Egypt's Continuing Revolution

The Arab Republic of Egypt is one of Africa’s oldest nations. Egypt was established in more or less its current form with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3200 BC. The Muhammad Ali Dynasty was inaugurated in July 1805 and the country obtained independence from Britain in February 1922. With a population estimated at 84.5million people, it is one of the most important and strategic in the Arab world. The country had been ruled by the military since the 1952 revolution of the Free Officers Movement under Generals Muhammad Naguib, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, until 2011 when Egypt stunned the world! In what must count as one of the most fascinating political events in contemporary history, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square demanding an end to the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and his sons. The movement was led by young people and did not have a religious basis. Indeed, the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the extreme Salafists were reported to have been initially wary of confronting the Mubarak regime until Tahrir Square gathered momentum and fervency. Egyptians of all groups, Muslims, Coptic Christians, secularists and Islamists, young and old were united in demanding freedom and democracy, and in a very sophisticated manner urging the Egyptian military to side with the people. What the Egyptian masses did was at once profound and pragmatic- they excised Mubarak from his military support base and gave the Egyptian armed forces a new role definition as protectors of the people rather than their government. On January 25, 2011, widespread protests began against Mubarak and by February 11, he resigned and the military assumed custody of power. Field Marshall Mohammed Hassan Tantawi, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, became de facto Head of State, although it was clear that this was a constitutional custodianship on behalf of the revolution and it would have been inconceivable for Tantawi and his military brass to attempt to appropriate power. The military duly oversaw a democratic transition including parliamentary elections on November 28, 2011 and a presidential election on June 24, 2012. Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won the presidency and this is where the story gets complicated. The Brotherhood, you will recall, did not start or lead the revolution. The core of the demand of the Tahrir Square protesters was democracy and freedom and its support was broad-based across religious and political segments of Egyptian society. If anything, the protests were led by secular youths employing modern technology, internet and social media, rather than the mosque as the channel of mobilisation. Indeed, one of the most remarkable images of Tahrir Square was of Christians guarding Muslims while they prayed, sending a message that the revolution transcended sectarian divides. As a matter-of-fact, the Muslim Brotherhood seeing and seeking not to discourage the unity of the anti-Mubarak coalition had pledged not to contest both parliamentary and presidential elections. But all that changed as power lay in abeyance and the brotherhood, the best organised political group in Egypt, reversed its pledge and formed a political party to grab power. Morsi then, as many feared, began to seek (much as the Iranian Ayatollahs had done with another popular revolution in another overwhelmingly Muslim nation) to replace the popular revolution with his own Islamist vision. In a stunning reversal of the united rhetoric of Tahrir Square, months later, I watched a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration with large placards saying, “We don’t want democracy, only Islam!!!”. Morsi shut out other groups- secularists, youths, women and Christians, from the constitution-making process and rammed through an Islamist constitution and steadily began to over-reach himself, assuming, erroneously it turns out, that the revolution was over, and a Muslim Brotherhood take-over was complete and irreversible. Even though Morsi’s Islamist constitution was approved by 64 percent of voters, only 33 percent of the electorate participated, all liberal and secular groups having boycotted the process. Morsi soon had alienated every group except his brothers- the powerful military, the judiciary, Christians, youths and intelligentsia, and most fatally, the streets! The people of Egypt, of course, did what they had learnt to do in January and February 2011- return to the streets and soon the same “referee” who gave Mubarak a red card on behalf of the people would issue the same marching orders to Morsi and his parliament. I consider the debate over whether what happened on July 3, 2013 was a coup or not a nonsensical waste of time. If the military did not carry out a coup when they toppled Mubarak at the urging of millions of their people, why would doing the same to Morsi (who indeed was in the process of organising a “coup” against the people’s demand for freedom and democracy) be regarded as a coup? In my view, the way to understand developments in Egypt is to understand that the Egyptian revolution is a continuing one. The quest for freedom and democracy, which the masses of Egypt have embarked on, is a process and not a destination they arrived at when they voted for Morsi. If anyone, Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, interim President Adly Mansour, Muhammed El-Baradei and even the military, seeks to undermine their aspirations, Egyptians will rise up against them. The point is Egyptians have found freedom and will not give it up to anyone!