This is an article I posted on the MasterPeace blog in May, immediately after the "second day of rage". While many more concessions were made by SCAF following continued protests, including the pushing back of elections, I believe that the central point of this article, that Tahrir protesters are no longer representative of public opinion in the country at large, still stands.
Egypt held its “second day of rage” on Friday, otherwise known as “Revolution 2.0” and the result was flat and disappointing. On the original Day of Rage on Friday 28th of January, the mood was one of conviction and fervor. The chants and slogans had the weight of a united populace behind them. In stark contrast, the atmosphere in Tahrir Square on Friday 27th of May was uncertain and the chants somehow rang false. Despite the claims by those admitting people to the square that there were one million present, the numbers were clearly only in the tens of thousands, and the majority of them appeared to be spectators. The previously good-natured culture of protestors bringing large amounts of food and drink to the square and then handing it out for free to their fellow-protestors in a show of comradeship has been replaced by an aggressive army of vendors selling tea, packaged snacks, popcorn and candy-floss.
The problem with the continuation of Friday protests is that there is a tangible sense that they are desperately trying to cling to a unity that has now passed. Yesterday’s protest was no more than several groupings of a couple of hundred people gathered in support of differing and sometimes contradictory ideas and policies. Themes included affirming the unity of Christians and Muslims, demands for protestors to be released, demands for figures of the old regime to be put on trial, support for Palestine and condemnation of Israel, protests over military tribunals, demands for an end to corrupt practices, calls for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to step down and be replaced by a civilian interim government, demands for a new constitution, and finally, demands for the proposed September elections to be delayed.
Regardless of the whether or not these goals are considered to be legitimate, protesting has ceased to be the most effective tool to achieve them. The second day of rage was organised by various groups of young protestors including the Coalition of the Revolution Youth who once again used Facebook to mobilise supporters. The aim was to continue to remind the SCAF that this was a revolution, not a coup, and that power is still the peoples’. In some ways, the protestors have been successful in these reminders; SCAF have announced that Mubarak and his sons will be prosecuted (most recently resulting in Mubarak being fined $34 million for his blockade of communication services) along with several of his ministers, a large amount of those detained for protesting have been released, and the Rafah border crossing has been opened, effectively ending the blockade of Gaza. However, as the protests get small and smaller, the voices weaker and weaker, it is time to face up to the fact that no more can be achieved in this way, and not only this, that it shouldn’t be. Friday’s protest failed to reinvigorate flailing public support for the continuing revolution, and served only to demonstrate that the protestors no longer have the legitimacy granted by popular support, and need instead to focus their efforts on engaging with the democratic state they have created, flawed as it may be.
No one is claiming that the new state is perfect. To many, it is the old regime with a new face. The recent referendum served to demonstrate the difficulties of effectively implementing democracy in a state with low literacy levels, and high poverty. It is claimed that many people voted “yes” simply in an effort to get the country and the economy moving again because of the hardships the revolution had wrought on their everyday lives, while still more did not fully understand what they were voting for, but had been told that it was their “religious duty”. This form of manipulation may be abhorrent, and may make the path to true democracy a rocky one but, like it or not, the “yes” vote won a 77% majority on March 19th and reformers have to work within the remit granted to SCAF by this victory, including their right to call elections later this year, despite criticisms that it is far too soon for many of the new parties to prepare for.
It is no bad thing that the protestors are no longer united, as now is the time for subtleties to be addressed, different opinions to be listened to, and debates to be carried out. Despite not having a role in the revolution at the beginning the Muslim Brotherhood are still the largest and most well-connected political party in Egypt, since the disbanding of the NDP, and if the reformers continue to force politics to be a matter of “he who shouts the loudest wins”, they will likely lose.
Outside Tahrir Square, Political activists in Egypt have demonstrated initiative and drive. In the short time since March 28th, when SCAF passed a new law, outlining the procedures for the setting up of political parties, many have emerged. Prominent amongst them are Wasat, the first party to officially register after 15 years of rejected applications, who formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and who aim to combine Islamic culture with democracy and development. The Muslim Brotherhood itself, having been banned for so long, has now formed its own, legally registered, political party called the Freedom and Justice Party. Amongst the new left-leaning parties are the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, home to many of the activists behind the revolution, whose values include a secular state, development and social justice. The Popular Alliance has been formed as a broad left-leaning coalition on the (probably correct) assumption that a catch-all left-wing party will have more chance against its right-wing opponents than a fragmented collection of parties who only differ slightly in their ideological stance. Also on the left are the Free Egyptians Party, whose values include democracy, freedom, women’s rights and and separation of powers, and the Democratic Labour Party who represent workers rights and are anti-privatisation.
Outside of the rigidly defined structure of political parties are ‘April 6th’, a political action committee who have no ambitions in the direction of power, and seek to avoid alienating large groups with a defined ideology, and instead want to form a unified group of individuals, with varying political beliefs, to lobby and voice support for specific issues. Similarly, the Progressive Revolution Youth is built around the idea that before there can be parties there needs to be debate, and exchange of ideas. They seek to lobby for the creation of a state which is build upon the rule of law and respect for human dignity.
These attempts, and others, to rebuild Egyptian society from the bottom up are constructive and forward-thinking. It is around these movements, and others, that Egyptians now need to focus their efforts at reform, saving protests only for those moments when the exercise of democratic rights has failed, if for no other reason that over-use will make their impact tired.
You can understand why people want to cling to their revolution, which not only bought them respect in the eyes of the world, but had such a dramatic and demonstrable result in that it toppled a dictator of thirty-years. However, it has become clear over the months since February that the hardest work is still to come. Parties and activists need to work quickly and thoroughly to engage with the key issues, unite where possible, and make every attempt to present a competent and viable option come election time. They also need to try to make every effort to expand their appeal beyond the major cities, if they want to stand any chance of challenging the Brotherhood’s dominance of these areas.
Democracy may not always run smoothly, and September may bring an unfairly acquired landslide for the MB, but if opposition parties continue to mobilise and rally support, the result in four years time could be very different.
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