidential Elections.
89
more importantly, they had long stricken with a public distrust and they were lacking
broad-based grass root reach (Shorbagy 2007; Ottaway & Hamzawy 2011). The Muslim
Brotherhood, which was an illegal organization, represented an important political force
with broad grass root support, but was not in a position to unite the nation against the
regime. As Shorbagy (2007) argued, its religious ideology and its secrecy –with a
hierarchal and strict organizational structure that had been closed to non-members–
nourished the reservations and concerns of many Egyptians about the Muslim
Brotherhood. During the Mubarak period, the Islamist versus secularist divide prevented
oppositional political forces from both camps to build a lasting consensus against the
regime (Shorbagy 2007). The occasional ad hoc based coalitions did not survive long.
The Kefaya Movement offered a new hope for Egyptian politics. Its cross-ideological
body of members was an important contribution for the opposition politics that had long
been fragmented.
The Kefaya Movement did not seek official permission from the regime required
for demonstrations or press releases. The Kefaya Movement believed in the power of
protests and demonstrations in public spaces. Through small protests, in which Mubarak,
his family explicitly, and the security apparatus challenged and denounced, the Kefaya
Movement broke an impeding taboo for opposition politics (Shaaban 2006; Shehata
2011). The peaceful protests that Kefaya Movement organized attracted wide attention
both on a national and international level (Shehata 2011). In a short while, Kefaya could
manage to organize itself in 24 of 26 of Egyptian provinces and held many protests with
the participation of thousands of protesters.
The Kefaya Movement’s three significant contributions to Egyptian oppositional
90
politics can be conceptualized as follows: Firstly, the Kefaya broke the taboo of targeting
Mubarak and his family and helped people gradually overcome the fear barrier against
the regime. Secondly, Kefaya modeled a new framework of oppositional movement with
its cross ideological and loose organizational structure. The Kefaya managed to bring
people of diverse ideological leaning together and by its loose organizational structure; it
was not restricted to any institutional framework that was subject to strict governmental
scrutiny. The founding members of the Kefaya Movement did not appoint a single leader
and adopted a consensus based decision-making process. The movement organized
protests and demonstrations and in a sense laid the seeds of future broader grass root
protest movements that would harbor Egyptians across cross ideological lines (Shorbagy
2007).
Thirdly, Kefaya achieved the ability to reach out to the young generation of
Egyptians and it gave birth to new movements such as Youth for Change. Thr Kefaya
successfully engaged many young Egyptian in politics through demonstrations (Sharib
2005). As a part of the Kefaya, Youth for Change participated in protests in 2005 and
they also organized independent activities with specific youth related demands.
Nevertheless, in 2006 political activism began dwindling due to government repression
and a general political crackdown on opposition movements and parties after the 2005
elections (Shehata 2011). Consequently, Shehata argued, youth activists turned their
attention to online platforms, namely blogging, as the new venues of opposition politics.
Blogging provided a freer environment for expressing ideas and resentments. Youth
blogs used a bold language against the Mubarak and his family and other public figures
who were closely associated with the regime. The use of pictures, cartoons, and videos
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strengthened their message. Through personal blogs human rights violations, abuses of
security forces were disseminated to larger audience. Youth blogs contributed to an
increasing awareness against the atrocities of the state. Besides, the opposition
movements and parties benefitted from blogs in announcing their activities and events.
After the 2005 presidential elections in which Mubarak took 88.6 percent of the
votes, the Kefaya Movement began to lose its momentum (Shorbagy 2007). Nevertheless,
by challenging the regime in a very bold and explicit manner, which was unprecedented
at the time, the Kefaya Movement marked a new threshold in the recent history of
Egyptian politics.
2. Succession Question
Succession from father to son in the modern Arab Middle East is an old
phenomenon (Sobelman 2001). In Syria for example, Bashar Al-Asad assumed the
presidency after his father Hafiz Al-Asad's death in 2000 and in a similar fashion Qaddafi
was preparing his son Sayf al-Islam to succeed himself (Sobelman 2001). As Arafat
(2009) stated, before the popular Arab uprisings started in 2011, beside Egypt there were
expectations of hereditary successions of rule in Yemen and Libya as well.
It was around 1999 that rumors emerged about Gamal Mubarak's aspiration to
succeed his father (Arafat 2009). There was a widespread belief among Egyptians that
Mubarak was preparing to his place his son Gamal in the presidency. Many of
interlocutors expressed their deep resentment against the possibility that they considered
Gamal’s presidency inescapable unless something extraordinary would divert the course.
However, the regime systematically denied that possibility (Brownlee 2002; Arafat
2009). Mubarak even reprimanded a journalist once: "We are not a monarchy. We are the
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Republic of Egypt, so refrain from comparing us to other countries in this region" (Arafat
2009:185). Some opposition leaders argued that the leading National Democratic Party’s
new section Policies Secretariat was established to bring Gamal Mubarak into politics
(El-din 2006; Zahid 2010).
The systemic denial did not persuade many Egyptians who believed that the
regime was preparing Gamal Mubarak for the presidency (Zahid 2010). Apparently,
Mubarak had believed that it had to be a smooth transition without causing any crisis
domestically and internationally. After all, for the incumbent ruler in an authoritarian
regime, providing conditions of a controlled succession is of vital importance, whether to
a family member or to someone else from outside family. Mubarak probably knew that if
a democratic government came to power, himself, his family, and his entire close coterie
would be held accountable for the violations that they committed. Obviously, this last
point is questionable on the grounds that we do not know for sure whether Mubarak ever
thought of his regime as "non-democratic" to be replaced with a democratic one, let alone
if he ever believed that he violated any legal framework.
In his On the state of Egypt Alaa Al-Aswany10 (2011) argued that Mubarak was
most likely captive of a psychosocial state what called a "dictator's solitude”:
History teaches us that all autocratic rulers consider themselves great heroes and
live in such a state of perpetual self-delusion that they are able to justify all their
misconduct and even the crimes they perpetrate. This constant dissociation
between the autocratic ruler and what happens in reality is a phenomenon that has
10
Alaa Al-Aswany is a liberal Egyptian intellectual and a prominent author who was
among the founders of the Kefaya (Enough) Movement. He is a dentist by training. His
novel the Yacoubian Building (2002), in which he boldly described the frustration of
Egyptians under Mubarak regime in the microcosm of a historical apartment building that
represents the modern day Egypt, was the best selling Arabic novel in 2002 and 2003 (El
Halim 2011).
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been carefully described in international literature and is known as ‘dictator’s
solitude.’ The dictator lives in complete isolation from the lives of his compatriots
and does not know what is really happening in his country. After he has been in
power for years, a group of friends and rich relatives formed around him and their
extravagant lifestyle keeps them apart from the way of life of ordinary people, and
so the dictator loses any awareness of the poor and has absolutely no contact with
real life (Al-Aswany 2011:55-56).
Even a superficial review of Mubarak’s last speeches suggest the relevance of AlAswany’s (2011) proposition of a "dictator's solitude”. Below there are a few excerpts
from his nation-wide speeches during the 18 days of protests in 2011. From a speech on
February 01, 2011:
…I have never, ever been seeking power and the people know the difficult
circumstances that I shouldered my responsibility...Hosni Mubarak who speaks to
you today is proud of the long years he spent in the service of Egypt and its
people. This dear nation is my country, it is the country of all Egyptians, here I
have lived and fought for its sake and I defended its land, its sovereignty and
interests and on this land I will die and history will judge me an d others for our
merits and faults. (Guardian 2011)
From another speech on February 10, 2011;
I am addressing the youth of Egypt today in Tahrir Square and across the country.
I am addressing you all from the heart, a father's dialogue with his sons and
daughters…I am telling you that as a president I find no shame in listening to my
country's youth and interacting with them… (BBC 2011)
Mubarak presented himself as ‘the guardian and “father” of Egyptian people who
did everything for the sake of his “sons and daughters”. It is not possible to know exactly
whether he had really believed this or they were mere strategic acts of speech to persuade
the protesting Egyptians. In the same article about a "dictator's solitude” that Al-Aswany
(2011) wrote in 2010, several months before the revolution started, he reminds us about
Queen Marie Antoinette of France. On the brink of the 1789 French Revolution, having
been surprised by the anger of the mobs, the Queen asks someone in the palace the reason
for the people’s rage. “When one of her aides told her they were angry because they
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could not find bread, the queen is said to have replied in surprise: “Let them eat cake”
(Al-Aswany 2011:56). Mubarak seemed to have lived a similar delusion, disconnected
from the realties of the lives of ordinary Egyptians. In his last speeches Mubarak
expressed how surprised he was about the protests and how he deeply resented being
judged unfairly by his people after all his “sacrifices and commitment” for his land.
In 2002, Gamal Mubarak had become the secretary general of the Policy
Secretariat under the NDP umbrella and his group, what Arafat (2009) called the 'Big
Eight' became the new elite in the party and they soon began to dominate the party. In
Arafat's assessment, their ostensible commitment to liberalism and democracy were
questionable. Gamal Mubarak said in a lecture "it is not possible to follow the wishes of
the man on the street on everything and make them a reason for effecting foundational
change" (Arafat 2009:189). From the similar comments that his group made one can
conclude that in their opinion, ‘Egyptians were not yet ready’ for a full fledged
democracy. However, the regime seemed to follow a detailed plan to prepare Gamal as a
‘reformist, liberal, and competent’ leader for Egypt. To this end, Arafat argued, the
regime's strategy was based on three distinct pillars. Using the abundant state funds and
state media, an aggressive image making campaign that targeted both the domestic as
well as international audience had already began as early as 2002. Gamal Mubarak began
to appear frequently in the media and was acclaimed by "the man of the people" (Arafat
2009:191). In this aggressive image making campaign, the regime had not left out any
group –businessmen, religious establishments, the Copts, average Egyptians, young
students– as potential audiences to be influenced (Brownlee 2002). On the international
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level, for the same reason, although he was not a government official, Gamal Mubarak
attended at high-level meetings in the US in 2003 (Zahid 2010).
The second pillar of Gamal's preparation was providing him with political
experience. His role as the secretary general of the Policy Secretariat in the NDP served
this end. As a third pillar of Gamal's preparation, Arafat (2009) explained that a gang, a
shilla, a word with meaning of gang or group in Egyptian dialect of Arabic, was set up
for Gamal that was organized under the Policy Secretariat as an ostensible group of
liberal reformists. Beside, with the influence of Gamal Mubarak, the Shura Council
replaced ten senior journalists with new editors in various positions in the state-run
media. Furthermore, the regime forged some legal regulations to facilitate Gamal's future
candidacy. According to the amendment in article 76 of the Egyptian constitution, in
order to be nominated for the presidential elections, one was required to be in the central
committee of his party's for at least one year. On the pretext of the NDP's relative failure
in the 2005 parliamentary elections, in which the opposition parties gained a significant
number of seats, many senior members of the NDP lost their positions in the party's
power structure. Consequently, Gamal Mubarak's group became the dominant power
center in the NDP. With the amendment of article 76, there was only one person from the
old guard who could run against Gamal Mubarak (Arafat 2009).
In my interviews with intellectuals from various political leanings, many people
raised the issue of inheritance as one of the significant elements that made Egyptians
mobilize against the regime. The Kefaye movement was established on these grounds to
create a public awareness against the Mubarak’s plan to implement his son Gamal to
presidency. Interestingly, along the line of official denial about the succession issue Dr.
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Dr. Said (FR) argued that Mubarak did not have an intention of handing the presidency
over to his son Gamal:
Everybody was talking about –the main opposition figures, including the Muslim
Brotherhood, the liberals, nationalists– reforming the system, clean elections and
somehow there was the issue of inheritance, which I think was not solid. It was
not true, however “perception is the reality” they say in politics. They wanted to
prevent that.
Dr. Said (FR) was the chairman of the Board of Al Ahram Foundation, the state’s
main media organ, and he was also the director of the Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies at the time of the Tahrir Revolution. Dr. Said (FR) was close to the
Mubarak family and to the inner circles of the regime. Referring to his personal
conversations with the General Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s Head of General Intelligence,
Fathi Sorour, the Speaker of the Parliament (before the revolution), and Husam Badrawy,
the last Secretary General of the NDP, Dr. Aly stated that Mubarak did not have any
intention to leave his place to his son Gamal. Nevertheless, whether real or perceived
there was a strong public sentiment against a possible succession scenario that Gamal
Mubarak was main actor.
Arafat (2009) and Zahid (2010) argued that the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB)
reaction against the succession question was ambiguous. Two distinct groups in the MB
had diverging opinions on different grounds. Mahdi Akef, who was the supreme guide of
the MB from 2004 to 2010, explicitly opposed to the idea of supporting Gamal (Arafat
2009). He asserted that the organization would lose its credibility in the eyes of Egyptians
by supporting the Mubaraks. A second group promoted the idea that the organization
could negotiate a deal with the regime for constitutional and political reforms as an
exchange for their support to Gamal’s possible presidency.
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Arafat (2009) estimated that a group of liberals, some people from the media,
particularly the new editors that were appointed with Gamal’s influence, an important
group of business elite was likely to support Gamal. These bureaucratic and capitalist
elites were the main beneficiaries of the Mubarak regime and they wanted their
privileged status to continue. Nevertheless, Arafat asserted that their ostensive support to
Gamal was conditional and circumstantial due to his father’s position of power.
Arafat (2009) argued that Egyptians completely opposed the possibility of
Gamal’s succession and this was being expressed forcefully by important public figures,
Hassanein Heikal and Assam Alislambouli in the media. Beside the Kefaya movement,
the Nasserist Party was the most vocal group that consistently stated its opposition to
Gamal. Yet, interestingly, during interviews with average Egyptians (people who were
not from academia or those who were not politically active) the issue of succession was
rarely mentioned.
Before the revolution the true opinion of the security apparatus and their reaction
to Gamal Mubarak’s intention of replacing his father was unknown. Nasser, Sadat, and
Mubarak had military origins. At the time of the revolution Field Marshal Hussein
Tantawi was the defense minister and he was around 76 years old. His poor health
condition and lack of support from within the military or the public made him an unlikely
candidate for the presidency. In any case, many people including Mubarak considered
him loyal to the regime (Alterman 2000). Furthermore, there was no popular figure in the
high ranks of the military that could be considered as a potential candidate for the
presidency. This was, to a large extent, a consequence of Mubarak’s long time strategy to
sideline the military as an organization and furthermore, Mubarak did not allow anyone
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to build up an independent power base whether in institutionally or publicly. The primary
example of this was Field Marshal Muhammad Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala who was
appointed to a civilian post by Mubarak when he seemed too ambitious and became
increasingly popular (Alterman 2000). Another more recent example was the former
Chief of Staff Magdi Hatata. Upon his increasing popularity and potential, Mubarak
appointed Hatata as the head of Arab Institutionalization Establishment (Arafat 2009).
There was no prominent military officer who would provide a significant base of
institutional and public support for presidential candidacy. According to the leaked US
cables (Guardian 2011b), some analysts suggested that the Egyptian military was not
contented with the idea of Gamal’s possible succession. There was resentment among the
military leadership against Gamal and his coterie of businessmen’s rising influence at the
expense of the Armed Forces’ economic and political interests. Yet, other sources
indicated that the regime was striving to persuade the military through business deals to
accept Gamal’s succession plan. Similar arguments were raised by some of my
interlocutors. Omar Soliman, the head of the General Intelligence, was another possible
candidate for the presidency. But he was a loyal Mubarak supporter and was unlikely to
act independently without Mubarak’s approval.
3. Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brotherhood was established in 1928 in Egypt by
Hassan al-Banna. In his early years in Cairo, al-Banna observed a decaying society in
terms of religious sensitivity and resented gravely the widespread atheism (Soage &
Franganillo 2010). Hasan al-Banna envisaged an Islamic renaissance as the remedy to
ills of Egyptian society (El-Ghobashy 2005). To this end, he and several of his friends
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began preaching at mosques and public places and recruited members through one-o-one
and door-to-door interaction (El-Ghobashy 2005). For al-Banna, Islam was a
comprehensive system (related to both the world and after life) that needs to be embraced
by the believers (Soage & Franganillo 2010). The movement became increasingly
popular among Egyptians especially through its social-welfare activities.
In the late 1930s the organization earned a more political character. They began to
hold occasionally mass demonstrations and called for the implementation of Sharia, the
Islamic Law. When their activities became more assertive and confrontational, al-Banna
and several other leading members were sent out of Cairo temporarily (Soage &
Franganillo 2010). After strained relations with the authorities, al-Banna set up a
clandestine paramilitary group, ‘Special Apparatus’.
After the Second World War, Egyptians lost their trust in their politicians and the
Muslim Brotherhood's support for the Palestinians and their standpoint against the
occupying Britain appealed to the larger number of people. Besides, charity activities and
educational services that they provided in their own facilities attracted working class
Egyptians were drastically affected by the deteriorating economic situation after the war
(Soage & Franganillo 2010). By this time, the numbers of its members were estimated to
have reached around half a million (Mitchell 1993).
In the postwar period when Egypt suffered a period of instability, the Muslim
Brotherhood’s Special Apparatus was involved in some violent incidents and
assassinations against British figures and some Egyptians politicians and Egyptian Jews
(Soage & Franganillo 2010). In November 1949, at the backdrop of increasing violent
activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, the police found a secret arms cache, which was
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claimed to belong to the organization. Prime Minister Mahmud al-Nuqrashi came to
believe that the Muslim Brotherhood was in preparation of a coup and as a response, alNuqrashi banned the organization. As a response, the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated
Prime Minister al-Nuqrashi after a short while. Al-Banna, who later denounced the use of
violence, was shot dead later in February 1949.
After the 1952 coup, Gamal Abdel Nasser banned all political parties. But he
allowed the MB to continue as an "organization" to undertake its nonpolitical activities.
Nasser had hoped to cultivate a grassroots support for himself through the Muslim
Brotherhood. He offered Sayyid Qutb, the new ideologue of the organization, a key post
in the Liberation Rally Part, but he declined the offer (Soage & Franganillo 2010). After
a failed assassination attempt of Nasser by the Muslim Brotherhood in October 1954,
Nasser immediately took repressive measures against the organization. Thousands of
members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested, tortured and jailed with lengthy
sentences (Zollner 2009). Hasan al-Hudaybi, the leader and six others were sentences to
death; yet, al-Hudaybi's sentence was later changed to life imprisonment. Sayyid Qutb
was also arrested and he wrote most of his important works in prison. In his Ma’alim fi’lTariq (Signposts on the Road) he argued that since the Muslim societies are not ruled
according to the tenets of Islam, they could not be considered Muslim. More
significantly, he suggested that jihad might be necessary to topple the corrupt rulers in
Muslim states (Qutb 1964). Nasser ordered a new wave of repression against the Muslim
Brotherhood in 1965. Qutb was arrested again and executed after a show trial (Soage &
Franganillo 2010). After a general amnesty in 1975, the remaining imprisoned members
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of the Muslim Brotherhood were finally released. Nevertheless, the Muslim Brotherhood
remained an illegal organization (Kepel 1985).
In the 1970s having been influenced by the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, a group of
young members of the Muslim Brotherhood began criticizing the leadership of their
"passivity" against the government repression (Soage & Franganillo 2010). Eventually
they left the Muslim Brotherhood and established a militant group, al-Gama'a alIslamiyya (Kepel 1985). Al-Gama'a al-Islamiye (the Islamic group) was a radical
religiously motivated movement that was considered as terrorist organization.
Conspicuously, for a certain period during his rule President Sadat considered al-Gama'a
al-Islamiye as a counterweight against the Arab leftist and Marxist opposition (Kepel
1985). Al-Gama'a al-Islamiye was involved in a violent insurgency in Egypt between
1992-1998 in which hundreds of police officers, soldiers, and civilians were killed
(Ashour 2007). After heavy government clampdowns, particularly beginning from May
1992, al-Gama'a al-Islamiye had to review its tactics. In 1997 the organization declared
that it abandoned violent methods (Ashour 2007). After the 2011 Egyptian Revolution,
the al-Gama'a al-Islamiye established Building and Development Party and gained 13
seats in 2011-2012 parliamentary elections.
Under the leadership of al-Tilmisani, the Muslim Brotherhood ruled out violence
as a means of struggle. Al-Tilmisani convinced the leadership that the organization could
be more effective as a through peaceful means with a bottom up approach (Soage &
Franganillo 2010). Naguib (2009) stated that after the Jihadist al-Gama'a al-Islamiye
were marginalized and completely and renounced violence the Muslim Brotherhood
became “the only significant trend of political Islamism” (p.112).
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In the 1980s the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood saw the opportunity in that
the student unions, teachers' clubs and other professional unions could serve as ready
platforms of social and political activism without a direct confrontation with the regime
(Soage & Franganillo 2010). To this end, the Muslim Brotherhood began to focus on
professional unions, student clubs and assumed the control of most of these in 1980s.
In the 1984 elections, the Muslim Brotherhood allied with Wafd Party and they
ran on Wafd's list for the People's Assembly. The Muslim Brotherhood gained 8 seats.
Later in 1987 elections, the Brotherhood gained 36 seats from an alliance with Labor and
Liberal parties. While the regime refused to grant legal status to the Muslim Brotherhood,
it did not prevent the organization from widening its presence and influence at the grass
root level through social welfare and charity activities. From the regime's perspective,
this served two distinct reasons; on one hand, these apolitical activities were keeping
them busy and out of direct confrontation with the regime. On the other hand, the
organization was compensating state's deficiencies by providing essential healthcare and
charity services particularly in small towns (Soage & Franganillo 2010).
In the 1990s the regime's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood became more
instable. Mubarak blamed the organization in that they were not moderate as they
presented themselves. The organization’s campaign for legalization continued
throughout Mubarak years. In January 1995, the Muslim Brotherhood was subjected a
massive wave of arrests. Eighty-two members were arrested in the pretext that the
Muslim Brotherhood was plotting to overthrow the government. After a failed
assassination attempt to Mubarak in May 1995 in Addis Ababa by Sudanese National
Front, Egyptian al-Gama'a al-Islamiye (the Islamic Group), and the Egyptian Islamic
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Jihad. Following the incident, Egyptian security forces detained thousands of
Brohterhood members. They were accused of having links with the aforementioned
terrorist organization and 54 of its members were given 3-5 years of imprisonment by
military courts.
Generational tension continued between the successive leaders from the old guard
and the younger members both on the decision making process, which were allotted to a
small group of senior members, and also on ideological grounds. In 1996, Abou Elela
Mady from the new generation filed an application for a new party under the name of
Hizb al-Wasat (the Middle-way Party) (Stacher 2002). The State Commission for Parties
rejected their application and some of the applicants were sent to military court for their
membership to the outlawed Muslim Brohterhood. Later in 2000, just before the
parliamentary elections, the Egyptian security forces detained many prominent members
of the Brohterhood. Nevertheless, in spite of the adverse conditions, 17 members of the
MB were elected in the parliamentary elections. Given the fact that all other opposition
groups together gained only 16 seats, the election of 17 parliamentarians (although not
formally affiliated with the organization) was a significant success for the Muslim
Brohterhood.
The appointment of Mahdi Akef as the new general guide in March 2004 may be
considered as a new phase in the history of the organization. Although he was one of the
old guard he attempted to the bridge the gap between the different currents; sort of a
balanced stance between the old guard who has prioritized proselytizing, and the younger
members who has advocated more direct engagement in politics (Soage & Franganillo
2010). In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brohterhood obtained 88 seats,
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while the other opposition parties gained only ten seats. The NDP secured 145 seats but
when the independent candidates joined their representation rose to 311 out of a total of
444 seats.
El-Ghobashy (2005) argued that over the years, the Muslim Brotherhood were
subject to change, both on an organizational level and ideological domain, as is "endemic
to any party or social movement: splits occur along generational lines, intense internal
debates arise about strategy, and a shift in their ideological plank from politics as a sacred
mission to politics as the public contest between rival interests" arises (p. 374).
According to El-Ghobashy the Brohterhood 's political engagement through electoral
competition, among other factors, had a considerable effect on this transformation from a
religious mass movement to what looked very much like a modern political party" (p.
374). Over the years, there had been a trend towards relative moderation in the official
discourse of the organization. This shift was most evident in the organization's
renunciation of Sayyid Qutb's ideas and reinterpretation of the philosophy of Hasan al
Banna (El Ghobashy 2005). Especially on sensitive issues such as the Sharia law, the role
of women in society and politics, and the status of the Coptic Egyptians, which had been
at the forefront of discussions between the secular and the Islamist Egyptians, the
organization seemed to have adopted a more encompassing stance. A similar “relative
change” in discourse was observed in the Salafist Islamist parties after the 2011
Revolution. El Ghobashy (2005) argued that an important ideological revision occurred
in 1994 when the Muslim Brohterhood issued a statement on women's political rights,
which emphasized that women have the right to be nominated as candidates for public
offices, except for the highest office.
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The Muslim Brohterhood had a wavering relationship with the regime. During the
reign of the three authoritarian leaders, namely Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, these leaders
repressed the organization heavily whenever they considered the organization a potential
or a readily serious threat to the stability of the regime. Many of its prominent members,
such as, Khayrat al-Shater, Al-Monem Abu Al-Futouh, Essam al-Eryan, Mohammed
Mursi, and some who later left the organization, were subject to imprisonment because of
accusations related to their allegiance to the Muslim Brohterhood. For example, just
before the parliamentary elections in 1995, the security officials detained 82 prominent
middle-aged members of the organization (El Ghobashy 2005). In 2000, again before the
parliamentary elections the government arrested 20 candidates who were later sentenced
to one-year imprisonment by a military court. Nevertheless, despite the regime's arbitrary
waves of repressions, El Ghobashy stated, the Muslim Brohterhood did not refrain from
cooperating with the government. Interestingly, El Ghobashy (2005) stated that the
Muslim Brohterhood was accused of being "sham democrats, and avid theocrats intent on
overturning the secular state" (p.381). It might be said that many people in Egypt were
not convinced about the MB's commitment to democracy. Yet, before these views can be
treated as facts, these claims have to be substantiated with tangible evidences.
The organizational structure in the Muslim Brohterhood consists of three important
pillars. The Shura Council (Majlis al Shura), is the legislative body and has 100
members. They choose 13 members for the Guidance Bureau (Maktab al Irsahd), which
is the politburo of the organization. The General Guide is at the top of the hierarchy as
the chief executive and official spokes person. The Muslim Brohterhood is the largest and
one of the most influential Islamic movements (Soage & Franganillo 2010). It has sister
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organizations with same or different names around the World, particularly in the Middle
East.
4. Salafism in Egypt
Salaf means predecessor, forerunner and refers to the Prophet Muhammad and his
Companions. According to the Salafi belief system, Salafism represents adherence to the
Islamic thought and practice as it was preached and implemented in approximately the
first century of Islam. Salafism developed with a consistent idealism around the 1300s as
reaction to the perceived degeneration in Islamic thought and practice (Brown 2011). It
mostly spread in the Islamic world in the 18th century. Salafi beliefs hold that Salaf, the
predecessors, generally include the first three successive generations, and they had the
purest understanding of Islam since they learned it directly from the Prophet or from his
Companions (Wiktorowicz 2001).
According to Salafi thought, there is only one correct interpretation of Islam, and
that was epitomized by the Salaf, the predecessors (Meijer 2009). Thus, Salafi thought
denies the Islamic pluralism that was institutionalized in the mainstream Islamic tradition,
specifically through the four main Sunni madhab, school of thought and religious
jurisprudence (Wiktorowicz 2005). In the same vein, they believe that four distinct
madhab are unnecessary distortions and must be avoided. Salafis claim that in subsequent
years, the pure understanding and the ways of practice of Islam became subject to
contamination and were distorted with bidat, innovations. Salafis attribute this 'deviation'
to the natural corrosive effect of the time and Islam's spread among different cultures.
Based on these convictions, Salafis claim to be adhering strictly to the purest form of
Islamic thought and practice, as they believed it to have been lived in the Prophet's time.
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In other words, Salafism is a quest for the pristine understanding of Islam as in the
‘golden age’ of the Prophet and his companions (Haykel 2009). Salafism holds that
learning and practicing the pure form of Islam will eventually bring society into an ideal
Islamic order (Brown 2011).
Although Salafi thought is considered to reside in the Sunni branch of Islam, their
perception of different madhab as ‘unnecessary distortions’ renders Salafism a distinct
tradition that is considered somewhat “radical” by most Sunni Muslims. The strict
interpretation of religious doctrine leads to a firm boundary between Salafis and others;
Muslims and non-Muslims. For them, some practices that are widely observed by
Muslims under different madhabs and cultures, such as visiting tombs, celebrating the
Prophet’s birthday, constitute a heresy and thus must be renounced (Wiktorowicz 2001).
Their “uncompromising stance has led others in the Muslim community to label Salafis
as stubborn radicals” (Wiktorowicz 2001:21).
Salafism is also called Wahhabism, with a reference to Ibn Abd al Wahhab (17031792). Although Wahhabism is a Salafi trend and might be considered a revivalist
movement in the classic Salafi tradition, it does not represent a wide spectrum of Salafi
thought (Meijer 2009). Wahhabism is followed widely in Saudi Arabia. Salafism includes
diverse traditions that hold different and even conflicting viewpoints on issues such as,
politics, state, and violence (Wiktorowicz 2005). For example, although most Salafis do
not approve of violence as a method, there are militant Salafis, such as those who
constitute the bulk of the terrorist networks, such as Al Qaida, who employ violent
methods as a means of political struggle. Esposito (2011) argued that “Salafi religious
exclusivism can lead to intolerance of other believers, both other Muslims—in particular
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Shii Muslims, whom Salafis despise—and non-Muslims” (p. 56). Nevertheless, Esposito
emphasized “a religiously exclusivist theology is not necessarily violent” (p. 56).
The introduction of Salafi thought into the Egyptian religious domain began with
Sheikh Hamid al-Fiqi, who intended to purify the Islamic thought from "deviations and
heretical innovations" (El Houdaiby 2012). To this end, he founded Gam'iyyat Ansar alSunna in 1926. El Houdaiby argued that Salafism became an established Islamic
movement after the 1970s. According to El Houdaiby, several factors played a significant
role in the spread of Salafism in Egypt in the 1970s. First, it was a corollary of
disempowerment of al-Azhar –the highest religious (Sunni) authority and Islam's oldest
scholarly association. Al-Azhar scholars had traditionally had a great influence in the
Egyptian society and played a significant role in anti-colonial campaigns (Bayat 2007).
From Muhammad Ali onward, including the British, Egyptian rulers perceived al-Azhar's
independence as a threat to their rule. With Nasser's deliberate policies, already weakened
al-Azhar lost its independence and influence and assumed a political role of legitimizing
rulers (al Awwa 2005). Consequently, El Houdaiby argued, al-Azhar became
increasingly confronted with Islamist groups, which gradually leaned towards the other
schools of thought, such as Salafism and Qutbism for scholarship.
Secondly, the 1967 defeat against Israel shook Egyptian's believes in Nasserism
and pan-Arabism and the ensuing identity crisis turned many towards Egyptians to
religion and Islamism (El Houdaiby 2012). Moreover, after Sadat assumed power, he
considered 'apolitical' Salafism as a bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood and
Nasserism.
As a third reason, some liberal interlocutors suggested that return migrants from
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the Gulf countries, specifically from Saudi Arabia, came back indoctrinated with Salafi
related thoughts. Besides this, El Houdaiby (2012) claimed that the Egyptian Salafi
network was being financially assisted by oil-rich Gulf countries, particularly by Saudi
Arabia, to export their Salafi ideology.
According to Salafi thought, a valid state system for Muslims must be based on
Sharia Law. Salafis do not approve the modern secular state and democratic institutions,
nevertheless; as long as a ruler is Muslim, Muslims must obey his rule and must not rebel
(Brown 2011). Nevertheless, if the ruler "ceases to be a Muslim, he can be opposed
violently" (Brown 2011:3). As Brown argued, most Salafi shcolars are opposed even to
voting in democratic elections. Salafis in Egypt were not involved in politics directly
before the 2011 Revolution. Thus, their entry into politics was a big surprise for most
Egyptians and a significant departure from their basic tenets (Brown 2013). Most Salafi
scholars adopted political quietism and avoided controversial political issues during the
Mubarak regime and preached for individual salvation through the practice of Islam free
of 'heretical innovations' (El Houdaiby 2012). Several days before the January 25
demonstrations the spokesperson of Al-Dawa al-Salafiyya in Alexandria stated that they
would not support the protests against the regime.
Egyptians differentiate between the militant Salafi groups, who are claimed to be
active in the Sinai region and others who do not approve use of violence. During my stay
in Egypt, I met with many Egyptians who adhere to Salafi thought. Some of my
informants emphasized the fact that although they had adopted the Salafi beliefs, which
they roughly referred as “a quest for the pristine form of Islam”, they were not affiliated
with any specific Salafi group or leader. Salafi men usually have long beard. Salafi
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women wear niqab, a cover the face. Although al-Azhar University, as the highest Sunni
authority in the country does not recognize Salafism as a legitimate Islamic tradition, the
university has many Salafi students and some professors (Brown 2011).
Unlike the Sunni tradition, the Salafi movements in Egypt do not have a central
authority or a shared leader (Brown 2011). Salafism in Egypt lacks a central and
hierarchical structure and has multiple leaders who have different interpretations about
politics. Thus, the various movements rarely take shared positions regarding political
developments in Egypt. The movement is concentrated around multiple influential
preachers, most of whom are loosely connected to Wahhabi scholars in Saudi Arabia.
After the 2011 Revolution, some Salafi groups reorganized themselves. In 2013, there
were six main active Salafi groups and five political parties in Egypt (Brown 2013).
According to El Houdaiby (2012), two of these groups are relatively more influential and
have a larger base of public support. One is Ansar al-Sunna Organization, which has a
presence in all areas of Egypt. The second is the Al-Dawa al-Salafiyya in Alexandria. Al
Nour Party11, which is the largest Salafi political party, is associated with Al-Dawa alSalafiyya.
Brown (2011) stated that in the post Mubarak period, many violent incidents,
particularly by those committed against Coptic Egyptians were attributed to Salafis in the
media. However, Brown explained that “in many cases, that events did not unfold as
reported by the generally hostile press” (p. 7)12. Media reports usually lack specific
11
In the 2011–12 Egypt parliamentary elections, the Islamist Bloc led by Al‑Nour party
received 7,534,266 votes out of a total 27,065,135 correct votes (27.8%) with 83 out of
96 seats (BBC 2012).
12
“Salafis suffered not only because of their own misguided and at times criminal steps,
but also because of unfavorable and often inaccurate media reporting…tales of Salafi
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details as to whether the violent acts were perpetrated by a specific Salafi movement in a
coordinated and planned fashion for a specific political or social aim and probably more
importantly, without specifying whether a religious motivation was involved. Kenan
(MB) is a Muslim Egyptian in his mid thirties and he is a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood. He explained that he finds suspicious the way that some violent attacks
against Coptic Egyptians took place in the past ant the fact that the Egyptian security
forces could not unravel the plot in a persuasive manner:
On January 1, 2011 20 or more people got killed and many people were wounded
in a car bomb attack on a Coptic Church in Alexandria. It was inhumane and
unacceptable of course and it was a shame for us, for Egyptians. In the ensuing
events, angry Copts attacked a nearby mosque and they clashed with Muslim
Egyptians. The Ministry of Interior blamed a terrorist organization from Gaza.
But, I don’t remember that the police documented any hard proof for that. They
said that “a sophisticated remote controlled device” was used in the attack. Yes,
that might be true, but why didn’t the police bring them to justice? Where are
those people? Occasionally such attacks take place in Egypt and in different
countries and the “Salafis” or “Islamist radical terrorists” are there to blame and
most of the time without enough evidence. And the media is always ready to
make it even bigger. More interestingly, in a more recent incident in Sinai, it was
last year in 2012 in Ramadan, a group of armed attackers ambushed the Egyptian
soldiers who were eating dinner and killed 17 of them. Then, they stole one of the
armored vehicles and drove it towards Israeli border. Of course, the Israeli
soldiers killed all of them at the scene. Isn’t it strange? No body claimed
responsibility, but again, the military blamed a “Jihadist” terrorist network. It is
really strange. They must be really stupid to flee to Israel just to die. I believe that
the Mubarak regime was complicit in some of the past attacks against Coptic
Christians. The regime used the so-called “radical Islamist” threat to create an air
of fear inside Egypt. Such a fear helped Mubarak justify his hard-handed rule
against the international audience. I don’t say that we don’t have any extremist in
Egypt13.
In spite of occasional radical statements by individual Salafi leaders, their
barbarism became a salient theme in the Egyptian press, especially in liberal-leaning
papers” (Brown 2011:8).
13
For more information: (Fahim 2011; Fahim 2012). Khalil (2012) stated that Churchbombing case in Alexandria remained unsolved and “it’s unclear whether there was ever
any hard evidence to connect the city’s Salafists to the church bombing” (p.184).
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engagement in politics through several Salafi parties will likely lead to a certain level of
moderation in their views or discourse (Brown 2011). As El Ghobashy (2005) suggested
for the Muslim Brotherhood’s engagement in electoral politics, "it is the institutional
rules of participation rather than the commandments of ideology that motivate political
parties (p. 390). El-Ghobashy suggested, "the Islamist parties are subject to the same
institutional rules of the political game." (p. 375). Thus, in order to survive in politics, the
Salafi leaders will have to revise some of their ideas.
For example the al-Nour Party’s official website, which Brown (2011) considers
is a token of political pragmatism of the party, states that “Sharia law must protect the
personal religious rights of Copts, whose personal status and family law are handled by
their own religious systems” (Brown 2011:10). Along with other Salafi parties, al-Nour
stated that they recognize the women’s significant role in politics and they would
nominate at least one female candidate.
5. Youth Movements
Because of the significant role of the youth movements in organizing the protests
and their ensuing contribution during the 18 days of protests as the main bulk of the
protestors, many observers like to describe the January 25 Revolution as a youth
revolution (Shehata 2012). Shehata argued that youth movements, such as the April 6
Movement, We Are All Khaled Said, Youth for Change, the ElBaradie Campaign, and
Tadamon, had very important contributions to make in the successful outcome of the
Tahrir Revolution. First, they used innovative methods and strategies of organization,
mobilization, and actual resistance and struggle tactics against the security forces.
Secondly, their cross-ideological discourse helped overcome the pervasive divisions
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among the established opposition groups. Thus, they unified the opposition against the
Mubarak regime. As a third contribution, Shehata argued that the youth movements
created a link between social and political activism.
Shehata (2012) suggested that beginning with the start of second Palestinian
Intifada in 2000, which marks an important turning point for youth mobilization in the
Middle East, until the January 25 Revolution, youth activism in Egypt can be
conveniently analyzed under four phases.
a. Phase One (2000-2003)
After the instigation of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000 youth mobilization
gained significant momentum (Azimi 2005). Through the newly founded Egyptian
Popular Committee for the Support of the Palestinian Intifada (EPCSPI) thousands of
young Egyptians got acquainted with political activism. Thousands of students
participated, for first time in their lives in demonstrations for the Palestinian cause
between 2000 and 2001. Shehata (2012) explained that the EPCSPI offered, quite
remarkably, a cross-ideological platform that embraced students from all political
orientations. The organization’s decentralized and horizontal structure, largely
autonomous from the Central Committee in Cairo, enabled the creation of various
committees in different locations. Thus, the organization hosted thousands of students to
express their resentment about the Israeli and U.S. governments through different protest
activities.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 added a further momentum to youth activism in
Egypt. Several new youth initiatives, such as the Cairo Campaign and the 20 March
Movement were established to mobilize support against the invasion. These movements
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successfully coordinated with transnational anti-war movements and they organized
several joint panels and conferences. These initiatives on a national and international
level contributed to a working culture between young activists who belonged to different
political ideologies.
b. Phase Two (2004-2006)
After 2004, the focus of the youth activism changed from external and
transnational issues to domestic political problems. The emergence of the Kefaya
Movement in 2004 as a reaction to possible hereditary succession of Gamal Mubarak
enabled many youth activists to raise their concerns for their country (Oweidat 2008).
Scores of Egyptian youth joined Kefaya and its subgroup Youth for Change. Particularly
Youth for Change included many new members some of whom were active in the
EPCSPI. Freedom Now was also another organization, which provided a venue for youth
activists who demanded substantial constitutional and political reforms. These
organizations organized numerous protests between 2004 and 2006. Youth’s demands
were political democracy within the university and within the larger society, better
education, employment, housing, and healthcare.
c. Phase Three: (2006-2009)
Shehata (2012) stated that after the 2005 elections the youth activism turned its
attention from political reforms and democratization to economic and social issues. The
2006 workers strikes in Mahalla, a city located in the middle of Nile Delta with the
largest public sector textile company of Egypt, marked the start of a new wave of labor
protests that had wider repercussions in Egypt. The protests started with demands for
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better wages and working conditions and intensified in numbers from 222 in 2006 to
more than 700 in 2010 (El-Mahdi 2010a).
The unprecedented increase in the numbers of the labor protests that was about
600 in 2006 and 2007 led some young activists to reconsider their model for change
through engagement with the established party or non-governmental oppositional groups
(Shehata, 2012). In their assessment, these movements, such as the Kefaya, were elitists
who often had abstract demands that did not necessarily reflect the priorities of the
masses (De Semet 2012; Shehata 2012). Thus, the established oppositional movements
failed to link with the critical masses whose main concerns were more concrete matters
such as low wages, increasing food prices, bad working conditions. To this end, in order
to bridge this gap between the democratization and labor movements, a group of young
activists from the Youth for Change Movement founded the Tadamon (solidarity)
Movement in 2007 (De Semet 2012). The Tadamon Movement aimed to unify various
grassroots forms of activism to create a popular movement in which economic and
political demands would be emphasized equally. Tadamon included activists from youth
from leftists, liberals, and Islamists groups (Shehata 2012).
Tadamon supported several labor movements in different parts of Egypt by
providing them legal support and by publicizing their activities and concerns through
print and online media (Shehata 2012). Nevertheless, in 2008, differences of opinion
emerged inside the movement. Some activist from the Labor Party and liberal al-Ghad
Party abandoned the Movement with the belief that the ‘gradual change’ from increasing
bottom up societal pressure, as the Tadamon believed, was not the best way of struggle
against the Mubarak regime. Those who left believed that Egyptian society needed a
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more radical change and the society was ready for that. To this end, in March 2008, these
young activists from the Labor Party and al-Ghad proposed a general strike in support of
the strike of textile workers in Mahalla (Ottoway & Hamzawy 2011). The proposed strike
was planned to take place on April 6, 2008 and it was announced through a Facebook
page dedicated for the purpose. The call reverberated throughout the country. The Kefaya
Movement and al-Ghad Party declared their support. Thousands of individual subscribed
to the Facebook Page in a short while. Nevertheless, some of the opposition groups such
as the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Wafd Party did not support the initiative.
The success of these protests movements might be related their independence
from the established opposition groups and parties (Abaza 2013). Abaza suggested that
the absence –or their minor role at best– of the established political organizations in these
movements implied a despair of “the end of politics” (p. 88); “in the sense that political
parties seem to have been absent, or rather less influential, in the street compared to the
expanding self-organization of citizens, workers or meetings organized by e-mail, or
Facebook groups” (Abaza 2013:88).
Through the tremendous increase in the use of digital and social media tools such
as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and individual blogging. Political activism was carried
to the alternative cyberspace (Lim 2012). Pictures and videos of security agencies’
brutality and torture against detained individuals and prisoners, the misery of people such
as those waiting in the long lines for hours for bread were spread all over the internet.
Abaza (2013) argued that this phenomenon concurred with growing number of
demonstrations and strikes in the face of increasing food prices and with demands for
higher salaries and better working conditions. These events included people from a large
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segment of society including workers, bus drivers, university professors, and tax
collectors.
Security forces responded harshly to the general strike in the city of El-Mahalla
El-Kubra on April 6, 2008. Many people were injured and security forces arrested many
activists and workers. Event though the strike attempt ended apparently without success,
it further distanced thousands of people from the regime and more importantly it led to
the creation of the April 6 Movement, which would spearhead, along with several other
youth groups, the January 25 Protests in 2011. In their founding declaration the leaders of
the April 6 Movement pointed to an inherent problem that the most opposition politicians
and intellectuals were disconnected from the general public and were unaware of their
real demands and concerns. Thus, the April 6 Movement claimed that the change would
be realized through the struggle of ordinary people (Shehata 2012).
Abaza (2013) identifies a significant distinction in these protest movements that
intensified after 2000; their demands were more basic and concrete, namely economic
and material ones rather than demands of democratic reforms or removal of the
emergency laws as promoted by the established political parties and organizations such as
the Nasserists, the Leftists, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Abaza suggested that it would
be more appropriate to define the wave of these protests movements as “non-state
centric” and “non-competitive” (p.87) forms of contestation. Thus, she argued they
gained increasingly more popular support.
d. Phase Four: (2010-2011)
A significant turning point before the January 25 Revolution was the return of
Mohamed ElBaradei to Egypt (Bilgin 2012). ElBaradei is a Nobel Peace Laureate and the
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former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). After he
retired from his position in November 2009 in the IAEA, ElBaradei affirmed his intention
to run for the presidency in 2011 (Guardian 2009). He was already critical of human
rights violations in Egypt, but after he retired he became more vocal against the regime
and Mubarak. He demanded constitutional reforms. His return to Egypt in February 2010
brought a new wave of youth activism to the country.
6. Return of Mohamed ElBaradei
Mohamed ElBaradei was the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) from 1997 to 2009. He was a respectable diplomat and was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize, jointly with the IAEA in 2005. After he finishing his third term in the IAEA
in November 2009, before returning to Egypt, he became a vocal critic of the regime in
Egypt and Mubarak himself. Apparently, many Egyptians believed that because of his
international reputation, Mubarak would hardly eliminate him politically by threat and
intimidation or by discrediting unfairly. Suddenly, on the eve of the 2010 parliamentary
elections and 2011 presidential elections, ElBaradei became the new hope for many
Egyptians (Khalil 2012).
In an interview held in December 2010, ElBaradei stated that the system was no
longer sustainable and it had to change. He articulated that the established elite in the
country was corrupt; however, they seemed dissatisfied with the existing political system.
Thus, he expected the change to stem from those in the younger generations, not from the
old politicians, most of whom were some how ‘coopting’ with the regime (Daily News
2010). He demanded constitutional amendments that would allow independent
candidates, without being obligated to be a member of an existing party, to run in the
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2011 Egyptian presidential elections.
Suddenly ElBaradei became the center of attention for those who opposed the
idea of Gamal Mubarak’s potential presidency.
People seemed to look to him as their salvation, the hero on a white horse who
would single-handedly save the country from a Gamal Mubarak succession
scenario. ElBaradei had managed to become a rallying point for the vast ABG
(Anybody-But-Gamal) voter bloc (Khalil 2012:106).
When he arrived in Cairo in February 2010, around one thousand people
welcomed him with great joy. As soon as he arrived he was hosted on several TV shows.
Enthusiasm around him grew gradually for a several months. His meetings and panels
were publicized by the independent media and followed with great attention. He was
presented as a savior (Aslan 2010). Nevertheless, the state-owned media either denied
acknowledging the public excitement he caused or portrayed him as an outsider and
questioned his loyalty on the grounds that he had spent the last several decades outside
Egypt. Osama Saraya, editor of the state-owned Al-Ahram daily, stated:
El-Baradei's remarks were tantamount to a constitutional coup and opened a door
for George W Bush's policy of constructive chaos into Egypt…A presidential
candidate must be fully Egyptian and not, like El-Baradei, hold a Swedish
passport. El-Baradei's remarks open the door for Islamist fundamentalists to have
access to power and this in turn opens the gates of hell on Egypt. (El-Din 2009)
In February 2010, together with several political activists from different political
orientations, ElBaredei established the National Association for Change, a loosely
bounded civil society and youth group that intended to campaign for some urgent
constitutional amendments regarding the elections (BBC 2010). Many young Egyptian
activists volunteered for a nationwide petition campaign to gather signatures of citizens in
support of a seven article list of demands that included annulling the emergency law and
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constitutional amendments that would enable individuals outside the national assembly to
run for presidency.
Despite the smear campaign by the regime, the youth around ElBaradei were
hopeful and the petition campaign seemed on track for several months (Khalil 2012).
ElBaradei was apparently using his strong international image as a long time successful
diplomat and a Nobel Laurette. He said once “I had a sort of immunity so I could speak a
little louder” (Khalil 2012:110). He also rightly recognized the growing societal tension
and pointed out that change was imminent and this would come from the youth. In a
speech made in September 2010, ElBaredei suggested: “the three-decade rule of president
Hosni Mubarak was a decaying, nearly collapsing temple", and …regime change was
possible in the coming year” (Shenker 2010).
ElBaradei called for a boycott of the November 2010 parliamentary elections. He
warned that the elections would be fraudulent as usual and claimed that "anyone who
participates in the vote either as a candidate or a voter goes against the national will"
(Shenker 2010). But he could not mobilize enough support from the established
opposition movements. Particularly, without the support of the Muslim Brotherhood,
which had endorsed ElBaradei’s petition campaign, a boycott call would not yield any
result (Khalil 2012).
Despite the initial enthusiasm and hope that ElBaradei had caused, the ElBaradei
for President campaign soon lost its momentum (Aly 2012; Khalil 2012). Interestingly,
ElBaradei kept a very busy travel schedule. He was out of Egypt very often. Furthermore,
rather than trying to develop affinity with the people on the streets he preferred
broadcasting his message through panels, media conferences, and YouTube messages. He
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refrained from public meetings that he apparently felt uncomfortable with. He lacked the
proper local knowledge of Egyptian politics and proved he was not a charismatic
politician that would appeal to masses thus his influence among the public remained
limited (Khalil 2012). According to the political scientist Abdel Monem Said Aly (2012),
who was close to Mubarak regime, the marginalization of the ElBaradei campaign in a
very short time before the presidential elections might have caused a further false sense
of “regime resilience” that would later proved detrimental for the regime.
Many secular interlocutors who participated in this research suggested that
ElBaradei’s return made significant contributions in Egyptian’s struggle against
Mubarak. He became the focal point of counter inheritance campaign against the possible
candidacy of Gamal Mubarak. As quoted earlier, owing to his status of “immunity”,
ElBaradei contributed to the process of delegitimation of the Mubarak regime on national
and international levels. George Ishak (C), one the founders of the Kefaya Movement,
said in our interview that ElBaradei’s role was particularly significant in that he stated;
“No reform from within the system, Mubarak has to leave.”
His lack of energy and commitment for the real politics on the streets proved to be
true in that he was not in Egypt on January 25, 2011 and he appeared only once in Tahrir
during the 18 days of protests. Informants who were either members of the Muslim
Brotherhood or a Salafist group or people who were sympathetic to these religious groups
interpreted the role of ElBaredei very differently. For most of them, he was a “part of a
foreign, an American project” who would divert Egypt from following an Islamic
direction.
Abdulkadir (AE), who was a devout Muslim and a sympathizer of the Muslim
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Brotherhood stated:
ElBaradei is not even an Egyptian. He lived outside Egypt for years. He does not
know Egypt and Egyptians. Furthermore, when you ask people about him outside
Cairo no one recognizes him. Why did he not become a candidate in the
presidential elections after Mubarak? Because he knew that he would not get any
votes.
This divergence of opinion between the seculars and the Islamist about ElBaradei
stems from the fact became one of the three main political figures in unified opposition
against President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in the post revolution period. Thus,
informants who had affinity with the Islamist movements did not acknowledge his
contribution to the Egyptian opposition against Mubarak regime in the pre revolution
period.
7. Conclusion
In the analysis of pre-revolution period, we see that a gradual structural change
was in progress that refers to the transformed relations between the state and the society.
The oppositional groups had gained relative political freedom roughly in the last decade
of Mubarak’s rule. The emergence of the Kefaya Movement in 2004 signified a turning
point. Kefaya challenged President Mubarak and his family directly against the
possibility of hereditary succession of Gamal Mubarak. In a gradual manner, Egyptians
became more vocal and confrontational in expressing their resentments against the
Egyptian state through demonstrations, protests, strikes, and youth activism. Furthermore,
over the years, young Egyptians became more politicized and experienced in using the
marvels of the Internet and social media to reveal the excesses of the security forces and
to get organized around a common agenda.
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Part II: THE ENCOUNTER OR SHOWDOWN: 2011 TAHRIR REVOLUTION
This chapter will examine the first phase, ‘Breach of the Peace’ in my analysis of
the 2011 Egyptian revolution, which was conceptualized as a social drama. Swartz et al.
(1966) presented their model of social dramas as processes that occur between two major
parties, namely two adversaries while one is relatively dominant in terms of power and
the other is the antagonist who challenges the first. In line with the theory, this study
considers the Mubarak regime and the Egyptian people as the two contestants in the
power struggle. Yet, it is necessary to admit that this is a subjective classification and
does fall short in reflecting the political picture exactly since there were more than these
two blocs that were involved (directly or indirectly) in this struggle. It would be a mistake
to assume that every Egyptian in the country supported the demonstrations. On the
contrary, there were Egyptians who opposed the demonstrations and supported Mubarak.
Alternatively, instead of naming one of the major parties of the contest as Egyptian
people, or just as people, one may consider using the word ‘protestors or revolutionaries’.
Yet, then another problem emerges; there were many people who were intensely against
the Mubarak regime, but they did not or could not participate in the protests for various
reasons. They were not among the protestors and thus cannot be named as revolutionaries
in any literal sense. However, most of them had one or more of their family members in
the protests and by having lived in almost three decades of repressive regime of Mubarak,
the silent masses were certainly part of the power equation against the state. Thus, despite
these reservations and given the great numbers of protestors that exceeded several
million, this study identifies the two major parties of the 2011 Egyptian revolution as
people versus the state or the regime.
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Chapter 6: 2011 TAHRIR REVOLUTION AS A SOCIAL DRAMA
Introduction
The reasons behind the January 25 Tahrir Revolution was of a socioeconomic and
political nature. Besides, there was the state repression and intimidation against its
own citizens. Wide segments of the population had turned against the regime in
recent years of Mubarak, particularly from 2008 to 2010, the numbers of protests
increased dramatically. There was already a high tension in the society. Mubarak
ruled with cycles of relaxation and repression. The 2010 parliamentary elections
signaled the beginning of a new cycle of repression. The Muslim Brotherhood and
the opposition were pushed out. In addition, there was the issue of heredity
succession from the Mubarak to his son Gamal. (From interview with Amr
Hamzawy (LI), a liberal, parliamentarian and political scientist).
In a similar vein, Dr. Said (FR) explained the reasons for the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution as follows:
Retrospectively, I believe, structural contradictions that were caused by
socioeconomic problems and accompanied by political repression by the state led
to Tahrir Revolution. There was a tremendous demographic change at work to
which the state failed to respond appropriately. The population more than doubled
in the last 30 years, from 40 million in 1980 to 88 million in 2010. In 2010 the
Egyptian per capita income was about $6300 and about 20 percent of the
population were living under the poverty threshold. Life expectancy in 2010 was
72 years (rose from 57 years in 1980). Moreover, the literacy rate increased from
40 percent in 1980 to 72 percent in 2010. Mubarak regime's successfully reduced
infant mortality and this played a significant role in this rapid demographic
change. The young generations were highly educated, yet there were serious
hindrances for them to start their own life. Because of the high rates of
unemployment 14and high rates of poverty they are stuck with their parents until
they get married in their early 30s. The middle class, though not significantly
wealthy, expanded in the last two decades. Moreover, about 30.000 civil society
organizations, a growing independent media and increasing use of social media all
contributed to the greater awareness of state repression and political activism
among the youth. The regime was neither aware nor ready to respond
constructively to these social and demographic challenges. Beside these structural
factors, there were those dramatic developments, what I call circumstantial
factors, in the political environment. The public disappointment and rage about
14
In 2010 the unemployment rate in Egypt was 8.97 (Index Mundi 2010) and 83 percent
of the unemployed belonged to the age group of 15-29 (Aly 2012). The college graduates
were ten times more likely to be unemployed that those who had only an elementary
school education (Goldstone 2011)
125
the rigged 2010 parliamentary elections; ElBaradei's challenge to the regime, the
Tunisian Revolution, and the mismanagement of the crisis, that is the 18 days of
protests, all contributed to the removal of Mubarak.
In his analysis of the ‘Arab Spring’, Goldstone (2011) argued that what drives
revolutions is not simply the increasing food prices or lack or absence of economic
growth; but “it is the persistence of widespread and unrelieved poverty amid increasingly
extravagant wealth” Goldstone (2011:12). Although there were clear signs of
socioeconomic and political deficiencies and high levels of societal tension, hardly
anyone saw the coming of the revolution in Tunisia, Egypt or elsewhere in the Middle
East. Moreover, these were not new phenomena and Egyptians had been suffering
because of these malaises for years. The above mentioned socioeconomic and political
factors do not necessarily lead to revolutionary movements. The literature on revolutions
suggests that even if revolutionary movements emerge they hardly end with a
revolutionary outcome (McAdam et al. 2001). Thence, a more relevant approach here is
to ask why and how the protests that started on January 25 gained a revolutionary claim
and how they succeeded to bring about a revolutionary outcome in just 18 days and in a
relatively peaceful manner.
The impact of the Tunisian Revolution on the psyche of average Egyptians was
beyond the influence of any group of activist or elite whose reach, in most cases, were
limited to certain classes of Egyptians, whether in terms of economic class or
generational groups (El-Ghobashy 2011). After all, the Kefaya movement, which
undeniably marked a turning point en route to 2011 Egyptian Revolution, failed to build
on the initial enthusiasm that it generated by bringing many diverse groups of individuals
together when it first appeared in 2004. The Kefaya movement did not evolve into a
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massive political opposition movement and dissolved after several years of activism. In a
similar vein, the initial enthusiasm that emerged with the return of ElBaradei (Khalil
2012) did not turn into a lasting unified opposition movement. Contrary to expectations,
the coalition that organized around ElBaradei dissolved before the elections. The
opposition was deeply divided and preferred to participate separately in the elections (Aly
2012). Thus, ElBaradei's National Society for Change was marginalized in a sense and
was left out of the equation without securing a considerable public support.
The Tunisian Revolution that resulted in the ousting of the Ben Ali regime on
January 14, 2011 with its relatively quick pace (in 27 days) and peaceful nature, led
Egyptians to contemplate the “impossible”; ‘why not the same in Egypt?’ Nevertheless,
although the air was highly charged particularly after the brutal murder of young
Egyptian Khaled Said in June 2010 and the rigged parliamentary elections of December
2010, which was probably the worst and most impudent of its kind in Egyptian history,
this wishful thinking was not enough to mobilize the apolitical masses. In what follows,
the 18 days of protests will be analyzed under four separate four separate phases, each of
which signifies a turning point for the protests, of social drama.
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1. Breach of Peace
For Swartz et al. (1966), the phase of ‘breach of the peace’ is the decisive verge
where one of the major parties of contention considers itself to have gained “enough”
amount of political support to initiate an encounter against the adversary. This calculation
may be realistic or illusionary. It is a strategic threshold on the way to the initial
encounter or crisis. It marks the culmination of an already developing societal tension.
Swartz et al. argued that in many instances, without the lead of any particular event, the
group's acquisition of considerable support can lead to further tension in relationships.
The group may instigate the crisis itself or provoke the adversary for an action. In other
instances, increased tension may cause the adversary to react preemptively and in a
violent manner.
As will be discussed in the following section, the brutal killing of young Egyptian
Khaled Said on June 6, 2010 by the Egyptian police and the parliamentary elections in
November – December 2010 –arguably the “most fraudulent” elections of Egyptian
history– could be considered as the advent of the phase of ‘breach of the peace’ for the
2011 Egyptian Revolution that is conceptualized as a social drama.
a. Death of Khaled Said
Khaled Said was a young Egyptian of 28 years of age when he was killed by
Egyptian police officers in Alexandria. Khaled Said became a national symbol and
created a focal point of public anger against the regime. Most of the interviewed
informants, regardless of their political orientation, referred to death of Khaled Said as an
important threshold. Many Egyptians became convinced that the state was running
against its own citizens.
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On June 6, 2010, two plain-clothes Egyptian police officers entered an Internet
cafe in Alexandria. The officers headed directly to Khaled Said and began dragging him
from the second floor. According to the eyewitness accounts, the young man could not
resist physically when the officers began hitting him (Khalil 2012). They did not let him
speak and without any explanation they dragged him to the entrance of a nearby
apartment. The officers kept beating him and hitting his head to the floor. The incident
happened in a small and busy street that was full with cafes and shops where a curious
and bewildered crowd gathered immediately. The two officers threatened the people
around them not to interfere. In a short while the young Said was lying motionless on the
floor. A doctor, owner a nearby café, checked the young man’s body and told that they
were hitting a dead man. The officers insisted that he was faking and they would wake
him up and continued to hit him. When the officers became sure that he was not faking,
they handled the case with the same kind of recklessness. They made several calls and
soon many officers in uniform and plain clothes arrived at the scene. They took the dead
body of the young man and brought him back after several hours and carefully placed
him to the entrance of the same building. An ambulance arrived soon and they refused to
take a death body and the police threatened and forced the ambulance personnel to take
the body to hospital (Khalil 2012).
The incident shook the residents. After a family member managed to get a picture
of Khaled Said in the morgue, the incident made the headlines in national private media
and on Internet and subsequently it led to a public outcry. The picture showed a
disfigured face with broken jaw and nose, fractures on his skulls, bruises all over his face.
Wael Ghonim, 30 year-old Egyptian who was working as a marketing executive
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for Google in Dubai, read about what happened to Khaled Said in Alexandria and
prepared a Facebook page with the name “We are all Khaled Said”. The Facebook page
attracted the attention of online community among the Egyptian youth and attained
thousands of followers in a very short time15. The police report in the following days
indicated that Khaled Said was a drug dealer and the he suffocated to death because of a
small pack of drug that he tried to swallow to hide it from the police officers. The police
report was confirmed later by a similarly dubious autopsy report.
Selim, (A) a liberal activists and politician in his forties narrated the role of
Khaled Said’s death on the way to the revolution:
Khaled Said’s death was not the first case of police brutality that Egyptians came
to know on national level. The youth movements such as Six April and many
individual blogs were circulating images and videos of torture in police stations.
But, several specific features of the incident separated it from many others and
caused a deep resentment and anger across the country. Khaled Said was an
average young Egyptian; someone whom everybody can easily identify with
around himself as a friend, brother, nephew, or son etc. Thus, people easily
sympathized with him. Secondly, it happened in public and apparently without
any hesitation or fear of possible repercussions. The police was well known for
their cruelty but this was too much.. People, especially the youth, could not take
it. I think the Facebook page, We are all Khaled Said, made a important
contribution and in the following days after incident several youth organization
coordinated many demonstrations around the country.
In a similar vein, Khalil (2012) explained that, given the average profile of
Khaled Said the incident led many Egyptians to contemplate that submitting to the
regime’s excesses would not protect them anymore from possibly being harmed by the
state. Khalil stated that mothers and fathers began to think about what happened to
Khaled Said could happen to their sons.
Dr. Ahmad’s (MB) portrayal of the media’s “differential treatment of the
15
By mid-June followers of We are all Khaled Said Facebook page reached to 130,000
(Preston et al. 2011).
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Islamists by the regime and the media” explains why Egyptians adopted Khaled Said as a
symbol.
People were feeling that there was a problem in our lives…They were eating dirty
food, streets were crummy, salaries were very low, and financial scandals
occurred every now and then without any consequences for the responsible ones.
There was no justice. The election, especially in 2010 was a scandal. People felt
that the regime was responsible for everything. People were waiting for the
opportunity. These were feelings not usually voiced out. In addition, the issue of
heritage of presidency from Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal Mubarak was
annoying. But the boiling point was the torture cases by the police; either Khaled
Said, the famous guy, or Sayed Bilal the infamous guy. Khaled Said died in the
street and the police said that he was a drug dealer. Sayed Bilal was another guy
that got killed under police custody a few months after Khaled Said. After the
explosion in the church in December 2010 (I don’t know who did it) he was taken
from home for questioning; a few days later he was dead. He was a Salafist and
had a big beard16. The public and the media did not care much about him. He
received little attention. Media always was talking about crimes against nonIslamists. Khaled Said’s Facebook page received 4 thousand fans in one hour.
After 10 days, the number of the subscriber reached to 184 thousand. When I was
writing my book, it had 1,700, 000 followers.
b. 2010 Parliamentary Elections
Although elections under authoritarian regimes are somewhat paradoxical, they
are not infrequent (Gandhi & Lust-Okar 2009). However, controversial, Magaloni (2006)
showed that elections and hegemonic party regimes are mechanisms that are commonly
used by authoritarian regimes in all parts of the world. Conventional wisdom would
rightfully question the function of elections under authoritarian settings when the ruling
regime successfully and without much difficulty rigs it and engineers its preferred
outcome. The academic literature on elections under authoritarianism offers varying
16
Sayed Bilal, a 31-year-old Salafi, was arrested on January 5, 2011 as a suspect for a
bombing attack in a Coptic Two Saints Church in the New Year's Eve in Alexandria. He
was killed under police custody. The forensic autopsy report determined the cause of
death as cerebral hemorrhage related to head injuries. Later, Alexandria Criminal Court
decided that Sayed Bilal was subjected to police torture under custody (MENA 2011).
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arguments about the subject. Gandi and Przeworski (2007) argued that in order to
countervail threats from larger groups in the society, autocrats very often employ
democratic mechanisms and institutions such as elections and 'elected' legislatures.
In Gandi and Przeworski’s (2007) assessment, it cannot be taken for granted that
"elections necessarily undermine authoritarian regimes; in fact, the opposite generally
appears to be true" (p.417). Depending on the particular socio political setting, elections
serve different aims and produce different effects and short and long term affects. Gandi
and Przeworski suggested: “Specifically, partisan legislatures incorporate potential
opposition forces, investing them with a stake in the ruler’s survival. By broadening the
basis of support for the ruler, these institutions lengthen his tenure” (p.1280).
Through elections, authoritarian regimes provide support, however limited, and
constitute an essential coalition. Any coalition, regardless of its strength, provides the
regime with a certain amount of public support from within the society. In the same vein,
Blaydes (2011) argued that through elections, the Mubarak regime made everyone,
supporters and rivals alike, know that it had a certain base of support within the society.
She asserted that during the rule of Mubarak, elections were a nominal democratic
institutional practice designed to claim the legal tenure (both for the domestic and
international audience) of the government.
The Egyptian Ministry of Interior regularly deployed police officers to supervise
the elections and presidential referendums (Kassem 2004). Police forces in coordination
with the intelligence organizations ensured regime’s desired outcome. To this end, the
Ministry of Interior systematically used various methods including detaining popular
opposition candidate before elections and hindering voters to enter the poling stations.
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One interlocutor who had an Islamic political orientation explained that on one occasion,
at the day of election security forces, who had list of names, prevented him repeatedly
from entering the polling station. He recounted:
When I approached the polling station, police officers checked my id and sent me
to another place. Each time I tried, I was redirected to some other entrance or
polling station and eventually I could not vote.
The 2010 Parliamentary elections were held to form the Ninth Assembly in two
rounds in November and December 2010. All major political parties, other than El-Ghad
Party that endorsed ElBaradei’s call for boycott, participated in the elections. The
elections were held without judicial supervision and independent international
monitoring. The results of the elections justified the concerns of ElBaradei. It turned out
to be one of the most fraudulent elections of the Egyptian history. Mubarak's National
Democratic Party won 420 of 444 contested seats in the parliament. The New Wafd
became the second party and won only six seats. Because of its illegal status, the Muslim
Brotherhood participated in the elections though independent candidates obtained only
one seat. This was a frustrating result for the Muslim Brotherhood that had gained 83
seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections. For many people, this outcome proved the level
of manipulation in the elections.
Kasim, (LI) a liberal Egyptian in his early 40s explained;
Before the elections in 2010, there was a certain level of hope in people.
ElBaredei’s return and his brave petition campaign raised expectations
specifically among the youth and intellectuals. Yet, the 2010 election results were
disastrous and shook the beliefs of people in the system. I think it was the worst
elections in the Egyptian history. The Muslim Brotherhood had gained only one
seat; from 88 seats to one seat? How was that possible? The brutal killing of
Khalid Said by the state security and the fraud in 2010 elections alienated people
against the regime completely.
The regime had employed different strategies to control the outcome of the
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elections. In our interview, Dr. Nagib (FR), a political scientist who was among
important members of the Mubarak’s NDP stated:
In Egypt, whoever runs the election, determines the results.
Several days before the elections in November 2010, the state stopped the
broadcast of several media outlet on different grounds. Besides several important figures
from the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested on trivial excuses. Haroun, (MB) a MB
supporter in his late thirties, explained his experience on polling day in November 2010:
During Mubarak’s rule, the regime had a wide variety of strategies for rigging
elections that were employed before and on the day of the elections. The state
security and police were experts in that. Cancelling opposition votes, denying
access to polling stations for people, intimidating, arresting influential
oppositional figures, vote buying, reproducing votes for the NDP, damaging
ballot box in places that are known to be mainly against the regime, deleting
people’s name on registration lists are well known to Egyptians. People who were
known to be supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood or other oppositional parties
were too intimidated to go to poll stations. Sometimes police arranged groups of
baltagiyya (thugs) to violently confront members of the Ihkwan (the Brotherhood)
around the polling stations.
According to official state records, the ratio of participation in elections was 23
percent in 2005 and 25 percent in 2010 (Masoud 2011). As these low levels of turn
out in the elections suggested, Egyptians had already lost confidence that the elections
would bring any improvement in their lives. Under complete police management, the
elections in November-December 2010 were flagrantly rigged to return 97 percent of the
seats to Mubarak’s vehicle, the National Democratic Party. The elections outraged
political elites and ordinary people alike, spurring a unified opposition protest on
December 12 and left behind fresh memories of street battles in dozens of districts across
the land (El-Ghobashy 2011).
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Contrary to many intellectuals who were close to Mubarak regime, Aly (2012)
identified the increasing social opposition and tension before the events of January 25.
Nevertheless, President Mubarak did not seem to be interested in Aly’s calls for urgent
and comprehensive reforms:
Al-Ahram (state’s main media foundation) prints about 85 percent of press
publications in Egypt and distributes 90 percent of all print publications— so I
had access to information not only about our products but also those of our
competitors. Utilizing this information, I…devised a way of measuring the
degrees of resentment on the part of Egyptian citizens against their government.
Since al-Ahram publications were circulated at approximately 3,000 points
throughout Egypt, I tracked the distribution levels of three pro-state national
newspapers—al-Ahram, al-Akhbar, and al-Gomhuria—and three opposition
newspapers: al-Masry al-Yum, al-Dostur, and al- Shrouk. Utilizing this
information, locations where more opposition papers than pro-state papers were
disseminated were marked in red, and locations where the national press had a
higher circulation in green…Until September 2010 the majority of the map was
always green. In the period leading up to the parliamentary elections, however,
the red spots on the map started to gradually increase. By January 2011, the map
had become almost entirely red: The country was raging with anger. Still, I did
not predict, or expect, imminent revolution (Aly 2012:3).
Aly (2012) interpreted this sudden increase in tension and resentment against the
state as people’s reaction to the rigged parliamentary elections that was held in
November-December 2010: “While I knew that the elections, with their rigging, fraud,
violence, and intimidation, were a national catastrophe, I was also aware of the fact that it
was not the first time that Egyptian elections had been fabricated” (Aly 2012:3).
However, this time the public’s anger did not fade away as he expected.
The killing of Khaled Said and the rigged parliamentary elections in 2010
depleted most Egyptians’ hopes against the regime and as the sudden increase in protests
and online activity in webpages such as “We are all Khaled Said” showed, Egyptians
politicized at unprecedented levels. These two events completely delegitimized the
Mubarak regime in the eyes of the Egyptians.
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2. Crisis: January 25, The First Day of Protests
Introduction
The phase of crisis in social dramas can be conceptualized as instigation of the
final encounter that is usually preceded by an event or events considered by all members
of the political field as a severe violation of a common norm. As Swartz et al. (1966)
argued, this is not necessarily to be a political or legal norm and in many instances it
could be an ethical norm that is of highly political value. Very often this critical incident,
which is interpreted as a severe violation of a common norm, is related, in the minds of
people to 'legitimacy' of the power holders. Violation of such a norm may result in a
crisis, a "momentous juncture or turning point in the relations between components of a
political field" (Swartz et al. 1966:34). By the advent of crisis, hidden animosity turns
into overt conflict. At this point, by application of various mechanisms and strategies –
particularly from the side of antagonist– such as intimidation, terrorizing, conspiracy,
unlawful detentions, the whole society is most likely to position itself in two adversarial
camps. Swartz et al. argued that at this stage, rivalries that prevailed before the crisis
among different groups of society are suspended temporarily until the end of the crisis.
In light of above discussion, January 25, the first day of 18 days of protests can be
considered as the start of ‘crisis’ phase. The Tunisian Revolution that resulted in the
ouster of Ben Ali regime on January 14, 2011 with its relatively quick pace (in 27 days)
led Egyptians to contemplate the “impossible”; ‘why not the same in Egypt?’. The impact
of the Tunisian Revolution on the psyche of ordinary Egyptians was beyond the influence
of any group of activist or elite whose reach, in most cases, was limited to certain classes
of Egyptians, whether in terms of economic class or generational groups (El-Ghobashy
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2011). On January 25, 2011 several youth movements organized nation wide
demonstrations on the National Police Day to protest the widespread police brutality and
the activities of Ministry of Interior.
Particularly, by January 28, “the day of Rage” the crisis reached the threshold
considered as the final encounter. The organizers had aptly used a cultural and religious
occasion, namely the Friday praying that many Muslim Egyptians traditionally attend, to
mobilize greater numbers of people. On January 27, the Muslim Brotherhood declared
their intention to join the protests after the Friday praying. Egyptians who were
encouraged by the unprecedented numbers of protesters during the first three days and
their relative success against the “untouchable” security forces decided to join in ever
larger numbers. Until that day, neither the regime nor the protestors had recognized the
true magnitude of the protest.
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Timeline of the January 25, 2011 Uprisings
January 25:
“Day of Rage”: Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria, Nile
Delta cities of Mansura, Tanta, and in the cities of Assiut and Aswan.
Clashes between the police and demonstrators; police use tear gas and water cannons.
The Ministry of Interior claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood provoked the events. The
Muslim Brotherhood vehemently denied the accusation.
The government blocked access to Twitter (yet it was still accessible through third-party
mobile applications).
January 26:
Protests grew across Egypt; violence continued. Police used live bullets. There were
reports of deaths and wounded people. The Twitter block was lifted.
January 27:
Relatively calm compared to the previous two days. Egyptians were getting prepared for
the "Day of Rage" on Friday, 28th. The Government blocked access to Facebook, but
many people could bypass the block through proxy servers and third-party applications.
January 28:
Egyptians were preparing themselves for a new wave of protests after Friday prayers.
Reports of major disruptions in Internet and cell phone and text message services
occurred.
The Interior Ministry warned of decisive measures.
20 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested overnight.
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Police and demonstrators clashed throughout Egypt. There are reports of deaths and
wounded protestors.
Troops stepped into Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez, but they do not interfere.
Police withdrew from the streets. There were reports of occasional looting in some areas.
January 29:
Shortly after midnight Mubarak announced that he dismissed the cabinet but he rejected
calls to step down. Mubarak appointed Omar Suleiman, former head of intelligence, as
the vice-president (for the first time during his near three decades of rule).
Military presence increased in Cairo and a curfew was declared, but protests continued
throughout the night. The military secured Cairo's antiquities museum from looters.
Thousands of protesters camped in Tahrir Square although soldiers fired into the air in an
attempt to disperse them. Suez had a tense night.
Volunteer groups secured their districts against looters.
January 30:
Thousands of Egyptians remained in Cairo's Tahrir Square. F-16s of the Egyptian Air
Force flew over Tahrir Square.
January 31:
Mubarak still ignored growing calls for his resignation. Despite the military-imposed
curfew, protesters continue to gather in Tahrir Square and different cities. Protesters
remain camped out in Tahrir Square.
The new vice-president assured dialogue with the opposition.
The White House announced that the government must establish sincere dialogue with its
people to resolve the unrest.
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The military repeated that it would not attempt to clash with the protesters.
The EU urged free and fair elections. National and international investors continued
withdrawing significant amounts of capital from Egypt.
Mubarak declared his new cabinet and Mahmoud Wagdi, assumed the role as the new
Minister of Interior.
Al Jazeera reported an unusual scale of interference in its broadcast signal.
February 1:
The planned "March of the Millions" took place in Tahrir Square. There were differing
accounts about the numbers of the protestors. Al Jazeera estimates that there were around
two million protestors present in Tahrir Square in surrounding streets.
In a televised speech Mubarak declared that he would not run for presidential elections in
September 2011 but he refused to step down. Mubarak promised reforms to the
constitution especially for article 76, which virtually prevented any independent
candidate from running for office. He promised that government would concentrate on
improving the economy and creating jobs.
Occasional violent clashes began at night between pro-Mubarak groups and protestors
February 2:
Battle of Camel: Groups of Mubarak supporters, some on camels and some on horses,
charged into crowds of protesters in Tahrir Square. There are reports of deaths and
hundreds of injured people. Some protesters claim that the military allowed thousands of
pro-Mubarak armed thugs, to enter the square.
February 3:
Bursts of gunfire at early hours aimed at protestors in Tahrir Square. Several people died
and some were wounded.
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February 4:
Day of Departure: Hundreds of thousands of protesters continued to remain in Tahrir
Square.
February 5:
Rumors circulated that the military was planning to evacuate protestors from Tahrir
Square.
The leadership of the ruling National Democratic Party, including Gamal Mubarak,
resigned.
February 6:
The Muslim Brotherhood announced its intention to participate in dialogue with
government officials. Vice President Omar Suleiman met with representatives of the
opposition. Omar Suleiman promised reforms.
Egyptian Christians held Sunday Mass in Tahrir Square, secured by a ring of Muslim
Egyptians.
February 7:
Mubarak set up two committees to make changes to the constitution. Thousands
remained in Tahrir Square. Banks reopened, but schools and the stock exchange market
remained closed. To pacify the protesters the government approved a 15 per cent increase
in salaries and pensions.
Google executive and political activist Wael Ghonim, who was in placed detention
during the previous week, was released.
February 8:
According to some sources Egyptians witnessed the biggest crowd of protesters of their
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history.
The vice-president Omar Suleiman announced some constitutional and legislative
reforms to be prepared by representative committees.
February 9:
Labor unions joined the demonstrations. Large-scale strikes started throughout Egypt.
Some political prisoners were released. Human Rights Watch reported that 302 people
were killed since the beginning of the protests.
February 10:
Mubarak gave a televised speech; he reiterated that he would not run in the next
presidential elections and he would stay in power to supervise a peaceful transition in
September. Protesters reacted with rage that Mubarak rejected to step down. The
protestors called the army to join actively in the uprising.
February 11:
At 6:00 pm local time, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced Mubarak's resignation;
the Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces would assume power.
(Sources: Aljazeera 2011; Reuters 2011c)
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Crisis: January 25, The First Day of Protests
Having been inspired by the events in Tunisia that resulted in the ousting of the
23-year-long Ben Ali regime on 14 January 2011, young activists from the April 6 Youth
Movement, the liberal Democratic Front Party, the leftist Youth Movement for Justice
and Freedom, the Popular Campaign for the Support of ElBaradei, and some young
activist from the Muslim Brotherhood met and decided to call for mass demonstrations
on 25 January which was the National Police Day that was inaugurated for the
commemoration of the police forces’ struggle in the city of Ismailia against the
occupying British in 1952 (Shehata 2012). From her first-hand interviews with several of
the organizers, Shehata reported that the young activists particularly selected January 25
to protest the police brutality and the repressive activities of the Ministry of Interior. A
similar attempt by the April 6 Movement one year before on January 25, 2010 had been
violently suppressed by the police (Khalil 2012). The organizers decided to use the “We
Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page for the announcement and organization of the
protests. The announcements and plans for the demonstration were spread on Twitter and
personal blogs. Their slogan was: “Bread, Freedom, Human Dignity”. The core of
protestors mainly consisted of educated youth who were widely using the social media.
Although it is difficult to judge exactly, it is plausible to argue that the majority of the
protestors that responded to calls were initially youth of middle class backgrounds.
Based on responses to the calls for protests on the We are all Khaled Said
Facebook page, the organizers predicted that it would be a different day with more
participation than a regular protest. The Ministry of Interior warned Egyptians through
the national media about the possible consequences of arrest for unlawful demonstrations.
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According to the demonstration laws of 1914, any public meeting exceeding more than
five persons required a permit. Apparently, the police were prepared with numbers of
Riot Police that were deployed and check points were established at important and major
access points leading to Tahrir Square. The Ministry of the Interior had arranged similar
security measures for the Greater Cairo area and other major cities. The police blocked
the main roads that led to inner Cairo from the surrounding provinces of Menoufia,
Daqhaliyya, and Kafr al-Shaykh (El-Ghobashy 2011).
From the early hours of January 25, the numbers of protesters surprised both the
organizers and the police; these were far beyond estimations. One of the organizers from
the Popular Campaign for ElBaradei, Ziad al-‘Ulaymi said: "we went out to protest that
day and expected to be arrested in the first ten minutes, just like usual” (El-Ghobashy
2011:7).
Amr Farouk, (WP) spokesperson of the Wasat Party, talked about how they made
a decision to join the protests as the Wasat Party and his impressions on the January 25:
We met to make a decision whether we would, as the party, attend or not. At that
time, we were waiting for the verdict of authorities about our last application for
permission to establish our party. We had submitted our last application in 2009
and we had been refused again. So, the party’s committee appealed the verdict
and the last session of the committee in the court would be held on February 19,
2011. So, that was why we had to make the decision, a compromising decision,
not to clash with the government at that time. But, nevertheless, we decided to
join…On the 25th , we went to Supreme Court. It seemed that it would be a
regular day till maybe 2-3 o’clock in the afternoon, there were groups
coming…Then I started receiving phone calls informing that increasing numbers
of people started to gather and people started to march from more than one
place…I reached Tahrir Square around 6 o’clock. For the first time in my life I
saw such a big crowd of protesters; around 50 or 60 thousand of very very young
gentlemen, very very well educated gentlemen had gathered. They were not the
people that one normally would expect to see in a revolutionary movement. We
had thought that a revolutionary movement would originate from the hungry,
starving people, not from this well educated, not from the middle class. We had
thought that it would be from the lower class. It was what happened in 2008,
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when the food prices skyrocketed people, generally from lower classes, joined
mass uprisings and labor strikes that occurred in the city of El-Mahalla El-Kubra.
And on that day (January 25), I did not see the Ikhwan (the Muslim Brotherhood)
on the streets. We used to see them in big demonstrations. It should be supported
with Ikhwan because they have this big organization and they can mobilize lots of
people. When we organized a big demonstration, we had to be supported by
Ikhwan, but those people were not from Ikhwan. Anyway, I moved on. I was
searching for the people who I knew in the demonstrations. We have a history
with demonstrations and we knew most of the people joining in; I knew them, all.
Those who attended that day were not the people I knew. We had new different
people on the streets…
In what follows, the phase of crisis will be analyzed in light of the concept of
contentious politics. McAdams et al. (2001) showed that certain mechanisms and
processes recurrently occur in various episodes of contentious politics such as successful
and failed revolutions, nationalism movements, and rebellions. In the analysis of 2011
Egyptian Revolution as a social drama, this study arbitrarily determined Innovative
Collective Action, Contingent Events, Certification, Scale Shift, Constitution of New
Political Actors, Regime Defection, Decertification, Polarization; and various redressive
mechanisms such as Threat and Intimidation and Disinformation as relevant mechanisms
and processes that contributed to the revolutionary outcome; that is the ouster of
Mubarak.
a. Innovative Collective Action
McAdam et al. (2001) argued that Innovative Collective Action is a recurring
process that plays a significant role in successful revolutions. In most cases of
revolutionary situations, the security apparatus of the ruling regime provide an
approximate estimation of the means, tactics, and capacity of the contending bloc. These
assessments usually involve the known tactics and established modus operandi of the
opposition groups. Therefore, the security forces are prepared for an encounter based on
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these calculations. Then, it is the innovative tactics that enhance the capability of
contenders to challenge the institutional power of the security forces in real terms.
The use of digital media and the Internet as a medium for both increasing public
awareness and getting organized should not be considered a completely new
phenomenon. Internet and satellite channels, specifically the Al Jazeera played a
significant role both in the pre revolution period and during the 18 days of protests
(Ghareeb 2000; Ghannam 2011; Lotan et al. 2011). Al Jazeera helped resurrect a pan
Arab identity (El-Nawawy & Iskandar 2003; Zayani 2005) through which Arabs
elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa quickly espoused the revolutionary fervor
observed after the events in Tunisia. Social media and individual blogging provided an
alternative public space and means of organization around shared causes against the
regime. The Facebook pages, such as “We Are All Khaled Said” exposed the brutalities
of the Mubarak regime and contributed significantly to the delegitimization of the
Mubarak regime.
For the past several years the youth movements were actively using the Internet
through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to communicate
their political views and agenda and to get organized and publicize regime’s atrocities
(Howard et al. 2011). However, neither the users, the leading figures of the opposition on
digital platform nor the security forces had an exact estimation of the reach of their
message in the society. Thus, everyone was surprised to see so many young people on the
streets on January 25.
The novelty was not limited to the unprecedented numbers of protestors; the
organizers employed new strategies that were aimed to distract the security apparatus.
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The organizers had announced the start of the protests as 2 pm to be held in front of the
Ministry of Interior and it would ostensibly last until 5 pm. Accordingly, the security
forces closed off all main streets that were leading to the Ministry of Interior and the
police permitted pedestrian access only after ID checks. Yet, El-Ghobashy (2011)
reported, it was a ploy and the organizers had deliberately misinformed the ministry
about the exact time of the protests and the location of these. The real timing was noon
and the organizers disseminated this information through mobile phones and landlines on
the morning of January 25. As El-Ghobashy recounted from al-‘Ulaymi, one of the
organizers, the real plan was to start off marching from several small streets and to gather
all groups later at one central meeting point. These kinds of tactics proved to be very
effective for overwhelming the security forces. As the following days of the protests
revealed, particularly after the demonstrations took a revolutionary stance, the youth
increasingly benefited from the experiences of their counterparts in Tunisia and
elsewhere. In our interview, the renowned sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim (LI) recounted
an interesting note about the use of new tactics by the protestors. According to Dr.
Ibrahim’s account, a defected Egyptian police officer, who lived in the United States at
the time, was in regular contact with the several of the organizers during the protests in
Cairo. Based on his experience within the Egyptian police force, the former officer
advised the protestors to meet in small numbers at more than one place and then begin
marching towards to central meeting point. He anticipated that as the demonstrations
increased in length, the security officers would get exhausted with little sleep and food
and they would be more susceptible to sympathize with the protestors. He also suggested
to the protestors to befriend the police, especially the Riot Police most of whom come
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from a poor socio-political background.
…I found them (protestors) starting dialogues between them and between small
and young policemen like lieutenants and first lieutenants at same ages. They
(protesters) started to ask them: “why are you doing this, we are coming here for
you and us, for al karama (dignity), for social justice and for..” and others were
answering; “we are here to protect the regime this is what we swore about.”
(During protests in downtown Cairo on January 25: From interview with Amr
Farouk (WP) ).
Although some of the groups could not reach the downtown area of Cairo
initially, the tactic worked to a great extent. Each group grew while marching toward
Tahrir by participation of bystanders, most of whom were emboldened by the events in
Tunisia (Lynch 2013). Apparently, the relatively big number of the groups trying to reach
to Tahrir had encouraged other Egyptians. The number of participants began to grow
slowly along the way. A snowballing effect, certainly with some interrelated dynamics,
was in place. People who did not know that a protest was taking place, or initially not
intending to join the protests were encouraged by the unusual numbers and enthusiasm of
the marching protestors. Saad Eddin Ibrahim (LI) explained how his American citizen
wife joined the protests on January 25.
My wife was chairing a conference about potential role of youth in the Arab
World at one of the luxury hotels overlooking the Nile. She saw a big group
marching from Qasr al-Nile Bridge towards the Tahrir Square and she realized
that the number of protestors were quite bigger than usual. Then, she suggested to
the participants that they should go down and join the protestors to talk with them
directly about subject matter of their meeting. The participants agreed and they
reached Tahrir Square before that group and stayed there in Tahrir. I (Saad Eddin
Ibrahim) was in the US at the time and she called me on the phone and told me
that something big was developing.
A close analysis of the protests reveals that the organizers followed a pattern that
was outlined by Gene Sharp in his works The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973) and
From Dictatorship to Democracy (1993). Some of the organizers, like Ahmad Maher and
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a few others from the Six April Youth Movement were specifically influenced from the
experience of Otpor (Resistance)17 movement in Serbia and had training there on how to
realize a successful revolution against a dictatorship (Kirkpatrick & Sanger 2011).
According to Gene Sharp’s doctrine nonviolence was the most effective strategy
when there is no balance of power between the rivals. Thus, protests had to be
nonviolent. Although there happened occasional violent actions that went beyond limits,
the tactics that were used by the protestors were in general defensive and aimed to render
the security forces dysfunctional (physically and psychologically), and in terms of
equipment. To this end, from the first day on the protesters chanted frequently "salmeya,
salmeya " (peaceful, peaceful). The protesters had to restrain themselves against any
excessive acts of violence, even though the security forces provoked them. Furthermore,
there was the Tunisian experience. The organizers were in contact with their counterparts
in Tunisia and they shared their “best practices” against the police tactics (Kirkpatrick &
Sanger 2011).
b. Contingent Events
Contingent events denote unexpected incidents that affect the course of
contentious episode in unpredicted ways and scale. McAdam et al. (2001) provided
examples of contingencies in various contentious episodes. One striking example is the
devastating earthquake that happened in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, on
17
Otpor is a youth organization that played a leading role in ouster of Serbian dictator
Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. It was founded by a group of students in 1998 (Kurtz 2010).
After the Serbian Revolution Otpor institutionalized itself providing training for
nonviolent struggle against undemocratic rulers. Otpor's main source of reference has
been Gene Sharp’s doctrine of nonviolent action. Otpor is believed to get financial
assistance from the US government (Beissinger 2006)
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December 23, 1972. After the earthquake, Nicaraguan President Somoza, who depicted
the earthquake as a "revolution of possibilities", allotted huge contracts of rebuilding of
the capital to no one but a few from his coterie of businessmen (McAdam et al.
2001:200). Thus, the Somoza 'clan' enjoyed unrestricted control over the demolition and
construction business and later selling of commercial and residential buildings with
speculative and very lucrative prices. Consequently, right after the earthquake, serious
discontent emerged among the ruling alliances. Eventually, by 1974 the significant
segment of the Nicaragua's business elite defected from the alliance with the regime and
began to call for reforms. The earthquake was a very important turning point in the
course of eventual ouster of Somoza regime. In a nutshell, unpredictable events might
effectively change the course of contentious episode, whether a nationalist movement,
revolutionary movement, or democratization process exists.
In regard to the collected data concerning the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, three
incidents were considered as “contingent events” that had unexpected impacts on the
revolutionary process and outcome: i) The Tunisian Revolution, ii) The Muslim
Brotherhood’s Late Entry into the Protests, iii) The Miscalculation of the Regime.
Studying the effects of contingent events on the revolutionary trajectory enriches one’s
understanding of the existing fault lines in the Egyptian society in pro-revolution period.
i) Tunisian Revolution
In our interview with Tarek El-Kholi (A), one of the leading members of the
influential April 6 Youth Movement18, he explained:
18
Several months after the 2011 Tahrir Revolution, the April Six movement split into
two different groups. One group under the leadership of Ahmad Maher and the second
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After the Tunisian Revolution, we began saying: if Tunisians did it, we can do it
too. We are Egyptians...Tunisian affect was spreading. There were already cases
of self-immolations in different cities of Egypt, though none triggered a Tunisianlike mass movement. We decided with several other activists groups to organize a
day of demonstration on the Police Day, January 25 to protest the Ministry of
Interior. We were excited by what happened in Tunisia, but we did not initially
think that so many people would join and it would turn into revolution.
The Tunisian Revolution can plausibly be considered as a contingent event that
stimulated similar aspirations and actions in Egypt and elsewhere in the region. The
Tunisian Revolution had profoundly influenced the Egyptians, particularly the young
activists. As Khalil (2012) put it “there was an immediate post-Tunisia adrenaline rush in
the Egyptian activist community—not to mention the uncounted ranks of the
depoliticized, who suddenly allowed themselves to think the unthinkable” (pp. 85-86).
ii) Miscalculation of the Regime
Mubarak regime’s failure to understand the increasing tension and the true
dimensions of the planned protests, and even the Tunisian example, can be considered as
another contingent event with unforeseen consequences that affected the course of the
protests.
As Mona El-Ghobashy (2011) argued, although there was a significant increase in
numbers of protests and strikes, particularly after 2008, opposition movements were
fragmented and weak in general during Mubarak rule. Thus, they failed to develop into
an organized force against the regime. The regime framed these increased incidents as
labor strikes, demonstrations of different occupational groups, rural strikes, and protests,
as “economic, not political; local, not national; and defensive, not proactive” (Elgroup, April 6 Democratic Front, is under the leadership of Tarek El Kholy (El-Gundy
2011)
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Ghobashy 2011:3). Despite the fact that this assessment was correct to a great extent, this
kind of approach by the regime operated on two somewhat contrasting dimensions. First,
it led to a complete disregard or blindness among the ruling elites, beginning from
Mubarak himself, against the needs and demands of Egyptians. Consequently, having
failed to appraise the true dimensions of the resentment and societal tension, the regime
did not attempt to address people’s demands with appropriate and concrete political and
economic reforms. Secondly, this misapprehension of resentment led to regime’s
mismanagement of the crisis, that is the 18 days of protests, from the first day on. As Aly
(2012) also argued, this mismanagement eventually enabled the protests to gain a
revolutionary status and then to bring about a revolutionary outcome. In a similar vein, in
our interview with Dr. Ali El Din Hilal (FR), another political scientist from the inner
circle of Mubarak’s NDP, he suggested that the regime did not collapse because of the
numbers of the protesters, but because of the inner decay of the ruling elite. He argued
that the decision making process could not address the crisis in a timely and in an
adequate way.
The intelligence apparatus was monitoring the online activity and the preparations
and they were aware that something was different this time. They expected about 30,000
protestors in the greater Cairo area and 10,000 in Alexandria (Aly 2012). Nevertheless,
they underestimated the numbers of potential participants in the protests. More critically,
the security forces ignored the silent masses that appeared to be uninterested in politics.
In our conversation with Mr. Soliman (FR), a high-level bureaucrat who was part of the
intelligence apparatus at the time of the revolution, he explained:
After the uprising in Tunisia and increasing activity in the Facebook page of We
Are All Khaled Said, we anticipated an unusually harsh confrontation with
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protestors on January 25. However, our concerns and warnings were not taken
into consideration with due attention by Mubarak. In fact, eventually the number
of protestors and the intensity of the clashes turned out to be beyond our
estimations.
Dr. Said (FR) argued that until the fourth day of the protests the regime depended
on this miscalculation. And after the January 28, “Friday of Anger” the state faced the
cold reality that controlling millions of protestors was out of its capacity. The Secretary
General of the NDP, Husam Badrawy, who met with President Mubarak several times
during the second week of the demonstrations, realized that Mubarak was misinformed
about the extent of the demonstrations (Aly 2012). Thus, Mubarak failed to make timely
critical decisions to alleviate and contain the increasing tension during the first days of
the protests.
In the last ten days before the uprising Dr. Said (FR) met three times President
Mubarak. He explained that in spite of the Tunisian Revolution, Mubarak seemed quite
relaxed and unconcerned. This lack of concern and relaxed attitude of Mubarak was
somewhat consistent with the ruling elite’s perception of Egyptian society and politics. In
the same vein, the quotes that are presented from people who were close to Mubarak
regime, in which some of them do not refer to any root causes of the uprisings, reflect the
same elite perception about the Egyptian society in the Mubarak era. Ali al-Din Hilal’s
communication with a US diplomat in 2009 is illuminating: “Widespread, politically
motivated unrest was unlikely because it was not part of the ‘Egyptian mentality’” (ElGhobashy 2011:3). In our interview with Ali el-Din Hilal (FR), a trained political
scientist who served as the Media Secretary of the NDP at last years of Mubarak, said
that their assessment for the January 25 period was that “it would be like one of the many
demonstration”; it would be more crowded but, they did not expect anything
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extraordinary. Ali el-Din Hilal (FR) was right in a sense that Egyptian people hade been
calm by nature, yet the regime failed to notice the increasing tension that would
eventually mobilize the masses in the coming days.
Based on the preceding accounts, this study considers the initial ‘incorrect’
estimation of the security apparatus and their reaction during the first day on January 25
as a situation of ‘contingency’ that led to unexpected and significant cumulative effects
on the evolution of a ‘regular’ day of protest into a revolutionary movement. From
accounts of the informants and from the analysis of the actual responses of the security
apparatus, it is plausible to claim that the assessment of the security apparatus of the
planned demonstration was far from apprehending the true magnitude of the developing
crisis and the potential numbers of the protestors. Thus, Mubarak could not make timely
critical decisions and did not respond preemptively to the initial ‘humble’ demands of the
protesters in the first two days. We can only speculate about what these possible ‘timely
critical decisions’ could be and how the protesters would react or how the course of
protests onward would proceed. Nevertheless, as some of the interlocutors who were
among the organizer suggested, if Mubarak had responded positively on the first few
days and had sacked the Ministry of Interior, Habib el-Adly; and if Mubarak had
promised that neither himself nor his son Gamal would run for presidency in the coming
elections, it was likely that the protests would not have continued. These were some
initial demands by the protestors and given the actual or perceived imbalance of power
between the protesters and the regime, they would probably happily have acquiesced with
what they could get. Yet, the regime did not make any concessions in the first few days
and tried to disperse the protesters violently. As the first two days past, the protesters
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became more confident gradually and after the fourth day, January 28, the course of the
protests gained an irreversible direction and gained a revolutionary stance. As some of
the interlocutors explained they were not expecting to stay more than several hours. It
was the unprecedented numbers of protestors and their relative and occasional advantage
against the police that encouraged others, who did not intend to join or did not know
about the protests, to go out and join the protestors in the first and following days.
The miscalculation of the upcoming “threat” or the misapprehension of the true
magnitude of the tension in times of potential crisis was not a fault unique to Mubarak or
his security apparatus, but it is a common phenomenon in authoritarian regimes
(McAdams et al. 2001). It is as such probably because of the “dictator’s solitude”, as Al
Aswani (2011:36) argued for another context in Mubarak regime. Mubarak himself and
the ruling elite were so detached from the public that they were not aware of people’s
sufferings and demands. It was probably because of this problem, some of interlocutors
who were close to the Mubarak regime, were surprised greatly by the revolution that, in
their estimation, “suddenly disrupted the increasing momentum of prospering Egypt”.
Furthermore, it was the plague of the “arrogance of power”, as Dr. Ali El Deen Hilal
(FR) stated in our conversation, referring to Fulbright’s (1966) term used in a different
context. The ruling elite was so arrogant and confident that they just did not take the
increasing resentment and rage, even after having witnessed the Tunisian Revolution,
seriously.
iii) Muslim Brotherhood’s Late Entry to the Protests
One of the controversies that prevailed even in the post-revolutionary period was
about claiming ownership for the revolution. It was certainly a popular mass movement,
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and not a specific group claims the sole ownership of it. Nevertheless, the contest was
about who organized and initiated the protests in the first place and thus deserved a
justified acclaim and acknowledgment for its success. Discussions around this issue have
been to a great extent related to determining the owner of the “revolutionary privilege’,
that is to identify the group who was supposed to have a fair say and role in Egyptian
politics –as per their contribution to the revolution– in the post-Mubarak period. In this
vein, the timing of the participation became a point of contention, mainly around the role
of the Islamist political organizations, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis.
This debate was framed with the popular term of ‘hijacking the revolution’ and it has
been widely used in Egypt in political debates since the ousting of Mubarak. Hijacking
the revolution denotes the “disproportional” gain of the Islamists, particularly the Muslim
Brotherhood, from the revolutionary outcome19. The Salafi parties and the Muslim
Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won around the 2/3 of the votes in
parliamentary elections that were held at the end of 2011. Some people argued that the
Muslim Brotherhood was a latecomer in the protests. The Islamist organizations joined
the protests only after they believed that the balance of power changed for the favor of
the protestors. This point is significant in terms of understanding the revolutionary
processes and the debates of legitimacy in the post-revolution period.
The leading figures of the revolution and public in general considered one’s
participation and role in the revolution, whether as an individual or institutional, as the
19
There is also another aspect of the expression of ‘hijacking the revolution’ by which
secular opposition groups argue that the Muslim Brotherhood diverted the political
course of the country away from the revolutionary ideals by the policies of the FJP
government and President Morsy.
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major source of legitimacy in doing politics in the post-Mubarak period. In this respect,
many of the members of the Mubarak’s NDP were banned practicing politics and even if
they were not legally banned their candidacy for any political position sparked public
anger and criticism. However, before the presidential elections in 2012, former Minister
of Aviation and Mubarak’s last Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, declared his candidacy for
the presidency. Although this led to an initial public outcry, the judiciary approved his
candidacy and he ran for the office in the second phase of the presidential elections
against the MB’s candidate Mohamed Morsi.
The MB had a controversial and volatile relationship with the state during the
Mubarak regime. The MB was legally banned as a political party; yet the state allowed its
non-political activities. The MB has had a considerable numbers of members and
organizational presence throughout the entire Egypt. There had been a generational
difference between the old guard of the organization at the top and some elements of
younger members who had not been subjected to the most repressive tactics of the state.
The state, from Nasser and Sadat to Mubarak, intermittently repressed the MB on varying
forms and intensity. The organization was banned and its financial assets were
confiscated and economic activities had been stopped. Many of the leaders had been
subjected to imprisonment and torture. Yet, despite its banned status and the intermittent
state repression, the MB had somewhat of an ambivalent relationship with Mubarak. In
spite of their criticism of the regime, Mubarak allowed the organization to continue their
social welfare activities, by which state’s inadequate public services, particularly in rural
areas, were, to some extent ‘compensated’. Thus, the MB continued to exist as a political
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opposition force –however limited and restricted– against the Mubarak’s National
Democratic Party
Having paid a costly price against the state repression, it was not surprising that
the MB was reluctant to respond to the calls for the protests on the January 25. After the
organizers announced their intention to protest on the Police Day, the MB made it clear
that they would not participate in the demonstrations. The Maktab al-Irshad, 'the
guidance office', with the Murshid, ‘the supreme leader’ were familiar with the tactics of
the Ministry of Interior to handle protests and probably they did not want to lose their
institutional position, though this was far from ideal and a true political alternative
against the regime. After all, the MB had a lot to lose in case of a possible counter attack
by the state if the events get out of limits that the regime would tolerate. The MB could
not risk that. Like almost everyone, the MB did not expect the protest to have a
detrimental effect on the regime. Thus, probably because of these concerns, the
organization opted to abstain. Nevertheless, El-Ghobashy (2011) and several
interlocutors from various political leanings conveyed the fact that young activist from
the Muslim Brotherhood were present at the first meeting where the representatives from
various youth movements decided to organize the protests. Their decision to join the
demonstrations was an individual initiative that was not encouraged nor supported by the
organization of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the same vein, in our interview with Amr
Farouk (WP), the spokesperson of the Wasat Party, he stated that from the first day
onward, young activists from the MB were present in the protests individually, not as a
group.
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The controversy endured even after the revolution ended. In our interview with
Jihad Haddad (MB), a young prominent member of the MB and the spokesman for
President Morsi, he argued that, although it was not acknowledged by the organization
directly, the MB participated in the demonstration from the first day, the January 25. He
argued that he was there in the demonstrations and he had certain tasks that were
assigned by the organization for the first day, January 25. Yet, the widespread belief
among the Egyptians and the evaluation of the security apparatus was that the MB did not
respond positively to the calls for the protests and were not present in the streets officially
and in large numbers until the fourth day, January 28, ‘the day of anger’.
As at he backdrop to these contradictory accounts about the timing of MB’
participation to the demonstrations, lies the quest of legitimacy for the post-revolutionary
period. Yet, more importantly, what this study considers more relevant is that the initial
position of the MB had a determining effect (in an unpredicted way and scale), on the
outcome of the revolution in several ways. Based on the interviews and review of the
available information in the media, this study holds that the MB did not want to risk its
institutional gains vis-à-vis the regime by participating in the protests that were organized
by ‘politically motivated novices’ or young activists. Thus, the organization decided not
to join the protests. This was an arguably a rational preference and the same reasoning
may well be applicable to explain the initial reaction of the Coptic Church under the
leadership of the deceased Pope Shenouda III. Initially, the Coptic Church did not
support the protests and in fact encouraged the Coptic Egyptians to stay away from the
demonstrations (Champion 2011). Inter alia, one of the main reasons behind the decision
of the Coptic Church was to maintain the benevolent relationship that was developed
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over the years, particularly between Pope Shenouda III, who was the Pope since 1971,
and President Mubarak. Furthermore, the Coptic Community in general saw Mubarak as
a protector against the “radical Islamist forces”.
If the MB had agreed to join the protests on January 25, the composition of the
participants and further reaction of the regime and people would have been considerably
different. Most probably, given the organizational efficiency and large numbers of its
members, the MB would have dominated the demonstrations both in terms of numbers of
the participants and leadership. Yet, in that case, the protests would very likely to be
perceived as a ‘Muslim Brotherhood show’, which would alienate some political groups
and many individual Egyptians who have been aloof to the MB and their ideas.
Furthermore, if the leaders of the security apparatus had believed that the MB
would participate, their preparation and reaction would be harsher to the extent that their
control of the demonstrations from the early hours, when the number of the protestors
were relatively small, would probably have changed the course of the events. Many
ordinary Egyptians, who were unaware of the planned protests or who were undecided
whether to join, were encouraged by the unexpectedly large and continuously growing
numbers of the protesters and their relative success in overwhelming the police in the
early hours of the events. The police was apparently unprepared as to that number of
demonstrators which was unprecedented. The tactic of moving from various locations
instead of gathering in one center proved to be useful. There was sort of a snowballing
affect; as the people saw crowds walking towards the downtown and as they were called
to join the numbers of protesters began to increase. As McAdams et al. (2001) argued,
garnering the support of the wider society for the cause against the regime is of vital
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importance for contenders in social revolutions. It is not necessarily the numbers of the
protestors that play a decisive role in a revolutionary event that brings about the
revolutionary outcome. But a revolutionary outcome, that is a successful revolution, is a
cumulative result of several other factors, such as elite defection, certification, actor and
identity constitution, contingencies, and so on. Given the diverse political inclinations of
the organizers and the composition of the participants, Egyptians realized that it was a
truly united and heterogonous movement. Egyptians from all political and social
backgrounds had unified against the regime and this fact encouraged many people to join
the demonstrations. Ashraf Khalil (2012) made a similar argument in the sense that the
MB’s participation would probably have hindered the protests from gaining a
revolutionary claim with people from different political and religious background. The
processes of scale shift, certification, actor and identity constitution, would unlikely not
have developed in a setting dominated by the MB leadership.
The explanations of the MB on this issue were controversial. According to a
newspaper article, the former Muslim Brotherhood MP al-Beltagy claimed that MB's
decision not to join the protests was a strategy to circumvent the regime's possible
manipulation to portray the events as a protest of "bearded Islamist hordes" (Khalil
2012:94). However, Essem Erian, one the leading members of the MB made a conflicting
statement: “Police Day was supposed to honor the fight against British colonialism, on
that day we should all be celebrating together” (Kirkpatrick & Sanger 2011).
Khalil’s (2012) evaluation of the MB’s initial position is worth noting:
In retrospect, whether or not you believe al-Beltagy’s explanation of the famously
opaque Brotherhood decision-making process, the group’s choice to “sit out”
January 25 proved to be one of the best legacies of that day. Egypt’s non-Islamist
forces needed to prove (perhaps to themselves as well) that they could marshal
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massive numbers into the streets without the help of the Brotherhood’s legendary
grassroots machinery. And ordinary apolitical Egyptians who feared the
Brotherhood’s power needed to see that this wasn’t coming from the Islamist
camp. The way things eventually played out, with the Brotherhood formally
joining several days into an already robust popular uprising, turned out to be a
tremendous boost to the credibility, perception, and confidence of the
revolutionaries (Khalil 2012:95).
There is another significant corollary of the absence of the MB in the first day of
the protests. During his entire rule Mubarak successfully used the existence of Islamist
trend in the society as a sort of bargaining instrument both nationally and internationally.
Particularly after the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, Egypt became a close ally of the
US. The US supported Egypt and Mubarak (Cook 2011). He presented himself to the
West, specifically to the US, as the best alternative against the potential threat of
religiously motivated extremists and political Islamists, particularly the MB, of whom
Mubarak had successfully saved the nation and the state. His close cooperation with the
US in her “war on terrorism” and after the 2006 Parliamentary Elections in Palestine that
resulted in Hamas’s victory with 44.45% of total votes, Mubarak proved to be a
important personality, though an undemocratic one, for the US.
All in all, if the MB had participated in the protests on the first three days, the
regime would most probably have taken the events more seriously and manipulated their
involvement to be seen as a potential extremist threat to Egypt’s stability. Thus, the
reaction of the international community would have been different in that they would
most likely have continued to support Mubarak. In fact, the initial reaction of the
international community was somewhat controversial. Some countries, including the US,
declared their support for Mubarak. However, after the magnitude of the events proved
that it was a popular uprising with an unprecedented level of participation and
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determination, the international community’s support changed direction towards the
Egyptian people.
Consequently, despite the limited number of individual participation, the MB was
not present officially and in large numbers on the first three days of the protests. The MB
joined the protest on January 28, the "Friday of Anger”. The revolutionary fervor had
already gained a momentum and hundreds of thousands of people gathered after the
Friday praying in different locations throughout Egypt. Many liberal interlocutors
interpreted the MB’s decision to participate as a pragmatic move describing the
organization sort of a ‘free rider’ to join the protests at a moment when the protesters had
gained the upper hand against the security forces. Whether it was a pragmatic move or
not, as McAdams et al. (2001) suggested, what is more relevant in a revolutionary
trajectory is to garner the support of the wider society. By the involvement of each new
group and by defection of regime allies, the regime continued to weaken. Moreover,
some activists and politicians who were among the protestors from the first day argued
that the MB’s participation was at a very critical point and probably enabled the protests
to continue.
Arguably, a similar ‘pragmatic pronouncement’ to support the revolutionary
crowds could be attributed equally to the late-comers supporters such as, some
intellectuals, the Coptic Church, the Al Azhar (the highest Islamic authority in Egypt),
and some international powers. Nonetheless, it was not necessarily the changing balance
of power that made the support of new individuals, actors, or groups possible for the
revolutionary cause, but it was as well, inter alia, the gradual elimination of initial
confusion about the intent, cause, and composition of the contenders. Particularly after
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January 28, the growing numbers and determination of the protesters from all sections of
society showed that this was a popular uprising. Some people, organizations, or
international actors realized that it was the genuine demand of Egyptians and they had to
respect that demand. Yet, this proposition does not rule out the possibility that some were
pragmatists who saw the coming of a new political reality and wanted to be a part of it.
Some intellectuals and journalists who staunchly supported the regime in the first days of
the revolution, changed sides on the latter days of the protests and presented themselves
as ‘revolutionaries’ in the post-Mubarak period.
McAdam et al. (2001) argued that contingent events produced “sudden and
unpredictable decisions, high levels of uncertainty, and new combinations of threat and
opportunity options” (p. 223). Besides, the contingent events generated not only
mobilization but also other mechanisms that potentially determine the course of the
revolutionary process. The Tunisian Revolution and Mubarak regime’s miscalculation of
the emerging crisis boosted an already developing mobilization. As the unprecedented
numbers of protesters achieved a broad reach in Tahrir Square, more Egyptians were
encouraged and joined them. Finally, the organization of MB’s initial absence and later
participation on the Day of Anger, arguably at a very critical moment, had various
significant repercussions.
c. Certification
Certification denotes the process of “validation of actors, their performances, and
claims by external actors (McAdam et al. 2001:158). The analysis of the events shows
that as the protests progressed the general population began to acknowledge the young
people’s determination and courage and in the course of several days, the young
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organizers and participants became legitimate representatives of the general population
against a corrupt regime.
The youth movements and other political groups that initially took part in
organization of the protests were on the Egyptian political scene for a while and had been
involved in various demonstrations and similar political activities. None of them assumed
a leadership position in either in the planning or later phases of the January 25 protests. It
was a truly collective movement that was not particularly affiliated with any of the
established political movements. Therefore, one of the distinctive characteristics of this
initiative has been the fact that it was an audacious challenge against the state repression
from the educated Egyptian youth from all sects of the society. They were smart,
educated, young people who dared to speak up boldly against the Ministry of the Interior.
The common denominator of the protestors was their courage and love for Egypt. They
had offered a frame and identity that was appropriable for every Egyptian. Therefore,
Egyptians had quickly conferred on them the due respect and acclaim that became
evident by increasing number of participants. Interviews revealed that Egyptians feel a
deep respect for the young activists who took part in the protests, and call them
“revolutionaries”. This ‘validation’ of the activists as revolutionaries and as true
representatives of the Egyptian people occurred against the backdrop of delegitimation
and decertification attempts by the regime.
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Figure 1: We came to kiss the feet of the revolution’s youth (Khalil 2011:75).
Revolutionary Trajectories: January 28, The Day of Rage
Having benefitted extensively from Charles Tilly's (1993) seminal work of 709
revolutionary outcomes in European history, McAdam et al. (2001) pointed out that only
a very small number of revolutionary situations result in successful revolutions.
Goldstone argued that (2011) a revolution succeeds when a broad segment of the society
–involving people from all or most ethnic and religious groups and social classes–
mobilize on the fact or perception that their government became irrecoverably
incompetent and unfair and thus endangers the future of the country; and when
significant allies of the regime, particularly the military, withdraw their support from the
government or the ruler. Nevertheless, Goldstone, emphasized, “revolutions rarely
triumph because these conditions rarely coincide” (2011:8). Accordingly, in their analysis
of revolutions, McAdam et al. (2001) focused their attention on processes, namely
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revolutionary trajectories, which were at play after the revolutionary situation emerged.
They suggested; “something must be happening – not in the origins or structural
conditions but in the trajectories of contention – to produce so few successes out of so
many revolutionary situations" (McAdam et al. 2001:195). They argued that for a better
understanding of a revolutionary trajectory, it is necessary to analyze the interactions
within contentious politics. Focusing on a revolutionary trajectory help us identify these
interactions such as emergence of new identities and new alignments among contenders
and supporters of regime and defection of significant allies from the regime that together
with other factors have a determining role in revolutionary outcome.
As an analytical convenience, McAdam et al. (2001) suggested first to identify the
start of a revolutionary situation. Following Tilly (1993:10):
In a revolutionary situation three proximate causes converge:
1. The appearance of contenders, or coalitions of contenders, advancing exclusive
competing claims to control of the state, or some segment of it;
2. Commitment to those claims by a significant segment of the citizenry;
3. Incapacity or unwillingness of rulers to suppress the alternative coalition and/or
commitment to its claims
A careful analysis of the 18 days of Tahrir protests reveals that a revolutionary
situation only emerged on January 28, three days after the protest started. In other words,
the three elements that are suggested by Tilly were absent at the first day, the 25th of
January. Although most popular accounts of 2011 Tahrir revolution claim otherwise,
interviews with some of the organizers and people who participated in the demonstration
from the first day onward, the organizers and the participants did not have or did not
express a revolutionary intention or agenda on the start of the protests. For example,
according to al-Behari (Aly 2012), one the key figures of the Revolutionary Youth
167
Coalition, their plan was just to organize a demonstration on Police Day to challenge the
police brutality and they expected 10,000 with a maximum 20,000 thousand people.
This is not unusual in the sense that in many instances in history revolutions did not stem
from intentional revolutionary protests but only turned out to be as such only after certain
conditions and contingencies progressed in tandem in the course of events as outlined by
McAdam et al. (2001).
It was not until Friday, January 28 that the crisis reached a threshold that could be
considered as a final encounter. The organizers had aptly used a cultural and religious
occasion to mobilize greater number of people and they began campaigning for greater
protests on Friday, January 28. On January 27, the Muslim Brotherhood declared their
intention to join the protests after Friday prayers. Egyptians, who were encouraged by
the unprecedented numbers of protesters and their relative success against the
“untouchable” security forces during the first three days, decided to join in ever-larger
numbers. Until that day, neither the regime nor the protestors had recognized the true
magnitude of the protests. As McAdam et al. (2001) suggested culture and social
construction play their role at every phase of contentious politics as embedded features.
The protesters took the opportunity that the social and cultural environment provided for
them. They strategically chose Friday to engage ordinary citizens in the contention.
Friday is the first day of the weekend on which most of Egyptians do not work and more
importantly, there is the weekly Friday prayer that the majority of Muslims –even if they
do not observe the regular five times daily praying– attend. Thus, after the praying ends
at around 1 pm there would be already great number of people to join if they could be
persuaded. Even after the 2011 Tahrir Revolution Egyptians, particularly the ‘Islamist’
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groups organized the major demonstrations on Fridays.
Al-Azhar, the highest religious Muslim authority in the country that represents the
dominant Sunni branch of Islam, and some prominent religious figures among the Salafis
had publicly denounced (Al-Nour Party 2011; Baetz 2011) the protests, claiming that
rising against a Muslim ruler was not permissible in Islam. However, their influence
proved to be limited. Furthermore, on January 27, the MB publicly declared their support
for the protests and demanded their members to join the demonstrations after the Friday
praying (Mekhennet & Kulish 2011). Up to that point, it was obvious that the protests
were against the economic difficulties, police brutality and for greater political freedom
(Mekhennet & Kulish 2011). There was no religious dimension and claim. Thus, it
appealed to every Egyptian; religious, secular, liberal, and Coptic Egyptians who were
Christians. The support of the MB would clearly boost the numbers of the protesters. The
MB has had a very loyal group of followers who would not hesitate to take the streets
after a call from their leaders.
Dr. Nadia Mustafa (NA) from Cairo University suggested that the MB had the
potential to mobilize large number of people from their own members:
In 2005 for example the Muslim Brotherhood asked for demonstrations all over
Egypt. Then we found suddenly more than millions in the streets. This was a
message to the system that “we are very strong and you have to take us seriously.”
But the Muslim Brotherhood has never taken or could take a decision to go
revolution by themselves. Because, in that case, it would be considered as an
Ihkvan (Brotherhood) revolution by the army and by everyone. Egyptian people
would not support it. But after the revolution up to now, revolutionary forces
accused the Brotherhood as “latecomers”.
The security forces had taken extra precautions by the early hours before the
Friday praying. Some mosques that were close to focal meeting points were closed off
and Riot Police were deployed around them.
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We were told to gather in front of mosques, any mosque after the Friday prayer.
As our Wasat Group, we would pray in Sayyida Zeynap Mosque. Because our
first headquarters were there. A second location was Omar Makram Mosque in
Tahrir. I was supposed to be in Omar Makram, but I found it closed. There was
big police truck, blocking the gate of the mosque. We passed behind the truck and
I asked the policeman, a ranked policeman. He said, with very “nice” words, “no
praying here today”. Then we went to Sayyida Zeynep Mosque. The Imam said,
“We don’t have to go out the streets”. He was one of the regime supporters. He
would almost get killed. People said “stop talking otherwise, we will pull you
down and will pray without you”. After the praying, we began walking toward the
Tahrir Square (From interview with Amr Farouk (WP)).
Right after the praying ended Egyptians poured into the streets in every major city,
Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Port Said and so on, to meet in focal meeting points like Tahrir
Square in Cairo. For many people it was the first time and they were encouraged by an
already growing movement that was unprecedented with great numbers of participants
and its composition from all sects of the Egyptian society, Muslims and Christians alike.
In this phase of the crisis, which also coincides with the emergence of the
revolutionary situation, several processes seem significant in the progression of the
revolutionary trajectory: constitution of new political actors and identities, scale shift,
decertification, polarization, and regime defection. The following pages will examine
how each of these processes contributed to the outcome of contention while developing
and interacting with other mechanisms and processes.
d. Constitution of New Political Actors and Identities
McAdam et al. (2001) identified the prevailing ‘Constitution of New Political
Actors and Identities’ as another recurrent process in variety of contentious episodes.
Following Holland et al. (2003), I understand identities as the products of a continual
heuristic process. Individuals and groups improvise their identities using “the cultural
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resources available in response to the subject positions afforded one in the present”
(Holland et al. (2003:18). Identities are positional and negotiable.
The process of identity constitution might involve different mechanisms. For
instance, it could be in the form of a constitution of new political identities or
transformation of existing identities. Equally relevant is that, as happened in the 2011
Tahrir Revolution, the transformative effects of the revolutionary processes might have
impacted individuals by means of ‘restoration of self respect’ or the recreation of ‘true
Egyptianes’. The ordinary Egyptians were known to be apolitical; however the Tahrir
uprising changed people’s political culture. It appears that with the courage and
determination that they showed against the regime, Egyptians restored their self-respect
and redefined themselves.
The organizers and the initial participants realized on January 25 and in the next
few days that there was a bigger force at play at the scene, bigger than they had planned
for and anticipated. As the crowds became larger in number and as they gained the upper
hand against the security they came to believe that they could hold on in Tahrir and could
continue their demonstration the next day. Furthermore, they gradually gained more
confidence and began to reconstruct their claims and their identity. They started as
activists and they were becoming revolutionaries. This transformation in identities was
not restricted to the organizers; the participants as well quickly adopted the idea of
revolution and revolutionary after the first few days.
McAdam et al. (2001) emphasized the role of social interaction and social
construction that potentially determines the course of the contention as it develops. They
suggested that contention changes the involved parties and their relationships:
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“participants in contentious politics constantly manipulate, strategize, modify, and
reinterpret the identities of parties to their contention, including themselves” (p. 56).
Identities are not fixed characteristics, but they are socially constructed and subject to
change as the contention proceeds as a result of constant interaction with the environment
and other involved parties. In a gradual way, in the first few days of the protests, the
interrelated processes of contingent events, certification, identity construction and actor
constitution began to contribute the events to evolve into a revolutionary situation.
e. Scale Shift
McAdam et al. (2001) identified scale shift as one the robust processes that appear
in most episodes of contentions. Scale shift refers to a “change in the number and level of
coordinated contentious actions leading to broader contention involving a wider range of
actors and bridging their claims and identities” (McAdam et al. 2001:331). In this sense,
the participation of new groups and individuals into the demonstrations on January 28
denotes a process of scale shift in the protests. There were new actors on the scene.
Scale shift also expresses the process of carrying the contention to the attention of
the international community. McAdam et al. (2001) argued that scale shift from local to
international arenas may result in changes in the actors and the interactions within the
actors. By January 28, many states and major international organization were closely
monitoring the developments. The US’s reaction was very important for both the
Egyptian people and Mubarak. The US had had a long time close relation with the
Mubarak regime and had been granting Egypt with regular annual military aid. The US’s
reaction on the first day, January 25 was pro Mubarak and they were not ready to forsake
Mubarak (Richter 2011). Nevertheless, as the course of the day proved, the uprising had
172
taken an irreversible track and international community’s reaction to the events began to
change.
The growing momentum was so strong and the framing of contention so inclusive
that almost anyone, no matter from which class, social, or political background he or she
was, could easily and perfectly have identified himself/herself with the cause of the
protests, which was the police brutality and repressive policies of the Ministry of Interior.
No particular ideology or political orientation or group was allowed to dominate the
movement. This was not without problems of course. For example some young activists
were initially disturbed with the appearance of the MB in large numbers with a concern
that it would turn into an Ihkwan (Brotherhood) movement. Nevertheless, the prevalent
fragmentation among Egyptian opposition groups, who had failed to challenge the regime
as united bloc for years, had disregarded their differences and had united against the
common opponent.
Figure 2: Egypt belongs to all Egyptians; Muslims and Christians (Khalil 2011:74).
The security forces’ reaction was very harsh from the early hours after the Friday
prayers ended on January 28. The police used water cannons, gas, rubber and real bullets,
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and pellet guns. There was reports of deaths and many wounded protestors.
Before, the police used to wait until we finished with our speeches and they used
to attack us to disperse. But this time as soon as we started to gather they started
to attack us brutally. There were also baltageya20 among them… Normally people
of Sayyida Zeynap District are between middle class and low class but they are
not involved in politics and they are very brave people. People who were involved
in politics were the ones who were related to the Mubarak’s National Democratic
Party. Then we saw the brave young men of Sayyida Zeynap attacking the
policemen. The security forces wanted to finish it that day, because they knew
that if they did not finish it in 3-4 hours it would get out of their hands, out of
control and that was what happened (From interview with Mahmoud (A), a young
activist in his mid thirties).
The protesters were well prepared as well. As one of the organizers from Ahmed
Maher explained in a newspaper interview they were in touch with youth groups from
Tunisia, Serbia, and the Academy of Change in Qatar (Kirkpatrick & Sanger 2011). They
provided the Egyptian protesters with tactics to use against the security forces. The
protesters improvised strategies for their own security and tried to weaken the security
forces’ attacks. Despite the occasional supremacy of the police, the demonstrators
managed to hold onto their positions and stayed in Tahrir Square, which was of strategic
and symbolic importance. Many of the important governmental offices and the NDP
party were in close proximity.
After about five hours of violent clashes, the demonstrators had driven the riot
police back and had taken control of the Tahrir Square. The police, the Central Security
Forces, the riot police, were completely exhausted. There were causalities among both
sides. The main building of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party and many police
stations across the country were burnt down.
The situation was not different in other cities. Particularly Suez witnessed violent
20
Baltageya means thugs in Egyptian Arabic.
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clashes between the police and the protestors. Many people were injured and there
numbers of death from protesters and the security forces. On Friday, after the protesters
overwhelmed the police, the military were deployed around important government
institutions in Cairo, Suez, and Alexandria. The Egyptian Armed Forces has traditionally
enjoyed a very strong public reputation and the protestors believed that the army would
not shoot their own compatriots. The military did not intervene and welcomed by
protestors with cheers.
Despite many casualties, jubilation dominated the atmosphere in Tahrir Square
and other big cities throughout Egypt. Egyptians had left aside their political or religious
differences and had united, Christians, Muslims, leftist, Islamist and so on against a
common rival; that is the Mubarak regime. The slogan that was adopted from Tunisa was,
Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam, “People want to topple the regime” and this was being
chanted in Tahrir Square. The police virtually collapsed and with drew from the streets.
By the evening of January 28, a new political aspiration; that is a revolutionary claim
emerged and it become the dominant drive of the protestors after that day. The young
activists had become revolutionaries.
f. Regime Defection
McAdam et al. (2001) described regime defection as “a sustained process by
which significant elements of a previously stable ruling coalition align with the action
programs of revolutionary or other opposition groups" (p. 196). In their analysis of
contentious episodes with successful revolutionary outcome, McAdam et al. specifically
identified three significant mechanisms involved in the process of regime defection:
infringement of elite interests, suddenly imposed grievances, and decertification.
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As discussed earlier, the 1971 Egyptian constitution provided the president with a
disproportional level of authority without virtually any accountability. Despite the
relative independence of the judiciary, there was no real check and balance mechanism
between the state’s branches of the judiciary, legislation, and the executive. The
executive branch enjoyed virtually unrestricted authority and Mubarak was the head of
the executive branch. Thus, in this anomaly of the political setting, when the ruler uses its
power arbitrarily without virtually any restriction the regime turns into an authoritarian
regime. Although there were regular parliamentary and presidential elections they were
not free and fair. Mubarak was an authoritarian leader and the foundation of his power
was based on coercion not consensus. Therefore the strength of the police and
intelligence apparatus were of vital importance for the maintenance of the Mubarak
regime. In his Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt, Hazem Kandil
(2012) argued that by the time Mubarak assumed power in 1981, Egypt had transformed
itself from a military state in 1950s to a police state. Starting from his early days in the
presidency Mubarak consolidated this character of the state depending increasingly on
the coercive power of security forces, namely the police and the intelligence apparatus.
Yet, on the evening of January 28, after four days of intense violent clashes, the Egyptian
security forces virtually collapsed and lost control of the streets. Many police vehicles
and police stations were burnt down and some centers of the intelligence department
were stormed. As a result, the Egyptian Army was deployed on January 28 to provide
security of the vital governmental buildings and historical and cultural assets such as the
Museum of Antiquities. After the police collapsed, the only significant regime ally that
Mubarak could depend on to further maintain his rule was the military. Mubarak
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expected the army to provide order in the streets. Therefore, one of the most critical
turning points in the 2011 Tahrir Revolution was the response of the Egyptian Armed
Forces when they stepped in the streets on January 28. The army did not interfere and
avoided confrontation with the demonstrators. The leaders of the military stated the army
would stay neutral and they were there to protect people (Hammond 2011). The position
of the other regime allies, such as business elite, intellectuals, or media was not of much
of relevance because this was a rapidly progressing mass uprising and was already out of
the state’s control. This stance of the Egyptian Armed Forces can be considered as
“regime defection”.
Kandil (2012) argued that Mubarak sidelined the army in an attempt to prevent
the emergence of any strong figure who would potentially challenge his leadership. He
allowed the Armed Forces to establish and develop their own economic investments
through preferential governmental incentives and contracts. Besides, the retired army
generals were regularly employed in civilian enterprises owned by the state or they were
appointed as governors to country’s twenty-seven governorates. There were also retired
military officials among them members of the ruling NDP. During the Mubarak tenure,
the Egyptian Armed Forces seemed complacent with the role that was allotted to them by
Mubarak. They were probably the most respected entity in the country and were
responsible for the defense of the country against the external threats. Meanwhile they
were not allowed to play a direct political role and apparently they had not showed any
interest in politics. Nevertheless, they preserved their institutional reputation and strength
as the major physical force in the country (Albrecht & Bishara 2011).
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Infringement of Elite Interests: Why Did the Armed Forces Abandon Mubarak?
Gross class disparities and economic exploitation may help to trigger
revolutionary situations, but are clearly not sufficient for producing revolutionary
outcomes. For that to happen, the political interests of segments of the dominant
regime coalition must be seriously compromised (McAdam et al. 2001:199-200).
On January 28, after the collapse of the security forces, Mubarak himself ordered
the military to deploy its troops. The Egyptian Military played an important role in
quelling several major public demonstrations and mutinies in 1968, 1977, and in 1986.
Kassem (2004) suggested that the military's existence in cases of large-scale protests
provided Mubarak with a certain degree of confidence. However, on January 28, the
military stated that they would stay neutral, which was a paradoxical statement per se in
that; by not interfering they were actually supporting the protesters.
Based on the statements made and actions taken by the military leadership after
January 28 and up until Mubarak left, Albrecht and Bishara (2011) suggested that the
military leadership as well were caught by surprise and their intention was not clear and
they opted to observe the unfolding events and determine their position accordingly. The
fact that the army did not initially attempt to prevent the blood bath on February 2, the
infamous Camel Battle, when pro-Mubarak thugs on camels back with blades, sticks and
weapons attacked the demonstrators on Tahrir Square enhances the relevance of Albrecht
and Bishara’s assessment. By January 31, the Armed Forces’ statement had become
somewhat clearer; they announced that the military would not use force against the
demonstrators (Albrecht & Bishara 2011). When the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces (SCAF) convened on February 10 without Mubarak it was clear that the military
had ruled out the option to continue with Mubarak.
Steven Cook (2007) argued that the military in Egypt historically (beginning from
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the Nasser's Free Officers Movement onward) considered itself as the vanguard of the
society, with an assertion that they were capable modernizers qualified with the necessary
technical and organizational capacity (p. 15). Cook suggested that the Egyptian military
traditionally sustained a hierarchy of interests: a "lesser-order interests; core parochial
and institutional interests; and existential interests, which represent the regime" (p. 16).
He argued that when the military considered the future of the regime in danger, its
intervention was highly likely. In several interviews with high-level bureaucrats and
retired army generals, various interlocutors suggested that the events that resulted in the
ousting of Mubarak did not solely emerge and progress as an outcome of internal
socioeconomic and political causes, but there was also foreign intervention and
manipulation. Apparently, this was a widespread conviction among the high ranks of the
army. Shortly after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces assumed leadership of the
country after February 11, 2011, there were TV ads circulated in the state owned and
private TV channels in which citizens were warned against foreign spies.
It is noteworthy that in interviews there was a noticeable disparity of
interpretation of the Tahrir uprisings –with its background dynamics and the political
developments in the post-Mubarak period– between the intellectuals, activists and some
experienced politicians on one side, and the average Egyptian citizens and young people
on the other side. This divergence of explanation also manifested itself with respect to the
interpretation of the role the Armed Forces. In the interviews, these two loosely defined
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categories21 (Intellectuals, politicians, and activists versus average Egyptians, particularly
the young generation) explained the role of the Egyptian Armed Forces differently.
Intellectuals, activists and some politicians offered a more critical stance against
the army. Several of the interlocutors shared the view that the military leadership hated
the idea that Gamal Mubarak was very likely to replace his father. Gamal Mubarak did
not have a military background and after his schemed ascension in the NDP, he was
increasingly intervening in state affairs. Gamal had a small coterie of privileged
businessmen around him and their increasing influence in the economy and politics
annoyed the higher echelons in the military. Furthermore, some argued that the
neoliberal economic policies of Mubarak over the last decade had led to privatization of
some state enterprises and that the military who had a share in this, alienated the Army
from Mubarak.
In an interview with senior liberal activist and Coptic Egyptian, George Ishak (C),
he explained that:
When I met with high officials from the military they said that, “because we did
not like Gamal, we were preparing to get rid of Mubarak, but you made it possible
through a mass movement.” But after the revolution, when we (George Ishak)
looked at what they did, it turned out that they are still the men of Mubarak.
Tantawi (the latest Chief of Staff of Mubarak) was surprised when Mubarak was
arrested. Morsi dismissed Tantawi in a very bad way. The army was not in a
position to confront the people in Tahrir. Tahrir was very strong. If they could
have done so, they would have done it. They refused to interfere and use violent
repressive measures and we really appreciated that.
Dr. Ali el-Din Hilal (FR), who was an MP and the Media Secretary of Mubarak’s
NDP stated:
21
These two categories can be discerned from each other with a loosely defined in-group
common denominator; that is, the application of an informed perspective (either gained
from academic training or professional experience as politicians or activist) or the lack
thereof in the latter category.
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The army had grievances about the expected succession of Gamal Mubarak.
Gamal had started to intervene in the internal affairs, such as promotions and
appointments, of the army. Furthermore, the army was against the economic
liberalization, which they considered as a factor weakening the state. The army
observed the weakness in the decision making process during the first ten days of
the protests and since there is no place for vacuum in politics the army decided
not to support Mubarak.
More importantly, Dr. Nadia Mustafa (NA) suggested, even if the top
commanders had decided to use force against their own people, they could not be sure of
possible defections particularly from the middle and lower rank officers. Aly (2012)
made a similar comment that the army feared a violent confrontation with the
demonstrators that would possibly endanger the unity of its forces causing defections or
could lead to a similar fate like the police. In a similar vein, Maher (LI), a columnist and
reporter who closely observed the Tahrir events explained:
Beside other reasons, the Army’s decision not to support Mubarak reflected a
rational calculation in terms of balance of power vis-à-vis the huge numbers of
the protesters and their determination. The police and the intelligence apparatus,
whose numbers were probably over a million, could not hold out for more than a
few days against the protestors. The number of Army’s personnel was about
450.000 officers and they would not be able to control the streets by force without
causing heavy casualties, which would be very unwise and risky in the face of
possible defections from the army’s own ranks and under live coverage to the
world.
Barbara Geddes (1999a) argued that most military officers deem the unity,
survival, and effectiveness of the corps more important than ruling the country. They are
more concerned with the internal cohesiveness and hierarchy and providing adequate
budget in order to be up to date materially and for personal economic prosperity.
Secondly, Geddes argued, with their actual capabilities of use of force, the military
regimes can negotiate an advantageous exit plan from power and they always have their
barracks to return to safely without risking their reputation. In Egyptian case, the high
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echelons of the military corps tended to avoid resorting to violence against their own
citizens particularly as this was likely to cause divisions inside the military. The Armed
Forces in fact attempted to clear Tahrir Square several times –for example on February 2
and 5– by persuasion, but the crowds were not impressed by their call and the Egyptians
did not leave Tahrir. Consequently, the military did not attempt to use force against the
people’s response and would not leave until Mubarak stepped down (Awad 2011).
An analysis of the collected data revealed that average Egyptians 22 had a more
benign approach towards the military. Although the SCAF’s rule in the transition period
(after Mubarak stepped down until President Morsi assumed power) might have slightly
eroded it (Goldstone 2011), traditionally the Egyptian Armed Forces have had a high
level of institutional repute and prestige in Egypt (Albrecht & Bishara 2011). On many
occasions various informants (mainly those who were in the loosely defined category of
‘average Egyptians’) offered great complimentary comments about the Egyptian military;
their professionalism, courage, strength, and their constructive role during the Tahrir
protests. It is quite normal that citizens respect and love their army. Yet, it was still
surprising to hear that level of respect for the Armed Forces. To the disadvantage of the
general public, the Armed Forces had oddly controlled significant amounts of economic
investments with special governmental deals and subsidies that had provided them a
relatively better life style. Besides, like two of his predecessors Nasser and Sadat,
Mubarak, who in the own words of one of one informant, “virtually devastated the social
fabric of the Egyptian society”, and ruled the country with repression for almost three
22
The average Egyptian is an arbitrary and loosely defined category. In this context, the
term is used to describe Egyptians who are not involved in politics intellectually (as
academicians and/or journalists) or practically (as professional politicians and/or
activists).
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decades was from the military. Despite all these facts, the Egyptian army maintained a
high level of respect in the society.
Nonetheless, this respect was more pronounced by interlocutors from the general
public. Youssef’s (AE) comment, a teacher of Arabic language, resonated the true
feelings of many Egyptians about their army;
The Egyptian Army is great; they do not fear anything, ever!
Inter alia, two reasons behind this high level of admiration are noteworthy.
Firstly, from Nasser and Sadat to Mubarak all successive leaders in the recent history of
Egypt were from the military and all ruled with some level of authoritarianism. Yet,
Mubarak ran his regime through the police and intelligence apparatus. As Kandil (2012)
argued, Mubarak had sidelined the army and empowered the intelligence and police
apparatus. This was a deliberate strategy of Mubarak’s since he did not want anyone from
the army to emerge as a potential rival to replace him. Kandil claimed that the increased
influence of the police during the Mubarak regime led to a resentment and conflict in the
army against the police. Consequently, while the intelligence and the police were all
carrying out ‘dirty business’ on behalf the state, the Armed Forces managed to keep its
reputation unharmed.
Secondly, as Kandil argued (2012) the state official narrative of the Egyptian state
successfully promoted the idea in the society that the Armed Forces hade been the sole
protector of the Egyptian nation. In a way, the Armed Forces were sacrificed. Egyptians
are very patriotic people (Bradley 2012). They are proud of their ancient history and
civilization. As raised by several interlocutors, as a token of their land’s and nation’s
invaluable place in history of civilizations they also refer to some verses in the Holy
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Qur’an, in which their land is mentioned with the Arabic word Misr, meaning Egypt,
explicitly or implied positively. In one verse23, it reads that Egypt is a “safe land”. For
Egyptians these direct and indirect references to Egypt and its explicit commendation as a
“safe land” further contributes to the deep affection of their country and their army,
which many Egyptians consider as the guardian of their independence. This widespread
positive perception of the Armed Forces, particularly among the general public, seemed
to affect people’s interpretation of the Army during Tahrir uprisings and post-Mubarak
period.
When asked about reasons that made the Armed Forces leave Mubarak, many
interlocutors from the general public said, almost without any exception, that it was
because the Armed Forces love their country and compatriots and that it has been a
professional army who would never shoot its own countrymen24. Few would argue on the
contrary that Egyptian Armed Forces has been respectful to general population and has
maintained well-disciplined corps of high level of integrity. After the army stepped in the
streets on January 28, despite the deep respect of the military there was a moment of
uncertainty about their intentions, and whether they would side with Mubarak or not. Yet,
since the military did not interfere and deployed its troops around important
governmental institutions and the Antiquities Museum, the protestors were relieved and
this was interpreted as a lethal blow to Mubarak. “The army and the people are one
23
In Surah Yusuf (the Story of Prophet Joseph).
The Egyptian Armed Forces carried out a military intervention on July 03, 2013 to oust
elected President Mohammad Morsi who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. In
the following events, on July 8, 2013 many civilians were wounded and killed (Dziadosz
& Nasralla 2013). As a repercussion of these developments, the military’s reputation was
gravely tarnished among some Egyptians, particularly among supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood.
24
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hand” became one of the slogans of the revolution. Dr. Nadia Mustafa (NA), Professor of
International Relations at Cairo University and Director of the Civilization Center for
Political Studies, explained:
The Military was the hero in the eyes of people. They did not interfere and they
did not support Mubarak.
Figure 3: The army and the people are one hand (Khalil 2011: 20).
Figure 4: Protestors welcome the Armed Forces on January 28 (Khalil 2011:21)
In the light of these arguments it is plausible to claim that the high echelons of the
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military initially waited to see the course of events and later decided not to intervene.
Thus, they decided to side with the people to save the country from further “harm”.
Besides, according to the analysis of the collected data, the most significant factor in the
army’s decision was the issue of inheritance of the presidency from Mubarak to his son
Gamal Mubarak, an “unpopular civilian” for the military corps. Lastly, the losses in
economic activities of the army that were caused by increasing liberalization initiatives in
the last decade of Mubarak regime constituted the basis of “infringement” of military
interest and led to the alienation of the leadership of the Armed Forces from Mubarak.
g. Decertification
Decertification denotes the situation when the key actors or elites who support the
regime withdraw their validation of the ruling regime, their claims and performances
(McAdams et al. 2001). As McAdams argues, this is a frequently observed mechanism in
contentious politics. By decertification, the elites’ relationship with the ruling regime
either loses its value to preserve the status quo or the associated risks to maintain their
relationship brings unsustainable costs.
January 28, 2011, the fourth day of the protests marked an important turning point
for the uprising. By the new participations of hundred of thousands of people, including
the Muslim Brotherhood en masse, a revolutionary situation emerged. The selfconfidence of the protestors grew and a new collective identity of “revolutionaries”
emerged. Associated with that, there was a significant transformation in the selfidentification of protesters on a scale that may be called a ‘paradigmatic change’. After
the collapse of the security forces the Military stepped in and declared that they would
respect the demands of the people. With this regime defection, the Mubarak was exposed,
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increasingly and rapidly, to a process of decertification on a national level.
According to McAdam et al. (2001) a regimes’ relationships with significant
states or transnational organizations constitutes a secondary structure of validation. Thus,
the withdrawal of validation or support by significant international actors creates an
additional direct or indirect strain on the regime’s stability and its perpetuation. This is
especially important if there is direct financial or military support for the regime from
international actors. The international community’s initial reaction to the events in Egypt
was somewhat ambivalent, but it began to change accordingly when the revolutionaries
gained relative success against the security forces.
For the Mubarak regime the most ‘significant other’ was certainly the United
States. Since the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, Egypt has been the second largest U.S.
foreign assistant recipient. Although the total yearly amount fluctuated over the years, the
U.S. had provided Egypt with roughly $1.3 billion in military aid since 1987 (Sharp
2011). Thus, the U.S.’ reaction was very important for Mubarak and particularly for the
Egyptian Armed Forces. After the protest started on January 25, the US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said in a statement: "Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is
stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the
Egyptian people" (Reuters 2011a). After January 28, the tone of the US Officials began
to change slightly urging the parties (the protestors and the security forces) to refrain
from violence. On January 29, the US President Obama suggested Mubarak to implement
essential social, economic, and political reforms. The EU leaders displayed a similar
approach (EurActiv 2011). These mixed massages showed that most significant others in
international arena did not completely withdraw their support from the Mubarak regime
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as of the first week of the protests. However, the events were already under transnational
public scrutiny and all major international entities, including the UN, who had reminded
the regime to allow citizens’ the freedom to take part in demonstrations and free speech.
There was constant live coverage of the protests through satellite TV Channels like Al
Jazeera International and the BBC. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Mubarak
however, to justify the violent tactics of the security forces while under such close
scrutiny.
After the second week of the protests, the US’s stance began to change
significantly. Earlier, the US officials had already increased the tone of their criticism and
advised Mubarak to take urgent reform initiatives. Particularly, after the infamous Camel
Battle on February 2, it became evident that Egyptians would not consent to anything less
than Mubarak’s resignation. And the US finally accepted the fact that the Mubarak
regime was coming to an end. President Obama had called Mubarak several times and
reminded him that it was time to leave (Khalil 2012). In a similar vein, the UN’s
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon escalated the level of criticism against the regime.
Turkey’s PM Erdogan clearly stated on February 2 that Mubarak should leave office
immediately (Seibert 2011). Given these facts, it is plausible to claim that after the
violent Camel Battle of February 2, the Mubarak regime was truly decertified on
international level.
McAdam et al. (2001) argued that decertification encourages claimants to
intensify their struggles against the regime and urges hesitant supporters to desert the
ruler at the face of the changing relative balance of power, in which regime is likely to
“become more a liability than an asset” (p. 221). Particularly after February 2, the
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apparent triumph of the protesters against the security forces and the Armed Force’s
deployment –with their tacit support to the protestors– led to a highly tense political
environment for the supporters of the regime. The political atmosphere was becoming
strictly polarized. On the one side, there was hundreds of thousands of Egyptians
attending protests that were instigated by a small number of well educated Egyptian
youth, and on the other side, there was Mubarak’s dictatorship.
h. Polarization
McAdam et al. (2001) identified polarization as another significant mechanism
that is seen in most episodes of contentions. Polarization denotes “widening of political
and social space between claimants in a contentious episode and the gravitation of
previously uncommitted or moderate actors toward one, the other, or both extremes”
(McAdam et al. 2001:322). When the process of polarization arises, the moderate center
loses its relevance and it compels everyone to take sides. People and groups reconsider
the value of existing coalitions and new ones are created.
By the night of January 28, 2011 the security forces were completely withdrawn
from the streets and the Egyptian Armed Forces were urging people to observe the
curfew. The Mubarak regime had taken a serious blow. A feeling of victory dominated
the protesters. A category of what may be called “free Egyptians” was in the making. A
new Egyptian profile, which was defined on the basis of mutiny against Mubarak regime,
was being constructed. People versus the regime became the dichotomy that people and
groups had to choose from. Egyptian politics was being rapidly polarized. With the
apparent supremacy of protesters in controlling the streets, while security forces were
absent and the military was not involved, supporting Mubarak became increasingly
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difficult and potentially costly. Thus, it could be argued that the calls of Shaykh Ahmad
al-Tayyib, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, the highest Islamic authority in Egypt, who had
discouraged Muslim Egyptians from protests against the ruler (Zeghal 2011), and Pope
Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Church, who had expressed support for Mubarak
(Champion 2011), lost their relevance to a great extent. That was because the regime they
were supporting (implicitly or explicitly) was completely demonized. Thus, even
Muslim clerics from the Azhar and the Coptic Christians sects joined the protests in
increasing numbers.
The organizers and initial participants in the first three days were largely middle
class Egyptians youth. As of January 28, people from the slums and low wages
employees joined the protesters and began to join in the protests.
The protestors, until that time, were young people from middle class backgrounf.
A new change occurred on the 28th. Poor people, very poor people from the lowincome shantytowns began to join the protests in downtown. Most of them were
criminals and dangerous. Of course they joined for different reasons. People who
wanted to steal entered police departments to take the weapons or drugs. There
were also others who wanted to support us. Everyone had his own intention, but
their numbers were in thousands. Most of them hated the police, because some of
them were tortured under police custody. So that was a very good way for them
to take their revenge. Everything was in our side (From an interview with
Mahmoud, a young activist in his mid thirties).
After the security forces vacated the streets the level of tension decreased
significantly and more women and children stepped into the streets. When the
interlocutors asked whether they participated in the protests, very often they responded
affirmatively with great pride. For many Egyptians it was a matter of honor to be able to
say, “I was in Tahrir Square”.
The various social classes’ different timing of entry to the protests required
further exploration in more detail. A tangential analysis suggested that it might be
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because the organizers used mainly the Internet and social media to announce their plan
for the January 25 protests. The Internet and social media were available in general for
those people of a middle class background and for the upper classes. Although the use of
mobile phones is almost universal and relatively cheap in Egypt, having access to the
Internet directly or through mobile phones –and/or having a mobile phone with Internet
capability– was beyond the reach of many Egyptians, 25.2 percent of whom lived in
poverty in 2010-2011 (Al-Masry Al-Youm 2012) 25. The use of social media and the
Internet was not only limited to the organizational phase. The youth activist groups also
used the social media and the Internet for mobilization purposes. For example, the
Facebook page “We are all Khaled Said” played a significant role in increasing the
awareness of Egyptian youth against the brutality of the security forces and the
corruption in the governmental institutions (Ghonim 2012). Thus, it would be plausible to
argue that the middle class Egyptian youth, who had regular access to the social media
and Internet, were more politicized than the socioeconomically lower classes.
Another possible explanation might be that; the youth from relatively well off
backgrounds were less intimidated by the security forces and could risk more because
they were not regularly subject to the same level of repression as most Egyptians from
relatively poor socioeconomic backgrounds. It was the people from the shantytowns of
Cairo or elsewhere in Egypt who were mostly exposed to police brutality in their daily
lives. They were sometimes picked up from the streets and were beaten by the police in
their stations just because they dared to look into the eyes of a police officer directly
25
In this statistic the poverty line was accepted as LE256 per person per month, or
LE8.5 per day. In US dollars this equals approximately $43 per person per month or
$1.5 per day (Al-Masry Al-Youm 2012).
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(Ismail 2006). Therefore, despite their deep resentment, they were more hesitant because
of their past experience with the security forces. Besides, from the accounts of various
informants, this researcher had the impression that the police were treating people
according to their social and political backgrounds. Ismail (2006) made a similar
argument that police officers’ speak with care and respect with someone who is driving
an expensive car. That degree of ‘care and respect’ was rarely shown to any ordinary
Egyptian from a shantytown of Cairo or to someone one with a Salafi style beard.
Several points of observation and commentaries recounted by some informants
reinforce the above proposition. For instance, Amr Farouk (WP), the spokesperson of the
moderate Wasat Party explained that on the night of the first day of protests on January
25 (to the surprise of Amr Farouk) after the intense clashes earlier in the day, some of the
young activists wanted to leave the Square. Amr Farouk interpreted this as their lack of
experience with the state26. He explained that if they had left that night or if they could
not have finished what they started, the regime would have punished them severely by all
means for their “insolence” against the state. We can interpret the Muslim Brotherhood’s
decision not to participate in the protests on the first three days using the same reasoning.
The MB had learned to respect the power of the state the hard way. Since its
establishment in 1928, the organization had been subject to severe persecutions of the
state on many occasions (Hafez 2003). Its leaders were arrested and some of them spent
many years in prisons. Thus the MB did not want to risk their institutional status against
the Mubarak regime for an apparently ‘highly improbable’ outcome, such as
26
He does not suggest a complete unawareness of the state’s repressive measures. For
example some of the organizers as well, like Ahmad Maher from April Six Movements,
were arrested before because of their political activities (Kirkpatrick & Sanger 2011).
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overthrowing Mubarak. Yet, at a critical juncture, as the balance of power seemed to
change after the first three days of protests, and the MB decided pragmatically to join
these.
On the first day of the protests, the probability that the protesters would
eventually overpower the police was hardly imaginable; yet when the relative supremacy
in the streets developed to the advantage of the protestors, people from the
socioeconomically disadvantaged classes –probably full of a sense of revenge against
their oppressors– did not hesitate to join in. To the benefit of the initial core group of
organizers, these late coming youth and specifically members of the Ultras Ahlawi, the
hardcore fans of Cairo’s Ahly Football Club, played a significant role in violent clashes
with the police. Very often in interviews, Egyptians commended the Ultras for their
courageous confrontations and sacrifices during the most critical times of the clashes with
the security forces.
Ritualized Protests as Rites of Passages
Victor Turner (1973:1100) defined a ritual as “a stereotyped sequence of activities
involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to
influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests.”
Earlier anthropological studies of rituals (such as Turner’s (1969) study among the
Ndembu of Zambia) focused on its role in tribal societies. Yet, rituals may serve various
functions and as Lewellen (2003) suggested rituals are equally relevant subjects of
inquiry in modern societies: “it is through ritual, and through the individual’s
participation in it, that the ordinary citizen makes the crucial emotional bond with the
otherwise unthinkably huge and often impersonal state” (Lewellen 2003:69).
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In an illuminating study, Julie Peteet’s (1994) showed a quite contrary role of
rituals through which ritualized physical violence is interpreted “as a transformative
experience that galvanizes one set of participants to unsettle power arrangements" (p. 31).
Peteet argued that Palestinians framed the Israeli practice of beating and imprisoning
young Palestinian males during the intifada (uprising) as a rite of passage into manhood
that enhanced political consciousness and agency among Palestinian youth.
In a similar vein, in ritualized protests of the 18 days of the Tahrir Uprisings,
confrontation with the security forces, served as a rite of passage for Egyptians through
which they redefined themselves with an idealized understanding of self as “free and
dignified people as Egyptians. Participating in the protests during the 18 days–when
Mubarak was still in power– without necessarily clashing with the security forces might
be considered an initiation of a rite of passage. As conceptualized by Arnold van Gennep
(1960) the rite of passage represents a ritual event that facilitates and orders an
individuals transition from one status in life to another.
Although protests were on rise over the last few years, particularly after the 2008
labor demonstrations in the Mahalla district of Cairo, the regime had never been
challenged on this scale and in such a direct manner as on January 25, 2011. For most
Egyptians, it was the first time that they were joining a protest. According to their
statements, some informants had joined the protests after the January 28 or after February
2, after the security forces withdrew from streets and major violent clashes with the
police or paid thugs were over. Given the fear against the security apparatus that captured
the imagination of most Egyptians until January 25 uprising, being among the protesters
during the 18 days –even without necessarily clashing with the security forces– was
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perceived as a challenge against the state. Not all of the interviewed informants had
actively clashed with the security forces, even if some of them were present in Tahrir or
other places of demonstrations in the heyday of the street clashes. Nevertheless, the
organizers had managed to frame the contention in such an inclusive way that anyone
who somehow contributed to the protestors could easily identify himself or herself as a
part of the whole who rose up against the regime. A strict polarization in the course of
events and “people versus regime” categorization that was formed as a consequence
helped people to feel attached to the movement on the streets. Thus, for example, Dr.
Shevki (NA) from Cairo University who prepared posters and took his colleagues to
Tahrir Square proudly stated that he considered himself a revolutionary. Along the same
lines, Salma (AE), a middle age female Egyptian who works in a nearby post office to
Tahrir Square, explained with great pride that she cooked and prepared meals for the
protestors during the demonstrations. In short, regardless of the level of contribution
participation in the protests served as a transformative mechanism as a ‘rite of passage’
through which people reclaimed their self esteem and dignity against the state.
The transformation of the people’ self identity and political culture was reflected
as well in the slogans, bills, and posters that were used during the 18 days of protests. In
her edited book Messages from Tahrir, Revolutionary Photography Karima Khalil (2011)
presented a rich collection of photographs that reflected the psychology of the Egyptians
during the 18 days of protests. In a newspaper article about the content of her collection
Khalil stated; “the language indicates a loss of fear that had dominated the Egyptian
psyche for decades” (Hussein 2011). Several of these pictures were quite illustrative:
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Figure 5: Egypt Reborn
Name: Citizen
Religion: Egyptian
Place of Birth: Tahrir Square
Date of Birth: 25 January 2011
Occupation: Revolutionary (Khalil 2011:72).
Figure 6: I am a revolutionary and therefore I am (Khalil 2011:73)
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Figure 7: I used to be Afraid I became Egyptian (Khalil 2011:51)
Figure 8: Forgive me Lord; I was afraid and silent (Khalil 2011:71)
Figure 9: My Country, I am sorry it took me so long (Khalil 2011:127)
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Figure 10: This is my shroud, for Egypt (Khalil 2011:24)
This creation or transformation of identities, or reconstruction of self are not
necessarily deliberately initiated processes and in some cases changes may not be
observable by the subjects. Thereby, it is not always evident as some of the posters in
quoted pictures suggest:
I used to be afraid I became Egyptian
Forgive me Lord; I was afraid and silent.
My Country, I am sorry it took me so long.
A young Egyptian wrote: Place of Birth: Tahrir Square. Date of Birth 25 January
2011 (Khalil 2011).
What was being created or reconstructed as 'true Egyptianness', as dignified and
fearless citizens, should not be considered as an individual acquisition. As a form of
social construction, the rediscovered identity of true Egyptianness was rather a product of
collective participation in the performance, which was the protests with contributions of
all involved parties; the protestors, the security forces, and the audience. This statement
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does not suggest that every Egyptian who was in Tahrir Square during the 18 days of
protests experienced same level of transformation of political culture at the same level of
intensity. As Schieffelin (1985) persuasively argued, ritual performance (protests in 2011
Egyptian Revolution) may involve various meaning for different individuals:
Because ritual in performance is a reality apart from its participants, the
participants may not all experience the same significance or efficacy…The
performance is objectively (and socially) validated by the participants when they
share its action and intensity no matter what each person may individually think
about it (Schieffelin 1985:722).
McAdam et al. (2001) argued that political identity formation involves both
cognitive and relational mechanisms. In ritualized protests of the Tahrir Revolution
individuals’ identity changes or restorations were approved negatively (by the security
apparatus of the regime who could not disperse the protesters) or positively (by the fellow
protestors and remote audiences who witnessed the courage and determination of the
rebelling individuals) and this was how the transformation of identities was reinforced;
yet not sealed.
In the post-Mubarak period, in which protests and demonstrations across various
social, cultural, and political lines became the dominant tool of expressing public
sentiment, it is plausible to claim that the 18 days of protests changed the political culture
and people’s understanding of themselves as more “free and self-confident” citizens. In
our interview, former diplomat Fathy El Shazly (FR) stated that the change in the psyche
of Egyptians has been ‘paradigmatic’. He suggested that the political culture in Egypt
was changed in a paramount way. Although he did not refer to Thomas Kuhn (1970), it is
equally convenient to describe this change as paradigmatic in the exact Khunian sense.
As Kuhn suggested, when a reigning scientific paradigm keeps falling short of addressing
new scientific inquiries, tension begins to mount and a state of crisis takes the stage until
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a new dominant paradigm is introduced in a revolutionary (not in a cumulative) way.
Along the same lines, the dominant political culture during Mubarak regime, which
fostered the submissiveness of powerless citizens –coercively and fraudulently–to a ruler
who had no accountability, had long ago lost its sustainability. Finally, with the
convergence of accumulated societal/political tensions and affects of contingent events, a
crisis broke out. Consequently, this crisis (the revolutionary situation that was manifested
itself on January 28 after the collapse of Mubarak’s security apparatus) made it evident to
both parties, people and the regime alike, that a new political culture had replaced thus
far prevalent political culture of submissiveness and indifference.
This transformation seemed most evident when even some young Egyptians of
high school age, university students or average citizens of any age group or social class
began pronouncing their intention to realize a second revolution just about three months
after the first democratically elected president took office. A simple reasoning, such as
“Egyptian who endured Mubarak’s almost three decade repressive rule could not stand
their first fairly elected president more than a few months” would be a misapprehension
of the Egyptian psyche in the post revolution period. It seems that Egyptians were not the
same people (as they were before the 2011 Revolution). After the revolution, they were
politically more interested, more self-confident, and more demanding. Moreover, young
activists had become sort of “experienced revolutionaries”, some of whom were overconfident and were overwhelmed by a ‘revolutionary romanticism’.
It Surprised us All
Dr. Said (FR). a trained political scientist was close to the Mubarak regime. His
account of the events, both in our interview and in his own published report, provided
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useful details that could be considered, to some extent, as "an insiders view" from the
regime’s side. At the time of the Tahrir uprising Dr. Said was the chairman of the board,
of the state-owned Al Ahram Newspaper and Publishing House and also a member of the
Gamal Mubarak's Policy Committee under the NDP. As stated by almost every
interlocutor, the 2011 Egyptian Revolution also surprised Dr. Said. Except for several
meticulous observers of Egypt (like Shehata 2008; Wright 2008; Aswanny 2011) who
believed that some sort of societal outburst with possible consequences of revolution was
imminent , many academicians were caught by surprise when the Mubarak regime ended
after a popular uprising (Agathangelou & Soguk 2011; Korani & El-Mahdi 2012). Yet, in
interviews, two different types of surprise or ‘astonishment’ were observed. Under the
first category, almost all interlocutors expressed their astonishment regarding the sudden
advent and relatively peaceful success of events that resulted in Mubarak's ousting. In
addition to this sentiment of surprise, some interlocutors had a slightly different type of
surprise or ‘shock’ that was explicitly stated or implied. Some Egyptians seemed to be
shocked with the “ungrounded” mass uprising against Mubarak regime and they could
hardly make any sense of it. It seemed that the deep public resentment against the
Mubarak family and the regime were unintelligible for them. From their accounts and the
way they described the events, the researcher had the impression that, apparently, from
their point of view, there was no basis for such an uprising. All of these interlocutors who
shared this latter kind of ‘shock’, were either high-level bureaucrats during the Mubarak
regime, including military personnel, or politicians who were members of the then ruling
NDP party. Their descriptions of the events were different in the way that they did not
show any sentimental ownership or claim for Egyptians' courageous and historical
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initiative to reclaim their political rule of their country. Nor was there, contrary to the
descriptions of many other Egyptians, any trace of pride in their accounts of the events.
In many of the interviews and conversations, Egyptians from different social and
political backgrounds proudly narrated their side of the story about the revolution. Their
joy, with an accompanying sense of anxiety that was mostly related to uncertainty of the
transition period, was obvious. Even if they were not able to participate in the 18 days of
protests for some reason, they shared the joy of victory and pride with their sons and
daughters and countrymen. Dr. Shevki (NA) from Cairo University is a Muslim Egyptian
and he was not officially affiliated with any political movement. His excitement was
obvious when he talked about the young generation of Egyptians:
We could not imagine that this revolution would be possible. This is an evaluation
of myself with all my age and experience as an Egyptian in this country. But, the
young people, they believed that they could change the regime. For example, my
son, Yousuf, they believed that they could change this country. My wife and me
were astonished with their courage and determination and in fact, we did not how
and where they have gotten (with his sisters) this confidence…I consider myself a
revolutionary, because I took the professors from the University to Tahrir and
joined the demonstrations and wrote slogans on the papers and prepared
billboards.
On the other hand, Dr. Kamil’s (FR) account of the revolution carried somewhat a
different tone. Dr. Kamil is a professor of Political Science and he was among the
important figures of Gamal Mubarak’s “reformist” Policy Committee in the NDP.
…Of course it was a surprise. Those who gathered on the 25th did not imagine
that number of participants. It was beyond the imagination of the security, the
media, and those showed up. They did not call the overthrow of the regime. They
wanted reforms, especially in the Ministry of Interior; reforms related to human
rights, things of that sort that were related to police activities. And than big thing
happened on the 28th. That is when many people joined in. There were attacks on
government institutions, police stations and so on. As a result, the police
collapsed. After that there were negotiations between the government and the
demonstrators. President Mubarak and his new vice president Omar Suleiman
announced some reform initiatives, but it seemed that they were not enough for
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many parties who were involved in these protests. So Mubarak decided to quit.
No body expected it. It developed so quickly. It was bad management (of the
crisis, the protests) those who managed it at the top, president and the people with
him. And the president felt that he had to leave and the military took over…. Was
it a revolution or not? It depends how you look at it. Of course, in pure academic
definition, like the French or Iranian revolution, it may not be easy to call it a
revolution from academic point of view. But definitely it led to revolutionary
changes…. On the other hand, some people are saying that we got rid of an
authoritarian regime... I think people are more politicized (after the revolution),
more interested in politics; especially young people, university students. Politics
become more entertaining. Become more interesting after the so-called fear
barrier has been broken…
Dr. Nagib (FR) is also a political scientist and like Dr. Kamil he was member of
the Policy Committee of the NDP. He explained that he expected a revolution, yet; his
assessment of the Tahrir Uprising was quite different than most Egyptians’:
You need to understand first, what type of revolution it is. I am a liberal and head
of the Department of Political Science at our University. I consider this revolution
as a civic revolution not a political or a social revolution. It was being triggered as
a result of widening political participation. Revolution does not occur as a result
of social injustice, because there was no social injustice at that sense at the time.
There was social injustice being seen as deepening because of the growing
political participation. Growing political participation was the reason of Egyptian
civic revolution. In the last five years of Mubarak regime, there was a widening
political participation in different forms and ways and it harbored a lot of
groups…When you widen the political participation, according to my reasoning,
then you have what you call it civic conflict. I have a book on civic conflict in
Egypt, describing that we would see such a revolution… The groups that
participated in the political process during the last five years were basically
middle class, and upper middle class. Later on, lower classes came in as a
spillover of the process of liberalization or political participation…
Given the differences in political orientations, social and economic statuses, and
peoples’ relation with the Mubarak regime, all these different approaches and attitudes
–explicitly expressed or implied– about Egyptian Revolution are understandable.
Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that, most of the interlocutors who were close to the
Mubarak regime, did not refer to state’s systematic repression against political freedoms,
police brutality, corruption, high level of unemployment, or economic hardships, as many
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other Egyptians indicated. They tended to explain the massive uprising by “foreign
intervention” or by describing the events as a “civic revolution” disagreeing with the
existence of the pervasive social injustice in the society. In some cases, as some of the
quotes above imply, the revolution was a phenomenon that was incomprehensible for
them. For some informants in this category, the revolution occurred because of
Mubarak’s and his close circle’s “bad management” of the crisis (the demonstrations) and
eventually “the so-called fear barrier has been broken” in the society. What is more
intriguing was to see how some people come to deny wholeheartedly the misery and
oppression that millions of Egyptians had to endure for decades under Mubarak.
The Coptic Christians During the 2011 Revolution
Although it is not possible to give an exact number, Coptic Christians comprise
approximately 6 to 10 percent of the total population (Pennington 1982; Kort 2007).
According to Coptic accounts, they began to convert to Christianity in about 60 CE by
the introduction of evangelist St Mark in Alexandria (Reid 2002). During the Islamic
period (starting from 641 A.D) under different dynasties, the Copts were subject to
various forms of differential treatment in public life. After the independence of modern
Egypt, Coptic Egyptians lived usually in relative cohesion with the political authorities.
There have been sporadic acts of violence against the Copts that were usually sparked by
the claims of forced conversions, abductions, or the issue of building churches. Nasser’s
rise to power following a coup d’état by the Free Officers movement in 1952 negatively
affected the Copts on several accounts. Nasser’s mainstream policy was socialism and
pan-Arab nationalism. His nationalization policies severely affected the Copts who held
significant economic investments in the private economic sphere. Besides, his pan-Arab
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policies undermined the national sentiments and attachments of the Coptic community
who equally valued their pre-Arab identity and their claimed pharaonic heritage
(Meinardus 1999).
Under the patriarch of Pope Shenouda III Coptic-Muslim relations notably
improved with his efforts towards emphasizing the unity of the Egyptian people. He
maintained good relations with the Muslim religious leaders and government officials. In
a press release at a UN-sponsored conference in Cyprus, Pope Shenouda III rejected the
notion of minority for Copts in Egypt and emphasized that Copts are Egyptians and part
of Egypt, of the same nation (Sedra 1999). It is also important to note that although the
Copts are de jure equal citizens of Egypt, there is widespread resentment among the
Copts about their differential treatment by the state in the public sphere (Henderson
2005). For example, while conversion from Christianity to Islam is encouraged and
welcomed, conversion from Islam to Christianity is encountered usually with public
disdain. Another point of resentment relates to the building of churches that is strictly
dependent on official permit by governorate. It is also claimed that the Copts are
discriminated in being appointed to public offices. They believe they are
underrepresented in government posts.
Sedra (1999) argued that there are two opposing strands of thought within the
Coptic community. First, the ‘national unity’ discourse according to which the Copts are
fully and harmoniously integrated into Egyptian society. Second is the ‘persecution’
discourse that accepts the Copts as entirely distinct people from Muslims in religion,
culture, history, and race. For the adherents of the latter strand of thought, the Coptic
experience with the majority Muslims has traditionally been marked by persecution and
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misery and they tend to describe themselves as members of a minority group. Sedra
argued that these two contrasting strands of thoughts have developed under different
political conditions within different sections of Coptic community.
According to Sedra’s (1999) analysis of class dynamics within the Coptic
community during the past century, there has been a complete reversal of roles. He
argues that while elite Copts pioneered the struggle for reform of church at the turn of the
century, and defended their rights of citizenship within Egyptian society, currently, it is
the middle-class Copts that struggle to defend such rights.
Elite Copts have come to reject the language of the persecution discourse—
language that resonates for the Coptic middle class. Further, elite Copts have
come to endorse a millet partnership between Pope Shenouda and President
Mubarak characterized by conservatism and quiescence—a partnership that serves
as a barrier to the fulfillment of the aspirations of the Coptic middle class (Sedra
1999:227).
The analysis of the Coptic community’s initial stance and role in 2011 Revolution
supports the relevance of Sedra’s (1999) assessment to a great extent. During the first
days of the revolution, in January 2011, the Coptic Church under the leadership of Pope
Shenouda III initially supported President Mubarak and asked Coptic Egyptians not to be
involved in the demonstrations (Ahram Online 2011b). According to the accounts of
various informants (Christians and Muslims), a certain segment of the Coptic community
honored the calls of the Pope Shenouda III and refrained from participating in the
demonstrations during the 18 days. In the lights of the informants’ accounts of the events
and their experience, the analysis of the collected data indicated that the majority of the
Coptic Egyptians who were relatively more religious or those who belonged arguably to
the upper class in the Egyptian socio economic structure did not join the protests. The
relatively more religious Copts consider the Coptic Church and the Pope as their
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legitimate representative vis-à-vis the state. Nonetheless, various informants who were
present in Tahrir Square during the revolution explained that many young Coptic
Egyptians joined the demonstrations and equally shouldered the responsibility of
defending Tahrir in the most critical times, such as the infamous Battle of Camel on
February 2. According to the statement of one of the Coptic informants Joseph (C), who
spoke as a representative of the Coptic Maspero Youth Union, the majority of the Copts
who joined the revolutionary forces from the first days were mainly Coptic youth of
middle class backgrounds. In his assessment, the Egyptian Revolution started as a middle
class youth initiative and the representation of the Coptic community was in accordance
with the general structure of the initial participants. The analysis of the data revealed that,
as of January 28 –the fourth day of the demonstrations– a scale shift occurred and new
actors, groups, and classes joined the demonstrations. With this scale shift in the larger
society, we see that Egyptians from underprivileged classes, Christians or Muslims,
joined mostly as of January 28.
Dr. Fahmy (C) is a Coptic Egyptian in his late sixties. He is a professor of
chemistry at one of the large universities in Alexandria. Dr. Fahmy stated that because of
his older age, he did not join the protests during the 18 days in 2011. He emphasized that
the support of the Coptic community for Mubarak regime should not be understood to
imply that the Copts were happy under the Mubarak regime or that the Copts just ignored
the excesses of the regime; human rights abuses, police brutality, the level of corruption,
widespread social injustice, or the lack of political freedom. Dr. Fahmy suggested that it
was a reciprocal relationship; while the state protected the non-Muslim citizens against
potential threats from the larger society, Pope Shenouda III and the Coptic Church and
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community provided support and loyalty to the regime. Egypt under Mubarak was a
secular state and Mubarak respected Pope Shenouda III and had good relations with him.
In her evaluation of the recent developments in the Coptic community aftermath of the
Egyptian Revolution, Karima Kamal, a Coptic intellectual, argues that with the renewed
sectarian tensions after Mubarak, some Coptic groups, led specifically by youth, began to
fiercely adopt a revolutionary and confrontational discourse on Coptic rights and
concerns (El-Hennawy 2012). She holds that this mounting idea resonates with the strong
disapproval of the Church’s long-time tradition of avoiding confrontation with the state
authorities among the youth and Middle class Copts.
3. Adjustive or Redressive Mechanisms:
In this phase of social drama, adversaries (regime versus revolutionaries) resort to
various adjustive or redressive mechanisms to resolve the breach. Turner (1957)
suggested that these mechanisms could take place in different forms: "personal and
informal arbitration", "use of formal and legal machinery" and, under some
circumstances "performance of public ritual" (p. 98). Turner noted that if the legal
machinery is not an applicable mechanism because the common norms are in conflict,
parties could resort to "a common frame of values, which organizes a society’s norms in
a hierarchy" (1957:126). It is also important to remember that the application of a
redressive mechanism does not necessarily resolve or end the crisis. According to Swartz
et al. (1966) the intervention of third parties can serve in some instances as a redressive
mechanism. Swartz et al. argued, sometimes, particularly when the extent and scope of
change is massive, possible redressive mechanisms, ritual, arbitrational, legal strategies,
etc. may not resolve the crisis and society may remain in an extended state of crisis, or
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what may be called ", "pervasive factionalism" in Siegel and Beals’ terms (1966:109).
In the course of the 18 days of demonstrations, Mubarak addressed the nation
three times with a varying tone (threatening, challenging, admonishing, warning, and
with a tone of sympathy) that reflected the regime’s perception of the crisis. Mubarak
made some piecemeal concessions and furthermore, after January 28, 2011, high-level
state officials began meeting with representatives of activist groups and some important
political figures from opposition groups. Nevertheless, none of these attempts proved to
be effective in mitigating the popular anger. In addition to Mubarak’s speeches to nation,
the regime’s attempts of ‘threat and intimidation’, ‘decertification of revolutionaries’,
‘disinformation’, direct ‘negotiations’ with the revolutionary forces can be considered as
adjustive or redressive mechanisms that were deployed by the state.
a) Threat and Intimidation
The intelligence apparatus was monitoring the Internet activities and was aware of
the planned protests on January 25, 2011 (Aly 2012). Under the Mubarak regime any
demonstration was required to have prior permission from the police. Therefore, since the
protesters did not have permission for the planned demonstrations the state could arrest
anyone at will. An official statement from the Cairo Security Directorate before January
25 stated that the police would respond decisively to any unlawful attempt against public
order (Khalil, 2012). Yet, the intimidation of officials did not deter the Egyptian youth
from joining the protests.
After the protests gained momentum on January 25, 26, and 27 the organizers
were more encouraged and decided to carry the protests to a next level. To this end, they
chose the coming Friday, January 28. They believed that they could provide larger
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participation after the Friday prayers and if people joined it would mean an all-out
uprising throughout the entire Egypt. The decision of the Muslim Brotherhood to join the
protests on January 28 was an important development. The security forces then began to
realize the seriousness of the developments and they arrested several prominent leaders of
the MB, including the future president Morsi on January 27 (Reuters 2011b). They were
held in Wadi el-Natroun prison near Cairo until they managed to break out on January 29.
Wael Ghonim, a young activist and employee of Google in Katar, was also arrested on
the morning of January 28 (Ghonim 2012). He was the administrator of the famous
Facebook page "We Are All Khaled Said", which played a significant role in the
mobilization process leading up to the uprising. Ghonim was held in detention
blindfolded and was interrogated for 11 days.
On January 28, after the security forces collapsed and many police stations were
raided and burned down by the protesters there occurred breakouts in some prisons (Aly
2012). There have been controversial explanations about how this happened. According
to some claims, the organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and Hamas
arranged the outbreak of the leaders of the MB (AP 2013). In some accounts, 23000
prisoners escaped from the prisons during the 18 days of protests (AP 2013). Particularly
after the police withdrew from the streets and the ensuing prison outbreaks, serious
security problems emerged in the cities. On January 28 and afterwards, there was
occasional looting of stores by thugs and robberies and thefts were increased
significantly. In response, Egyptians formed voluntary watch teams to secure their
neighborhoods. On many occasions in interviews, Egyptians raised their doubts about the
prison outbreak. There was a widespread belief that the prison outbreaks were
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orchestrated by the regime on purpose to instill a sense of insecurity among the public.
The aim was to delegitimize or decertify the protestors holding them responsible for the
“reigning insecurity”. Nevertheless, it apparently did not prove to be a very effective
strategy. Hamid (AE) explained:
There was a security issue, but young people in the neighborhood quickly
organized security teams and working shifts among them and they set up sort of
checkpoints at the entrance of certain districts. People took responsibility and this
contributed to the sense of unity among citizens and further increased anger
against the regime.
Battle of Camel: February 2
After the violent clashes on January 28, the next several days were relatively quite
and peaceful. Some people went to their homes to sleep and shower, thus the number of
the revolutionaries in Tahrir decreased. According to Aly (2012), supporters of the NDP
planned a pro-Mubarak demonstration in Mustafa Mahmoud Square in Cairo on February
2. At the same time, with the intention of dispersing the protesters and vacating the
Square, some leaders of the NDP organized a mob attack of Tahrir Square. At about
midday on February 2, a large group of pro Mubarak supporters (around several
thousands) began to walk towards the Tahrir Square. They were chanting pro Mubarak
slogans. At first, people in Tahrir Square were surprised; they did not simply expect it.
Then, came the people on horse and camel backs with sticks and bladed weapons. They
were charging through the pro democracy protestors. After a moment of confusion, the
revolutionaries began to engage in a violent confrontation with them. Because of those
who were riding camels the day is remembered as the day of the Battle of Camel.
Suddenly there was a struggle and people began to shout. We found people
coming to the square, thousands. It was not the camels first. On that day,
government employees were taking their salaries from the ministries. They said to
the employees: “you have to get into busses and go to Tahrir Square and say that
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you want Mubarak.” I also spoke with some of them they were regular, average
Egyptians.
And later it turned out to be very violent. It was the first day of the hard
revolution. Before that day all was peaceful. Of course, on the 28th there were
deaths but after the 28th there was no clash at all. But this was like a civil war.
They wanted to start a civil clash, not with the police or army. They wanted a civil
clash and some of them were paid thugs. There were snipers and may be there
were people from the army and maybe from the intelligence. All were there,
trying force us to leave Tahrir. But we stayed (from interview with Amr Farouk
from the Wasat Party).
According to the informant accounts, Khalil (2012) reported that the military’s
stance on February 2 was somewhat suspicious. They claimed to be neutral but in fact
they watched and allowed thugs with firearms, bladed weapons, sticks, and Molotov
bombs, and with other improvised weapons to attack the unarmed and peaceful
protestors.
It wasn’t just that they weren’t doing anything. They were complicit. They let
these guys through, El Dahshan said. At one point, El Dahshan asked an army
colonel on the scene, “Why aren’t you doing anything?” The officer replied,
“Aren’t you expressing your opinion? They’re here expressing their opinion as
well.” (Khalil 2012:147).
In the later hours of the day, the pro Mubarak demonstrators began to use firearms
and began target shooting. Some protestors believed that some of pro Mubarak forces
were police and intelligence officers (Khalil 2012). According to some eyewitness
accounts members of the MB played a significant role in defending Tahrir Square during
the violent clashes on February 2 (Kirkpatrick 2011; Khahil 2012). Besides the MB
hardcore soccer fans took the lead in confronting the thugs that day (Kirkpatrick 2011).
The clashes lasted until about 3 am in the morning at which point the protestors began to
drive the pro-Mubarak demonstrators back and the military intervened (Khalil 2012). At
the end of the clashes there were 11 people who were killed and 600 who were wounded.
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The Battle of the Camel was one of the turning points that “turned public opinion
irreversibly against the Mubarak regime” (Fathi 2012:1). After February 2, it became
clear that Egyptians would not consent to anything less than Mubarak’s resignation. The
US’s stance had changed after the second week of the protests. Earlier the US officials
had increased its tone of criticism and advised Mubarak to undertake urgent reform
initiatives (Nicholas et al. 2011). International community’s stance against Mubarak
changed considerably after February 2 and the Mubarak regime was truly decertified on
an international level.
b) Attempts to Decertify the Protestors
The regime was trying hard to decertify, and disgrace the protestors. To this end,
they used several different tactics. In an attempt to discourage people to join the
demonstrations the state spread a rumor that it was the Muslim Brotherhood who
organized the protests and caused the public “disorder” (Mekhennet & Kulish 2011).
From his early years onward Mubarak had successfully created a bogeyman out of the
MB and he was using –domestically and internationally– this “potential threat” of
“radicals” as a mechanism to provide legitimacy for his repressive rule. Therefore, there
was already some level of concern and fear as regards the MB in the society. The regime
tried to frame the negative incidents as a MB attempt to destabilize Egypt for their own
cause.
Khalil (2012) quoted an important anecdote from Shahira Amin who was an
administrator and presenter on the state-owned Nile TV channel. She hosted a show at
nighttime on January 25 and as planned earlier, she was expected to host an opposition
politician. Yet, to her surprise just minutes before the program started, her boss informed
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her that she had an NDP parliamentarian instead of the opposition politician and her
conversation had to be around three issues: “the foreign elements organizing the protests;
the shadowy hand of the Muslim Brotherhood in stoking the unrest; and the need for all
parties to engage in a national dialogue” (Khalil 2012:286).
The issue of “foreign interference” came up in interviews with some high-level
bureaucrats and retired army officials. In an interview, Mohamad Celebi (FR) a retired
general from the Egyptian Armed Forces indicated that there were “foreign powers”
behind the Egyptian uprising. This assessment seems to reflect a prevalent view among
the high echelons of the military. After the SCAF assumed power on February 11, 2011,
some state-owned TV channels broadcasted commercials in which Egyptians were
warned against foreign spies (El-Kouny 2012). In the same vein, Mr. Soliman (FR), a
high-level bureaucrat shared with me his belief that foreign powers were involved in the
Egyptian uprising. He expressed several times his astonishment and anger against the
revolutionaries that led to ousting of Mubarak and the ensuing “chaos”, in his terms. For
him, there was no basis for such a public uprising. There were claims that some of the
activists had been in contact with activists from Serbia. Dr. Ali Eddin Hilal Desouki
(FR), who was the Media Secretary of Mubarak’s NDP, stated that some of the
revolutionaries had been in Serbia for training on non-violent movements. In fact, Ahmed
Maher, the leader of the 6 April Youth Movement explained that he was Serbia with
members of OTPAR. Secondly, some of the NGOs were accused of receiving illegal
foreign funds (Ahram Online 2013).
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Figure 11: More lentils, more chili, Where's the Kentucky, You son of a liar?
In order to discredit the protestors, the state media organs spread the rumors that
protestors were paid 50 euros a day and were given free Kentucky Fried Chicken
meals (Khalil 2011:143).
Rania Abouzeid (2011) reported that during the protests, the state-owned media
were actively trying to instill the idea that “the chaos” on the streets was the work of
foreign powers and thus was not for the good of Egypt. To enforce their claim, Abouzeid
stated, the regime offered the viewers some sort of evidence. One such piece of
“evidence” was a broadcast on the Nile TV channel of a blond woman and a young
Western looking man with a Palestinian style scarf and he was holding a poster that read
“In solidarity with the Egyptian people” The following comment of the presenter was that
“it was the evidence of foreigners who wanted to destabilize country through chaos”
(Abouzeid 2011). Apparently, the regime’s plan was not successful and ordinary
Egyptians continued to join the protests.
c) Disinformation
From the first day, January 25 onward, the state tried to manipulate the public’s
opinion through disinformation, decertification, or downgrading the scale of the events.
To this end, the regime used the state media institutions, namely the TV channels and the
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daily newspapers (Khalil 2012).
Moreover, on January 25, the Nile TV channel aired a press statement from the
Ministry of Interior, which read that there had been no confrontation and conflict
anywhere in Egypt. For the first few days, the regime could manage to control, to a
certain extent, the media coverage of the uprisings. However, specifically after the
January 28, pressure on employees of state-owned media institutions led to internal
uprisings (Aly 2012; Khalil 2012).
Although they had underestimated its role, the state security was already
monitoring the activities of the opposition youth movements on the Internet. They knew
that people were getting mobilized through Facebook pages, twitter, and short messages
on mobile phones. Before January 28, a turning point whereby the protests would gain a
revolutionary claim, the state security ordered the Internet and mobile phone service
providers to cease their operations. The Internet and mobile phone service was cut off in
major cities on January 28 (CNN 2011). The Internet and mobile services were resumed
after a while. The state security later tried to block the access to Twitter and Facebook,
but some informants explained that they could override the block in various ways.
According to Khalil (2012) the regime’s strategy of communication shut down had
unexpected adverse effects. People who were not able to reach their sons and daughters
went out to see what was happening. Some people went out just out of curiosity and
found themselves inside the clashes.
The regime was aware of the “adverse” effects of live TV coverage, even
sometimes 24 hours non-stop, from the main Squares in the country. While the stateowned media were downgrading the scale and the intensity of the uprising, Egyptians
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were informed about the developments in Tahrir and elsewhere with more accurate
descriptions through international satellite channels like Al Jazeera, CNN, and BBC. This
alternative channel of information facilitated further mobilization. People were
encouraged when they saw unprecedented numbers of protestors repelling the
“untouchable” security forces in Tahrir. Furthermore, the media coverage had always a
limiting effect for any ruler, democratic or authoritarian, in resorting to repression against
the protestors. To this end, in order to contain the “harm” of independent international
media outlets, the Mubarak regime raided the office of Al Jazeera and detained some Al
Jazeera journalists in Cairo. The regime also publicly demonized the Al Jazeera
employees through its own channels. Thus, for employees of international media
covering the revolution became sometimes very hard (Khalil 2012) and pro Mubarak
demonstrators harassed them on occasion. Besides, as Al Jazeera reported they
experienced intermittent interference in their broadcast signals across the Middle East
(Khalil 2012).
d) Negotiations and Attempts of Reconciliation
After the violent clashes on January 28, the regime began to realize the gravity of
the crisis. Mubarak delivered three live televised speeches during the 18 days of the
protests. The first speech was on January 29, right after midnight. The police had
collapsed and the Army had assumed the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior to
secure the streets. He acknowledged the resentments of the protestors and he explained
that he had dissolved the government. He promised further reforms (Korani 2012). These
statements did not satisfy the demonstrators who expected him, at least, to declare that he
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or his son Gamal would not run for the office in the coming presidential elections in
September 2011 (Aly 2012).
Mubarak made another speech on February 1. It was a touching speech and
fostered some sympathy for him among some protesters (Aly 2012).
On the 1st of February, it was the first million march, the very big and at that day,
there was the speech of the Mubarak and made some people cry. It was a very
good speech actually. It was very very professional, but he did not make any
concessions. He said “I will die in this place, I will never leave. I am the fighter
and I fought for my country... I will leave after six months.” (From interview with
Amr Farouk (WP))
He announced that he would not run for the presidency for a sixth term. He
appointed Ahmad Shafik to set up a new cabinet. Besides, for the first time in his almost
three decade rule, he appointed Omar Suleiman, who was the Minister of Interior and the
Chief of General Intelligence, as Vice President. Khalil (2012) argued that with his
second speech Mubarak aimed to gain the hearts and minds of Egyptians who were
outside Tahrir Square, people who had not yet decided which side to choose. He gained
some sympathy but the infamous Battle of Camel the next day on February 2 made him
lose his relative gains.
Omar Suleiman announced that new committees would be formed to make
constitutional and legislative amendments (Reuters 2011c). Mubarak ordered new Prime
Minister Ahmad Shafiq to maintain governmental subsidies (Aljazeera 2011). The new
government formed a fact-finding committee to investigate accusations about security
forces’ excessive use of force and killings of protestors for the last week’s events. The
leaders of the NDP and Gamal Mubarak resigned. Meanwhile Omar Suleiman and some
other representatives of the regime began directly contacting and negotiating with
important political figures among the revolutionaries.
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However, as Goldstone (2001) argued, at the face of increasing tension when the
society asks for large-scale change, it is a difficult task for the ruling regime to employ a
balanced combination of repression and concession to assuage the opposition. “If a
regime that has already lost its perceived effectiveness and justice offers concessions,
these may be seen as “too little, too late,” and simply increase the popular demands for
large-scale change.” (Goldstone 2001:161). The revolutionary fervor was growing and
the repressive mechanism, the police and intelligence apparatus, of the regime was
seriously harmed. The revolutionaries began to believe that the end of Mubarak regime
was close. Amr Farouk (WP), who was in Tahrir from the first day onward explained:
Our headquarters was like meters away from Tahrir Square. They also served as
headquarters of the revolution. We had all the well-known political figures in our
headquarters. The Coalition of Youth, including Abdul Hamid Nasser and 17
other guys were in our headquarters. There was another consulting circle
including Mohamed Selim al-Awa (who later would run for presidency), Essam
Sultan, and Khazim Mustafa. We began receiving phone calls from the SCAF and
we started negotiating with them through Dr. al-Awa. Of course there were other
sites of negotiations and other personalities from the regime. There were
negotiations with the SCAF, with Omar Suleiman, who was appointed as Vice
President, and with negotiations Essam Sharaf from NDP, Ahmad Shafik (Prime
Minister). So there were lots of negotiations. The important thing was that we all
had one target. That is why Mubarak had to leave. We never made any
concessions, we did not.
Mubarak did not give up easily. His made his final speech on February 10. He
handed over his powers to Omar Suleiman, his Vice President. Mubarak reiterated that he
would do his best to provide a seamless power transfer after the presidential elections in
September.
4. Restoration of Peace: February 11, Mubarak Steps Down
According to the concept of Social Dramas, if adjustive or redressive mechanisms
are deployed effectively there may be either restoration of normal relations between the
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two parties or it may lead to "to a social recognition of irreparable schism" (Swartz et al.
1966:37). The deployment of a redressive mechanism does not necessarily mean that this
will be successful. Rather, it is the exhaustion of, factually or perceptually, available
redressive mechanisms. Restoration of normal relations is not a conflict free society or
political state, which rarely exists (Lewellen 2003); it denotes the establishment of a
socially, popularly accepted common ground of peaceful political engagement. In
Lewellen’s assessment, restoration of peace is a provisional and insecure equilibrium; “a
readjustment of forces that lends more strength to one side and depletes the strength of
the other” (2003:98).
Empowered by the increased participation of Egyptians, the collapse of the
Security Forces, and the ambivalent reaction of the Egyptian Armed Forces27, the
revolutionary forces decided not to acquiesce to anything but Mubarak’s resignation.
After Mubarak's last public speech on February 10, the revolutionaries decided to gather
in front of the Presidential Palace. Having considered the gravity of the developments and
possible bloodshed between the protestors and the Republican Guards, Minister of
Defense Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi advised Mubarak to depart for Sharm el-Sheikh
with his family (Aly 2012). Aly stated that details of Mubarak's last hours, such as how
he took the decision to resign, whether he was forced by the army commanders is not
known. Nevertheless, by 6: 00 pm on February 11, 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman
declared that Mubarak had resigned and the powers of the presidency were transferred to
the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
Mubarak had stepped down and his main coercive apparatus, namely the
27
Except for several instances the Egyptian Armed Forces neither attempted to disperse
the protesters nor to defend them against the attacks from the supporters of Mubarak.
220
intelligence and police had been withdrawn from the scene earlier. The revolution was
successful in ousting Mubarak and a new democratic process under military supervision
and the SCAF would soon start and was supposed to leave the rule to civilians as soon as
possible. In this respect, one can argue that the Egyptian Revolution as a social drama
ended with the “restoration of peace”; that is, in a restatement of Lewellen’s (2003)
approach, the revolutionary forces had apparently neutralized Mubarak’s coercive power
and had emerged as a new (yet not as the only one) power center. Ostensibly, with
Mubarak’s resignation, a popularly accepted common ground of political engagement
through the democratic processes was established. Nevertheless, as the developments in
the post-Mubarak period suggested, the new state was very fragile and prone to new
crises. The new political situation had many peculiarities. Despite the initial euphoria, as
later developments would prove, the ‘restoration of peace’ or ‘restoration of normal
relations’ was a tentative state. The extant power structure of the former regime remained
unchanged. The military, which was certainly not a revolutionary institution, assumed the
power –ostensibly temporarily– to oversee the transition period. The revolutionary youth
that had played a leading role in the uprising and made up the bulk of the protestors
would be soon excluded from the new political arrangements. Moreover, the Islamists
would gain the lion’s share after the elections. The new steady state, if we may name it
so, was fragile from the start.
In order to have a better assessment of the final state of social drama, namely the
new sociopolitical setting after Mubarak left, a brief review of the post revolutionary
period is useful.
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A Brief Overview of Post Mubarak Period and Morsi’s Short-Lived
Presidency
The analysis of the collected data suggests that Egyptians in general conceptualized
the January 25 events as a revolution. Dr. Shevki (NA) from Cairo University explained:
It was a true revolution and more than anything, the events changed the political
culture of Egyptians.
For Dr. Kamil, (FR) a political scientist from Cairo University and a former
National Democratic Party member, the January 25 events cannot be described as a
revolution in a strict sense:
…from a political point of view, with the changes the events brought, it can be
considered as a revolution.”
Dr. Nadia Mustafa (NA) from the Center for Civilizations and Political Studies, the
January 25 events constitute “a model revolution” for the modern world. On the other
hand, Abdulkarim (AE), a language teacher in his early forties, defined the January 25
events and its aftermath as “half-revolution”. Abdulkarim (AE), a devout Muslim and not
affiliated with any of the Islamist parties, sympathized with the MB and President Morsi.
In his assessment;
…given the fact that supporters of the old regime in bureaucracy and business
community, and more importantly, the police and the Amn ad Dawla (the State
Security) are at their places, the removal of Mubarak from power can best be
considered as a half-revolution. The threat of the old regime is valid and most
apparent in organizing the opposition and the current chaos in the country. A halfrevolution is worse than no-revolution.
Bayat (2013) argues that with the speed of its execution and its relatively civil and
peaceful nature, the Egyptian 'Revolution', like the Yemeni and the Tunisian ones, is sui
generis. Furthermore, despite the high level of social respect and support from the public,
the revolutionaries did not attempt to rule or realize significant reforms in the context of
222
state institutions or functions. Instead, Bayat asserted, they wanted the Egyptian military
to administer and/or create a new constitution, hold elections, provide a free and plural
political environment. In other words, despite the revolutionary legitimacy, the
revolutionaries had to consent to the expected change to be realized within the
institutional limits of the very regime that they revolted against. Thus, Bayat suggests,
given the fact that the Egyptian Army has been a firmly entrenched institution that had a
symbiotic relationship with the old regime, what was achieved after the 18 days of
protests had more of the characteristics of a reform movement. Thus, this constitutes the
anomaly of the Egyptian 'revolution'. In this respect, Bayat suggests that these revolutions
may be called as “refolutions” (2013:53), of which one might hope at best for some
momentum towards reforms through the institutions of the Mubarak regime.
The unexpected speed and momentum did not leave an opportunity for the
revolutionaries and oppositional groups to claim a more assertive role in the postMubarak period (Bayat 2013). This fact became a source of tension in the later days
when the secular (liberal or leftists) revolutionaries and opposition figures realized that it
was –from the viewpoint of most secular activists and politicians– the “free-riders”
(Bayat 2013:51), namely the Islamists MB and Salafists, who reaped the benefit of the
revolution by achieving unexpected levels of success in the parliamentary and later in the
presidential elections due to their long-time grassroots activities in the Egyptian society.
Soon after Mubarak left, the anomalies of the new situation began to surface.
Mubarak left power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that was
constituted of the senior military officers. After the initial euphoria dwindled, the
revolutionary forces faced a new and not necessarily ideal political reality. On one side, it
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was the SCAF who was supposed to oversee the transition period and on the other side, it
was the Islamist groups, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, who were the
only organized groups with a wide grass root reach. The revolutionary youth
organizations and liberal opposition groups distrusted both camps, the SCAF and the
Islamist, as to their true commitment to the revolutionary ideals. Moreover, internal
divisions within the revolutionary coalition started to emerge (Bayat 2013). Coalitions
were dispersed and new alliances were established. Some youth movements aspired to
continue as a political party while some others opted to continue as activist groups.
The first contention between the secular and Islamist currents on a national level
emerged regarding the timing and sequence of creating a new constitution and the
parliamentary elections. The Islamist wanted the new constitution to be prepared after the
parliamentary elections. Conversely, in an attempt to avoid the preparation of the new
constitution by a potentially Islamist-dominated parliament, liberal opposition groups
supported the idea of forging the new constitution before the parliamentary elections. A
constitutional referendum that was held on March 19, 2011 determined the direction of
the process. The new constitution was scheduled to be written after the parliamentary
elections that would be held in six months. The referendum included several amendments
concerning the terms of the presidency, such as limiting the term of the presidency to a
maximum of two six-year-terms. Approximately 77.2 percent of Egyptians voted 'yes' in
the referendum (Ahram Online 2011a). This was an early sign of disagreement between
the Islamist and the liberal opposition movements, which itself consisted of highly
diverse political groupings.
SCAF became quickly unpopular and was involved in many controversial and
224
undemocratic practices (Goldstone 2011)28. During SCAF’s term, Egypt went to the polls
on December 2011 and January 2012 for the two-phased parliamentary elections. The
Islamist parties won two thirds of the votes. In June 2012, the Supreme Constitutional
Court (SCC) ruled that the law that regulated the first parliamentary elections after
Mubarak's ouster was invalid. A direct consequence of the ruling required the parliament
had to be dissolved. Upon the ruling, the military council assumed the legislative
authority. It was not only the Muslim Brotherhood who was disappointed by the court's
ruling, but also many liberal politicians and activists became concerned that transfer of
power from the military council to civilians would be further delayed. The MB
considered the Court's ruling as "political"(Fahmy & Levs 2012). The SCC also decided
that Ahmed Shafik, the last Prime Minister of Mubarak era, could run in the presidential
elections.
Later in 2012, SCAF oversaw the presidential elections. On June 17, 2012, shortly
before the announcement of the results of the presidential elections, SCAF announced an
extra addendum to the February 13 Constitutional Declaration. The annex restricted the
president’s power on determining the national security policy and supervising the
military. SCAF assumed the legislative powers of the dissolved parliament (Shukri
2012).
28
During the SCAF’s rule, on several occasions the security forces cracked down
protesters brutally and used deadly force. On October 9, 2011, in Maspero, Cairo, twentyseven people, most of whom Coptic Egyptians, died and hundreds were wounded. On
November 19, 2011 in Cairo –during nationwide protests against the military rule– forty
citizens were killed and around two thousands were injured. On December 16, 2011 in
Tahrir Square in Cairo, sixteen people were killed and around one thousand people were
injured (Brumberg et al. 2012).
225
The result of the presidential elections was illustrative of the fragile political
ground that Egyptians inherited after Mubarak. At the run-off elections, Mohamed Morsi
was elected president by winning 51.7 percent of the votes, versus 48.3 percent for
Ahmed Shafik. Despite both sides’ reciprocal allegations of fraud, the elections were
considered fair and free in general. The result was controversial in the sense that Ahmed
Shafik, was the last Prime Minister of Mubarak. For many Egyptians, Ahmed Shafik was
'one of the old regime', or one of the feloul (remnants of the old regime), as Egyptians
like to call this. Yet, Shafik managed to secure nearly half of the votes. This result alone
was illustrative of a deep distrust against the Muslim Brotherhood and candidate Morsi.
In many instances informants stated that the result of presidential elections did not reflect
the true choice of Egyptians. Some secular interviewees stated that although they did not
like Shafik they voted for him because they were not sure of the intentions of the Muslim
Brotherhood. And some other informants stated, with a contrary rational, that despite
their concerns and reservations about the MB, they voted for Morsi just because Shafik
was a feloul, a remnant of the old regime. Some informants explained that since neither
of the candidates appealed to them, they did not go to the polls in the runoff elections. All
in all, the reactions against the two candidates, and the results showed that the support
base of the two camps was quite tentative. Furthermore, the margin between the
candidates was so close that the supporters of defeated candidate, Shafik portrayed Morsi
as someone who was not approved by 48.3 percent of the citizens. Thus, the new term
with President Morsi proved to be very tenuous from the beginning.
The salient emphasis on ‘change’, whether expressed or implied, in the accounts of
many informants was an aspiration for an imagined future where Egyptians live with
226
honor and dignity. The 2011 Tahrir Revolution certainly increased people’s expectations;
villagers, students, politicians, and statesmen alike. In a similar vein, Bayat (2013) argued
that end of Mubarak's nearly three decades long repression led to release of great level of
political energy with an accompanying sense of renewal. As various interviewees
explained on many occasions, people became more vocal in their demands at all levels of
society. Students in universities demanded better conditions at colleges and youth in
slums formed their own organizations. Many new political parties were established.
Political discussions began to dominate the TV broadcasts. Politics became an everending subject of daily conversations among people from every social status and age.
Political activism became a prestigious and self-satisfying occupation for young people.
It was remarkable to see that young Egyptians were generously giving up their time and
energy for their political beliefs.
Bayat (2013) makes an important observation:
But the extraordinary sense of liberation, the urge for self-realization, the dream
of a just social order, in short, the desire for ‘all that is new’, this was what
defined the very spirit of these revolutions. Yet as these mass social layers moved
far ahead of their elites, the major anomaly of these revolutions was exposed: the
discrepancy between a revolutionary desire for the ‘new’ and a reformist
trajectory that could lead to harbouring the ‘old'. (p. 52)
It was only a few months after the election of President Morsi to office that my
research assistant and I had a chance to attend at a private meeting with a group of young
Egyptian activists. The group was trying to form a new volunteer political initiative
against the Muslim Brotherhood, its political branch the Freedom and Justice Party, and
president Morsi. Under the leadership of a young lawyer, about ten young people from
different cities and occupations had met for the first time and they discussed the
increasing awareness about the MB's and FJ Party's 'excesses'. To this end, each was to
227
undertake the responsibility of monitoring the activities of a ministry and would gather
data to expose any wrongdoings to the public. For Mina (A), the female liberal activist in
her twenties who took us to the meeting, the revolution was hijacked by the MB and she
seemed dedicated to struggle against the MB and President Morsi. The leader of the
group explained that people in the group had different political leanings; some were
liberal, some were leftists, and some claimed to be devout Muslims. Apparently they met
on a common denominator of a “dislike” against the MB; yet the real aspiration, as they
expressed, was to keep Egypt on the revolutionary track. Despite the optimism of people
who were members or sympathizers of the Islamist groups, many others (liberals and
even some religious Muslims who were not affiliated with the Islamist organizations)
stated on many different occasions that after two years after the ousting of Mubarak
people had not experienced a significant change and improvement in their lives. This fact
aggravated the tension that already prevailed in the transition period. At best, expected
improvements, if there were any, were not moving forward at an acceptable pace. Even,
some of the informants argued that, in terms of public security and safety their lives were
better under Mubarak.
In the aftermath of an attack of a border checkpoint in the northern Sinai on
August 5, 2012, in which 16 soldiers were killed, President Morsi forced the retirement
of Field Marshal Tantawi, the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian
Army, and some other senior commanders. President Morsi also annulled the June 17
Constitutional Declaration that restricted his presidential powers and appointed General
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ironically would later lead the military intervention against
him, as the Defense Minister. President Morsi’s rather bold move was an important step
228
in curtailing the direct influence of the military in Egyptian politics in the postrevolutionary period.
On November 22, 2012 Morsi announced a seven article constitutional decree
through which he appointed a new prosecutor general and stipulated that no authority can
dissolve the People’s Assembly29 and the Shura Council, the upper house of the
parliament, which was rumored at the time would be dissolved soon as well by the
Prosecutor General. The second article of the decree was particularly controversial in a
democratic sense:
Previous constitutional declarations, laws, and decrees made by the president
since he took office on 30 June 2012, until the constitution is approved and a new
People’s Assembly [lower house of parliament] is elected, are final and binding
and cannot be appealed by any way or to any entity. Nor shall they be suspended
or canceled and all lawsuits related to them and brought before any judicial body
against these decisions are annulled (Ahram Online 2012).
This article in particular led to great concern and reaction among the public,
especially among the liberals. It was a turning point for anti-Morsi and anti-Muslim
Brotherhood sentiment and soon evolved into a full-fledged campaign that united the
liberal/secular opposition groups30. The opposition groups claimed that Morsi was
becoming the new dictator, the new Pharaoh of Egypt. As the results of 2011-2012
parliamentary elections suggested, the established political parties had been historically
fragmented and weak in Egypt and they lacked grass root support31. Furthermore, there
29
The Prosecutor General had dissolved the lower house of the parliament earlier.
It is important to note that although anti-Morsi / Muslim Brotherhood campaign was
predominantly liberal/secular opposition groups; there were also religious Muslims
among them who did not approve the policies of the organization of the Muslim
Brotherhood and President Morsi.
31
2011-2012 People’s Assembly Elections Results: Freedom and Justice Party - 235 seats
(47.2%); Nour Party - 121 seats (24.3%); New Wafd Party - 38 seats (7.6%); Egyptian
Bloc - 34 seats (6.8%); Al-Wasat Party - 10 seats (2.0%); Reform and Development Party
30
229
had been a binary degree of opposition between the seculars and Islamist, “a split that
both the Sadat and Mubarak regimes exploited to weaken political opposition”
(Hirschkind 2012). The Constitutional Decree crisis was an opportunity for the major
oppositional politicians to mobilize Egyptians and unite against the common rival,
namely the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi. Under the leadership of ElBaradei,
more than 35 opposition movements decided to act jointly under the name of the National
Salvation Front (NSF).
Right after the announcement of the constitutional decree several of the special
advisers to President Morsi resigned on the basis that they were not aware of the
constitutional decree’s preparation phase and were not consulted. As several liberal
informants stated, the resignations showed that Morsi had another circle of consultation,
namely the Guidance Office of the Muslim Brotherhood. This claim was repeatedly
raised by several informants, secular as well as among some devout Muslims who were
not sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and to President Morsi. Given the fact that
President Morsi was a long time senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood the claim
that President Morsi was highly dependent on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance
Office was not without some credible grounds. President Morsi came from such a
tradition in which himself, like other members of the organization, was likely to develop
a loyalty to the organization and its cause over the years by living through in a
hierarchical organizational structure in which, as El Ghobashy (2005) argued, “a strict
master-disciple” relationship had been the norm (p. 374).
- 9 seats (1.8%); Revolution Continues - 7 seats (1.4%); Other parties - 18 seats (3.6%);
Independents - 26 seats (5.2%) (BBC 2012).
230
As argued earlier, Egyptians became politically more engaged and more vocal
after the 2011 Revolution. Street politics, namely demonstrations, protests, and sit-ins
became daily occurrences. People had high expectations and competing visions of Egypt
that more or less formalized along the secular or religious binary. Egyptians, especially
the youth who took the leading role in the Tahrir Uprisings were increasingly feeling that
the country had to be rerouted to the revolutionary track. The societal and political
tension became more visible particularly after the protests that were organized by the
opposition groups in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo against President Morsi’s
declaration of the November 22 Constitutional Decrees. Several protesters were killed
and some others injured in these protests. The opposition leaders, now organized under
the umbrella organization The National Salvation Front, held the supporters of the MB
and President Morsi responsible for the killings of the protesters.
It was remarkable that most of informants began using same rhetoric (in
accordance with their political views) almost with the same words that the political
leaders and prominent intellectual figures were using in the media or elsewhere.
Everywhere, it seemed the same sentences, the same reciprocal (unsubstantiated)
accusations, and defamations were circulating. About two months before the longplanned big demonstrations on the first anniversary of Morsi’s Presidency on June 30,
2013, I met with professor Sheyma (LI), who was teaching at the American University in
Cairo, for an interview. At some point, against my question regarding a coup d’état risk,
she argued that, (although, ostensibly, she did not want that) in order for the military to
intervene, there must be large-scale violence with at least “70-80 deaths”. Surprisingly,
different people such as taxi drivers and average people referred the same range of “70-
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80 deaths”. One corollary of this proposition was that “in order to have the military to
intervene, we must somehow have at least 70-80 people killed on June 30, 2013”.
Eventually, as expected people were killed, offices, building were torched and the
Egyptian Armed Forces intervened deposing President Morsi on July 3, 2013.
As Bailey (1969) argued, real bureaucracies (in contrast to ideal types) are
unavoidably political arenas. Brumberg et al. (2012) argued that in the post Mubarak
period, before and after the election of President Morsi, the military and established state
bureaucracy were resistant to any large-scale institutional reforms. The bureaucracy had
an entrenched interest with the old regime that had developed over the years. For
example, a large-scale privatization attempt would significantly decrease the economic
interests of the military. As it became clear in the 2012 constitution drafting process
under Morsi’s Presidency, the military budget and the military courts were wo sensitive
areas that the military leadership did not want civilian interference and oversight. In
particular, the military courts provided an important level of protection or the military
officers (Brumberg et al. 2012). Moreover, the bureaucracy had a persistent ideological
aversion to the Muslim Brotherhood.
As discussed earlier, major institutions of state power that the old regime
depended on –particularly the security and intelligence apparatus in Egyptian case– had
been more or less intact after the revolution. Besides, there were disgruntled groups
whose interests were undermined with the removal of the old rule and who lurked
patiently and manipulated every opportunity to sabotage and prompt black propaganda to
undermine the stability of the new already fragile political order. There was a widespread
belief, particularly among Egyptians who either had affiliations with the political Islamist
232
organizations or simply sympathized with them, that the remnants of the old regime had
been active and had been trying every possible method to damage the reputation of the
organization of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi to make them fail in
government. Dr. Shevki (NA) explained:
The old regime had a lot of stolen money and dirty businesses. I don't think that
they have surrendered or given up their claims on Egypt. Most of them are well
established in the bureaucracy and business world. The new government did not
seem to wage war against the established business elites who were active and
popular in Mubarak times. There was a resistance in the bureaucracy against the
MB and President Morsi; yet it was not necessarily because they sympathized
with Mubarak and his time. Some of them simply did not approve of the policies
of the MB.
The process of drafting a new constitution also became a point of contention
between the secular and Islamist parties. From the very beginning, the non-Islamist block
accused the MB of dominating the constitutional committee with members with Islamist
leanings at disproportional levels. Despite the heated debates, the constitutional draft was
accepted with a 63.83 percent “yes” vote in a public referendum on December 2012.
Transition periods are characterized by uncertainties and associated states of
insecurities. People and groups have high expectations for a more democratic state and
better economic conditions. Yet, at the same time, they have concerns. For instance,
many secular Egyptians, Coptic Christians, and even some Muslims who considered
themselves religious but nevertheless not affiliated with any Islamic organization, feared
that under the rule of President Morsi and the Islamist Parties, the Egyptian state and
society would gain a more religious character. Moreover, many Egyptians believed that
President Morsi was acting in a partisanship manner. On the other hand, others,
particularly people who were related to the Islamist organizations or people who were
233
sympathetic to them, believed that the remnants of the old regime were still active and
trying to reinstate the “old corrupt system”. The members of the Muslim Brotherhood,
including their leadership tended to see the increasing opposition –particularly after the
November Constitutional Decree– as part of a conspiracy against the organization and
President Morsi and they framed it in terms of “Muslims versus seculars; seculars who
were “antagonist” against the Islamic belief and values”. This was politically and socially
a precarious and fallacious representation.
There was also widespread media reports that violent attacks against Coptic
citizens and churches had increased in the post-revolution period (Ezzat 2011)32. Some of
my Christian and Muslim informants expressed the same concerns. Yet, these news
pieces or articles do not provide a detailed report with exact numbers and names of the
individual perpetrators or groups. Some Muslim informants who were either members of
the Islamist groups or sympathetic to their cause suggested that the stated increase might
be related to the deteriorated security situation after the revolution. On January 28 –the
Day of Rage, the fourth day of the 18 days– Egyptian security forces virtually collapsed,
many police stations in big cities were torched. Even for some time after the revolution,
because of the public rage against the police forces the police were afraid of working in
uniforms. The security situation worsened in cities and rural areas. This trend was
reported in the media, as well as by many informants, and continued even after President
Morsi assumed power.
Moreover, after President Morsi was elected, some police stations went on strike
around the country. According to the accounts of many informants there was an obvious
32
The stated increase in the numbers of attacks against Coptic Christians is more evident
in the aftermath of the overthrow of President Morsi after July 3, 2013.
234
lower police presence and lack of security compared to the pre-revolution period33. The
Mubarak regime depended heavily on the security apparatus. In this respect, they might
be considered as natural allies of the former regime. Thus the security apparatus were not
satisfied with the new ruling elite, namely the Islamists, most of whom they knew as the
Islamists who were under close scrutiny of the former regime34. For the security
apparatus, they were “radicals” or “extremist”, or with the most optimistic evaluation the
new political elite were “potential threats” from the past. Furthermore, the members of
the security forces were afraid that they might be held accountable for their past “work”
during the Mubarak regime. In an interview with a high-level police chief he stated that
some of his friends were sacked and he considered himself lucky to keep his position.
Some informants who were sympathetic to President Morsi suggested that the police, as
in other bureaucratic institutions, were trying to undermine the new President by
deliberately neglecting to fulfill their jobs. In sum, based on the aforementioned factors,
the security situation was relatively worse than the pre-revolutionary period. Following
this argument, some Muslim informants suggested that relative increase in the number of
attacks against Christians could be a natural result –rather than an “increased hostility
against Christian Egyptians, as implied by some media reports and Coptic informants”–
of the general deteriorated security situation in the country.
Nevertheless, as was also raised by various informants (Muslim and Christian),
there had been several fault lines that had sparked violent confrontations in many cases
33
After the military’s take over on July 3, 2013, the increase in the police presence in the
streets of Cairo were obvious.
34
The security apparatus detained many important members of Islamist organizations
such al Gamaa al Islamiyya and the Muslim Brotherhood, including President Morsi.
Some of them were imprisoned on more than one occasion during the Mubarak regime.
235
between the Muslim and Coptic Egyptians. For instance, conversions from Christianity to
Islam or vice versa, love affairs between a Muslim and Christian, and the issue of
building Churches had been the initial cause of violent confrontations that residents of a
certain place aligned along religious lines (Lane 2011; Ibrahim 2012). Both Muslims and
Coptic families in general do not tolerate conversions. It is also noteworthy that regarding
the Coptic question, secular and liberal Muslim Egyptians had a different view from
those of the Muslim Egyptians who were either members of the Islamist parties or
organizations or those who were sympathetic to them. Secular and liberal Muslim
Egyptians offered a more objective account of tensions between the Copts and the larger
society. Nevertheless, informants who were members of the Islamist organizations or
who were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafi organizations or sympathetic
to them tended to play down the tension and problems that existed in the society. They
usually explained that Coptic Christians are a part of the Egyptian society and violent
confrontations have been exceptional cases.
It was not only secular Egyptians or Coptic Christians, but also some religiously
devout Muslims that had certain concerns about the President Morsi’s rule and direction
of the country. Even among religious Muslims, some Egyptians had a strong dislike and
distrust against the Muslim Brotherhood and consequently against the President Morsi.
Several informants explained (I also witnessed this personally on several occasions) that
people had heated arguments and even fist fights because a preacher during Friday
prayers in a mosque made some supporting comments about President Morsi. In an
interview with a female professor from the American University in Cairo, she suggested
236
that some of her female students stopped wearing headscarf as a reaction to the Muslim
Brotherhood35.
Nevertheless, the supporters of the MB and the leadership of the organization
failed to see the legitimate concerns and anxieties –whether real or perceived, constructed
or exaggerated– of Egyptians. Thus, they failed to assuage the increasing criticism and
opposition against the organization and President Morsi with due consideration. In an
interview with a professor from Cairo University, who was also a high-level member of
the Muslim Brotherhood, the researcher was scolded harshly when asked about this as
follows; “some Egyptians have fears against the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Professor
stated:
As a graduate student, you are supposed to not to credit those claims, which is not
based on any scientific research. What is the percentage of those who fear and on
what reliable research are you depending on? And how do those people represent
the general Egyptian population?
Basically, he did not seem to believe that some people outside the organization
had some doubts about the “real intentions or agenda” of the Muslim Brotherhood and
President Morsi. In a similar vein, in our interview with Mahdi Akef (MB), the former
Supreme Guides of the Muslim Brotherhood, he stated that the media has been hostile to
the organization and to President Morsi. One can hardly deny that main the stream media
has been unsympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi; nonetheless,
conducted interviews with members or sympathizers of the organization indicated that in
general they tended to disregard any criticism against the organization.
35
The professor herself had a headscarf and I personally found her claim “hard to
believe”.
237
Besides, there was a widespread belief among sympathizers and the members of
the Muslim Brotherhood that the remnants of the old regime and the “deep state” were
trying hard to undermine the rule of President Morsi. Those claims were not completely
unsubstantiated. At least, the established bureaucracy was not supporting the President.
One who lived in Egypt, particularly in Cairo must have witnessed some ‘strange’
incidents particularly in the period before the June 30, 2013 demonstrations. For instance,
suddenly around three weeks before the demonstrations on June 30, 2013, the private
international and national oil companies stopped selling gas. Except for the gas stations
that were owned and run by the military, finding gas was impossible. Consequently, since
everyone had to go the same military owned gas stations, there occurred long lines,
extending for several hundred meters. The already bad traffic of Cairo suddenly became a
nightmare. One informant, who was a sympathizer of the Muslim Brotherhood, claimed
that several weeks before the June 30th, police officers were sometimes getting keys of
several cars in the middle of the highway and then caused the traffic to be blocked
completely. Beginning approximately from the first week of June (three-four weeks
before the planned anti-Morsi demonstrations) several hours of power cuts became the
city’s daily routine in Cairo. The researcher had naively attributed this to the air
condition-related rising electric demands because of the warm weather. However, after
the military ousted Morsi, on July 3, 2013, gas stations began selling gas and power
outages ended36. Approximately one week after the military intervention, workers placed
garbage containers in the neighborhood where the researcher lived. Interestingly, for the
36
For more detail: Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine
Morsi (Hubbard & Kirkpatrick 2013).
238
past one year, garbage was left on the streets because there were neither garbage
containers at all or they were not enough. Moreover, right after Morsi’s overthrow, the
police presence in streets increased visibly. Many Egyptians did not seem to question the
oddness of these events. On one occasion, a wealthy and well-educated Egyptian female,
who lived in one of the best locations in Cairo, explained that Morsi and the Muslim
Brotherhood were deliberately cutting the power. Given the headscarf that she was
wearing the researcher assumed that she was a religiously devout Muslim, but she had a
strong dislike against the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi. One might expect her and her
husband, who was a pilot, to be more critical in their judgment. Holding Morsi and the
MB responsible for the power cuts was like suggesting that the mayor of a city, who
expects to be re-elected for a second term, was deliberately cutting the power or water of
the city which he was ruling. One cannot help but speculating that, probably because of
the highly polarized political atmosphere, people were very receptive to political
propaganda or their dislike against a group was distorting their judgment.
Revolutionary Romanticism
Bayat (2013) argued that the Egyptian revolution was also self-limiting in the
sense that because of the rapid ousting of Mubarak, the revolutionary forces had the false
impression –accompanied by the revolutionary euphoria– that the revolutionary ideals
were achieved, without in fact there being any substantial change in the key institutional
power structure and its components. This swift success was probably the major source of
the revolutionary romanticism that I observed among some of the young Egyptians.
Although revolutionary romanticism is a benign feeling per se, for some young people it
possibly masked the involved commitments, sacrifices, and processes of revolution that
239
took years to develop. Thus, having missed these processes and sacrifices, some people
were keen to demand a second revolution without taking into consideration that Morsi
was an elected official and most of the people voted for him would not easily acquiesce
to have him leave by force.
The opposition groups long prepared for a “decisive” nation wide demonstration
on June 30, 2013, the first anniversary of President Morsi in the office. The newly
established youth movement Tammorrod (Rebel) assumed the leadership in the
organization of the demonstration and a petition campaign against President Morsi.
People were expecting a serious confrontation with possible violence and prepared
themselves against it. Some families left Cairo or sent their children and elderly people
outside the city. In some neighborhoods, cars were taken from their usual parking areas
just as a precaution against possible violence. Meanwhile, the supporters of the MB and
President Morsi had planned alternative demonstrations in different locations as a token
of their support for President Morsi. As discussed earlier, from the early days of President
Morsi, people, especially the youth were talking about a second revolution against the
MB. Now, they were practically preparing for a second revolution. The youth who
comprised of the most significant bulk of the Tamarrod, Rebel movement, believed that
‘revolution was imminent when they mobilize certain number of the population37.
Nevertheless, differently from the 2011 Tahrir Revolution, in which the supporters of the
MB had arguably played a critical role with their participation en masse at a critical point,
37
The leaders of the Tamarrod Movement claimed to have collected 22 million
signatures in their petition campaign against President Morsi.
240
the ruler, namely President Morsi had mass public support behind him38. Therefore, any
forced attempt to remove him from the Presidential Office was to encounter resistance
from his supporters, which could possibly evolve into large-scale, nation wide violent
civil clashes, nothing less than a civil war. Hence, a civil war, more than a “second
revolution” was more likely. Fortunately, that did not happen but the armed forces
intervened. Defense Secretary General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi declared President Morsi's
ousting on July 3, 2013. The military took Morsi into custody and announced Adly
Mansour, the head of the Constitutional Court, would serve as the interim president.
Although a considerable number of Egyptians did not consider the army’s intervention on
July 3, 2013 as a “coup d’état” and preferred calling it the second revolution, the army
interrupted the democratic process by forcibly removing an elected president. The
outcome was continuing political chaos, frequent bloodshed with killings of unarmed
civilians, the curtailment of political freedoms, and more importantly, deep fractures
between different segments of Egyptian society that might take years to heal.
Conclusion
The concept of social dramas holds that whether in case of restoration of normal
relations or social recognition of irreparable schism, the new political field after the
power struggle exhibits many changes possibly in terms of its range and scope, and
number and size of its parts. The sources of support and legitimacy, as well as
mechanisms to acquire them, are likely to be altered. But, despite all these changes,
38
It is not possible to know the exact number or percentage of his supporters among the
general population. Nevertheless, in a quite speculative fashion, looking at the results of
the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections and 2012 presidential elections, in which the
Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi gained 47.2% and 51.73% of the votes
respectively, after just one year in the office it would be difficult to justify any estimate
of approval rate, despite of all his mistakes, less than 25%.
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particular relationships and norms endure. Moreover, Swartz et al. (1966) emphasized, it
is likely that relations of the parts (agents) and structure of the field will be different.
There might be new alliances even between formerly rival sub-groups. Possibly there will
be changes in status of actors towards opposite directions39. New norms may emerge to
redress the problems of bygone regime and old norms and including some institutions
may become void. Some informal relations may be institutionalized in the new political
field. The foundation of Freedom and Justice Party's (FJP), the political party of the
Muslim Brotherhood, which was a politically banned organization during Mubarak
regime, can be seen as an example of this process.
The ousting of Mubarak was the revolutionary outcome and marked a new
beginning for Egypt. The regime’s main repressive security apparatus, namely the
intelligence and police forces had disappeared and the armed forces, as the other main
pillar of the regime, had defected. Nevertheless, except for several names in top
positions, such as the Ministry of Interior, the security apparatus protected its position,
yet without much public visibility and interference. Furthermore, since the revolutionary
forces did not directly assume any role in the new ruling mechanism or setting right after
Mubarak left, the Armed Forces’ defection did not exactly mean that they aligned with
the revolutionary forces. In other words, although the loser was clearly Mubarak, it was
hard to determine the winner.
In this respect, there was a new power equation in the post revolutionary period.
The Armed Forces retained its strength, and in fact even increased its influence as many
39
An early 2013 panel workshop in American University in Cairo titled "Islamists rise
from prison to Palace". The opposite is true as well that some of the key figures of the
former regime that they were sent to prison, including former President Mubarak himself.
242
average Egyptians applauded its stance against Mubarak. Tahrir, predominantly
composed of young Egyptians, emerged as a new power center40. Although, the unity that
Egyptians from all sects of society displayed in Tahrir Square against the common
antagonist, the Mubarak regime, was clear, it vanished soon as differences of opinion and
competing visions of the new Egypt began vocalized41. Besides, Egyptians in general
were empowered through the ‘rites of passages’ of Tahrir protests. The Islamist
organizations, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist groups emerged as a third
power center. As later events showed, there was only a tentative state what might be
termed a restoration of peace. To recall Lewellen, who described restoration of peace in
social drama as “a readjustment of forces that lends more strength to one side and
depletes the strength of the other” (2003:98), depletion of the power of the antagonist
Mubarak regime (from the Egyptians’ perspective) did not result solely in the advantage
of the revolutionary forces, but it also empowered new power centers who soon disagreed
about the legitimacy of the new actors and a common ground of political engagement;
that is the democratic process through elections. Thus, they began competing against each
other through the street politics of organized demonstrations42.
In sum, after Mubarak left, the military, which was certainly not a revolutionary
institution, assumed power, ostensibly temporarily, to oversee the transition period. The
40
Protests and demonstrations took place in almost entire Egypt during 2011 Egyptian
Revolution. Tahrir here refers to 2011 Uprising in general.
41
Ad hoc alliances that were established in Tahrir were broken only to be reformed again
along the Islamists versus others against President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood
soon after the Constitutional Decree Crisis in November 2012.
42
Depletion of the power of the antagonist Mubarak regime is also a questionable issue.
Many Egyptians believed that remnants of the old regime stayed active in bureaucracy
and specifically in police and intelligence apparatus.
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revolutionary youth that had a leading role in the uprising and had carried out the bulk of
the protests were excluded from the new political arrangements. Hence, the new political
state was insecure from the start. Later after the elections, when the Islamists gained 2/3
of the votes, some Egyptians felt that Islamists “hijacked the revolution”. Moreover, the
Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi, against whom a significant portion of
Egyptian society has had a deep distrust, failed to quell anxieties in the larger society. On
the contrary, with some wrong policies, President Morsi increased the concerns of many
Egyptians regarding the direction of the country. Given all these peculiarities, ‘restoration
of peace’ or ‘restoration of normal relations’ was a tentative state.
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Chapter 7: CONCLUSION
All revolutions are incomplete; no revolution is total. The ground is not cleared;
there are always continuities; a total revolution is something imagined, whether
wished-for or feared, but never achieved. (Bailey 2001:195-196)
The 2011 Tahrir Uprising constitutes a historical turning point in modern
Egyptian history. Inspired by the events in Tunisia, members of several young activist
groups decided to organize nation-wide protests on January 25, 2011, the National Police
Day. Contrary to the most popular accounts, even the organizers did not expect –despite
the wishful thinking– the protests to develop into a revolutionary situation that eventually
succeeded in overthrowing their almost three decade long ruler Hosni Mubarak in just 18
days.
This study intended to explain how the 2011 Egyptian Revolution succeeded in
ousting Mubarak. Questions such as, why did it happen in January-February 2011? What
was novel about it? Was it planned? If so, to what extent?, constituted the focus of
public and academic inquiry about the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The two research
questions that guided this study; namely 1) Under what conditions and through what
processes did the Egyptian people emerge as a possible contender with a revolutionary
claim against the Mubarak regime?; and 2) Under what conditions and through what
processes did the Egyptian people succeed in replacing Mubarak in 18 days, arguably in
very short time and peaceful manner?, were analyzed with a diachronic analysis that
benefitted mainly from the concept of Social Drama of Victor Turner. In Part I, the
Mobilization of Political Capital, the power sources of the two contending parties,
namely the Mubarak regime versus Egyptians, were analyzed. A principal instrument of
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the Mubarak regime was the maintenance of a coercive apparatus that tried to control the
society. Besides this, the regime manipulated and exacerbated communal strife on
ideological domains along Islamist versus secular lines. The ostensibly democratic
institutions and processes, such as the multi-party political system, and elections mainly
functioned, inter alia, as a means of providing a limited legitimacy for Mubarak on
domestic and international levels. Nevertheless, Mubarak’s heavy-handed, authoritarian
rule functioned counter productively in deepening anti-regime sentiments. The failing
economic conditions and specifically the likely succession scenario of Gamal Mubarak to
replace his father Hosni Mubarak, which was considered imminent by many Egyptians,
intensified the oppositional momentum against the regime. Several significant
developments and events, such as the emergence of the Kefaya Movement, the evolution
of Islamist organizations and youth movements and the return of ElBaradei were
analyzed in context of development of oppositional power centers and a gradual change
in the political culture of the society. In short, a gradual structural change –in MG
Smith’s (1974) formulation–, which denotes the transformed relations between the state
and society, was at play during the last years of Mubarak in power. Egyptians became
more vocal and confrontational in expressing their resentments against the Mubarak
regime through demonstrations, protests, strikes, and youth activism. Furthermore, over
the years, young Egyptians became more politicized and experienced in using the
marvels of Internet and social media to reveal the excesses of the security forces and to
get organized around a common agenda.
Part II, the Encounter or Showdown was organized in accordance with the phases
of the Social Drama concept and it analyzes mainly the 18 days of protest in January-
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February 2011 along with several closely preceding events. Two events were interpreted
as most significant as the harbinger of the crisis en route to 2011 Egyptian Revolution.
The death of Khaled Said in June 2010 and the fraudulent parliamentary elections in
November-December 2010 depleted the already-dubious legitimacy of the regime and
increased the politicization of many, particularly the young Egyptians who benefitted
extensively from social media. Social media, mobile cell phone technology, and satellite
channels contributed significantly to the mobilization and organization of people before
and during the regime; yet their significance should be evaluated as a whole with other
involved processes and mechanisms that were at play. Although social media provided an
alternative public space and a convenient medium of organization and politicization of,
particularly, young middle class Egyptians, it would be misleading to describe the 2011
Egyptian Revolution as a “Facebook Revolution”.
Analysis of the involved processes and mechanisms proved to be important to
better understand the post-revolutionary period. To this end, this study benefitted
extensively from the concept of the Contentious Politics as formulized by McAdams et
al. (2001). Analysis of the data determined relevant processes such as certification, scale
shift, constitution of new political actors, regime defection, decertification, and
polarization. Following the progress of those processes, the evolution of planned protests
on January 25, 2011, on the National Police Day, to gain a revolutionary claim on
January 28, the Day of Rage is discussed.
The Egyptian revolution was not a discrete event that occurred with the
emergence of sudden conditions and opportunities. As McAdam et al. (2001) suggested a
comprehensive analysis of revolutions requires a diachronic approach that pays
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simultaneous attention to history, to long-term structural changes, to the effects of culture
in interpretation of opportunities and risks, and to the strategic calculations around
contingent events. The Egyptian revolution was not a fully planned event and contingent
events –unexpected occurrences that affect the course of contentious episode in
unpredicted ways and scale– significantly contributed to its success. This study identified
three contingent events that changed the course of contention between the regime and
people: the Tunisian Revolution, the Mubarak regime’s underestimation of the people’s
growing resentments, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s late participation in the protests on
the fourth day, January 28, 2011. Although the protests on January 25 did not start with a
revolutionary claim, the Tunisian Revolution had a profound affect among young
activists to dream the “impossible”, namely to overthrow Mubarak from power. As
explained earlier, the security apparatus underestimated the numbers of participants and
their sophisticated strategies before the protests started on January 25, 2011.
Consequently, as protesters gained a relative supremacy against the security forces, their
confidence and further participation from different segments of the society increased.
More significantly, as the third contingent event, the absence of the organization of
Muslim Brotherhood in protests on the first three days contributed to the success of the
revolution in two different ways.
Firstly, if the Muslim Brotherhood had declared their support, many liberal
Egyptians would have hesitated to join the demonstrations. The Muslim Brotherhood was
the best-organized and most populous organization in the country; hence, they would
likely dominate any demonstration they would join. It would be a Muslim Brotherhood
show and thus participation of Egyptian from the larger society would be limited.
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Secondly, if the Muslim Brotherhood declared that they would join the protests on
January 25, the response of the security forces would be harsher and arguably the protests
would never gain a revolutionary claim. In other words, it would end without starting.
The events on the first anniversary of Morsi’s presidency and ensuing military
intervention arguably support the relevance of these two inferences.
As people shaped its course and direction, the revolutionary processes
transformed people in a paradigmatic fashion. The protests served as sort of rites of
passages and helped many Egyptians redefine themselves as free individuals. Hence,
besides a gradual change in political culture roughly in the last ten years of Mubarak,
there was a sudden shift in the way people understand political freedoms and statesociety relations. After the revolution, Egyptians became politically more vocal and
demanding against the state.
Post-Revolutionary Syndrome
F. G. Bailey (2001) argued that every successful revolution unavoidably retains
continuities from the old regime. Individuals and the entire society “need time to unlearn
the old and learn the new—to be reprogrammed—even when they are ready and willing
to accept the changes” (p.190). In a similar vein, in her analysis of the post-transition
period in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East after the Arab Spring, Sheri
Berman (2013) emphasizes that stable democracies “requires more than just a shift in
political forms; it also involves eliminating the antidemocratic social, cultural, and
economic legacies of the old regime” (p.67). Berman argues that the transition democracy
is a cumbersome process that involves usually, as many historical examples show, long
and very often violent struggles. False starts and detours are not infrequent occurrences in
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transition to democracy. Berman explained that first democratization tries in France,
Germany, and Italy failed. Violence, incompetence, and confusion in post-transition
period should not be interpreted as “unique” failures of a specific culture. Rather, the
crises of transition period are “normal and predictable” (p.73). She suggests that some of
the problems of the post-revolutionary period are inherited from the past regime.
In an interview with Tamer (A), a young liberal Egyptian in his mid thirties, who
participated in the in the Revolution as an activist and now among the founding member
of a new political party, said:
We don’t know how to do politics; we do not know how to talk to each other and
how to take the next step.
Tamer (A): Mubarak used the Muslim Brotherhood, for domestic and
international politics. He implied that “if I leave, you will have Ihkwan
(Brotherhood)”. Nevertheless, the Brotherhood used Mubarak as well…They (the
Brotherhood) used every tool to survive, this is understandable; it is politics. But
after the revolution, we have a new system. Yet they (the Brotherhood) have
nothing other than the old ways. We thought that as normal people who
participated in the revolution we need another way to rule this country. When I sat
with someone from the Ihkwan and talked to them, I see that they have the same
old systems, same tools. We have a new power now after the revolution; we have
us, civil powers, liberals…
Researcher: There seems to be a lack of communication and understanding
between the Islamist organizations, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, and the
opposition groups. The perception that “oppositional groups are against Islam” is
not uncommon among Islamist political groups.
Tamer (A): It is not their fault and it is not our fault. The Mubarak regime
depended on this. The regime systematically isolated people in Egypt; in politics,
in public areas, parties, religious people, rich people, villagers etc. After the
revolution, our party prepared a political awareness caravan to publicize our new
party. We went to the poor areas in and around Cairo. It was my first time,
actually our first time for my entire group. We went to poor places around Cairo,
very poor places. There, people thought that we were Americans, not Egyptians.
They started talking in Arabic in front of us as though they did not know that we
could understand them. Of course they were isolated from other social segments
around them. This was, I think, Mubarak’s strategy. He depended on
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this…Actually, I discovered Egypt after the revolution. I am discovering Egypt in
streets now. I can see different people now from many places. I didn’t see those
people before. And many people like me would say; “where did those people
come from? We did not see them before”. So, I think, this was the old regime’s
way of the controlling the country. So, lack of communication is not their fault.
Of course, now they discover us, we discover them. Still discover the other side.
The battles, and negotiations are still going on. Maybe after 5, 6, or 10 years we
will understand each other. They will discover that we are Muslims and they will
discover that they have another idea that we can understand. If I sit with someone
from the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafi groups, I see that they are normal people.
They have the same ideas as we have, they dream about new Egypt, about modern
Egypt like me. We have just perpetuated rumors against each other. So, we just
need to sit and negotiate.
Muslim Brotherhood’s Failed Appeal as a “Party Open to All Egyptians”
The Muslim Brotherhood has an efficient and organized hierarchical structure and
has a meticulous recruitment process. There is not a certain age group that the MB targets
exclusively for recruitment. Members of the organization continuously look for potential
members and they usually approach those who are pious. Ahmed (MB), in his early
thirties, has been a long time member of the Muslim Brotherhood and he has local
responsibilities in his town in Menoufiya Governorate. In our interview with Ahmed
(MB), he explained the long recruitment process that was developed in the organization
over the years.
After a member identifies a possible candidate, the first step is to develop a
personal relation on non-political grounds. For the preliminary contacts, specifically in
recruiting children, the Muslim Brotherhood organizes social and cultural or sportive
occasions. After the initial trust is developed reciprocally, the recruits proceed through
several stages and are introduced with political and religious indoctrination gradually in
local branches of the organization. In the first stage, when an individual shows a candid
interest in maintaining the relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood he is called a
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muhib, (lower) and he is expected to attend the regular meetings that are held at least
once a week with the usra, (family), the smallest unit of the Muslim Brotherhood. If the
person shows commitment and follows the requirements of the level of muhib, he is
promoted to be a muayyad (supporter) and later becomes muntasib (incorporated), and
muntasib becomes later muntazim, (organizer). In each level adherent is observed closely
by his superior in that level and he is also trusted with responsibilities and tasks in
accordance with his level, such as teaching Quran and identifying and recruiting new
members. Needless to say that each member is expected to observe the five-times daily
prayers and fasts in the month of Ramadan. This way, the new adherents are exposed to
gradual indoctrination, tasks and responsibilities and they gain a new identity or supraidentity in what we may call a ‘communities of practice’ (Lave & Wenger 1991)43. By
going through aforementioned stages that last five or more years an adherent becomes a
full member with voting privileges in internal matters and elections. Besides, the MB has
a wide variety of community events and associations on very different occasions
throughout the year in which members contribute on different levels with either their
service or financial aid. In these communities of practice, each member adopts the
religious and political ideology of the organization and at the same time, by taking on
responsibilities and performing their tasks they internalize the values and identity of the
organization. Furthermore, this intricate recruitment process also serves to prevent
43
According to Lave and Wenger (1991) communities of practice, with formal or
informal organizational structures, are participation frameworks that learning takes place
through shared practices among co-participants. According to Lave and Wenger through
'legitimate peripheral participation', "learners inevitably participate in communities of
practitioners and that the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move
toward full participation” (1991:29).
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undesired infiltrations from the state's intelligence apparatus (Trager 2011). By going
through all the stages, before reaching the larger or national level offices, where Maktab
al-Irshad, the Guidance Office, constitutes the highest unit in the hierarchy, a member
proves his or her loyalty and commitment. Given all these recruitment processes and
organizational structures it is plausible to argue that the MB has had a very efficient
organizational structure and highly loyal members. In fact, the adherents of the
organization proved to be very loyal when they kept their position in the Rabaa al
Adaviye Square for more than a moth, day and night, after the ousting of President Morsi
by the military on July 3, 2013. Even two deadly attacks, in which hundreds of people,
including children and women were killed, did not deter them from supporting Morsi
(Memmott 2013). I was living approximately two miles away from the Rabaa al Adaviye
Square and used to see them almost every day in my last month in Cairo. They used to
say repeatedly that “we will die here in this Square but we will not leave”. And they did
so. The security forces could only dispersed the crowd and controlled the al Adaviye
Square after the third –and the deadliest– attempt in which hundreds of protesters were
killed by the security forces (Kirkpatrick 2013).
A corollary of this meticulous recruitment process is a constructed, probably an
unintentional ‘circle of trust’, which inherently generates its sort of antithesis; i.e. a
‘circle of distrust’ that comprises the members of the society outside the Muslim
Brotherhood. Based on this argument, it is not surprising that President Morsi maintained
his strong and intimate relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and appointed members of
the Brotherhood or sympathizers of the organization to different governmental positions.
President Morsi, specifically in a highly tense and historically hostile environment
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against the organization, which was subjected to numerous cases of state crack downs,
imprisonment of its members, and confiscation of organization’s property in its history,
might have had difficulty in trusting people outside the Muslim Brotherhood. There is no
reliable source that can provide exact statistical percentages of the Muslim Brotherhood
members among President Morsi’s appointees to different governmental posts. But this
was a common perception particularly among liberal Egyptians. President Morsi and the
Muslim Brotherhood were accused of attempting the “Brotherhoodization” of the state.
There were early signs of a sort of a “preemptive” interference against President Morsi.
In a conversation with a high level bureaucrat; against his concerns about the
“Brotherhoodization” of the Egyptian state, I suggested that the democratic process
would likely moderate the Muslim Brotherhood. As El Ghobashy (2005) argued, the
Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral engagement over the years brought ideological revisions
to the organization and, "it is the institutional rules of participation rather than the
commandments of ideology that motivate political parties” (p. 390). Nevertheless, the
interlocutor was not convinced with my remarks and he said:
It might be too late after a certain level, if the Brotherhood and Morsi stay in
power.
Another repercussion of the Muslim Brotherhood’s systematic recruitment
process was that it essentially restrained people from becoming a member at their will.
Since everyone, provided that they are introduced to the organization at first hand by a
member, has to go through the same recruitment process beginning from the first level, it
is not possible for someone to decide at his or her will to become a member overnight. In
other words, one cannot say, for instance by reviewing the party program of the Muslim
Brotherhood that “I liked their party program, it reflects my worldview and I will become
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a member of the Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Thus, from the
very inception, with its existing institutional structure, the Muslim Brotherhood had
inherent difficulties in presenting its organization and the Freedom and Justice Party as
an inclusive political organization.
In the post-Mubarak period, the Coptic Egyptians became increasingly concerned
about the prominence of political Islam. Dr. Sedat (C) is a Coptic Christian in his early
fifties. He is a medical doctor and wealthy man. It was the first months of Morsi’s
Presidency and in a conversation Dr Sedat (C) stated that the Coptic Egyptians had some
concerns regarding the new Islamist political elite.
Their ultimate aim is to turn Egypt into a state that is ruled by Sharia law.
According to the Sharia law, Christians’ and Jews’ statuses are considered as
dhimnis or as the non-Muslim members of the society. In a sense, they are
considered to be second-class citizens. We won’t accept that. I guess we can make
it with the Muslim Brotherhood, but the Salafis are very difficult, they are very
intransigent.
In order to understand the real and perceptual insecurities that the Coptic
Community suffers, it is necessary to understand, from a Coptic point of view, the
material and symbolic interests and real or perceptual threats to those interests. Muslims
and Coptic Egyptians have limited relations and there has been a certain level of distrust
among the two communities. More importantly, Muslim Egyptians seem to be unaware
of the anxieties and insecurities that members of the Coptic Community have.
Insecurities may arise out of not only real and factual threats but also perceptual or
imagined ones. The analysis of the collected data suggested that sporadic instances44 of
injustices against the Coptic community throughout hundreds of years after the Muslim
44
Violent attacks against Coptic Egyptians and Churches had increased after the military
intervention on July 2013.
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conquest of Egypt nurtured a sense of anxiety and a state of uncertainty, and probably a
state of insecurity, among the Coptic Egyptians. A tangential analysis shows that every
year several violent attacks and incidents against Copts take place. Fortunately, local
incidents have never transformed into confrontations on a national level. Yet, every
incident, however intermittent, reinvigorates a sense of insecurity and uncertainty among
the Coptic Egyptians. Such a feeling is possibly cultivated with the possibility that any
small incident might easily escalate into all-out lynching campaign against the Coptic
community.
The Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi seemed sensitive about the
concerns of the Coptic community. Nevertheless, their assurances did not persuade the
Coptic community. Especially, after Morsi issued a constitutional decree on November
22, 2012 and after the ensuing demonstrations in which several people were killed and
some people wounded, the relations between the Copts in general and the Muslim
Brotherhood worsened gravely.
Contested “Legitimacies”
In his Toward Anthropology of Government William Schumann (2009) suggests
analyzing legitimacy in plural as “legitimacies”. For Schumann, as a socially constructed
political practice, without ascribing a priori meaning, legitimacies should be studied in
their sociopolitical contexts. He differentiated between institutional and representative
legitimacies. Institutional legitimacies denote the conformity of political practices with
democratic principles; whereas representative legitimacies are about whether government
officials represent common public interest. Schumann concludes that rulers in a
democratic system must necessarily observe both institutional and representational
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legitimacies. From an early period in his presidency, many Egyptians claimed that Morsi
was the President of the Muslim Brotherhood and not the entire nation. President Morsi
and the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood did in fact nourish this anxiety with some
of their actions. On the first day of the announcement of his presidency, Morsi made a
speech in front of several thousands of people who consisted solely of, or mainly, the
members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This was skillfully used by the opposition figures
to advance their claims as stated above. From Schumann’s perspective, one can
expediently argue that President Morsi failed to secure a “representative legitimacy” in
the larger society. As to the “institutional legitimacy”, given the fact that President Morsi
could gain with only a very little margin in the presidential elections (with 51.73%
against his rival Shafik’s 48.27%), many Egyptians in the anti-Morsi/MB campaign
argued that Morsi’s electoral success was dubious.
After the November 2012 Constitutional Decree Crisis and ensuing
demonstrations several demonstrators were killed and many were wounded. As a reaction
to those killings, leaders of the opposition political groups stimulated a new discussion
that the President had ordered the security forces and MB members to use deadly force
against the protesters and thus he lost his “legitimacy”. Against this claim, the supporters
of the President adopted a defiant position holding that the source of legitimacy in
democracies is elections and one gains or loses his/her legitimacy through elections. In
interviews with people from different political currents, these conflicting accounts of
legitimacy were raised repeatedly.
As discussed earlier, the repressive, heavy-handed rule of Mubarak tried to
control every political movement in the country. Mubarak, like his predecessor Sadat,
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used Islamist versus secular binary strategies to control the opposition politics and
society. Moreover, there was an already developed deep distrust among certain segments
of the society against the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis.45 The oppositional
political parties had been weak during the entire reign of Mubarak. Except for the
Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned as a political organization,
yet; “condoned” to continue to its activities in the form of religious and welfare activities
in the larger society, was the only organized group in the country with an influential grass
roots reach. 46 Thus, the post-revolution period started with the relative supremacy of the
Islamist organizations (against the liberal/secular political parties), at the grassroots level.
The Islamist parties’ electoral victory in parliamentary elections showed that the
secular/liberal parties had a long way to go against their rivals. One of the implications of
the results of the 2012 presidential elections, in which the candidate of the Muslim
Brotherhood Morsi who could hardly have won the second tour with 51.73% against his
rival Shafik (48.27%), was that the secular/liberal forces could in fact build a viable
coalition in the long run against the Muslim Brotherhood. But they were fragmented and
failed to unite effectively.
Any electoral campaign would unlikely have changed the results dramatically in
the short term. When the November 2012 Constitutional Decrees of President Morsi
intensified skepticism about President Morsi in the society, these provided a base for the
grouping together of the coalition of the liberal/secular oppositional groups. The
45
The distrust against the Islamist political organizations partly stemmed from their past
engagement in some terrorist activities and their use of violence means earlier on in
Egypt. Moreover, in the past, they had a more radical discourse; nevertheless, as ElGhobashy (2005) argued, their engagement in electoral politics relatively moderated their
stance and discourses.
46
Until the ousting of Mubarak, Salafi groups stood aloof from politics.
258
sociopolitical tensions intensified gradually because of the reciprocal uncompromising
attitudes of President Morsi and the oppositional groups. Consequently, in a sort of
“preemptive” intervention against “the state’s imminent brotherhoodization under
President Morsi”, as many people among anti-Brotherhood groups claimed, an important
segment of Egyptian society set out for a “second revolution”, on the first anniversary of
Morsi’s presidency on June 30, 2013.
Tilly’s (2006) suggestion for analyzing a revolution consists of two distinct
phases, namely a revolutionary situation and a revolutionary outcome, and this proved to
be rather relevant for understanding the “revolutionary romanticism” that many Egyptian
youth were infatuated with. As a benign yet potentially misleading feeling, revolutionary
romanticism led many young Egyptians in the anti-Morsi camp to believe that mobilizing
a certain number of people against the ruler –i.e., creating a revolutionary situation–
would make a revolutionary outcome imminent. Nevertheless, as in the Egyptian case
where the ruler had a substantial support base from the public, one group’s mobilization
with a revolutionary claim could potentially result in violent confrontations and possibly
in a civil war. The mobilization of the anti-Morsi camp under the leadership of the
National Salvation Front and the Tammarrod Movement eventually ended with the
ousting of President Morsi. The euphemistic depiction of the July 3, 2013 military
intervention as the “Armed Forces’ response to popular demand” does not invalidate the
fact that Morsi was overthrown by military force, not by the force of popular opposition.
Thus, this might hardly be considered as the “Second Revolution”, as many Egyptians in
the anti-Morsi camp claimed.
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How Peaceful Was It?
As stated earlier, after President Morsi’s constitutional decree on November 2013,
Egyptians became increasingly polarized along pro-Morsi versus anti-Morsi lines. Both
sides maintained strong prejudices against each other. While the pro-Morsi campaign
pervasively held that the anti-Morsi campaign was predominantly composed of feloul,
(remmants of Mubarak regime) who were against Islam, the anti-Morsi camp held that
Ihkwan and President Morsi were in a campaign of brotherhoodization of the state and
the country was diverted from its revolutionary ideals. These reciprocal accusations
brought a haste of defamatory accusations that resulted in the dehumanization of the
other. Street politics had already become the main venue for the power show of each
camp. The numbers of participants, mostly exacerbated, were presented as signs of each
camp’s level of legitimacy. Meanwhile, the violence on the streets increased gradually.
Violent confrontations between the different groups became daily occurrences. Political
leaders, President Morsi and the leaders of the National Salvation Front –the oppositional
umbrella group– failed to provide a working channel of communication that would
potentially lead to consensus and possibly mitigate the societal tensions. As the
prominent political scientist and liberal politician Amr Hamzawy (LI) stated in our
interview, the National Salvation Front adopted a rejectionist attitude against President
Morsi and the Freedom and Justice Party. This rejectionist attitude did not resolve but
escalated the tensions even further. In a similar vein, President Morsi had mainly an
uncompromising approach against the concerns and demand of the opposition.
Consequently, the society became more and more strained.
260
Although Egyptians are known to be good natured and calm people, increasing
violence, before and after the military intervention, marked a sharp deviation from this
common feature of Egyptian people. It is not an easy task, and not relevant for this study,
to determine who inflicted more violence. Yet, both sides accused each other. Traditional
values were hardly effective for providing arbitration and order.
A young liberal politician recounted a scene from a demonstration:
During the demonstration in front of the Ittihadiye, the Presidential Palace in
Cairo, they (members of Muslim Brotherhood) caught one of our friends and
started to beat him. So, the guy thought that he would die and began uttering
shahada (the Muslim profession of faith). They said, “stop beating him, he is a
Muslim, he just became a Muslim”. They thought that we were not Muslims.
They were not from Cairo and they were told that they would fight against
infidels in Cairo. We did not imagine that this would happen in Egypt.
In his State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben (2005) differentiated between human
bios, political bodies and zoes, biological bodies. He argued that over time, the zoe
became politicized and the line between bios and zios became indistinguishable. Based
on his analysis of Hitler and Nazis, Agamben argued that by having suspended the certain
articles regarding civil liberties of the Weimar Constitution, the Nazis created a “state of
exception” –a term barrowed from Carl Schmitt (1985)– and this “justified” a “legal civil
war” against the Republic’s Jewish citizens.47 A state of exception, a space without law,
is a zone of exclusion. Thus, the Nazis did not consider killing Jews as a form of
“homicide”. For Agamben, the state of exception became the norm, not an exception in
modern political life.
Weeks before the planned anti-Morsi demonstrations on June 30, 2013, it was
widely stated among supporters of the anti-Morsi campaign that “at least seventy – eighty
47
Schmitt argued that a “sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception”
(1985:11).
261
people had to be killed in order to push the armed forces to intervene”. The military’s
intervention can be aptly argued to represent a “state of exception”. Yet, more
significantly many Egyptians seemed to getting used to the daily occurrence of violence.
Particularly, after the military intervention, it became more evident that the “state of
exception” that the military intervention had created, “justified” the killings of unarmed
protesters by gunshots by the military. As Carr (2013) reported, some mainstream media
channels used a “derisory and mocking” language to describe the killings of protesters. In
unsubstantiated claims by the media, the protestors were referred as terrorists, and thus
the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.48 In Agamben’s (2005)
conceptualization, zoes were highly politicized in the post-revolution tension. In
comparison to some historical examples such as French Revolution, the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution49 could be considered relatively peaceful. Nevertheless, given the widespread
violence that different political groups were involved in, and the acceptance of violence
as inevitable, necessary, and routine as a quasi means of political negotiation in the
transition period, one may question the “non-violent” nature of the Egyptian Revolution.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the analysis of the collected data suggests that regardless of its sui
generis nature, the January 2011 Egyptian Revolution became possible as a combined
result of a sociopolitical transformation in the Egyptian society and several contingent
events that took place right before and during the January 25 events. This study
48
Both parties were involved in violent acts before and after the military intervention.
The military’s indiscriminate use of lethal force and the widespread societal reaction,
which considered killings of several thousands of people as “justified”, constitutes a more
vivid example of a general adoption of state of exception.
49
According to some sources, during the 18 days of protests, 840 individuals were killed
and 6467 individuals were wounded in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution (Rashwan 2011).
262
determined two analytically distinct components of transformation: 1) There was a
gradual change in Egyptian sociopolitical life, which occurred roughly during the last
decade of the Mubarak regime, and 2) There was a paradigmatic change that took place
during the 18 days of protests.
We can conveniently argue that, with MG Smith's conceptualization, the 2011
Egyptian Revolution constituted a 'Linear or Vectorial Transformation' that denoted an
episodic structural change. It was a structural change in the sense that the revolution
altered the processes and operational conditions of the social structure of Egyptian
society, which was conceptualized as being composed of social entities (sets of units) and
social processes (sets of relations). Nevertheless, given the ensuing political crisis and
societal tension that existed before and after the military intervention on July 3, 2013, this
structural change, which was concurrently per se a motive and a consequence of the
Revolution, has not yet been institutionalized. The nature of the relations and involving
processes between the state and society have been altered; yet, as implied by Bailey
(2001) for post-revolutionary situations individuals and societies need time for the new
system to be institutionalized.
In the aftermath of the military intervention, the state marginalized the
organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has had an undeniably significantly large
number of followers. Almost all of its leading members, including Mohammed Morsi,
have been arrested and its activities have been banned. Yet, one can hardly expect the
political and societal tensions to end without the incorporation of the organization of
Muslim Brotherhood into the democratic system.
263
It is also significant to consider that revolutions hardly ever provide a clean slate
for societies and politics. The 2011 Egyptian Revolution provided a new beginning; the
beginning only which was built on old legacies; old sociopolitical attitudes and frictions,
which require time and patience to overcome. The resignation of Mubarak was neither a
complete restoration of normal relations nor a state of “recognition of irreparable
schism”. Despite an initial order or “insecure equilibrium” after Mubarak, due to
contending political orientations and references regarding the future direction of the
country the new power centers failed to agree on an idealized image of the Egyptian state
and society and on the means of achieving that idealized future. In this respect, it would
be more appropriate to depict the political state after the military intervention on July 3,
2013, as a “transition period” or “revolution in progress”.
264
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APPENDIX
Appendix: Informants
Informant Codes:
(S): Members of various Salafi Groups: Four informants
(MB): Members of Muslim Brotherhood: Six informants
(FR): Bureaucrats, intellectuals, and former politicians who were affiliated officially (not
necessarily ideologically) with Mubarak regime: Seven informants
(C): Coptic Egyptians: Six informants
(WP): Islamists politicians (from the Wasat Party): One informant
(A): Young Activists (Liberal/Secular): Seven informants
(LI): Liberal intellectuals: Seven informants
(NA): Relatively religious intellectuals who were not affiliated with any Islamist political
organization: Three informants
(AE): Average Egyptians: Six informants
Informant List:
Abdulkarim (AE) (Pseudonym): Arabic language teacher in his early forties. A devout
Muslim, sympathetic to Islamist parties but he is not affiliated any of them.
Abdulkadir (AE) (Pseudonym): Arabic language teacher in his late twenties. A devout
Muslim and a sympathizer (not a member) of the Muslim Brotherhood:
Ahmed (MB) (Pseudonym): Long-time member of the Muslim Brotherhood and he has
local responsibilities in his town in Menoufiya Governorate
Amr Farouk (WP): Spokesperson of the Wasat Party, moderate Islamist party; an
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Amr Hamzawy (LI): Liberal parliamentarian and political scientist at American
University at Cairo.
287
Dr. Ahmad (MB) (Pseudonym): A medical doctor and an active member of the Muslim
Brotherhood
Dr. Ali El Din Hilal (FR): Political Scientist. Served as Media Secretary of Mubarak’s
National Democratic Party.
Dr. Fahmy (C) (Pseudonym) Coptic Egyptian in his late sixties. Professor of chemistry
in a university in Alexandria.
Dr. Fahri (LI) (Pseudonym): is political scientist by training and director of a research
center in Cairo.
Dr. Nagib (FR) (Pseudonym): Professor of Political Science at Cairo University and
former member of Policy Secretariat (Committee) of Mubarak’s National
Democratic Party.
Dr. Kamil (FR) (Pseudonym): Professor of Political Science at Cairo University and
former member of Policy Secretariat (Committee) of Mubarak’s National
Democratic Party.
Dr. Masud (C) (Pseudonym): Coptic Egyptian. Dentist and he owns a private clinic in
Heliopolis, one of the upper-class districts of Cairo.
Dr. Nadia Mustafa (NA): Professor of Political Science at Cairo University and Director
of Program for Civilization Studies and Dialogue of Cultures.
Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim (LI): Renowned sociologist, senior liberal activist.
Dr. Said (FR) Abdel Monem Said Aly: Political Scientist and currently the director of
Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. Served as the
Chairman of the Board, of the state-owned Al Ahram Newspaper& Publishing
House during the last years of Mubarak. He was also a member of Gamal
Mubarak's Policy Committee under the NDP.
Dr. Sedat (C) (Pseudonym): Medical doctor, Coptic Christian in his early fifties.
Dr. Shevki (NA) (Pseudonym): Professor of Islamic Studies at Cairo University
Fathy El Shazly (FR): Egypt’s former Ambassador to Turkey
Director of the Executive Secretariat for Demining and the Development of the
North West
Hamid (AE) (Pseudonym): An unemployed young Egyptian in his early twenties who
288
recently graduated from Cairo University.
Haroun (MB) (Pseudonym): Member of the Organization of Muslim Brotherhood in his
late thirties.
Hussein (A) (Pseudonym): (research assistant) Young, middle class liberal male; recently
graduated from Cairo University.
Jihad Haddad (MB): Spokesman for President Morsi
Joseph (C) (Pseudonym): A young Coptic Christian in his mid twenties. He is a member
of Coptic Maspero Youth Union.
Kasim (LI) (Pseudonym): Liberal Egyptian in his early 40s explained;
Kenan (MB) (Pseudonym): Muslim Egyptian in his mid thirties and he is a member of
the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mahdi Akef (MB): Former Supreme Guides of the Organization of Muslim Brotherhood
Maher (LI) (Pseudonym): Columnist and reporter who closely observed the Tahrir
events.
Mahmoud (A) (Pseudonym): Young activist in his mid thirties.
Mina (A) (Pseudonym): Female liberal activist in her twenties.
Mohamad Celebi (FR) (Pseudonym): Retired general from the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Mr. Soliman (FR) (Pseudonym): High-level bureaucrat who was part of the intelligence
apparatus at the time of the revolution.
Salih (A): 23 year-old activist, recently graduated from Cairo University
Salma (AE) (Pseudonym): Middle-aged female Egyptian who works in a post office.
Selim (A) (Pseudonym): Liberal activists and politician in his forties.
Sheyma (LI) (Pseudonym): Female professor at American University in Cairo.
Tareq (LI) (Pseudonym): Liberal journalist in Cairo
Tamer (A) (Pseudonym): Young liberal activist and novice politician.
Tarek El-Kholi (A): Young activist, spokesman of the Six April Movement, the
Democratic Front
289
Youssef (AE) (Pseudonym): Teacher in his late twenties.
Zeki (AE) (Pseudonym): Devout Muslim, a teacher in his early forties.
290