A version of this article appeared in the Express Tribune on January 29, 2011.
Already the term “post-Tunisia” is being used to describe the restive mood in the Middle East. Tunisia signaled that it is possible to bring down a seemingly impervious Arab autocracy through a popular movement. Egypt will be the battleground where this notion is seriously tested.
Already the term “post-Tunisia” is being used to describe the restive mood in the Middle East. Tunisia signaled that it is possible to bring down a seemingly impervious Arab autocracy through a popular movement. Egypt will be the battleground where this notion is seriously tested.
The contest has now begun. Anti-government demonstrations broke out all across Egypt on January 25 and have continued daily since. That they are the largest public agitations in 30 years surprised security services and opposition political groups alike. Like Tunisia, the explosion of the proverbial “Arab street” in Egypt has been led by civil society. Connected in ways that were impossible scant years ago, Egyptians have been coordinating protests over cell-phones and social networking websites. Egypt’s largest organized political opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, is only now threatening to join the protests. Used to engaging in political theatre with the Egyptian establishment it will likely first gauge a winner from the sidelines.
Egypt’s vulnerabilities cannot be lost on its rulers. It has a youth bulge and a floundering economy that has swelled the ranks of the angry unemployed. Though not as authoritarian as Tunisia, Egypt’s political system is also relatively closed, and since Hosni Mubarak’s ascendance to the presidency in 1981 the country has been under a nearly uninterrupted state of emergency with the suspension of civil liberties. But it is Egypt’s ongoing political transitions that have greatly exacerbated existing fault-lines. Rigged parliamentary elections in late 2010 buried Egypt’s pretensions to parliamentary democracy. And Egypt’s upcoming presidential succession in September – the first in 30 years – ensures triggers for both popular discord and intra-elite struggles involving the ruling party, the military and the Mubarak family. With pressure building at the top and at the grassroots, Egypt appears ripe for revolution.
But there are two significant contrasts between Egypt and Tunisia. First, the Egyptian government too has observed the Tunisian example. Establishment forces will no doubt attempt to manage the situation on the streets quickly while attempting to co-opt the movement’s demands. Already over a thousand protestors have been arrested and most cell-phone and internet access has been blocked. The second contrast is that Egypt occupies a geo-strategic league all its own. It is the most populous Arab country, the premiere military power in Africa and second only to Israel in the Middle East. It is a commercial and cultural hub for the region. What happens in Cairo resonates across the Arab world. A pliant Egypt also underpins American security architecture in the Middle East, including guaranteeing that Israel faces no credible conventional military threat in the region (it is no coincidence that there has not been an Arab-Israeli war since the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty). In return, since 1979 Egypt has been one of the largest recipients of American military and economic largesse in the world – second only to Israel.
Clearly attuned to these implications, Washington has not yet adopted a colour-coded brand for the embryonic popular movement against the Egyptian government in the vein of the so-called “Green Revolution” in Iran last year. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reiterated her country’s support for Mubarak, while urging reforms that Washington hopes will act as a pressure valve for the protesters. Meanwhile, the Egyptian army’s Chief of Staff, Lt. General Sami Annan, was recently in Washington, providing assurances that he will not abandon Mubarak in the way his counterpart turned away from President Ben Ali in Tunisia. How the military responds to popular pressure may well be the crucial ingredient in any incipient revolution.
Thus against the peoples movement in Egypt stands arrayed not only the might of the Egyptian government and security forces, but also the imperial power of the US. At stake is no less than a democratic regime-change in Egypt that would fundamentally alter the face of the region and the fortunes of its people. It is about time.
Egypt’s vulnerabilities cannot be lost on its rulers. It has a youth bulge and a floundering economy that has swelled the ranks of the angry unemployed. Though not as authoritarian as Tunisia, Egypt’s political system is also relatively closed, and since Hosni Mubarak’s ascendance to the presidency in 1981 the country has been under a nearly uninterrupted state of emergency with the suspension of civil liberties. But it is Egypt’s ongoing political transitions that have greatly exacerbated existing fault-lines. Rigged parliamentary elections in late 2010 buried Egypt’s pretensions to parliamentary democracy. And Egypt’s upcoming presidential succession in September – the first in 30 years – ensures triggers for both popular discord and intra-elite struggles involving the ruling party, the military and the Mubarak family. With pressure building at the top and at the grassroots, Egypt appears ripe for revolution.
But there are two significant contrasts between Egypt and Tunisia. First, the Egyptian government too has observed the Tunisian example. Establishment forces will no doubt attempt to manage the situation on the streets quickly while attempting to co-opt the movement’s demands. Already over a thousand protestors have been arrested and most cell-phone and internet access has been blocked. The second contrast is that Egypt occupies a geo-strategic league all its own. It is the most populous Arab country, the premiere military power in Africa and second only to Israel in the Middle East. It is a commercial and cultural hub for the region. What happens in Cairo resonates across the Arab world. A pliant Egypt also underpins American security architecture in the Middle East, including guaranteeing that Israel faces no credible conventional military threat in the region (it is no coincidence that there has not been an Arab-Israeli war since the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty). In return, since 1979 Egypt has been one of the largest recipients of American military and economic largesse in the world – second only to Israel.
Clearly attuned to these implications, Washington has not yet adopted a colour-coded brand for the embryonic popular movement against the Egyptian government in the vein of the so-called “Green Revolution” in Iran last year. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reiterated her country’s support for Mubarak, while urging reforms that Washington hopes will act as a pressure valve for the protesters. Meanwhile, the Egyptian army’s Chief of Staff, Lt. General Sami Annan, was recently in Washington, providing assurances that he will not abandon Mubarak in the way his counterpart turned away from President Ben Ali in Tunisia. How the military responds to popular pressure may well be the crucial ingredient in any incipient revolution.
Thus against the peoples movement in Egypt stands arrayed not only the might of the Egyptian government and security forces, but also the imperial power of the US. At stake is no less than a democratic regime-change in Egypt that would fundamentally alter the face of the region and the fortunes of its people. It is about time.
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