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Protestors being beaten by Central Security Forces in Cairo |
In an unprecedented level of unrest and civil activism in Egypt, thousands have been taking to the streets on a regular basis for the past few months, demanding more political freedoms and an end to President Mubarak’s 24-year rule. For the first time in the country's modern history, Egyptians are publicly debating alternatives to Mubarak’s incumbency, rejecting the government’s snail-paced reform policies and calling for a more independent and efficient foreign policy.
Egypt has never witnessed direct, competitive presidential elections in its recent history. Previous contests for the presidency took the form of referendums with Mubarak's the only name on the ballot.
Despite the February announcement that the government would finally allow multi-candidate presidential elections to be held, Egypt’s ruling party recently set terms that effectively exclude independent candidates and the regime’s political adversaries. For their nomination to be accepted, candidates will need the approval of 250 members of the lower and upper houses of parliament and nationwide local councils—institutions that are virtually monopolized by the ruling party (“US Support”).
Popular demands for reform have skyrocketed in the aftermath of the constitutional amendment allowing candidates to run directly against the Egyptian president. But Cairo has also witnessed three bombing attacks in less than a month, including one that took place in downtown Cairo, in a location facing the National Democratic Party’s (NDP) headquarters and the Egyptian museum. Analysts have debated what looks like a resurgence of Islamic militancy in Egypt after almost 8 years of calm. While some regard the attacks as isolated incidents committed by misguided youth, others urged caution at the potential rise of a new, more militant generation of Islamists, angered by years of regime repression, poverty, and the unwillingness of Egyptian authorities to oppose hegemonic US and Israeli policies in the Middle East (Radi).
Nevertheless, the bombings were generally condemned by Egyptian civil society, with many members of the opposition warning against any attempt by the government to manipulate the attacks to justify the continuation of emergency laws and more political repression.
Interestingly, some analysts credit this upsurge in popular activism in Egypt to President Bush’s so-called “forward strategy for freedom” and the “contagion effect” of the elections in Iraq and Palestine. Foad Ajami, prominent Orientalist and Republican, has triumphantly hailed the downfall of the “Arab edifice of power,” due to what he sees as America’s current unwillingness to support regional autocrats and its readiness to “gamble on the young, the new, and the unknown” (Ajami). But contrary to those optimistic, self-satisfying assertions, recent record has shown that despite pro-democracy statements from the US administration, the entrenched Arab regimes continue to enjoy US favor. One has only to note how President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia—who presides over a repressive police state—has twice managed to obtain a ludicrous electoral near-unanimity, and still remains fully supported by the United States. Moreover, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah simply allowed partial municipal elections in his country and still continues to be courteously received by George W. Bush in his Texas ranch.
Popular activism in Egypt is the result of the accumulation of decades of political and economic injustices.
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For all intents and purposes, demands for reform in Egypt should not be lumped together with recent elections in Iraq and Palestine. In fact, one could safely argue that modern-day popular activism in Egypt is the result of the accumulation of decades of political and economic injustices, and a pervasive feeling of indignation at Egypt’s shrinking regional and international influence. Egyptian popular sentiment has been further inflamed by US hegemonic policies in the Middle East and Israel’s continuing occupation of Arab land. Those calling for reform in Egypt today should not be seen as an extension of Bush’s designs for the greater Middle East, but rather as part and parcel of a patriotic, homegrown opposition movement that is against the twin evils of domestic dictatorship and foreign occupation.
"Black Hole States" Behind the Tensions
For decades, Arab leaders have shown a remarkable ability to evade change by demonstrating to their patrons in Washington their usefulness in supporting US strategic objectives, and their ability to maintain stability and calm in the Middle East by forcefully pacifying their disgruntled citizens. In the process, the regimes have become more responsive to the demands of the West, as opposed to the desperate pleas of their people. The result has been the decimation of civil society and an asphyxiating political climate where reform is either denied altogether, postponed, or performed in a tightly controlled and fitfully slow manner that does not significantly alter the rules of the game.
The recently published 2004 UN Arab Human Development Report contends that Arab states have been transformed into what the report dubs “black hole states in which rulers are granted unchallengeable powers so as to convert the surrounding social environment into a setting in which nothing moves and from which nothing escapes,” (“Lack of Reform”). In many ways, political life in Egypt exhibits much of the same characteristics. Between April 2003 and April 2004, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) documented 15 cases of death by torture deaths in police stations. An EOHR fact-finding mission to the northern Sinai town of al-Arish after the Taba bombings in October 2004 reported the indiscriminate roundup of 3,000 city residents (El-Ghobashy). Moreover, the streets of major cities in Egypt have become permanent barracks for conscript-filled trucks of the Central Security Forces, in a display of force designed to deter opposition activists and potential protestors. Even the government-appointed National Supreme Council for Human Rights (NSCHR) published an annual report documenting routine torture methods practiced by security forces, and calling for an end to the 24-year-old state of emergency and the immediate release of prisoners who have completed their terms (“Egypt Group”).
Opposition movements have also denounced Egypt’s increasing dependence on the United States and the unexplained warmth in recent official Egyptian-Israeli relations. After being opposed to the Iraq war, the Egyptian government erratically changed course and hosted the Iraq Summit held in the resort of Sharm el Sheikh, giving legitimacy to the US-appointed Allawi government and rebuffing France’s attempt to secure a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.
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The increasingly prevalent Central Security cordons that litter Egypt |
The most significant upgrading in Egyptian-Israeli relations came in late May 2004, when Mubarak and Sharon agreed to set up political, security and economic committees to upgrade all aspects of the countries’ bilateral relationship. The move was further augmented with the conclusion of the biggest deal ever between the two countries: a contract worth $2.5 billion for Egypt to supply Israel with natural gas. Mubarak then stunned the world by asserting that Sharon—reviled across the Arab world—is the Palestinians’ “best chance for peace.” The Egyptian president also affirmed his country’s readiness to help keep the peace in Gaza after Israel’s planned withdrawal and signed a protocol with Israel establishing seven “Qualified Industrial Zones” (QIZs), where Egyptian goods would gain free access to US markets only if 11.7% of the content originated in Israel, thus giving the latter country de facto “veto power” over Egyptian goods heading to the United States.
New Forces for Change
The Egyptian Movement for Change, better known as Kefaya (Arabic for “enough”), is the name of the increasingly vocal political movement denouncing the NDP’s political monopoly, calling for a separation of powers, an end to corruption and nepotism, and rejecting all attempts aimed at grooming Mubarak's son, Gamal, for office. Kefaya’s founding document was presented in October 2004 by highly respected ex-judge Tariq al-Bishri, who called upon Egyptians to withdraw their “long-abused consent to be governed” and to engage in civil disobedience (El-Ghobashy). The movement can be regarded as an umbrella organization hosting a variety of Islamist, Socialist, and Arab Nationalist parties. The movement’s website suggests that its members are:
“Egyptian citizens, who despite their different political affiliations and backgrounds, see that the region is facing immense dangers manifested in: the US occupation of Iraq, Zionist aggression in Palestine, the restructuring of the region’s political landscape and the undermining of its cultural heritage. The movements’ members see that the reason for Egypt’s inability to face those impending threats is its despotic form of government and the NDP’s political monopolization of power – a feature which requires total political and constitutional reform.” (“About Us”)
Kefaya’s membership is replete with Egyptian activists and intellectuals, among them many distinguished members of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Abd al-Halim Qandil, editor of the fiery nationalist al-Arabi newspaper. In November, Qandil was kidnapped, blindfolded, beaten, stripped naked, tossed onto the Cairo-Suez highway and told by his captors to be “more respectful of asyadak [his masters],” (El-Ghobashy). The frequency of the movement’s anti-government protests has increased since December, and the Muslim Brotherhood, having long avoided direct clashes with security forces, has joined with Kefaya and other more secular movements demanding reform (“Egypt’s Brotherhood”). The beginning of May witnessed an intensification of Brotherhood-led protests across Egyptdespite thousands of the Islamist movement’s supporters being detained in nationwide crackdowns.
Conclusions
The streets have become permanent barracks for Central Security Forces—a display of force to deter activists.
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For years, the Arab state system— Egypt being no exception—has suffered from leaders who rule unchecked by countervailing institutions, effective parliaments, or independent judiciaries (Ottaway). In Egypt, the ruling elite and their Western-educated business compatriots do not seem to regard political freedoms, institutionalization, and economic equity as urgent and legitimate concerns. For them, politics involve their unchallenged accumulation of political and economic influence, and the repackaging of failed policies with seemingly attractive, yet ultimately fictitious, slogans.
While the majority of Egyptians continue to long for freedom and democracy—in principle—they have until recently failed to present broad-based political organizations and follow through with systematic political activity capable of acting as an effective counterweight to the heavily entrenched regime. The long-awaited revival of civil activism in Egypt is an encouraging phenomenon that will play itself out in the critical months before September, when presidential elections are due to take place. Egypt’s ruling NDP will undoubtedly seek to exploit the remaining few months to intensify its pro-Mubarak propaganda campaign, using all the usual tools that it has monopolized and manipulated over the past quarter of a century.
Meanwhile, opposition groups have come to realize that they do not have the same access to the regime’s resources, and that the political playing field is less than level. Hence, their strategy seems to be focused on trying to win over as many segments of the Egyptian population as they can by closing ranks, staging highly publicized demonstrations, and constantly highlighting grievances against and abuses by the regime.
The recent provisional decision by Egyptian judges to abstain from monitoring the elections unless the government grants them full oversight of the electoral process, and the seeming inability of the government to guarantee electoral transparency, are both factors that might play a role in enhancing the credibility of the opposition and tarnishing the image of the regime. More seriously, conducting presidential elections in the absence of judicial oversight could violate the Egyptian constitution (“ Egypt Judges”).
Only time will tell whether Egypt’s deadlocked political situation will eventually give way to a more responsive, democratic system, or regress into business as usual and a “authoritarianism in disguise,” masked by only a few cosmetic changes.
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