“The modern Egyptian state was not founded on the flimsiest notion of constitutionalism or the rule of law. We entered into no social contract that tied us to our ruler, who descended on us with his ilk like vultures ravaging town and country.
It is a state that has repeatedly failed its citizens, is inherently despotic, and suffers from a foundational legitimacy crisis.”
“For the past 200 years, Egyptians have not spared any effort in rebelling against this tyrannical state. In contrast to what is taught in Egyptian schools, we did not revolt only against foreign invaders, be they French or British. We also resisted this domestic Leviathan by all means at our disposal.”
“The British occupation dissipated Egyptians’ revolutionary energies. Occupied Egypt had to fight for constitutional rights and for independence at the same time. Two and a half decades after the defeat of Urabi’s army and the landing on Egyptian soil of British troops, Egyptians rose in one massive revolution in 1919 asking for both independence and a constitution. The much‑anticipated independence, however, fell far short of revolutionary expectations, for in 1922 the British handed Egypt a truncated independence that allowed British troops to stay on Egyptian soil, and deprived Egypt from the right to shape its own foreign policy. More seriously, the British interfered in the constitution-writing process, tilting the 1923 Constitution toward the palace, giving the crown powers that enabled it to dominate parliament.”
“The period between 1923 and 1952 is often called the golden age of liberal Egypt, but it was neither golden nor liberal. The British continued to maintain their grip over Egypt. The monarch continued to use a constitutional licence allowing him to dissolve parliament at will. Throughout the second quarter of the 20th century, Egyptian political parties failed to develop strategies to defeat either the colonial occupier or local tyranny. The moment was ripe for Egyptians to take to the streets, for the appearance of mass politics.”
“The political stalemate was broken in 1952, when Gamal Abdel Nasser and his junta staged a coup. They abolished the monarchy, suspended parliamentary politics, persecuted all major political players of the ancien régime, rounded up thousands of communists and sent them to remote prisons, and arrested tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members whom they subjected to indescribable torture. Those of us who were not tortured, imprisoned or exiled found ourselves marching in unison behind our leader, straight to a dark abyss.”
“Three and a half years later, this confident, hopeful mood is no more. Instead of the open, democratic country that seemed, for a short while, to be ours at last, Egypt is now in the grip of a military dictatorship that has arrested our friends, imprisoned our comrades and quashed our dreams. Kangaroo trials have passed death sentences on hundreds of Islamists in sessions lasting less than an hour. And on 14 August 2013, security forces committed what Human Rights Watch described as one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators on a single day in recent history, a massacre in Raba’a Square in Cairo that was more lethal than Tiananmen Square and which probably amounts to a crime against humanity.”
“Far from being a Facebook phenomenon, a foreign conspiracy, or an insurrection staged by a handful of street urchins – as members of the current Egyptian regime in their phantasmagorical delusions insist – the Egyptian revolution has a long and venerable pedigree. We, the people, have been in a state of constant rebellion for the past 200 years, and 25 January 2011 was but the latest phase of a long struggle to force the tyrannical state to serve its citizens, instead of us serving it.”
“Why has it proven so difficult for Egyptians to end our status as subjects in our own country and to force our state to treat us as citizens?”
“First, despite their deafening rhetoric, Western powers have not spared an effort to thwart our struggle for democracy. As noted above, the British not only crushed our first constitutional movement in 1881-82, but also handicapped our second attempt when they intervened in the writing of the 1923 Constitution to tip the balance in favour of their pliant client king and against the nascent parliament. Britain’s moment in the Middle East came to an end, of course, and the US has taken over as the global superpower. Washington, DC has not missed an opportunity to support Egyptian dictators over the Egyptian people, just as it has in neighbouring countries.”
“Second, the century-long Arab-Israeli conflict has sapped our energy and diverted precious resources. But more insidiously, our own despots have used it cynically to postpone democratic reforms indefinitely. The slogan ‘No call to top the call for battle’ has been deployed domestically to silence all calls for democracy and reform. Moreover, our struggle with Israel necessitated the expansion of the military. When this military failed in its mission at the borders, it diverted its energies to the domestic sphere, transforming itself into a mighty economic and political player that rightly saw democracy as inimical to its interest.”
“Third, the scourge of petro-dollars has meant that the oil-rich and despotic regimes of the Gulf could interfere in Egypt and support anti-democratic forces. The success of the counter-revolution following 30 June 2013 could not be understood without taking into account the billions of dollars that both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates paid the new Egyptian regime. This heavy support from the Gulf states to the counter-revolutionary regime stems from their realisation that the Egyptian revolution could have a dynamo effect in the region. If allowed to succeed, it could shake the despotic foundations of these Gulf states.”
“Fourth, the tragedy of Egypt’s current revolution also lies in our inability to look back to our modern history and choose a moment that we would like to resurrect or emulate. There is no ‘reset button’ that we can press to jumpstart our history; no one specific dark moment that we can simply wish away; no isolated anomalous period that we would like to suppress; no imagined golden age in which we can claim we shaped our destiny and to which we want to return. In this, Egypt is not unique. The history of postcolonial states has seen few victories of democracy and justice.”
“Finally, and to make things even more difficult, in attempting to tame the domestic Leviathan, we in Egypt, Libya and Syria found that we had unleashed the forces of political Islam. For our revolution posed not only the question of what ought to be the role of the army in society but also what role religion should play in politics. This matter opened up existential questions with which Egyptians and Arabs have been struggling for more than a century.”
“It is also true that the new regime has taken repressive measures against the Egyptian people, moving to push us back into history’s antechamber. Despite these deep problems, I remain confident that the future is ours and that our revolution will prevail. This might not happen next month, next year, or even in the next decade. Given how deep are the roots of, and reasons for, this revolution, it would be naïve to expect its victory overnight with one decisive, knockout blow. Despite the challenges, I am convinced that we are now witnessing the beginning of the end of the tyrannical Egyptian state.”
“We have opened the black box of politics.”
“Politics is no longer what government officials, security agents or army officers decide among themselves. It is no longer what university students demonstrate about, what workers in their factories struggle with, or young men in mosques whisper over. Politics is now the stuff of coffee‑shop gossip, of housewives’ chats, of metro conversations, even of pillow talk.”
“People now see the political in the daily and the quotidian.”
“The genie is out of the bottle and no amount of repression can force it back in.”