al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya as a social movement organization:

why the Sai'di insurgency failed

Andrew Haak
April 2010

In 1993, a memo written by American intelligence analysts predicted that “Islamic

fundamentalist terrorists will continue to make gains across Egypt, leading to the eventual
collapse of the Mubarak government.”1 To many policymakers, it seemed history was repeating
itself: just as the shah of Iran fell in 1979, so too would the “pro-American” President Mubarak.2
Yet despite the fact that Egypt was in the midst “revolutionary situation,” there was no
revolutionary outcome. By 1997, Mubarak's security forces had all but wiped out the vestiges of
insurgent resistance. How did this happen?

Earlier explanations for why the insurgency failed have focused on certain factors. The state-
centric explanation focuses on the role of the government's counterinsurgency campaign, in
which over 17,000 militants were arrested and scores of others killed between 1989 and 1995.3 In
contrast, the insurgents and their supporters frequently blamed their ill-fortune on the military aid
coming from regional neighbors and, in particular, the United States. Alternately, some analysts
have emphasized how the ill-calculated Luxor massacre suddenly “turned” public opinion
against the Gama'a, as if popular perceptions of the group could practically shift overnight.4

Finally, and perhaps most notably, is the geographic explanation, which posits that the Gama'a
never posed a serious threat to the state because its power base and extended networks were not
proximate to Cairo, where the government retained full control and authority. However, this
ignores the fact that the Group did have a significant presence in the capital, as considerable
migration from the south to the capitol and Alexandria had been occurring for some time. 5 The
group recruited significantly out of this pool of migrants in Ain Shems, al-Zawiyya al-Hamra,
Boulaq al-Dakrour, and Imbaba, which for three years was practically ruled as an Islamic
republic.6 Some of these neighborhoods were mostly comprised of Sa'idis and served as bases for
militant activity.7 Rather than suggest the insurgency was restricted to the South, Davidson
suggests the movement is better understood as “grounded in the discrimination and exclusion

1 Charles Davidson, Political Violence in Egypt: A Case Study of the Islamist Insurgency 1992-1997. PhD
dissertation: Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (2005) p.12, quoting Fawaz Gerges, America and
Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests (Cambridge UK: Cambridge UP, 1999) p. 171.
2 Stanley Reed, “The Battle for Egypt,” Foreign Affairs, 72:4 (1993) p. 95.
3 Lawrence Cline, Islamic Insurgencies: A Comparative Study. PhD dissertation: University of New York at
Buffalo (1999) p. 189.
4 See Fawaz Gerges, “The end of the Islamist insurgency in Egypt?: costs and prospects,” Middle East Journal,
54:4 (2000) pp. 592-612.
5 Davidson 265.
6 Reed 100; Mohammed M. Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Violence as contention in the Egyptian Islamic
movement,” in Quintan Wiktorowicz, Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington:
Indiana UP (2004) p. 76.
7 Davidson 267.

1
affecting Upper Egyptians, whether in the chaos of Cairo or the isolated villages of the south.”8
Futhermore, most successful insurgent movements have not originated or been conducted in
urban locations: as Che Guevera wrote, “the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.”9

This paper is an effort to reassess the conditions under which the Sa'idi insurgency failed. It will
attempt to do so by reviewing the nature of insurgencies and identifying which insurgent
strategies are conducive to a successful campaign. Next, the basics of social movement theory
will be reviewed in order to show why the best path to understanding insurgent organizations
such as al-Gama'a is through analyzing them as social movement organizations. The main focus
of the paper will then be to analyze al-Gama'a through an SMO framework. In that sense, it
follows somewhat in the tradition of Robinson (2004), Hafez and Wiktorowicz (2004), Lewis
and Metzger (2009), and Karagiannis (2009). The end goal is to provide a more comprehensive
explanation of why the insurgency failed.

Insurgencies

Insurgency is often conflated or confused with concepts such as revolutionary war, civil war, war
of national liberation, guerilla warfare, internal war, foreign internal defense, stability operations,
resistance movement, anticolonial movement, and so on.10 For the purpose of this paper, I will
use O'Neill's definition of an insurgency as “a struggle between a nonruling group and the ruling
authorities in which the nonruling group consciously uses political resources and violence to
destroy, reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics.” 11
Generally, insurgencies can be divided into two types: selective, in which small, elite groups
carry out carefully targeted violent acts; and mobilizational, in which groups attempt to actively
mobilize large segments of the population against the government.12 Selective groups require far
less organizational structure to operate, but they almost never successfully achieve their long-
term goals.13 An example of this would be Guevera's campaign in Bolivia, which failed in under
a year because there was no link to a support base to provide absolute basics such as food and
medicine.14

The most prominent advocate of the mobilizational strategy was Mao Tse-tung, who wrote that
“to wish for victory and yet neglect political mobilization is like wishing to 'go south by driving
the chariot north,' and the result would inevitably be to forfeit victory.”15 Mao stressed the
importance of the “first phase” of insurgency—spent organizing and entrenching into well-
protected command centers—must be completed before any direct action takes place.16
8 Davidson 270.
9 Ernesto “Che” Guevera, Guerrilla Warfare, 3rd Ed.. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1997. 50.
10 Sam Sarkesian, ed., Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare. Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1975. 4.
11 Bard O'Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, Rev. 2nd. ed., NY: Potomac Books
(2005) chapter 2, paragraph 1.
12 O'Neill chapter 2.
13 O'Neill chapter 4.
14 Archon 34.
15 Mao Tse-tung, On the Protracted War. Peking: Foreign Languages P (1960) p. 73.
16 Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare. New York: Praeger (1961) p. 20.

2
Mobilization requires the support of the people, but this does not equivocate to “winning their
hearts and minds” or gaining their sympathy.17 Passive supporters are valuable, as they will not
give away or otherwise impede insurgents, but the active supporters are the ones willing to
sacrifice or take risks on behalf of the militants, providing intelligence, shelter, medical
assistance, guides, supplies, and conducting acts of civil disobedience when necessary. 18 The
mobilization of active supporters is universally agreed on by insurgents and counterinsurgents
alike as the “sine qua non” of guerilla warfare. 19 This is especially true if insurgents are pursuing
a protracted popular war strategy, as the Gama'a was in Egypt.20

Social movement organizations

I shall use Tarrow's definition of a social movement as a set of “collective challenges (to elites,
authorities, other groups or cultural codes) by people with common purposes and solidarity in
sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities.”21 Social movements are not
organizations in themselves, but rather the “networks of interaction” through which individuals,
groups, and organizations push for a cause.22 Social movement organization, on the other hand, is
defined as a “complex or formal organization which identifies its goals with the preferences of a
social movement or countermovement and attempts to implement those goals.”23 While someone
is just a participant in a social movement, that person can be member of an SMO. They tend to
feature at least some type of organizational structure, professional cadre, and overt identification.
They provide political goods, act as hubs for labor and capital, create political opportunities, and
tie people to bigger goals or ideas. McCarthy and Zald (1977) envision SMOs as independent
business firms operating in distinct social movement “industries,” in which the firms compete for
resources and followers who are all part of the same social movement. Tilly (1978) sees them as
political parties simply operating beyond the bounds of the formal system, a “normal part of
politics” which are “instrumental vehicles for the pursuit of group interests.”24 Most importantly,
though, SMOs serve to mobilize people, just as successful insurgent groups seek to do.

Lewis and Metzger (2009) have argued that “most successful insurgencies use a social
17 Robert Lewis and Mark Metzger, “The SMO-COIN nexus: using social movement theory to demobilize
insurgency,” MA thesis: Naval Postgraduate School (June 2009) p. 17; David Galula, Counterinsurgency
Warfare: Theory and Practice. NY: Praeger (1964) 50.
18 O'Neill chapter 5.
19 Guevera, La Lucha de Guerrillas, p. 20: “la lucha guerrillera es una lucha de masas, es una lucha de pueblo... El
guerrillero cuenta entonces con todo el apoyo de la poblacion del logar. Es una cualidad sine qua non.”
Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare, Pall Mall Press (1964) p.6: “The Sine Qua Non of victory in modern warfare
is the unconditional support of the population”
Galula 15: “the active participation of the population was indeed a sine qua non for his success”
20 Fandy 609.
21 Tarrow (1994).
22 Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers
(1999) p. 16.
23 Della Porta 140.
24 Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing (2003) p. 166.

3
movement organization to create the continuous local mobilization they need to grow and win.”25

In fact, it seems more logical to argue that an insurgency is actually, a kind of social movement,
just like other revolutionary activity such as civil rights movements, protest movements, and so
on.26 Some of those activities may be associated with non-violence, but even they can
occasionally result in as much violence as terrorist campaigns; while insurgent activities at times
utilize no more violence than Mohandas Gandhi's strategy of satyagraha. All insurgent
organizations, then, are also social movement organizations. A conspiratorial group may be able
to afford to limit its activities as an insurgent and SMO, but in general, insurgent groups—which
must mobilize the populace at practically all costs—live and die as social movement
organizations. On this, Galula is explicit: “the participation of the population is obtained, above
all, by a political organization living among the population... the guerrilla operations will be
planned primarily not so much against the counterinsurgent as in order to organize the
population.”27

McAdam, a prominent social movement theorist, has outlined the three main areas of focus for
the analysis of social movements and revolutions: political opportunities, mobilizing structures,
and framing processes.28 According to his general model, the presence of political opportunities
are the fundamental precondition, a strong organizational structure permits a group to act upon
the openings available to them, and adequate framing is what finally impels action. As the
insurgency grows, the opportunities and framing methods become increasingly more a product of
the group's own organizational structure and modus operandi. In that sense, “movements may
largely be born of environmental opportunities, but their fate is heavily shaped by their own
actions.”29 As McAdam's model appears to be the clearest, simplest, and most comprehensive
available, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya will be analyzed using McAdam's three areas of focus, which
will now be explained in greater detail.

Political opportunity structures and mobilizing structures drew the attention of rationalist
scholars beginning in the 1970s, who saw social movements as “normal, institutionally rooted,
political challenges by aggrieved groups.”30 The study of political opportunities is based off the
assumption that the structural conditions of a state determine the opportunities and constraints
for collective action.31 In many ways, it is related to Skocpol's approach to understanding
revolutions, which sees the staying power of an incumbent regime as a function of underlying
structural factors. This approach factors in the relative openness or closure of the political
system, presence of elite or external allies, availability and stability of alliances, state capacity

25 Lewis 27.
26 McAdam (1992).
27 Galula 50.
28 Doug McAdam, with John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social
Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings. NY: Cambridge UP (1996)
p. 2.
29 Ibid. 15.
30 Steven Buechler, Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction
of Social Activism. NY: Oxford UP (2000) p. 35.
31 McAdam 3.

4
for responses, external influences, access to support of all kinds, and so on.32 In short, this model
judges the relationship between developing social movements, entrenched actors, and the larger
institutional environment.33

Resource mobilization structures are “the collective vehicles, informal as well as formal, through
which people mobilize and engage in collective action.”34 Just as with any business or political
party, the aggregation of resources is crucial for SMOs, and this requires a certain amount of
organizational structure.35 If the group wants to survive, it must bolster its structure to permit
sustained collective action and offer new recruits competitive incentives for joining, such as
access to material, psychological, or social benefits.36 It is also particularly important that the
SMO possesses a unity of command, lest it fall apart under a modicum of stress.

Constructionist scholars have increasingly relied on frame analyses to understand SMs and
SMOs. A frame is generally defined as an “interpretive schemata that simplifies and condenses
'the world out there' by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events,
experiences, and sequences of actions within one's present or past environment.”37 Framing
processes are the discursive strategies used in fights for legitimacy between rival social
movements; they appeal to individuals' personal beliefs and attempt to forge a common sense of
purpose between an SMO and the targeted recruit. As Wickham sees it, frames are “calls to
arms” which bestow a sense of moral obligation upon people and motivate them to take risks. 38
Framing comes naturally to the leaders of all movements: for instance, Che stressed the urgency
of this exact process when he argued that “intensive popular work must be undertaken to explain
the motives of the revolution, its ends, and to spread the incontrovertible truth that victory of the
enemy against the people is finally impossible.”39 The same holds true for Mao, who wrote that
“every soldier and civilian must understand why the war must be fought and how it concerns him
personally.”40

Scholars in this tradition have outlined four main varieties of frames: diagnostic, prognostic,
motivational, and master. The first two concern the description of the problem, expression of
grievances, identification of the victims and culprits, and the outlining of necessary remedies.
Motivational framing concerns the movement's demonstration of potency, in which dramatic
gestures are used to rally people around the belief that change is possible. Master frames define
grievances and ideologies in terms of general ideas of equality, oppression, justice, freedom, and

32 Ibid. 10.
33 This approach is not a foreign concept to insurgency theorists: see Galula 39.
34 McAdam 3.
35 Buechler 35.
36 McAdam 13; Carrie Wickham, “Interests, ideas, and Islamist outreach in Egypt,” in Wiktorowicz et al., Islamic
Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, p. 231.
37 Sebastian Haunss, “Challenging legitimacy: repertoires of contention, political claims-making, and collective
action frames,” in Hurrelmann, Legitimacy in an Age of Global Politics, pp. 156-172. 165; also see Snow and
Benford (1992) p. 137.
38 Wickham 232.
39 Guevera 56.
40 Mao, On the protracted war, p. 73.

5
so forth.41 They permit the bridging and amplification of the frames, thereby creating access to a
growing pool of potential participants and recruits.

The insurgency in brief

The Sa'idi insurgency was the first form of violent protest in Egypt in many years. Back in 1977,
the government had to put down a massive protest after it halved subsidies on several products,
resulting in the deaths of over 80 people and injuries of 800 more.42 In 1981, President Sadat was
assassinated, and in 1986, the Army suppressed an uprising among the Central Security Forces.
After this, there was a short period of calm before violence broke out in Upper Egypt at the
beginning of the decade. From 1992 (when foreign tourists were first attacked, causing Western
nations to take notice) to 1997, observers recorded over 741 incidents of violence, of which
around 85% occurred in the South.43 Due to intensifying government pressure, insurgent-related
violence increased at an exponential rate until 1995, at which time the trend reversed.44 After the
gruesome Luxor attack of 17 November 1997, in which 68 foreigners and Egyptians died, the
insurgent leadership structure appeared to totally collapse.45 Local villagers reportedly spat on
the dead bodies of insurgents killed in the attack, representing the national public outcry against
the Islamic Group's violent means. Perhaps more importantly, Luxor stimulated an internal crisis
of conscience, which one insurgent leader called “a belated awakening from a fight gone mad. 46
In March 1999, jailed leaders in Egypt and exiled leaders abroad agreed to commit to a ceasefire,
officially “ending” the Sai'di insurgency. Though it was sometimes hard to tell which attacks
were politically motivated and which were related to the practice of “revenge killing,” the
violence had ultimately caused over 1300 casualties, at least two mass killings of Copts, and
billions of dollars in lost economic activity.47

At the core of the insurgency was al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, or the Islamic Group (GI), though it
was estimated there were up to 45 insurgent groups total, including Islamic Jihad.48 al-Gama'a
was rooted in the gama'at (Islamic student groups) which emerged on the university campuses of
Upper Egypt during the 1970s. It seems President Sadat granted such groups adequate room to
operate and grow in order to gain leverage over his leftist opponents. 49 The Islamist students
rapidly developed extensive networks, providing their peers with cheap books, photocopies, and
Islamic clothing.50 By 1981, the gama'at had birthed al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, under the leadership

41 Buechler 42.
42 Ahmed Abdalla, “Mubarak's gamble,” Middle East Report, no. 168 (1991) p. 18; Cline 158.
43 Mohammed Hafez and Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Violence as contention in the Egyptian Islamic movement,” in
Wiktorowicz et al., Islamic Activism: A Social Movement TheoryApproach, p. 71; Fahrer 168.
44 Fahrer 109.
45 Fawaz Gerges, “The end of the Islamist insurgency in Egypt?: costs and prospects,” Middle East Journal, 54:4
(2000) p. 594.
46 Ibid.
47 Mamoun Fandy, “Egypt's Islamic Group: Regional Revenge?” Middle East Journal, 48:4 (1994) p. 623; Gerges
592.
48 Cline 171.
49 Davidson 244.
50 Ibid. 247.

6
of Muhammad Abdel Salam el-Farag, along with al-Jihad, under Muhammad Salim al-Rahhal.51
Several members were incarcerated during Sadat's “Autumn of Fury” later that year, and in
prison the group further radicalized.52 Eventually, these groups united under the guidance of
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who reportedly took full control of the movement after Farag was
hanged in 1982.53 Yet before long, GI broke off, stressing its ties to the south, mass-based goals,
and evangelical agenda.54

By the 1990s, al-Gama'a could be broadly defined as a lower-class Islamist movement which
was hostile to northern political dominance and aggrieved by the economic neglect of the
southern provinces, which received a combined total of only 7% of government investment
funds.55 Most members were under 30, and up to three-quarters of GI members were from rural
areas of Upper Egypt.56 Growing out of the “insurgent hearth” of Asyut University, GI networks
extended into al-Qusiya, Manfalut, and al-Minya, with the cities of Sohag and Beni Suef
functioning as main recruitment bases.57 Though Cairo was not regarded as “home turf,” there
was a strong Sai'di presence in several neighborhoods, especially Imbaba.58

Political opportunity structures

McAdam has stated that a favorable political environment is the precondition for the emergence
of a social movement.59 The fact that the Sa'idi insurgency clearly came into existence as an
identifiable and notable movement, then, would prove that the structural conditions in Egypt
were indeed permissive—at least at first. In fact, Egypt's political opportunity structures did not
merely “allow” the violent Sai'di insurgency to emerge. In many ways, these structures facilitated
its development: by blocking peaceful avenues of contention in the formal political sphere,
government policies of the 1980s encouraged the Gama'a to develop into an organization with
violent capabilities.60 But was there ever a “revolutionary situation” in Egypt? Or was the
environment only favorable enough to permit the insurgency's creation, while blocking all
avenues to success (or even continued survival?) The first task, then, is to survey the opportunity
structure: was it ever favorable enough to permit a desirable outcome for al-Gama'a? If so, did
the insurgency fail solely because other actors shut the environmental openings which permitted
the group's early gains?

First off, GI's efforts to mobilize Egyptians against the government were assisted by widespread
public discontent with the nation's financial position. Whether Mubarak and his government
51 Ibid. 250.
52 Ibid. 251.
53 Davidson 251; Reed 97.
54 Davidson 252.
55 Cline 182; Fandy; Karim el-Gawhary, “Report from a war zone: Gama'at vs. government in Upper Egypt,”
Middle East Report, no. 194/195 (1995) p. 51.
56 Davidson 257.
57 Fahrer 113, 131; Gawhary 50; Reed 99.
58 Fahrer 142; Reed 100; Hafez 76.
59 McAdam 15.
60 Hafez 71, 80.

7
were mostly responsible for the nation's economic disease or not, what matters is that the
majority of Egyptians perceived him to be.61 The national debt rose by 150% in the 1980s, while
increasing pressure from Western creditors forced the rapid dismantling of the old welfare state.62
An entire generation of young Egyptian men and women was relatively unincorporated into the
economy, with over 3 million young people unemployed despite their educational credentials.63

These problems were exacerbated during the Gulf crisis. Over half of Egypt's workers abroad
were sent home, immediately halving remittances and adding considerable stress upon the
nation's housing and food supply. In addition, Egypt suffered severe foreign exchange losses at
this time, and tolls from Suez Canal tolls dropped dramatically with the decrease of Iraqi and
Kuwaiti tanker traffic.64 Consequently, food, fuel, clothing and electricity prices rose sharply
from 1991 to 1993. Young Egyptians, unable to afford the costs of adequate housing or marriage,
felt a growing sense of relative deprivation and social alienation. As it was, this burgeoning
conglomerate of discontented individuals was an ideal pool for recruitment into the Gama'a
membership body and support base. The government further stacked the odds in the insurgents'
favor by “writing off the South,” leaving the provision of public goods and services during this
crucial time to the Islamists by default.65

As the insurgency progressed, Egypt received a growing amount of aid from the US, Europe,
Japan and its regional neighbors in the Gulf.66 This came in the form of debt forgiveness,
rescheduling, and new loans from the IMF, World Bank, USAID and GCC.67 The massive
amount of outside aid helped to reverse the state's economic fortunes, and by the late 1990s the
official economic indicators were actually healthy.68 The aid also permitted Mubarak to allocate
funds for a new investment initiative in South Egypt which featured tax exemptions to promote
private-sector business activity.69 Yet as the 1990s rolled by—and the insurgency rose, struggled,
and collapsed—the general populace, especially in the south, was entirely unaffected by any of
these aid packages or initiatives. As such, the existence of outside aid does not seem to qualify as
a relevant political “closing.” Throughout the decade, then, Egypt's economic malaise provided
an excellent opportunity for the insurgents to rally people against the government.

The regime faced other political problems which also played into the hands of al-Gama'a. The
largest of these was corruption, which was reaching unprecedented levels at the time—even for
Egypt. As one of Sadat's ex-spokesmen phrased it, corruption spreading in a “shocking way.”70
Additionally, there was a strong popular desire for reform in the political system, which if
anything became more closed in this period.71
61 Abdalla (1991) 19.
62 Reed 95, 99.
63 Abdalla (1993) 30.
64 Abdalla (1991) 20.
65 Fahrer 77.
66 Cline 187.
67 Abdalla (1991) 20.
68 Gerges 600.
69 Gawhary 51.
70 Tahseen Bashir, quoted in Reed 104; Abdalla (1993) 30.
71 Abdalla 19.

8
al-Gama'a also benefited from the Islamic revival, which was well underway at the time. The
post-1967 force of the general Islamist movement had become so strong that some commentators
likened it to a rushing, rolling wave.72 In the capitol, increasing levels of religiosity had a
powerful effect upon the day-to-day conduct of many Cairenes from all classes and quarters of
the city.73 Additionally, the national intellectual climate had come under a growing Islamist
influence, and liberal writers and scholars found themselves scrutinized and pressured to tone
down their work.74 In Upper Egypt, where religious institutions have historically been the most
firmly entrenched, Ibrahim noted that “half of [al-Gama'a's] task with potential recruits is
accomplished by virtue of socialization and cultural sanctions since childhood. All that remains
is to raise political consciousness and to impose organizational discipline.”75 As the South had a
strong tradition of conservative religiosity, and Egypt was under in the midst of this large-scale
Islamic revival, the Islamic Group was in an ideal position to rally support by utilizing its
hardline Islamist identity to market itself as a righteous movement battling a wicked, godless
government.

Another political opportunity for the Islamic Group was the historical Sai'di suspicion of the
North. The majority of insurgency and counterinsurgency operations were conducted along the
Nile in Upper Egypt, where GI was, by default, the home team. When the president deployed
thousands upon thousands of northern soldiers to the South to restore order, the move confirmed
the southern narrative of the region's long-term resistance against the unwelcome imposition of
central authority. As el-Azhary views it, this was a story “of violence and and extraction of
[Southern] labor [...] power is to be obeyed, not trusted, to be rebelled against when its
regulations and tyranny become excessive, and to be attacked when it appears too weak.”76

Furthermore, Berman has noted that early-1990s Egypt also fulfilled Huntington's and
Goldtone's structural conditions for the outbreak of a revolution: institutional development was
far outpaced by social change, and the state was clearly struggling to handle exploding
population growth.77 In sum, it seems fair to state that there indeed was a “revolutionary
situation” in 1990s Egypt. The conditions were not only ripe for the emergence of a potent
insurgent movement, but for it to gain the active support of scores of people throughout the south
and pose a serious threat to the central government in Cairo.

However, the political opportunity structure must also take account of the state's response to (or
instigation of) insurgent violence, which was mostly comprised of extensive military operations.
One advantage the insurgents possessed was that, in the eyes of some, state action against them

72 Reed 101: “the Islamic tide is still rising;” Ibrahim 10: a “tidal wave of religiosity” swept the country after 1967.
73 Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton UP
(2005).
74 Reed 101.
75 Saad Ibrahim “Egypt's Islamic militants,” MERIP, no. 103 (1982) p. 13.
76 Amira el-Azhary, “Egypt,” in The Politics of Islamic Revivalism:Diversity and Unity, ed. Shireen T. Hunter,
Bloomington: Indian UP, 1998. p. 23-38.
77 Shri Berman, “Islamism, revolution, and civil society,” Perspectives on Politics, 1:2 (2003) pp. 258-9.

9
was belated.78 Throughout the 1980s, an unspoken truce had existed between the government and
the Egyptian Islamists. By the end of the decade, GI was holding regular mass conferences at
group-affiliated mosques without a security permit, employing private security guards and
drawing huge numbers of supporters.79 No other organization in Egyptian civil society was given
this much leeway by the government. This was an excellent opportunity for al-Gama'a: it had
several years of relative freedom to entrench itself into social networks, cultivate a strong base of
support, and establish a cohesive organizational structure. Belated state action also allowed the
insurgents to gain early momentum when fighting broke out in the '90s: in 1993, it seemed
apparent that the insurgents were “on top.”80

The truth is, though, that a few years after Mubarak deployed 30,000 soldiers and federal police
to Upper Egypt, the momentum shifted in favor of the government.81 Once the government
forces fleshed out a coherent strategy, their operations became “quite systematic,” though
frequently brutal.82 The facts that most insurgent leaders fled the country or were captured; that
militants had to scamper north along the Nile, ahead of Mubarak's forces; and that insurgent
violence became increasingly more desperate and shocking all attest to the fact that the
government response essentially “worked.” Yet it does not seems that it succeeded because it
was a good strategy—in fact, government actions were generally somewhat self-defeating.
Rather, as shown later, the security forces were practically victorious by default: the Gama'a
neglected to adequately prepare itself for any serious counterinsurgency campaign, and it didn't
fully exploit the state's weaknesses and mistakes.

As Abdalla wrote, Mubarak's regime “spares to effort to antagonize the masses and alienate the
elite.”83 The military operational conduct might as well have been part of an insurgent
advertising and recruiting campaign. One Egyptian human rights worker stated that, from the
beginning of the conflict the overwhelming majority of people felt caught between the police and
the Gama'a.84 The police forces, historically despised by most Egyptians in the South, gave the
population practically every reason to turn further against them as the insurgency went on.85 The
police frequently resorted to forms of collective communal punishment which resembled the
worst tactics used by the Americans in Vietnam or the French in Algeria. For instance, after an
insurgent shot at a city official from a small kiosk in Mallawi, police bulldozed at least 150
kiosks, leading the distraught townspeople to memorialize the “Day of the Bulldozer.”86 In 1993
the “Aswan Massacre” occurred, in which police forces lobbed tear gas grenades into a mosque
and shot at people fleeing from the building, killing seven.87 Yet the alienating nature of
government tactics went beyond isolated incidents, but affected droves of people throughout the
south. As sugar cane fields could provide modest concealment for insurgents, the police cut
78 Gawhary 50; Abdalla (1993) 29.
79 Hafez 76.
80 Fahrer 107.
81 Hafez 78.
82 Fahrer 179.
83 Abdalla (1993) 29.
84 Gawhary 50.
85 Abdalla (1993) 29; Gawhary 50.
86 Gawhary 50.
87 Reed 103.

10
down the fields in several areas, depriving farmers and their families of their most important
source of income.88 The government also held mass executions, which were “rare and shocking
in Egypt,” and human rights groups have asserted that torture and detention without charge were
commonplace.89 In summary, then, the government response amounted to another enormous
opportunity for the militant Islamists to frame the government as an flagrantly illegitimate entity
and mobilize active support against it throughout the south.

As mentioned, the state reaction, when it did finally occur, could have easily resulted in more
harm than good. The political response, which may have consolidated slightly more control
under Mubarak, was similar to the military response in that it served to legitimize Islamist
monologues against the government.90 The early 1990s saw the deliberalization of the political
system, and also the forced dismantling of the informal Islamist networks which the public had
come to rely on. When Islamic banking practices were reeled in by the government, it
inadvertently struck the funding for countless community projects, for which it did nothing to
replace.91 The public was becoming increasingly primed for antigovernment mobilization: they
clearly understood who had set up these social services, and they also knew who had taken them
away.

A prevalent theory in the study of political opportunity structures is that of “revolutionary flank
effects,” which posits that the presence of extremist groups in a social movement industry will
likely benefit the more moderate alternatives in that SMI.92 Several analysts have argued that this
would and did happen, especially for the more mainstream Muslim Brothers.93 Yet this was not
the case: the crackdown did not play into the hands of the Brotherhood, because they were
themselves targeted by Mubarak's policies in the 90s. The government used Law 32 of 1964 to
attack them and several other civil society organizations, including the Labor Party.94
Brotherhood offices were raided, leaders jailed, and affiliated political parties banned. If
anything, the government's indiscriminate targeting of the Islamists could have easily
homogenized the entirety of the factionalized Islamic movement and fostered a general sense of
revolutionary necessity among its leaders. The Brothers never did fully renounce al-Gama'a,
presenting the insurgents with the availability of a valuable domestic ally.95 Of course, al-Jihad
and dozens of other insurgent groups were also active in Egypt at the time. As such, the political
opportunity structures of the time presented the insurgents with not only a clear enemy and a
deeply aggrieved public, but also access to useful allies.

Finally, the effect of outside factors must be assessed. Cline has suggested that the insurgency's
external support structure was not particularly significant.96 al-Gama'a is partially at fault for

88 Gawhary 51.
89 Reed 94, 103.
90 Hafez 72.
91 Fahrer 99.
92 Barkan (1979).
93 Gerges 600; Reed 102.
94 Abdalla (1993) 29.
95 Berman 262.
96 Cline 187.

11
failing to build a stronger one, but an assessment of the opportunities alone alone indicates that
there was only a modest supply of external allies, and none were in a position to be of much use.
There was some contact with the Iranians, but the obvious divide made extensive collaboration
difficult. Omar al-Bashir “probably” gave some refuge to Egyptian militants, though their best
safe houses were in Pakistan and Afghanistan.97 The most crucial role was played by the diaspora
communities and charitable organizations abroad, which continually funneled financial and
material resources to the insurgency.98

The American military build-up in the area and its status as a government ally presented a
valuable opportunity for the insurgents to frame Mubarak's regime as Western lackeys who had
betrayed their fellow Arabs and Muslims abroad.99 On the other hand, though, access to modern
American weapons, training, other benefits helped keep the Egyptian military on Mubarak's
side.100 As such, the United States played an ambiguous role in the insurgency's opportunity
structure, though it most likely helped the government more than it unintentionally helped the
insurgents. It is difficult to say what the American response would have been had Mubarak's
counterinsurgency campaign faltered. Though deeply concerned over the prospect of a radical
Islamist government running Egypt, by 1993 high-level policymakers in the American
government were beginning to accept the possibility that the scenario might become reality.101

In conclusion, it is fair to say that there was a revolutionary situation at the turn of the decade in
Egypt at the turn of the decade, on account of the widespread discontent fueled by the nation's
economic troubles, political oppression, and chronic corruption. The rise of Islamicism
throughout Egypt and southern suspicions of central authority also helped the insurgents.
Furthermore, when the regime acted against the movement, it missed no opportunity to alienate
the general population and other SMOs, including the Muslim Brothers. With the effect of
outside factors somewhat ambiguous, people were right to compare the situation in Egypt to the
“Iranian scenario” and “Algerian scenario.”102 But why, then, was there not a revolutionary
outcome? The explanation for this will be found by analyzing the challenges the Islamic group
faced in mobilizing resources and bridging its frames over to the general public.

Resource mobilization structures

The insurgency's most important resource was its body of members. One estimate put its size at
10,000 members, but besides the obvious difficulty of making an accurate assessment, there is
also the question of where to draw the line between Gama'a members and their active
supporters.103 Many GI militants had recently returned from Afghanistan, and estimates for their

97 Reed 100.
98 Davidson 348-50.
99 Abdalla (1991) 21.
100 Reed 105.
101 Davidson 12, quoting Fawaz Gerges, America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests
(Cambridge UK: Cambridge UP, 1999) p. 171.
102 Abdalla (1993) 29.
103 Reed 99.

12
numbers range wildly, from under 200 to 5,000.104 Some of them played important roles as
trainers and technical advisors, but the extent of their expertise and combat experience in
Afghanistan is disputed.105 al-Gama'a also sought to recruit from the regime's security forces and
officer corps, but seemed to have by and large failed.106 As the loyalty of the police and military
was crucial to Mubarak's counterinsurgency campaign, it would have paid off greatly had GI
succeeded in recruiting larger numbers from their ranks.

Fahrer has noted that the topographical pattern of the insurgency resembled “series of
brushfires,” in which serious contention over the control of an area would blow out as soon as
violence exploded in an adjacent area.107 It may be more accurate to liken it to a fuse, burning
brightly up the Nile, but mostly in one area at a time. After the war broke out in Asyut, insurgents
took fled north to cities like Mallawi in Minya; when government forces marched on Minya, the
militants bounded north again in the direction Abu Qurqas, and thereafter further up and up
toward Cairo. What this meant, generally, is that the insurgents posed a serious threat throughout
the conflict, but were also constantly on the run. Rather than forcing the central security forces to
work hard to hold captured territory, they generally only had to clear it, at which time the
insurgents would swarm to new areas and mostly abandon the old.

The main problem was that the insurgents never secured their core areas. Davidson, accounting
for the Group's strictly offense-focused doctrine, suggests that “self-defense was a relatively
minor preoccupation.”108 They simply failed to dig in. For instance, though Gama'a militants
were the masters of Imbaba for several years, the government to ejected them in a matter of
hours when it finally decided to retake the neighborhood.109 This is not so indicative of the raw
power of the security forces as it is of the failure of the insurgents to seriously plan and prepare
for this predictable contingency. There is also the glaring problem that several of the Group's
most important camps were located over 2,000 miles away, out in Afghanistan and the western
tribal areas of Pakistan.110 Naturally, al-Gama'a even struggled to protect those: in the mid-1990s,
the Egyptian government persuaded Pakistan to shut many of them down.111

This was guerrilla warfare with no bases. Considering their inability to set up a secure, proximate
HQ, it could be said that al-Gama'a “never made it to the starting line” of the violent phase of the
conflict.112 Mao Tse-tung would have agreed: he held that guerrilla warfare without bases
amounted to “roving banditism,” and would be inevitably result in failure.113 Even Guevera, who
thought that a successful insurgency could begin without the initial support of the populace,
likewise wrote that “it is essential always to preserve a strong base of operations and to continue
strengthening it during the course of the war,” with new columns continually extending out of an
104 Huband 2; Davidson 292.
105 Davidson 292.
106 Reed 105; Davidson 297.
107 Fahrer 177, 119.
108 Davidson 289.
109 Fahrer 175.
110 Reed 98, Fahrer 175.
111 Reed 98.
112 Fahrer 175
113 Galula 49.

13
ever-expanding “mother hive.”114 As shown, the polar opposite occurred during the Sa'idi
insurgency.

Insurgent entrenchment was inextricably tied to the level of support, both active and passive, that
they received from the public. Although al-Gama'a had considerable public sympathy, especially
from the beginning, the organization completely failed to convert it into strong base of support.115
In practice, the insurgents did not make a serious effort to reinforce their ties to the public .
Though the role of popular mobilization factored into their doctrinal monologues, in practice the
Gama'a insurgents relied on “propoganda of deed,” even before the violence broke out. They
demanded that their closest supporters be “true believers;” and chastised anything less than total
devotion.116 This was a critical error: insurgents cannot afford to be picky when it comes to their
support base.

Once the conflict intensified, the lackluster efforts to attract support were overshadowed by the
larger problem of alienating tactics. The regime had more than enough security personnel to go
around, as Fahrer notes, but limiting their targets to the police and military would have probably
been the best option. 117 During the Algerian insurgency, for instance, FLN militants continually
harassed French forces, spurring a brutal counterinsurgent response which utterly alienated the
population. In Egypt, on the other hand, the insurgents sealed their fate by alienating the public
just as much, if not more, than the security forces. At times they resorted to behavior associated
with common criminals, such as robbing jewelry stores for funds.118 They frequently relied on
shock tactics to demonstrate their potency, which could easily be framed as “terrorism” by the
state media. Though they denied responsibility, al-Gama'a was blamed for a series of nail-packed
bombs which killed several children.119 As the insurgents became increasingly reckless in their
targeting, causing innocent deaths through both intentional and careless action, the public—
which generally had no love lost for the police or the central government—became more willing
to assist security forces in their efforts to eradicate the militants.120 Even people who admired the
group's goals were sometimes so turned off by its methods as to withdraw their passive backing,
or even side against it. After the Naj Hammadi attack in 1997, furious villagers reportedly helped
the police sweep the countryside for the culprits. The Luxor massacre later that year triggered a
“decisive shift” in public opinion; a watershed event in which popular weariness with the
mayhem caused by the insurgency evolved into a near-consensus of irreversible, ossified
disgust.121

GI initially claimed responsibility for the attack, but two weeks later it issued a second statement
that announcing that it had been independently orchestrated by an unauthorized cell. 122 The

114 Guevera 57.

115 Cline 184; Gerges 593.
116 Cline 335.
117 Fahrer 164.
118 Davidson 294.
119 Reed 100.
120 Davidson 324.
121 Davidson 309.
122 Cline 172, citing Huband 111.

14
confused response was a product of GI's weak leadership structure. Of the Group's original
fourteen directors, eight were incarcerated, and the other six were in Europe, Sudan, and
Afghanistan. 123 al-Gama'a's commanders were not only absent, but generally uncharismatic.
Compared to legendary figures such as Ayatollah Khomeini or Hassan al-Turabi, Abdel Rahman
failed to inspire much devotion from regular men and women. Before the insurgency broke out,
he was reportedly “not taken very seriously” or even well-known in Egypt.124 In light of
Rahman's links to the Afghanistan conflict, some Egyptians reportedly believed he was protected
by the CIA, if not working as a recruiter for them. 125 There was also the small problem that Abdel
Rahman was not even clearly at the head of the movement: from 1990 to 1993 he was living in,
of all places, a New Jersey suburb, after which time he sat in jail. Furthermore, he had allegedly
turned down the spot as GI's official leader, preferring to lead them “spiritually.” 126 The Egyptian
press, perhaps accurately, reported that GI's leadership was plagued by chronic ideological and
personality conflicts. There was certainly clear tension between the expatriates, who advocated
the perpetuation of assassinations and general conflict, and the leaders at home, who seemed
more open to accommodation with authorities—especially once they found themselves in
prison.127 When the imprisoned leaders called for a cease-fire in late 1997, the exiled leaders
responded by demanding the struggle's continuation.128

Much of the infighting can also be attributed to the Group's underdeveloped organizational
structure, which permitted strong personalities to nurture the loyalties of militants under their
command and pursue their own agendas.129 The Islamic Group had a pyramidal structure in
theory, headed at the top by the amir al-'amm. One supposes that this position was filled by
Rahman, but as mentioned, he himself—for whatever reason—practically denied it. Under the
head amir were several provincial amirs, who ostensibly managed local amirs assigned to
specific towns and mosques.130 The Group was also split into three wings: military, political, and
the da'wa, which was in charge of propagating the insurgents' agenda in mosques.131 This way,
preachers and shaykhs could remain loosely affiliated with al-Gama'a while avoiding
involvement in violent activities.132 They shared responsibility for recruitment and the
dissemination of information and doctrine with the political wing, which seemed to have limited
operational capacity in practice. Supposedly, a “fixed” cadre would cultivate bases of support
and identify recruits from a stationary platform, while traveling cells (balaghyeen, or “go
betweens”) would go from village to village in teams of four to six men and rally support. They
conducted small-scale activities such as constructing small mosques, settling disputes, and
arranging garbage collection, youth programs, fundraisers, and the like.133 Their operations,
though, seemingly terminated as soon as the violence broke out.
123 Davidson 287-288; Cline 172.
124 Reed 101.
125 Ibid. 98.
126 Davidson 287.
127 Reed 101.
128 Gerges 594.
129 Reed 101.
130 Davidson 284.
131 Ibid. 296.
132 Hafez 72.
133 Davidson 295.

15
In reality, the Islamic Group's structure was purely cellular. The cells (anaqid) had some benefits,
as they were difficult to put under surveillance and suppress. As Smith notes, in an authoritarian
environment like Egypt, “well-established informal networks are likely to be the most successful
means of mobilization.”134 Cells could exploit these communal networks by repurposing them to
transmit resources, materials, and intelligence. But for a social movement organization to
succeed it must, by definition, be organized at least somewhat coherently. When its access to
local networks is inhibited, it must have enough structure to subsist off the internal networks it
has constructed. In the case of al-Gama'a, there were practically no links between the cells, and
most had little relevant information about each other.135 Once on the run, the lines of
communication between the Gama'a leadership and the cells disintegrated, meaning the majority
of the cells were essentially cut loose.136 The cells lost their access to practically every form of
the Group's pooled resources, and were essentially left to scavenge for themselves.
Interorganizational coordination became an impossibility. Simply put, then, al-Gama'a's greatest
weakness was its structure—or lack thereof. This was the weakness from which the majority of
the Group's problems emanated. As O'Neill writes, “organizational segmentation may contribute
to tactical successes, it is not a formula for strategic victory.” 137 And so it was with the Islamic
Group: it inflicted heavy casualties on the security forces, frightened its enemies, and generally
raised hell. But in the end it collapsed, having totally failed to achieve its stated objectives.

To fully show how large of a problem GI's weak structure was, it may be useful to compare it to
another social movement organization which also suffered under Mubarak's crackdown: the
Muslim Brothers. There are many reasons why the Ikhwan endured the '90s relatively intact
while al-Gama'a did not. It is clear, though, that the Brothers relied, above all, on their durable,
flexible, and clearly-defined organizational structure. As al-Awadi writes:

“Organization (al-tanzim) is a central concept in the philosophy of the

Muslim Brothers [...] the preservation of the internal structure of the
movement, along with the hierarchy that had been established from the
time of Hasan al-Banna, its founder, was the movement's main source of
strength and survival.”138

The Brothers constructed a vast internal network to connect syndicates, student unions, teachers'
clubs, Islamic banks, schools, charities, and other voluntary organizations. In addition, they
ensured close coordination through regular meetings between the leaders of different regional
departments and syndicates, with the expectation that resources and support would be lent by all
to whatever part of the organization needed them most at a given time. 139 As such, the Brothers
were able to tolerate immense pressure from the regime during the decade, and remained its

134 Smith, cited in Wiktorowicz 186.

135 Reed 97.
136 Gerges 594.
137 O'Neill, chapter 5.
138 Hesham al-Awadi, “Mubarak and the Islamists: why did the "honeymoon" end?” Middle East Journal, 59:1
(2005) pp. 62-80. 67.
139 Ibid. 68.

16
greatest political threat.

Up to the early '90s, GI utilized Islamic, familial, and other informal networks to spread its
message and recruit new members. In 1993, there were an estimated 130,000 independent
mosques in the country, some of which—especially in Upper Egypt—featured preachers
affiliated with or sympathetic to al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya.140 The GI's core members would scout
out potential recruits at these “corner mosques,” and approach good candidates quietly after the
service. After the government crackdown, the Gama'a was forced to switch to videos, cassettes,
books and pamphlets to proselytize. They moved their worship services into “unofficial
mosques”—or in other words, their apartments.141 Among the members of the Group who
attended, these covert forms of communal worship helped breed a sense of optimism and
maintain the atmosphere of brotherhood which motivated risky action on the organization's
behalf. However, by fully retreating form the corner mosques, al-Gama'a relinquished access to
its main source of mass support and new recruits.

The Islamic Group also tapped deeply-embedded familial networks and other informal links to
nearby rural communities to refashion extensive preexisting networks for their own use. These
communal networks were particularly helpful because they permitted GI members to fill its
ranks with relatives, friends, and neighbors, who could be easily vouched for, vetted, and cleared
to join the organization. Neophytes with prior connections to older members were also more
predictable and trustworthy.142 These networks permitted al-Gama'a to locate and redistribute
social goods and services within its support and membership base, so that it could offer marriage
opportunities, jobs, visas, and so on as incentives to affiliates. They also offered “solidary
incentives” such as friendship, mentoring, and assistance; things especially valued by rural
migrants who were lonely in new cities. al-Gama'a, like other Islamic social movement
organizations, stressed the importance of communion and brotherhood among its ranks, acting
like an adopted family.143 It seems this aspect of the organization was particularly crucial to its
strength: as one militant said in 1990, “from the organization, I had 21 volunteers helping me
find a cheap apartment. That's the meaning of Islamic solidarity.”144

Extensive proselytizing and charity work was a crucial aspect of GI's program, in contrast to that
of al-Jihad, which rejected this strategy.145 The Islamic Group's legitimacy largely derived from
its role as a provider of valuable social services, which were badly needed throughout rural
communities and in poor urban areas. By doing so, al-Gama'a and similar organizations were at
the same time able to demonstrate the relative impotence of the state. When they “ruled”
unmolested by government forces, the Group was able to provide an impressive array of social
goods and programs. On Fridays they would sell meat and clothing at rock-bottom prices in front
of local mosques, while on holidays they sometimes even gave meat and rice out for free. 146 They

140 Davidson 296.

141 Ibid. 99; Reed 297.
142 Wickham 233.
143 Ibrahim 13-14.
144 Wickham 242.
145 Davidson 252.
146 Gawhary 50; Berman 261; Hafez 77.

17
offered Islamic loans, and set up health clinics, Koranic schools, mosques, and even
kindergartens.147 At universities, they offered dirt-cheap textbooks, photocopies, Islamic clothing
and private tutorials, and protected female students through the provision of private
transportation.148 They took over law-enforcement functions: in many areas, bands of armed
moral policed roved around, enforcing the strict separation of men and women.149 Unfortunately,
it seems the Group did little to link its services to any expectations of concrete commitment from
the people. The Group's charity efforts helped to build a base of sympathizers and passive
supporters, but it seems that few people were willing to lay their lives on the line for the
insurgents once the conflict heated up and the services evaporated.

The real puzzle is how the funding for these programs was acquired. Foreign donations helped,
but most of the money was collected through neighborhood contributions. Though most
donations were probably voluntary, it is possible al-Gama'a sometimes resorted to extortion,
which may have backfired on their long-term efforts to mobilize the population for their cause.
When the insurgent strongholds were overblown, the Gama'a insurgents lost interest in providing
social services, and became primarily focused on their violent struggle against the state. As such,
the public started to associate the group solely with violence. Memories of al-Gama'a, the
benevolent social organization, quickly evaporated, replaced by the unpleasant reality of al-
Gama'a, the violent insurgent group. Reporting from Mallawi in 1995, Gawhary noted that “only
secretly do a few express their longing for the good old Gama'at days.” 150 At this point, the war
was already lost.

Assessing how the organizational structure of insurgent groups affects their viability, O'Neill
writes:

“In China, Vietnam, and Algeria, the ability to mobilize support

through a complex organization was a major factor enabling
insurgents to defeat a strong adversary. Without an extensive
apparatus, the insurgents would probably have met the same fate
as the Monteneros in Argentina, the Tupamaros in Uruguay, the
Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army of Japan, and other groups
that have relied on small-scale, cellular structures and eschewed
complexity.”151

In the light of the similar fate of the Islamic Group, O'Neill's words hold weight. The Gama'a
failed largely because its internal organization was underdeveloped and frail. Even though
Mubarak acted “with greater restraint in most cases than could be expected of his predecessors in
similar circumstances,” the insurgency started to fall apart only a couple short years after the
conflict erupted.152 Because there was so little coordination between the Group's different arms

147 Reed 99.

148 Reed 98.
149 Hafez 77.
150 Gawhary 50.
151 O'Neill, c. 6.
152 Davidson 186.

18
and cells, it struggled to anticipate and prepare for a large-scale government response. Self-
defense and the protection of territory was not seriously addressed, and the insurgents failed to
secure permanent bases inside the country. The provision of social services and use of informal
networks to amass and transport resources consequently failed as soon as the government exerted
considerable pressure on the insurgency. As the group increasingly resorted to alienating tactics,
its links to the population eroded over time. Because of this, and for lack of a more concentrated
effort to mobilize the population, the insurgency was crushed.

Framing processes

McAdam has noted that framing processes are more effective “under conditions of strong rather
than weak organization.”153 At the very beginning of this analysis, then, GI's weak organizational
structure returns as a major obstacle to its success. Without strong cooperation between the
group's da'wa, military, and political wings, and between its various cells scattered all over
Egypt, the group struggled to maintain a coherent narrative to market to the general populace.
Because of its poor organization, it also struggled to attract the human capital and talent required
to construct and transmit a convincing “call to arms” message. Also, as the group was uprooted
and detached from informal Islamic networks, it lost its access to the avenues it needed to
promulgate and amplify those frames.

Aside from losing their access to the local Islamic networks as the conflict wore on, the Sai'di
insurgents suffered from the way those networks were structured due to geographic realities in
the south. Taking a cue from Diane Singerman's work, Wickham sees the streets of urban Egypt's
sha'bi neighborhoods as “constituting the structural pathways for the transmission of Islamist
ideas.”154 In the rural south, cities are simply not as large, dense, and numerous, which inhibited
the rapid and loud transmission of frames. After the militants fled from the Asyut, Sohag, and
Beni Suef, the successful articulation of frames became even more difficult.

In general, al-Gama'a and its affiliates did succeed in transmitting clear and potent diagnostic
frames which resonated with the Egyptian public. To capitalize on popular grievances in the
social, political, and economic spheres, they identified several problems that their nation faced:
the mismanagement of government resources, corruption of top officials, rampant consumerism,
bad policies, and low productivity levels. On the other hand, they ignored chronic structural
problems which could not be blamed on the regime, such as overpopulation and the scarcity of
land and natural resources.155 By doing so, al-Gama'a was able to trace all of Egypt's difficulties
to a root cause: the crisis of morals (azmat al-akhlaq.)156 Through the use of mosques, cassettes,
and pamphlets, they adroitly propagated the idea Mubarak's government was “tyrannous,
corrupt, and un-Islamic.”157 The public responded well to this discourse, as “normlessness” was

153 McAdam 9.
154 Diane Singerman, Avenues of Participation Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo
(Princeton: Princeton UP) 1996; Wickham 239.
155 Ibrahim 8.
156 Wickham 237.
157 Reed 99.

19
also understood by many Egyptians as the biggest problem their society faced.158

The main problem was not the Group's diagnosis, which was conducive to active mobilization
against the government, but rather their inability to reel in the views of other radical Islamists
outside or on the fringes of the group. While GI's leaders held that society was a victim of a
parasitic regime, other radicals believed that society was beyond saving, thus producing an
unjust political system.159 To some degree, these other radicals viewed the struggle against the
regime as a futile endeavor, as Egypt's chronically corrupt society would only sustain a similarly
corrupt political system. By failing to bridge their diagnostic frames to those fundamentalists, GI
lost out on an opportunity to add substantially to its ranks.

al-Gama'a's prognostic frames have endured some ridicule, as some have perceived them to be
simple-minded. Reed wrote that the “solutions they propose are not very profound.”160 In short,
the group, like many others in the Islamist movement, called for Islamic governance. What
separated al-Gama'a from mainstream groups like the Ikhwan was the former's concomitant
prognosis for violence against the secular government to hasten its demise. The centerpiece of
their agenda was the disposal of the French-based legal system and the implementation of a full
sharia code in its stead. When Islamists affiliated with al-Gama'a and al-Jihad were interviewed
in prison during 1980s, they were incapable of coherently describing their ideal economic
system, beyond that it would reward the traditional “Islamic” values of hard work, self-reliance,
and financial discipline.161 Neither could they explain the logistics of their desired Islamic
political system.162 Nevertheless, there was a unanimous consensus of what an Islamic Egypt,
however it got there, would ultimately look like: more equal. As Reed writes, “under the Islamic
system Egyptians would not have to bribe their children's teachers or swelter in wretched
apartment blocks while Cairo's elites cavort in five-star hotels and nightclubs.”163

While al-Gama'a's footsoldiers, supporters, and perhaps even leaders would have benefited from
a sharper articulation of how the desired political endstate would be achieved, the group's
solutions were nothing if not profound. The insurgents sought to completely dispense with the
old order and take all of Egyptian society through a foundational paradigm shift. If Egypt was
really in such dire straits, only a radical solution such as this could have rescued it. Wickham
may provided the most accurate summary of the Islamist prognostic process when she wrote:
“against the perceived reality of a society in which power and circumstance determined life-
chances, Islamist ideology projected the image of a society in which merit—both moral/spiritual
and practical/professional—would be justly acknowledged and rewarded.”164 Additionally, the
Islamists promoted a “transvaluation” of values, promoting a simpler and more austere style of
life which was more easily sustained under Egypt's economic realities.165

158 Wickham 237

159 Ibrahim 7.
160 Reed 99.
161 Ibrahim 8.
162 Ibid. 9.
163 Reed 99.
164 Wickham 238.
165 Wickham 243.

20
It is difficult to assess the efficacy of GI's motivational framing strategies. Although thousands of
young men were willing to lay their lives on the line for the organization and its goals, there
seemed to be a large gap between the motivation of the core membership and its support base,
which was largely unwilling to segue from a passive support function to an active one. Wickham
has suggested that the da'wa wing “succeeded” in accomplishing the motivational framing task,
citing the sense of optimism which was prevalent among group members in the early 90s.166 Yet
that optimism strongly contrasted with the general sense of pessimism which pervaded the
public, especially in the zones of fighting, who quickly wearied of the conflict. While the public
seemed to recognize GI's operational potency, clearly demonstrated by the groups' frequent
attacks, there is no evidence to suggest many people believed that it presented a genuine hope for
better governance. This is not a simple failure of the Gama'a propagandists and ambassadors, of
course, but a function of the group's larger organizational deficiencies and structural challenges.

Galula states that “the best cause for the insurgent's purpose is one that, by definition, can attract
the largest number of supporters and repel the minimum of opponents.” 167 As such, al-Gama'a
was wise to limit its condemnations to Egypt's political leaders, rather than attacking the entirety
of the Egyptian populace, who were generally “adjudged reverent Muslims and thus were to be
spared the fate of their renegade leaders.”168 However, the insurgents made a serious misstep by
choosing to frame certain social groups within Egypt as antagonists. Fandy has implied that GI
postured itself as an opponent to northern cultural and political hegemony, but it is hard to see
whether this backfired on the insurgent movement. It is more clear that GI put itself at a
disadvantage by exacerbating the tensions between itself and two other social groups: the Copts,
and the nation's intellectual elites.

Regarding the Copts, reports of the harassment, persecution, and terror they experienced swept
through practically all communities of Upper Egypt in the 90s, instilling a deep resentment of the
insurgents among the Copts and even disturbing many Muslims.169 Consequently, when the state
security forces arrived in insurgent hotbeds, many locals were relieved. “Every curfew ensures
our lives,” asserted one Sai'di. “As long as the Gama'at find themselves fleeing from the police,
they leave us in peace.”170

al-Gama'a also made an enemy out of their nation's intellectual elites by assassinating figures
such as Farag Foda and holding public burnings of books deemed offensive to traditional Islamic
morals.171 Intellectuals and scholars, fearful that the rise of Islamist political leadership would
result in heavier sanctions on their creative and academic freedom, and unconvinced by the
insurgents' underdeveloped prognostic frames, generally saw Mubarak as “the lesser of two
evils.”172 The end result was a national discourse that affirmed the antagonistic posture of the
educated elites vis-a-vis the insurgents. In conferences, op-eds, books, and news shows, many

166 Wickham 238, 245.

167 Galula 19-20.
168 Davidson 273.
169 Reed 100.
170 Gawhary 50.
171 Reed 101.
172 Ibid.

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intellectuals increasingly lent their support to the government by vocally criticizing the use of
terrorist tactics and supporting the state's forceful response.173

On the subject of framing, it is also necessary to discuss the “framing contests” which occur
between various SMOs and the state.174 One such contest between the insurgent movement and
the Mubarak regime was over the Gulf crisis. Even though Iraq was seen by some as an
aggressor, most Egyptians were less than enthusiastic to see their nation assist in a Western
assault on another Arab country, and the official Iraqi discourse attacking the extravagant
lifestyles of gulfi shaykhs resonated throughout Egypt.175 Though radical preachers criticized
their nation's foreign policy and its subservience to the United States, there is no evidence to
suggest al-Gama'a made a serious effort to expand the narrative of its struggle into the master
frame of a greater Islamic struggle against a larger existential threat. As Fandy notes, the
insurgency remained largely insular and regional in focus from beginning to end.176 Whatever
conscious efforts were made, the insurgents failed to convert this opportunity into an
intensification of militant opposition among the Egyptian populace, who were ultimately
supportive of Mubarak's Gulf War policy by a ratio as high as three-to-one.177

As one official in Upper Egypt said, “the Gama'at have never succeeded in convincing the
majority of the villagers or residents of Minya of their ideology. They were not able to provoke a
mass uprising, so they were forced to resort to their terroristic methods.”178 Despite their
proficient diagnosis of Egypt's political and social problems, the Gama'a struggled to articulate a
coherent remedy. While their “big ideas” resonated with the Egyptian populace, especially in the
south, they failed to convince most people that they had a well-developed plan, nor the requisite
competence for its implementation. The Islamic Group also paid for its bellicose posture toward
the Copts and nation's intellectual elite, and for its inability to frame their insurgency in the larger
context of a global Islamic struggle.

Conclusions

As shown in this paper, the conditions for revolution were certainly present in 1990s Egypt. The
public was clearly frustrated with the nation's economic, political, and social problems, and the
forecast was good for any social movement organizations which dared to threaten the incumbent
regime. Yet the Gama'a failed because its organizational structure was exceptionally weak. Not
only did this inhibit the aggregation and distribution of resources, but the Group's lack of
organization made it difficult for them to recognize the need for, develop, and enact a coherent
strategy to mobilize the population. GI's cellular structure allowed them to launch unpredictable
attacks for a long period of time, but it did not permit the organization to grow, maintain links to
the people, or entrench itself into a secure base. The organization's frail structure also made it

173 Abdalla (1993) 30.

174 McAdam 17.
175 Abdalla 21.
176 Fandy.
177 Abdalla 21.
178 Gawhary 51.

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difficult to articulate and broadcast convincing frames to gain some control over how the public
interpreted the conflict. As it faced growing pressure from the regime, the insurgents increasingly
resorted to forms of coercion which alienated Egyptians and allowed the militants to be easily
demonized by the state media.

It seems that some of the Gama'a leaders even understood why they failed. As Yassir al-Sirri, an
old Gama'a amir, said after the insurgency had blown itself out:

“The internal organization of the movement rather than the

ideology will be reviewed... the policy of unlimited confrontation
established by the Gama'a was wrong. Most of their activity has
not been productive, even though the Egyptian situation has the
ingredients for success. Even so, the organizations are weak,
because the connection with the masses has been weakened...
Also, there wasn't enough use of the one-to-one contact between
the Islamists and the people who needed education.”179

al-Sirri's words reveal an awareness of the insurgency's weaknesses, but also an acute
understanding that the “Egyptian situation” still bears the seeds for the collapse of the current
regime. Egypt's political landscape has remained ossified for decades—at least in the formal
sphere. But as Mubarak ages, and social movement organizations like the Muslim Brothers
continue to gain strength, change remains possible.

179 Cline 172, quoting Yasser al-Sirri from Mark Huband, Warriors of the Prophet: The Struggle for Islam. Boulder,
CO, Westview P, 1998, pp. 110-111.

23
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