A year on the Egyptian revolution: and counting

Back to square one?

The Egyptian revolution of 25th of January completes its first year with a host of events and decisions rewriting the history of the 7000 years old country. Realistically, Egyptians are meeting this first anniversary with an unequivocal sense of frustration that will turn the 25th of January of this year to be a second wave of the revolution rather than a celebratory day. The observers of the scene in Egypt understand very well the reason behind this popular frustration. While the goals of the revolution were posted on a huge poster in Tahrir revolution during the whole 18 days of the demonstrations, we hardly find any of these goals were fulfilled. Apart of overthrowing the former president Husni Mubarak, Egyptians didn t experience any of the dignity, freedom, social justice that they went to streets for. After the resignation of Mubarak in February 11th, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces SCAF took over power in Egypt and claimed, in the first couple of statements, that they will hand over power to a democratically elected president after six months. However, This did not happen so far. The oppression, censorship and absence of freedom the marked Mubarak s reign continued in a rather vicious way after the revolution. Throughout her whole history, Egypt didn t experience such a mass arrest of civilians to be thrown in the prisons of police army. The performance of the state media and its unconditional loyalty to the

government hasn t changed. Egyptian state media has been prone to disparage the revolution and the political powers called for it. Yet, the main problem is the hideous expansion of the fundamentalist powers in Egypt. as early as March 2011, Islamists decided to win the alliance with the SCAF for reciprocal interests. The Salafists (the most radical wing of the Islamist political groups) did not experience any limitations in their attacks on Christians who comprise more than 10 millions in Egypt. Since March until now about 5 churches were destroyed, tens of Copts were killed and hundreds were injured without trying any Islamist incited for these events. Meanwhile, Christian protesters met the most gruesome attack ever in Egyptian streets when Military vehicles crushed more than 20 Copts and arresting more than two thousands without any crimes against them, under the emergency law. The strong backing of Islamists was paid off. This year witnessed a strong speech of Islamists to support the SCAF and publicly deplore any attempts to protest against them with a tacit blessing of its rule. On the legislative level, the ambiguous, and sometimes selfIncongruous, approach undertaken by the government during this transitional period led to the unprepared constitutional referendum and parliament election processes. The inability to impose law that prohibits using religious slogans in elections led Islamists to polarize Egyptians to two Incongruous camps: those for and against Islamic law. The religious and politically amateur Egyptians decided to stand for religion and this automatically brought a striking victory in the parliament elections.

This contentious approach, which grinds against the goals of the revolution made continuing the demonstrations in January 25th this year ineluctable.
A new scene

Although the attitude of the regime is bringing the whole scene back to the time of Mubarak, the political scene has been considerably changed. In preparation to the coming protests, we now know that Islamists are satisfied enough to pass joining the coming uprisings. This means that the momentum of the protests will not face the governmental executive body, but also the alleged legislative body of those who won the majority of the parliament seats. Some bodies were shaken and will no more control their followers as before. This includes two religious bodies: the Coptic church and the Azhar Imamate. One of the fruitful outcomes of this revolution was restoring the Copts place in the Egyptian street without being marked as Christian. The Coptic patriarchate, which is the state church that has been loyal to the regime in the last 60 years, has been taming the increasing Coptic wrath against sectarian violence. This did not work anymore and Copts today joined their Muslim fellows in the street protests. The subversive speech of Patriarch Shenouda III against the Copts rejection of receiving SCAF members in the Nativity liturgy did not work this time, at least on the rising new generation who believe in separating politics from religion. The promising attitude of Coptic youth is also seen in the Islamic official religious body of Azhar.

The coming second wave of the revolution will be a vicious military machine with alleged legitimacy by the predominantly Islamists parliament. This simply means that the revolution shape must also evolve to meet these new challenges. Several observers today call Egyptians to bring the winds of revolution to the Egyptian street as well as its legislative body, the most influential body in the Egyptian regime. Finally, I would like to add as a liberal Christian Egyptian that the emergence of Islamists to the parliament is good for several reasons; first, it will show patently how these groups cannot run the country with their idealist religious principles that cannot deal sufficiently with the economic and political challenges today. Recently, Islamist parties have already compromised their very fundamental principles by meeting American delegations and assuring them that they won t cancel the Camp David peace agreement with Israel. Secondly, the ambiguity of the Islamists place on the Egyptian political map helped them to swing between the two camps, for and against the revolution, whenever they need. This gave them the political momentum which brought them to the parliament. Now they are outside the Tahrir square camp and this will limit their legitimacy from the Egyptian street s perspective. Therefore, to sum up, the coming year is not less momentous than the previous one and all the possibilities are present on the table. The coming process of change will require cooperation between the different groups to avoid neglecting of the rights or hopes of any particular group, especially in the short coming process of drafting the new constitution and election.