Why Egypt is not Iraq – أسباب للتفاؤل

During the days of the revolution, I heard the concern expressed that if we topple the Mubarak regime, we run the risk of social disintegration and civil war, “like what happened in Iraq”. The paragraph below, from an article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times, sums up why this need not be a concern.

It’s easy to romanticize. This heady moment cannot last forever. Poverty and illiteracy will not vanish in a burst of goodwill. But Egypt strikes me as a good bet for a viable democracy for several reasons. Unlike Iraq, it is a unified nation state — the world’s oldest — with no big ethnic fault lines. Transformation is being born from the bottom up, unlike in Iraq, where it was imposed. There is a large educated and professional class, proud of Egypt’s heritage, shamed by what it has become under Mubarak, determined to bring the nation into the modern world.

[I feel that it's necessary to add that the last point (the existence of a large educated and professional class) also applies/d in Iraq, and that this class was disempowered by the dilemmas of loyalty and identity that a foreign occupation creates.]

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في الأيام السابقة أُعيد على مسامعي مراراً وتكرارً التخوّف من أن نصبح عراقاً آخر. وكأن البديل الوحيد لحياة مبتورة تحت رحمة نظام ديكتاتوري هو الانهيار التام للمجتمع وانزلاقه في حرب أهلية، “زي ما حصل في العراق”. ولكني أقول إن ما يحدث في مصر مختلف تماماً، لأسباب عدة ذكر بعضها روجير كوهين في مقاله بالنيويورك تايمز. أترجمها هنا وأضيف إليها.

• مصر دولة موحدّة .. تقريباً كده منذ بدء التاريخ .. ولا وجود هنا لانقسامات عرقية كبيرة
• التغيير يحدث من أسفل إلى أعلى، باختيار أفراد الشعب العاديين وإرادتهم. لم يُفرض علينا من طبقة حاكمة ولم يُفرض علينا من الخارج
• مصر بها طبقة عريضة (وعريقة) من المتعلمين والمثقفين والمهنيين .. تستند هويّة هؤلاء على فكرة مصر كدولة متحضرة خذلتها سلسلة من الأنظمة الفاسدة (يعني إحنا كويسين بس الظروف هي اللى عملت فينا كده). ولدى هؤلاء القناعة والأدوات والتصميم لتعويض ما فات والنهوض بالبلد
• آليات الديموقراطية الحديثة والنشاط السياسي موجودة هنا منذ بدايات القرن العشرين. هي إذن في الأساس مسألة إزالة شوائب
• مؤسسات الدولة التعليمية والصحية والأمنية وغيرها قائمة، والرغبة في التطهير والتجديد من داخلها قائمة أيضاً

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Cleaning up "after the revolution"!

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It’s over.. & only just beginning!

Mubarak has stepped down. On paper, the army is in charge, but in fact, it’s the people.

After two and a half weeks of making daily peace with the unknown, of alternating between terror and hope, between disillusion and euphoria, Egypt has done it!

The unthinkable –a peaceful, secular revolution– has happened in Egypt and actually worked.

I’m dizzy with possibility.

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The Happy Revolution

Whatever happens in the next few hours, despite the sadness of the last two days, despite the deaths, the terror, the rumours — we must remember that for a while, this was a happy revolution.

Sunday 30th, Monday 31st, Tuesday 1st — The streets of Cairo were safer than I’d ever known them. Every residential street protected by self-organised group of young men, with makeshift barricades and sticks (golf clubs in Zamalek), debating politics and joking and making bonfires to keep warm. Others, in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, walked around with binbags and brooms cleaning the streets. It was organised anarchy. Walking over an empty 6th of October Bridge after the so-called curfew, I felt cared for and protected by every single person I met. In a city where sexual harassment is usually rampant, I have not seen or heard of one incident since January 25th. In Tahrir Square and surrounding areas, people of all walks of life were sharing laughter, songs, food, ideas and hope. Volunteers organised themselves around the entrances to the square to regulate traffic and security. In a country where people never queue, natural zigzag queues were formed at the few food outlets that stayed open despite the curfew. Social differences were gone. We all sat on the same ground and ate the same koshari.

This revolution is no longer based on just a vision of a better society, but on an experiential reality of a better society that some of us have lived during the past week.

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The Battle for Tahrir

Ahdaf Soueif on what I’m starting to call “The Battle for Tahrir” –

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/02/egyptian-regime-thugs-protesters?#post-area

So who are these people? In support of the president, they throw Molotov bottles and plant pots from the tops of buildings onto the heads of women and children. To establish stability and order, they break heads with rocks and legs with bicycle chains. To have their say in the debate they slash faces with knives. Who are they?

Cairo Update

Co-written with the author of Cris d’Egypte and posted by a friend abroad when the internet was still down in Egypt.

Egypt : To Whom it May Concern

Cairo 31^st January 2011. Continuous misunderstanding of what is happening in Egypt is causing unnecessary losses of lives and livelihoods. The enormity of the change that has occurred in less than a week has taken us all by surprise. For those of us on the ground, there is no doubt that what is happening is the making of a genuine democracy. The resolve on the street is joyful and renewable. In most people’s minds, the Mubarak era has already ended.

Egypte : Aux peuples du monde entier

Le Caire, 31 janvier 2011. Ne pas comprendre ce qui est à l’œuvre en Egypte augmente jour après jour le nombre des victimes. L’énormité de ce qui a changé en moins d’une semaine nous surprend nous aussi. Pour nous qui sommes sur place, il n’y a aucun doute que le peuple d’Egypte construit une démocratie véritable. Sa détermination dans la rue est joyeuse et renouvelable. Pour la plupart des Egyptiens, l’ère Moubarak est déjà terminée.

 

 

why i hope

 

(This is a high-context post. Follow the hyperlinks.)

This has happened before. Things like this have happened before. But something is different this time. Something is new. As protests continue all over Egypt 2 days after the announced “revolution”, it’s becoming more and more difficult to rationalise away the hope that they spark.

I’m not being unreasonable or romantic. There are a few simple and realistic reasons for hope –

1) Tunis. Pretty self-evident I think.

2) Mubarak is almost 83. With presidential elections coming up in September, this year was already set to be some sort of turning point.

3) The current visibility of dissent. What I mean is that until a few years ago, public demos were rare, sit-ins and workers strikes went unreported, attacks on Mubarak were taboo. Now a new visibility makes dissent and methods of dissent part of the collective imagination of at least a fraction of the Egyptian population. When the population is over 80 million, a fraction might just be enough.

I’m a cynic by persuasion. I believe that one should not easily believe. But I hold such a stance mainly because I’m too aware that belief is power, and power can be dangerous. Power — even the power of belief — corrupts. So it’s a moral choice at the end of the day. And there are moments in life when the moral is a good one, when believing feels like the right thing to do. Simply to create and harness some power in the face of injustice. For me, this is such a moment.

Because history happens when events coincide and give rise to the unlikely. And when history happens, it happens one day at a time.

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Tahrir Square, Cairo - 25 Jan 2011