In summer 2013, activists, with megaphones on street corners and in metro stations, collected signatures en masse calling for an end to the presidency of and sparked one of the largest public in Egyptian history. After Morsi’s ouster, the state Egypt’s revolution. Egypt’s democracy movement spirals downward, back to where it came from: authoritarianism. Once a promising sign of the potency of Egyptian grassroots mobilization to hold authority accountable, more than one year after its foundation it is clear that Tamarod ended up dividing society, catalyzing bloodshed, chaos, and a power grab by the state establishment.

Today’s Egypt bears deep scars of division, and following months of civil unrest and one of the bloodiest political in recent history — the clearing of Rabaa El Adaweiya Square in August 2013 — a political calm is held uneasily in place. First with emergency rule, curfews, and tanks, now Egypt’s security apparatus is revived and emboldened, complete with a small army of open-topped, machine-gun manned police jeeps. Thousands of and secular activists alike are locked up behind prison bars, and is off limits to protesters following the declaration of a law banning . , , , human rights , and have been victims of state aggression and intimidation.

The shoddy monument erected in the revolution’s epicenter celebrates the victory of the state-affiliated construction companies contracted to build it; the one in Rabaa Square honoring “police martyrs” stands in unabashed dishonor to those dead citizens who died at the hands of the security apparatus. The bullet casings that littered Cairo sidewalks have been swept up and melted down alongside thousands of American-made teargas . The chanting has died down amidst fear of arrest, torture and murder by the state.

Even those who seek to channel dissent through legitimate and constructive channels — youth, civic, and nongovernmental organizations — face intrusive and obstructive under Egypt’s draconian civil associations law. Meanwhile, a notoriously slow judiciary proves to be exceptionally quick and merciless when it comes to locking away of the revolution or Islamists to death en masse.

Culture of Fear

Now, Egyptians salute current president and former general and military spy chief . Hailed as the hero of the “second revolution,” many believe his government can address all of Egypt’s problems so long as the “terrorists” are dealt with by any means necessary.

But for revolutionary hopefuls, the current sense of calm in Cairo, however, wreaks of fear, apathy, and defeat of the populist cause.��Egypt’s counter-revolution — the current wave of repressive tactics and consolidation of the state’s institutional and corporate interests — is blowback from a once promising Tamarod rebellion against former President Morsi.

For liberals and academic observers, Morsi succumbed to the authoritarian tendencies of his predecessors and failed to press a populist agenda, favoring a neoliberal one that benefited the elite financiers of the Muslim Brotherhood. The perception that he focused on party power consolidation over national interests turned him into fresh bait swallowed whole by the state establishment as soon as they sensed his weakness: dwindling popular support in the face of a volatile, yet divided, political opposition.

The trend so far: massive mob impeaches president, massive mob approves war against fellow citizens, angry mobs clash violently in the streets, massive mob massacred, mob cheers on bloodshed, massive arrests, mass death sentencing, and so on.

Those ensnared by the incessant propaganda against the Muslim Brotherhood, were convinced to doubt the group’s loyalty to Egyptian national interests amidst a culture of and economic uncertainty.

Tamarod’s petition campaign calling for the ouster of Mohammad Morsi set in motion a series of chaotic events, eventually leading to nation-wide polarization, an explosion of senseless violence and subsequent repression under the guise of restoring security, led by now-President Sisi. The signs of a healthy democracy — targeted civil society campaigns, competition between parliamentary coalitions, court battles, and engaged efforts to spark constructive public debates — were forsaken. Instead, Tamarod took Egypt’s political conflicts to the street where a series of massive brawls and armed scuffles ensued and the body count began.

It is understandable how most normal Egyptians, trying to make it in a suffering economy after months of daily protests, shootings, and church attacks wanted stability. Sisi’s promise of stability was accompanied by a continuous barrage of propaganda alleging that the political group ruling Egypt for the past year was secretly a terrorist organization, collaborating with foreign powers to destabilize the country and jeopardize national interests. This aimed to terrify the public to give up the essential freedoms it made strides in gaining in 2012. The narrative, peddled by mass media, made fear — not rule of law — the stabilizing force.

Sisi capitalized on that fear, if he did not help orchestrate it. Allied with former supporters of the regime and big business-affiliated media, he officiated a narrative wherein Egypt faced existential security threats from Muslim Brotherhood “terrorists” in a hyper-nationalistic political climate reminiscent of 1930s European or post- United States.

State propaganda accompanied military intelligence’s offer of extensive support to help Tamarod orchestrate the June 30, 2013, protests, according to Newsweek Mike Giglio.

Trial By Mob

General Sisi used the revolution’s very own weapon — mass public mobilization — against it. In an address to the nation on July 24, 2013, he upon Egyptians to take to the streets as a public mandate to “fight terrorism.” What ended up being the final mass demonstration in Tahrir Square since (apart from a government-sponsored October 6 show of loyalty to the revived military order, the same day state security around 53 anti-state protesters marching toward Tahrir) tens of thousands of Egyptians gave Sisi the green light.

After an extensive year-long study of evidence and firsthand testimony, Human Rights Watch (HRW) “premeditated,” “widespread and systematic” use of lethal force by Egyptian police and military forces against thousands of protestors at Rabaa el-Adaweya and al-Nahda squares and other public marches following the ousting of Morsi in July 2013. The organization concluded that the massacres “constituted serious violations of international human rights law, but likely amounted to crimes against humanity.”

Violent armed , mass , , and repressive laws soon followed, often to the sound of applause by military loyalists and media pundits. Not a single police or army single officer has been held , nor has any actionable internal inquiry been launched.

Rabaa Immortal

“Rabaa”, now the immortalized “four-finger” symbol of protest martyrdom amidst a series of state killings marks the apex of a dark chapter for post-revolution Egypt, wherein mob whims, fear and brute force won out over law, skilled organizing, and fair political competition.

The tragedy at Rabaa el-Adaweya Square represents the culmination of strategic blunders on behalf of Egypt’s opposition forces alongside an irresponsible rebellious attitude by pro-military, pro-January 25, and pro-Morsi forces alike. It was a preventable event caused partially by the desperation of Egypt’s failed non-Islamist political , which joined forces with the military because they could not compete against the Muslim Brotherhood in an open political arena. Myopic grassroots leadership sparked unrest that allowed a revolutionary movement to be coopted by a fear-high state apparatus.

In demanding the ouster of the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history, Tamarod tore to shreds the legitimate foundation for rule of law and long-term stability — the 2012 . Despite certain flaws, a majority of Egyptians, spurred on in part by the Brotherhood’s effective political machine, approved it in Egypt’s first fair election. In return, the post-coup constitutional vote, secured with corporate-funded and marred by the and arrest of those campaigning against it, marks a return to Mubarak-era thug politics. The tainted constitutional referendum effectively robs the nation of legal legitimacy from the outset, not to mention the document’s legal around the military, police and judiciary. “Rabaa” epitomizes a security apparatus immune to accountability, a bleak reality now enshrined in the nation’s highest set of laws.

Still, since its passage, the state has regularly violated the very constitution it propagated, abusing rights of press , , and due . Without constitutional legitimacy, the justice system’s by the state is evident with each announcement of a mass sentencing against the state establishment’s political enemies. It is not legal accountability, but fear and repression — the root causes of tragedies like “Rabaa” — which governs the “order” of the day.

Rather than a fair, clear-headed, individualized justice process, Egypt succumbed to the whims of a fearful, angry citizenry and became victim to the poisons of mob rule. The trend so far: massive mob impeaches president, massive mob approves war against fellow citizens, angry mobs clash violently in the streets, massive mob massacred, mob cheers on bloodshed, massive arrests, mass death sentencing, and so on. It is as if individual guilt, distributed among so many, fades away amidst a sea of injustice.

The Lost Way, Bloodstained Conscience

There was another to preempt massacre and repression. When the public was galvanized against Morsi, the opposition could have guided grassroots momentum to press the government for reasonable demands alongside independently achievable public initiatives. Demands for a cleaner environment, better education, and a healthier life would have significantly improved the conditions and psyche of the people whether or not the government was controlled by the Muslim Brothers. Most importantly, the key actors in such demands would have been the people — not the military — who had an opportunity to embody change and band together across political divides in order to attain such aims.

The failure of revolutionary forces in Egypt to foresee the extensive political and social maturity necessary for meaningful, societally beneficial civic engagement and democracy proved crippling for the movement.

The compromise between the Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition could have been keeping Morsi as president alongside constitutional provisions regulating executive authority, and immediate parliamentary elections. The millions who showed their support for the Tamarod petition could have been mobilized to vote for a united alternative to the military and Islamic currents that aimed to advance the populist or revolutionary goals, and hold Morsi’s Islamist agenda in check.

Civil society and opposition to Islamist forces could have coalesced into a platform to hold the government accountable with constructive criticism, while guiding the youth masses and pressuring the government to assist in efforts of social welfare — not through handouts but comprehensive development and mass scale volunteerism. This may have proven to be what Egypt would have needed to foster the evolution of the rebel mindset into a truly revolutionary one, wherein individual and societal goals are united.

Such feat could have been achieved had cool persistence quelled Egypt’s fiery impatience and fear of the Brotherhood. Come election time, such force of progressive populists, with the grassroots girth of the Tamarod movement, could have handily competed with the Brotherhood machine on a fair political playing field. Ultimately, it was time for the progressive, non-denominational alternative to step up and compete. At the end of Morsi’s term, whichever force more effectively addressed the plight of the Egyptian people would have gained electoral sway.

Instead, myopic notions of a “quick fix” prevailed, wherein a list of demands was somehow thought achievable by toppling of the government figurehead. It was relatively easy to mobilize people to chant and demand a better economy. But it is that much harder — and this may be the key to a successful revolution — to keep people fed, peaceful, content, organized and engaged in the effort to make their communities a better place to live in the long term. This is the difference between the negative energy of a movement like Tamarod, which sparked chaos, regression, and “Rabaa,” versus the positive force for social activism and genuine revolution that it could have been (and still could be).

Civil disobedience is a vital tool for any citizenry willing to confront forces of oppression. But the failure of revolutionary forces in Egypt to foresee the extensive political and social maturity necessary for meaningful, societally beneficial civic engagement and democracy proved crippling for the movement. A Pandora’s box — a power vacuum now filled by the immovable military-state establishment — has shattered the essential notions of accountability and constitutional legitimacy bringing the revolution back to square one. Except now, the blood of thousands stains our collective conscience.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.
/

The post Rabaa Square in Retrospective: The Victory of Fear in Egypt appeared first on 51�Թ�.

With the world watching, Egypt’s long-time intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced the departure of Hosni Mubarak from his presidential throne on February 11, 2011. The epic eruption of cheers, tears, song and dance that ensued in nearly every street in Egypt reverberated across the globe. Its boom sent chills of awe and waves of hope to pro-democracy advocates and observers alike.

Three years ago, on January 25, 2011, tens of thousands of brave men and women banded together in Tahrir Square to embark on a national journey to assert their rights. Egyptians rejected despotism, failed governance, corruption, economic exploitation and police abuse, demonstrating what can be achieved when people unite to march towards a single goal with selfless, wholehearted dedication.

The revolution marked a new chapter in Egyptian history as the people collectively called out the state’s failures, embraced their rights, and took collective action to change their country. Once united, the Egyptian people held high hopes for a seamless democratic transition and a significant government reform.

After the February 11 announcement, power was transferred from Mubarak to the nation’s top military cadre, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), who were supposed to merely oversee a peaceful transition period to civilian democracy where Egyptians would work together to draft and approve a constitution, elect a parliament, and vote for a president.

Back to Square One

But three years later, Egypt is back to square one, having scrapped its first trio of elected institutions (constitution, parliament and presidency) while the military maintains a firm hold on power.

Revolutionary mandates for the broad government reform and redefinition of civil-state relationships, which are necessary for Egypt to realize democracy and tackle society’s challenges, have not taken hold.

Instead, two subsequent waves of regression — first by the Muslim Brotherhood, and now by the old state led by the military — have derailed the revolution’s trek forward.

The old state establishment that held power for generations — the military institution, former members of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP), bureaucratic stalwarts, and the corporate elite that for years collaborated with such power holders — seeks to preserve its unchecked economic privilege and institutional power in the face of the revolution’s mandate for broad change and government accountability.

Its actions, especially following the June 30 popular uprising and subsequent military coup against former President Mohammed Morsi, have solidified such entities’ hold onto power.

Egyptian society is still gripped by a toxic environment, economic turmoil, educational crisis, political stagnation, and infrastructural deterioration. The governing institutions that have failed year after year to address such problems show no signs of improvement under the military-backed government.

To throw salt on sore wounds, a nation which rejected authoritarianism en masse is getting ready to elect a general from the antechambers of the elite military-intelligence establishment that capitalized on authoritarian rule for the entirety of Egypt's existence as a modern state.

Revolution Hijacked… Twice

Those most poised to seek power after the start of the revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood — whose  economic policies favored its wealthy top ranks, among whom are several prominent millionaire  — sought to gain the economic privilege of their Mubarak-era predecessors and monopolize political power.

The group’s brazen Islamist platform, designed to attract both conservative and poorer segments of society, swept up huge numbers into its . The Muslim Brotherhood provided the financial backing for long-standing Islamic charities that established key services and social safety nets for poorer segments of Egyptian society.

They also funded an electoral mobilization strategy in 2012 strongly encouraged by food staple .

The Brothers’ mantra of an "Islamic state" alongside irresponsible, inflammatory  by top Brotherhood officials at massive rallies across the country scared much of Egypt’s moderate middle-class and secular-leaning aristocrats.

The allure of Egypt’s Islamist tide emboldened retrograde Islamist factions like Salafists and jihadists, creating the perception of a hyper "Islamic" climate. While such attacks were likely not coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, multiple instances of such factions resorting to violence against Coptic Christians and the Shi'ite Muslim minority groups further polarized Egyptian society and increased anti-Brotherhood dissent.

Despite the strength of their political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood failed to promote the core Islamic values of justice, knowledge, hard work, and love that Egypt desperately needs. Instead, the "religious" climate, and the vast divisions it sewed into Egyptian society, pushed many moderate Muslims further away from core religious creed.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood cast grassroots revolutionaries, liberals, and union workers aside and hijacked the revolution that they started. The Brothers utilized their political machine to defeat the liberal revolutionary current, still in its organizational infancy, in the first election rounds of the post-Mubarak era.

The Brotherhood proceeded to lay the foundations of a post-revolutionary Egypt without the original revolutionaries, while they alienated liberals from the 2012 constitution-drafting process.

Morsi’s year as president was marked by the undemocratic mode of governance of its authoritarian predecessors. First, his government  with the old state establishment to solidify their mutual power hold, offering them broad concessions in the first constitutional drafting process that retained their power and privilege.

Then the Brothers began ,  and  its members, and . They  the revolutionary fronts that could have worked with them to address Egypt’s social needs, and  from a policy development dialogue.

Such exclusionary policies and lack of progressive or reformist initiatives lost them public support early on in Morsi’s administration. This culminated in the Brotherhood’s demonization by local media and wide-rejection by the masses after the revolution’s second uprising, organized by the grassroots Tamarrod campaign which called for Morsi’s ouster and early elections on June 30, 2013.

With the old state’s most formidable and well-organized political opponents cast away, the road was paved for it to fully reclaim its power and groom Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the "hero" of the July 3 military coup that officially ousted Morsi, for president.

"The Empire Strikes Back"

Now, the military-backed establishment (which, once Sisi is elected, will merely replace a uniform with a suit) continues to suppress the essential  and  that martyrs of the revolution died for.

Revolutionary street art and slogans have been washed out of public spaces in favor of giant posters of Sisi. The police unabashedly abused campaign freedoms in the first round of elections following the June 30 uprising,  against the establishment-backed constitution.

Meanwhile, a massive state-advocated and   to win the support of an exhausted and vastly undereducated mass public takes hold of the Egyptian mind, with disconcerting success.

Aside from banning the Muslim Brotherhood as a "terrorist organization" and  or  of its members, the military-backed government’s  include the , , , , and .

Old state proponents in the media  the youth movements and activists at the core of the January 25 Revolution. They stir elaborate  to distract the people from Egypt’s real enemy, the  by the long-standing establishment and its inability to address the needs of the Egyptian people.

Such suppression of dissent is a waste of government resources and energy when so many of the country’s central challenges remain unaddressed.

With "security and stability" — a Mubarak-era mantra — as justification, pre-revolutionary authoritarian habits continue with a reinvigorated fervor. Clearly, Egypt is undergoing a  led by those institutions and factions who had the most to lose from the broad government reform, transparency, and accountability called for by the uprising in 2011.

While the mass media and wider public is preoccupied with an alleged "war against terrorism" — used by the government to justify the crackdown — government entities profit from billions of dollars of Gulf aid money spent on , which are contracted out to companies  by military and Mubarakite economic elites (the same ones the people rose up against in the first uprising).

Egypt also faces the threat of an insurgency, especially in the Sinai, as the military’s crackdown against Islamists has seemingly strengthened the resolve of insurgents.

Its closure of tunnels to the Gaza Strip has cut a vital economic lifeline for both Palestinians and Sinai Bedouin communities. This increases discontent with the military government that has long oppressed and neglected communities in the Sinai.

The military fights fire with fire, instead of addressing the structural roots of discontent — lack of infrastructural development and economic opportunity in the Sinai that edge many residents to turn to smuggling in the first place.

Thus, while millions are spent repaving already drivable roads and repainting sidewalks and as billions are used to  from Russia, slums, villages and schools are seemingly forgotten. The popular plight of the people remains unaddressed.

Instead, the establishment’s  agenda seeks to perpetuate an economic status quo that sustains the wealth and prestige of the nation’s top cadre.

Constitution of the Old Guard

Egypt’s institutions of power are further emboldened by the new constitution, which was overwhelmingly approved by the masses. Many voted under the pretext that a vote for the constitution was a vote for Egypt, Sisi and stability, whereas a vote against it favored the "terrorists."

The constitution passed following a massive  "Yes" campaign spearheaded by Tarek Nouri, the head of Mubarak’s last presidential run. Those who campaigned against the constitution were rounded up and .

The failed system that sparked the revolution lives on, embedded in a constitution that perpetuates the economic interests of those in government without provisions to keep them accountable to the Egyptian people.

The passing of the constitution means the military’s autonomy is further enshrined, while maintaining broad jurisdiction to try civilians in military courts. As the law stands, the military is  laws or any electable mechanism of check or balance. Its economic empire lacks any semblance of oversight.

Constitutional provisions strengthen the police and intelligence services that, for years, have done the establishment’s dirty work and sustained the corrupt status quo.

The constitution’s maintenance of autonomy for the state’s numerous fiefdoms, or , dims the prospects of good governance.

These fiefdoms "[establish] their own economic interests… in partnership with private sector actors. They will fight to preserve and possibly expand these interests. As a result, all possible checks on the taifas state, including free media, the transparent flow of information, independent auditing, assertive labor unions, strikes, and demonstrations, will be restricted,” according to , a resident scholar for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Such a system, an echo of Egypt’s past, increases the likelihood for institutional infighting and competition rather than coordinated progressive action.

As Nathan Brown, a resident fellow and Egypt law expert, recently : "Egypt has replaced a single dictator with a slew of dictatorial institutions." These institutions lack the key mechanisms of civilian oversight — a staple of democracy that prevents corruption while ensuring that popular will is adhered to.

Hope Never Dies

Little indicates that the military’s shepherding of the current "democracy" will bring about change for the better. They will continue to govern to favor those who have been at society’s helm for generations. Deep state corporate interests make it unlikely for Field Marshall Sisi to adopt a Nasser-esque populist or socialist agenda for the nation.

Egypt’s main hindrance is its lack of a strong, organized, and progressive alternative to the military. The revolution itself lacks a shepherding ideology or solid vision that channels efforts of progress-minded Egyptians with concrete, achievable aims.

Civil society groups have yet to coalesce into an effective network for popular advocacy and coordinated mass action. Luckily, the only way from here is up.

Sisi’s likely presidency — with the same institutional flaws that have failed the country year after year — is already set up to fail. This means revolutionaries, progressives, democracy advocates, and youth movements have another shot at planning a vision for Egypt’s future and organizing a grassroots base that can win both the confidence and votes of the people come the next election cycle.

Plans to rekindle the participatory spirit of January 25 and channel its momentum to massive volunteer efforts that make impacts on the lives of struggling Egyptians could be a start.

If one thing is for sure, so long as Egypt’s young generation has not lost hope, prospects to revive the revolution and achieve its aims will remain.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Revolution Square One: Egypt Three Years On appeared first on 51�Թ�.

If Egyptians were to believe the current local media mantra, the country should currently be basking in a state of revolutionary afterglow since emerging victoriously from our second uprising in nearly as many years to slay the draconian Muslim Brotherhood (read: Islamo-fascist terrorists). The people’s Egyptian Armed Forces saved the nation from a group that shackled Egypt in its quest to achieve democracy and hijacked the revolution to actuate a plan to restore the Islamic Caliphate.

To undo the damage that Islamists brought upon Egypt, the current transitional government of technocrats is working hand-in-hand with the military to swiftly address the country’s economic woes, revive tourism, and eliminate the security threat posed by terrorists.

But Egypt’s reality today does not shine as bright as the Egyptian-flag-donned “news report” backdrops make it seem. Indeed, the country remains ripe with political and social strife, as governmental reform and genuine social progress take a backseat to nationwide military deployment and emergency law. The emphasis on economic and security policies of the past cloud Egypt’s vision for a better tomorrow.

If the revolution is to live on, Egyptians must continue to question the state’s official narrative and the path it charts for our nation’s future. Pressure for institutional reform has never been more important than at this current juncture; each individual must strive to blaze a trail to social progress at individual and community levels.

Authoritarian Habits Die Hard

Unfortunately, a string of recent government decisions that , , , ,  and , prove that old authoritarian habits die hard with a member of the military cadre at the helm of the country’s decision-making process. The economy remains stagnant as , , and reports of newly-opened factories or farms are rare. Frequent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and their opponents demonstrate the country’s ongoing volatility.

While the government launched a few initiatives aimed at reviving the economy and restoring security, any sturdy look at these government policies shows that they are merely prima facie measures aimed at appeasing the masses to save face in the short-term, without addressing Egypt’s deeply-rooted structural ills.

The labor force remains highly unskilled and inefficient (146^th globally, according to the recent World Economic Forum’s ), education dwindles near a , pollution is at an all-time high, infrastructure fails to keep up with an ever-growing population, and state bureaucracy remains as inefficient and disorderly as ever.

Unable to redress their grievances productively, much of the population feels undignified and hopeless amidst mounting economic pressure and a lack of future outlook. As the government plays a game of charades with societal progress, economic development, and true reform, real progress towards “bread, freedom, and social justice” remains elusive.

Today’s Government: Charade of Progressivism

If the governments of the past two years were merely a façade of democracy, then the government of today represents a mere charade of progressivism, unless it works to sow the seeds of reform into the state, economy, and public mentality. The government still proves highly exclusionary and favors a particular cadre of elite, corporate, and institutional interests. Its policies to-date have yet to prove effective.

At best, the revolution sought by hundreds of thousands of protesters who rejected an authoritarian status quo in 2011 is back to where it was after Hosni Mubarak’s downfall, when the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) assumed the reigns of power, and still awaits a cultural and intellectual renaissance. Rather than genuine progressivism, Egypt’s anything-goes still prevails in Egyptian culture, and applies to the government and people alike.

The revolution has yet to inspire enough people to alter attitudes on an individual level to serve their families, communities, and economies better. Although political space has opened up compared to the Mubarak years, the nation still lacks a solid vision for reform.

Egyptian optimists say their people and government are learning by experience and that the current administration still has not had enough time to deliver, but if we follow the current transitional roadmap, the fruits of change will ripen soon enough. And if this government does not meet expectations, the next one, which will be democratically elected without any interference from Islamists, will open the door to civic contribution and surely deliver. A revolution steered off course by Islamists is now being corrected. Let us hope this is the case.

To the skeptic and pessimist, however, what Egypt witnessed over the past few months was a full-fledged counter-revolution stirred by deep-state entities — intelligence, military, police, and corporate powers — with strong ties to Mubarak’s old guard. These structures capitalized on Morsi’s failed executive policies and the state of national economic hardship to encourage dissent by the Egyptian populace against the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood’s attempt to monopolize governmental power alongside a self-serving neo-liberal economic agenda threatened the corporate interests embedded in the country since Mubarak’s reign.

The Return of the Old Guard?

Egypt’s military, , owns shares in numerous domestic and international companies operating locally. Thus, its actions in July 2013 align with the interests of a business elite with whom it has had a long and prosperous relationship, as well as with the interests of its post-Morsi Arab sponsors in the Gulf.

Given the announcement of Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi — the neo-liberal stalwart — of a multibillion dollar private-public partnership plan for Egypt’s economy, the billions of dollars offered by Gulf kingdoms are indirect investments into companies that the kingdoms themselves partly-own, alongside the military and affluent, corporate-minded Egyptian elites. At the same time, businessmen and old regime figures such as Ahmad Ezz walk free, and  has been upgraded from a jail cell to a fully decked-out luxury hospital suite.

In either case, General Sisi and the transitional government have their work carved out for them. Departure from old trends, given either narrative, remains unlikely as long as government bureaucracies remain unreformed, civic groups remain uninfluential, and the Egyptian self remains un-empowered.

In the wake of the popular uprising-turned-coup, the current government’s top priority has been . It seeks to address this by implementing a long-resented emergency law, launching a massive domestic “war on terror” that targets the Brotherhood, drafting up a law that requires Interior Ministry approval before protests, and by shutting down roads and public squares whenever they fear imminent demonstrations.

This makes it clear that the current government has no intention of reconciling with Islamists in the near future and chimes in an uncomfortable new era of societal division.

Instead, the government is following in the footsteps of its military-hailing predecessors and is moving toward sustained political suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a general restraint of political space. It indulges in a  against mostly peaceful protesters, reminiscent of the Mubarak-era. This risks radicalizing the fringes and increasing the resolve of militant-breed groups launching anti-government operations, which have already  in the Sinai Peninsula.

Alongside the scores killed in the clearing of the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins, each military operation against such groups and each death increases the number of “martyrs,” amplifying the Islamist rallying cry against the state. Even if some of these protesters were armed, as the military alleges, the thousands of deaths since the July 3 overthrow demonstrate the state’s willingness to engage in collective punishment rather than holding itself to the standards of due process.

Looking Ahead

The questions Egyptians must ask themselves are: How effective have these blanket security measures been? Do the expected gains outweigh the stripping of our political and civil rights? Does the current outlook reflect the “revolution” we supported when we took to the streets on June 30 to protest the failures of the Morsi administration?

It seems obvious to me that the security measures have thus far failed: just ask the family members of those killed in Sunday’s tragic  outside a church where the victims were celebrating a wedding.

Tanks in crowded city centers and a curfew do not help a society where faith in and respect for the law falters. Mass protests on the streets that we call a revolution do not mean anything if the people do not follow up with intensive and organized pressure on the government to reform and perform.

Egypt must look toward political inclusion and compromise to end its battle with angry “anti-coup” youths. Jailed Muslim Brotherhood leaders must be held accountable for crimes and tried as soon as possible if the state possesses convincing evidence; otherwise they must be released.

The inflamed political tensions that have engulfed the nation, especially after Morsi’s removal on June 30, will not die down until Egyptians across the political spectrum are assured that the government will only apply force legitimately to uphold the principles of justice, rather than to advance or suppress the political aims of any domestic force of interest.

The state must immediately address its justice system to sow the seeds for the respect of its legal institutions — dubbed rational-legal legitimacy by political scholars — in order to ensure that long-term rule of law is respected. State institutions must work to grow the legitimacy of its legal system — both with respect to the professionalism and effectiveness of its police force as well as the efficiency and impartiality of its over-burdened judiciary.

Meanwhile, the real focus for revolutionary youths and progress-minded Egyptians should be to empower themselves and the rest of society in a framework that serves as an outlet for accomplishing ends greater than chanting in the streets and throwing rocks. A democracy not only means that we select our leaders, but it means that onus is on the individual to guide the government and serve as a positive force for his or her community and nation.

Only then can the people truly correct the revolution’s path — when reform at an individual level sparks a high degree of societal organization that can actually shepherd the government with an eye toward a better tomorrow.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Egypt’s Charade Of Progress appeared first on 51�Թ�.

If Egypt’s revolution is to ever move forward, the country must cultivate a different mentality than that of our past. When millions took to the streets on June 30, Egypt was given a second chance at democracy. We, as Egyptians, cannot squander this newly opened door for societal progress and a better Egypt. As we seek to redefine ourselves as a better nation, correct the revolution’s path, and advance ideologically as a nation, it is vital that we recognize and address the fatal flaws in our mentality. We must analyze the roots of our national flaws, abandon our bad habits, and implement the solutions that will improve our country.

Anyone familiar with Egypt will realize the tendency in the Egyptian psyche to shirk responsibility for its problems. This laizzez-faire mentality prevails as much on a personal level as it does on a societal level. It is much easier – as conventional Egyptian wisdom holds (at an incredible flaw) – to shed responsibility for our actions and blame someone else for our problems.

Examples of this micro-level lack of responsibility seem to show their ugly head anytime I ride in a car with an Egyptian friend. Numerous times, I have watched in horror as my fellow countrymen roll down the window and throw wrappers, cans, and plastic bags out the window because “someone is paid to clean it up,” I am always told. Then, when trash piles up on the side of the streets and putrid smells plague our once breathtaking allies of old Cairo, we curse the government for failing its duties. In Egypt, we always expect someone else to clean up after our misdeeds. Egyptians want somebody else to bear the burden of blame so that we don’t have to deal with it.

This instance shows a mere snippet of the reality of life in Egypt. This recurring mentality – failing without owning up, let alone seeking to redress the issue – is a key reason why so many facets of Egyptian society lay in disarray.

Shirking Responsibility and Scapegoating

Unfortunately, this issue stretches all the way to the top in Egypt. Political entities are as keen to make up stories to shift blame away from themselves as any Egyptian. For years, the Egyptian government has instigated rumors of American, Zionist, or Iranian conspiracies (even spinning bizarre combinations of the three) to explain away dissent movements. A few months after the January 25 revolution, I spoke to one of Hosni Mubarak’s lawyers and almost every other word that came out of his mouth in trying to dismiss the revolution was “America” and “Israel.” The Mubarak regime used this ��for years in order to shirk responsibility for its own failures as a government, to justify its totalitarian regime and its subsequent violent crackdowns, and to portray any dissent as illegitimate to the masses.

Under this same dim light, when Egyptians called out the failures of Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood-backed government to take action for the country’s problems, as anti-Morsi protests picked up steam last November, , accusing key faces of its opposition – Mohammed El-Baradei, Hamdeen Sabbahy, and Amr Moussa – of involvement in a Zionist plot to stir unrest.

Again, after the ousting of Morsi, the Brotherhood, according to the , spread rumors on its website that the new interim president was secretly Jewish��Ikhwanweb pulled the piece a few hours after it was posted, but sure enough, it was able to start a rumor that spread in Brotherhood circles intended to embolden the resolve at the pro-Morsi Raba’a sit-in in Cairo’s Nasr City neighborhood. Nonetheless, the Brotherhood tried to save face to its constituents and scapegoated blame for its failure to maintain political power by implicating a Jewish third party – not to mention the disgusting racism inherent in demonizing a particular religion. Meanwhile, the internal failures of the Brotherhood, and their responsibility for instigating problems remained unaddressed.

Egypt’s liberal opposition is guilty of the same responsibility-shirking habit. When Morsi won the presidential election in 2012, many ��for swaying the results, believing that the Brotherhood could never have won without the United States’ covert interference. The losing liberal bloc did not stop to think about how the Brotherhood mobilized their supporters, reached out to a wider base in Egypt’s smaller towns and villages, and utilized its political experience derived from functioning as an effective underground movement, especially since the 1970s. Instead of learning from the electoral loss and focusing efforts to improve their next campaign, Egyptian liberals shifted the responsibility of their own failures to compete with the Brotherhood’s political machine and blamed their loss on the United States’ interference.

Moreover, after the series of violent clashes between heated Morsi supporters and opponents following the former president’s ouster, rumors that a combination of and Syrian Islamist infiltrators were responsible for stirring violence spread on the Egyptian street. Media in Egypt blamed Al Jazeera, one of the few media outlets in Egypt that aired the Raba’a protest, for inciting violence, while sensationalist reporting across the media circuit fanned the flames of the crisis on the ground. Last month, journalists demanded that the Al Jazeera correspondent be thrown out of a military press conference, and the government ’s arrest.

The anti-American sentiment sweeping Egypt in the wake of the June 30 uprising is another clear testament to this “blame game” mentality. Picket signs of a bearded Barack Obama dubbed “Obama bin Laden” and a devil-horned Anne Patterson, the chief US diplomat, floating around Tahrir Square during a mass show of support for the army on July 7 epitomized this third party demonization. Protesters blamed the US administration for bolstering the Muslim Brotherhood, instigating terrorism, while some rumors on the street even went so far as to suggest that the US was sending two aircraft carriers to the Egyptian coastline to pressure the military into reinstating Morsi. Meanwhile, pro-Morsi supporters on the other side of the city in Raba’a accused the US of supporting a “coup” and failing to back democracy and recently marched to the American embassy in protest.

Popular Power and the Middle Ground

Both sides refuse to address the legitimate grievances of the other and engage in a constructive dialogue – what Egypt needs most – and instead place blame on the US for crafting Egypt’s own political reality behind the scenes. We must instead look at our crises impartially, accept each other’s right to disagree, reconcile our differences, and work to find a middle ground.

Democracy means that the government derives its power from the people. What then is popular power when the people refuse to assume responsibility for their own problems? When we succumb to rumors and media brainwashing, we create fear and negativity, the most powerful force in the country. Without assuming responsibility we can never look at ourselves, figure out where we went wrong, learn from our mistakes, and work to change for the better. Egyptians across all walks of life and on both sides of the political spectrum must master their own destinies without relying upon the convenience of blaming others. We must be honest with ourselves, both on a personal level to become better human beings and also on a governmental level so that our policies can actually bring Egypt forward.

*[Note: A version of this article originally appeared in the Egyptian Gazette.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright ©�� ����. All Rights Reserved

The post Egypt’s Revolution Requires Us To Assume Responsibility appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Before Mohammad Morsi was elected president one year ago, I made a few predictions about Egypt’s political path that turned out to be true. Although I grieved for a few days once I found out which candidates made it to the runoff election, I took a deep breath and weighed my options: a military commander at the core of the old regime, Ahmed Shafiq, or an Islamist with the backing of the best organized underground opposition party in Egypt for decades with Morsi as their candidate.

With the revolution at the heart of my decision, I bit my tongue and cast a ballot for Morsi because I predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood held the most political weight to mount an opposition to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). In the wake of the January 25 revolution, the Egyptian Armed Forces, with a sequence of constitutional declarations and sheer military might, maintained an effective power monopoly over the country until the Muslim Brothers were able to negotiate a soft transfer of power out of the hands of the generals.

Let us not forget that the so-called "old regime" was the military establishment since 1952. For the January 25 revolution, this transfer of authority was a vital step towards Egypt’s realization of democracy. For the first time in more than 60 years, power in Egypt belonged to an elected civilian authority rather than a cadre of military elites.

Optimism and Despair After Morsi’s election

Morsi’s election brought simultaneous waves of optimism and despair to different segments of Egyptian society. Some in Egypt saw Morsi as an everyman’s president, one who understood the plight of the average Egyptian. They saw him as the humble alternative to Shafiq, a poster-boy representative of Egypt’s elitist Mubarak guard. Revolutionary liberals, such as Wael Ghoneim and many members of the April 6 Youth Movement, though unsatisfied with Brotherhood leadership, cheered on Morsi’s victory as a defeat of the Mubarak establishment.

Other Egyptians feared Morsi’s election would be the beginning of the end of a secular Egypt. Many Christians felt that the Muslim Brotherhood would bring about the full Islamization of Egyptian society, exacerbating anti-Christian sentiments already present in certain radical or uneducated circles and further fueling sectarian tensions. While most Egyptians emphasize religious coexistence, a negative and fearful — in some cases Islamophobic — rhetoric in the Egyptian media exacerbated tensions rather than bringing about a culture of mutual understanding and progress.

However, fear that the conservative Brotherhood would use religion to exploit mainly uneducated Egyptians to advance self-satisfying political agendas held true in numerous instances. Far too often, religious ideologies in a political setting are abused to drive self-serving agendas, as the core truths and values of the religion are cast aside.

Morsi’s opponents also feared that once the Brotherhood assumed power, they could never be ousted because they would have brainwashed a large enough segment of undereducated Egyptian society into believing that voting for the Brotherhood was a shortcut to heaven; which brings me to my second prediction. 

Thriving Political Opposition

Despite initial fears of an Islamist political monopoly, a vibrant culture of political opposition thrives in Egypt. Even given the (often exaggerated and pessimistic) fears of a Brotherhood-dominated administration, the opposition to the ruling elite in Egypt has never been more vocal or visible in media and society. Even less affluent and less educated Egyptians see the Brotherhood’s flaws.

I told people last year not to fear the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather, predicting the inevitable failures of the incoming administration, I encouraged my anti-Morsi friends and family to begin to organize an opposition against them. Now, we can see how effective a mere two-month campaign by volunteers in metro stops and street corners has been in garnering opposition. This campaign, dubbed Tamarod! (Rebel!), claims to have collected over 22 million signatures calling for a vote of no-confidence against Morsi — that is more votes than the ones which put him in office.

The failures of Morsi’s first term are obvious to any political observer. Egypt lacks a clear vision — save a few lofty politically convenient promises any politician can make to the whims of populist sentiment. The Shura, Egypt’s upper house, is a circus. Videos of petty fights, shouting matches, and dismal shows of professionalism, circulate the web. Meanwhile, no substantive laws on civil rights or any government initiatives have been drafted. The People’s Assembly, the lower house, does not even exist. No comprehensive plans for revitalizing tourism — the lifeblood of Egypt’s economic health — have been proposed. Nor have we seen any legitimate action plans, initiatives, or substantive agendas for addressing pretty much anything that matters in Egypt.

Now, I am a critic of Morsi as much as any Egyptian liberal and I cannot wait for the day he leaves office. But we must think carefully about the implications of an early boot for Morsi on the development of Egyptian democracy.

A political vacuum after a no-confidence vote for Morsi would pave the way for the SCAF to step into power once again, meaning a full step backward for the revolution. In effect, the revolution would slip back to where it was after Mubarak’s downfall. Did we really let this two-year struggle of political turmoil and chaos take place, just to see it repeat once again? Do we want a coup d’état?

This is the same military that backed and staffed three successive dictatorial regimes. Have we forgotten the days of Hussein Tantawi when thousands of Egyptians were held under "emergency powers" and tried under military tribunals with the least consideration of due process or fair representation? Remember that the SCAF ordered soldiers to set fire to the tents in Tahrir, as soldiers massacred revolutionary martyrs during the Mohammed Mahmoud clashes, little more than a year ago.

This is the same military cadre which uses its yearly billions of dollar installments of "military aid" from the United States on weapons rather than the needs of the impoverished. This is the same military which for years has lacked any semblance of economic transparency. To this day, hundreds of real estate projects, private clubs, companies, and secret economic agendas remain completely untethered and unaccountable to the people.

The Egyptian military-industrial machine runs without any oversight, functioning for the interest of its elite establishment — most of whom continue to lead a privileged life while Egyptian families struggle to fill dinner tables. The risk that progress will stagnate for even longer makes me think twice about joining the protests, as much as my innate revolutionary spirit wants me to.

A Functional, Inclusive, and Civilian Democratic System

My point is that we need to work on developing a functional, inclusive, and civilian democratic system — even if it means grinding our teeth with the Muslim Brotherhood just a bit longer — lest we relapse into a continuous cycle of failed leader, uprising, military rule, uprising, failed leader, and so on. Let us be realistic; of the list of government failures that Tamarod calls out, how many of those will a power swap from above actually solve? How much responsibility does the executive branch hold for government failures as opposed to the inefficiencies and red tape of Egyptian bureaucracy? And is the gas crisis not a failure of Egyptian companies to negotiate more shipments for import?

Let us use this week to remind us how strong opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood is once we organize ourselves effectively. We must bring this momentum forward into a campaign to defeat the Brotherhood peacefully — next time elections are held. Let Egypt prove democracy to itself.

Allow us to let coolness trump chaos this week. We as the Egyptian people must continue to make our demands heard and keep the government accountable to its promises. However, as we learned with the ouster of Mubarak, expecting society or economy to change with the swapping of a figurehead is naive to say the least. We can sit-in, protest, and picket all we want, but until we embody the change we want to see in the society around us, Egypt will never move forward.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Egypt Must Prove Democracy to Itself appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Too often “Big Media” shies away from the more trialing debates that make us challenge the status quo or rethink popularly accepted narratives. Either the media’s analytical lens is waning, or it too is easily duped by our government administrations’ agendas. Either way, with its lack of skepticism, the American mass media its duty to the American public, as it helped the Bush administration sell the Iraq war.

Now, 10 years after Bush’s invasion of Iraq, an ugly reality stares us squarely in the eyes: upwards of a hundred-fifty-thousand dead Iraqi civilians, nearly five thousand dead American troops, countless wounded and displaced, and trillions of American tax dollars down the drain. Not to mention the lack of a single weapon of mass destruction found or even meek whisper of Saddam Hussein’s involvement in the planning of 9/11. The war’s bleak aftermath leaves the conscientious American pondering: Who should be held responsible for the war-crime-ridden fiasco that our country’s corporate-military elite led us headstrong into?”

This article’s purpose is not to place blame on a particular media entity over another. Or even to shed light on the corporate influence that spreads its tentacles deep throughout the American media landscape – think Time Warner’s acquisition of Huffington Post, or the Comcast-NBC Universal charade. Rather, it is a blast against a “Big Media” system that failed its duty of accountability to America and in doing so revealed its own lack of integrity. “Big Media” sold out its coverage and shirked away from the truth: with war came more “news” and higher ratings. Media sensationalized, even , security threats to keep Americans glued to their televisions, as the Pentagon and the industrial conglomerate that profits from its massive expenditures prepared for battle.

Most remember the Iraq war drum, its beats harmonized seamlessly with the post 9/11 American fear mantra. It was mainstream media’s hype behind the war, whose pre-war airtime was packed with scores of Bush administration government officials and their war-selling talking points, or with interviews of Bush’s hawkish business cronies, dubbed “political experts,” that helped the administration sell us on a false war.

Take Richard Perle for instance, a top neoconservative system-ite who headed the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003 before the Iraq war. He was one of many Bush Administration officials who made their rounds on the mass media megaphones of every major American network and pitched the Iraq war to a terrified America with the ever-spooky buzzwords of “WMDs,” “terrorism,” and “axis of evil.”

Rarely, if ever was there mention in his interviews that Iraq appeared on Pearl’s agenda as early as 1996 when he led a for Benjamin Netanyahu, then prime minister of Israel, that placed the removal of Saddam Hussein as a key Israeli strategic objective.

Where were questions from the mass media that highlighted Perle’s efforts in spearheading the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, which in 1998 drafted a letter to Bill Clinton urging him to invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein with none other than fellow Bush administration neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, John Elliot Abrams, and John Bolton as cosigners? The mass media cowered before the masses, guessing that they could lose viewership if they dared to ask tough questions to President Bush or his officials, lest being viewed as unpatriotic or un-American whilst “America Under Attack” blazoned the bottom half of the screen of major news station. Surely many Americans will remember the sentiment of those times.

They may have simply been bad at their job. Or, the mass media, capitalizing on America’s renewed interest in broadcast journalism, failed to challenge the motives behind the war drum narrative that America got so used to hearing. It failed to ask the tough questions that could have discredited the sales pitch Americans were forced to buy into. It failed to be accountable.

This is not to say that serious journalism outside the mainstream did not occasionally occur. It was just usually too little, too late. For example, the New Yorker exposed Richard Perle’s ulterior motives for propagating the Iraq war. Just days before the Iraq invasion, Seymour Hersh, a journalist for the New Yorker, published an on Perle, revealing his role in establishing Trireme Partners L.P. The firm, established literally the month after 9/11 when the Iraq war drumming began, specialized in homeland security and defense contracts—an industry poised only to gain monetarily from an American war. The conflict of interest suggested by the article prompted an internal investigation and eventually led Pearle to resign. However, these questions were asked too late. The American public had already been sold. Days after Perle’s resignation, the United States invaded Iraq.

“Big Media” made the average American believe that the war game in Iraq was about “keeping America free.” We were beguiled into thinking that if we did not bomb Baghdad into oblivion, nothing would prevent Saddam Hussein from handing over weapons of mass destruction to the “terrorists.” Yet, it is exactly this media-painted archetype of the Muslim “boogeymen”—those bearded terrorists who hate America for being “free”—that permeated the minds of Americans to create the very and sense of insecurity that directly abetted the Bush administration’s war.

“Big Media” exaggerated the divisions of “us” and “them.” It unabashedly bought into the post-9/11 fear-mongering system, serving as a pedestal for the Department of Homeland Security’s artificial color changing scheme that kept Americans on edge. It blinded America’s sense of reason and humanity and made us succumb to the evils of fear.

The mass media must be held accountable for the messages it relays. Never again can Americans stand by, as “Big Media” is used as a propaganda tool for the government’s agendas forayed into the forefront of the American consciousness. We, as Americans, must learn to question everything. We must refuse to be fooled again and refuse to let the media paint Iran as another Iraq.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Lessons from Iraq: Hold “Big Media” Accountable appeared first on 51�Թ�.

As the gold glow of sunset began to creep over Cairo’s hazy skyline, my friend Hussein thrust his foot on the gas pedal in an attempt to reduce our inevitable lateness to the iftar dinner where we would break our fast. It was the 27th night of Ramadan, Laylat-ul-Qadr (Night of Power), which in Islam is traditionally the holiest night of the year. On Laylat-ul-Qadr, Muslims believe that God revealed the first verses of the Qur’an to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on this night over fourteen hundred years ago.

“Our Tariqah”

Habiba, Hussein’s fiancé, who invited me to the gathering, told me in the car that my experience at this iftar would be different from what I was used to. She said the iftar was hosted by a respected member of Egypt’s Naqshabandi Order of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism. This particular gathering would not just be a “dinner party”; it would be a holy night filled with prayer, song, meditation, and Sufi rituals that would bring one closer to God. Habiba, herself a Sufi, explained that the essence of Sufism lay in embracing al-Tariqah, in other words, the spiritual path towards closeness with God.

“O�ܰ� Tariqah,” Habiba said, “brings us spiritual closeness and peace through a sincere love for God. By praying and rejecting our inner carnal souls, we attempt to transcend to a level of divine purity.” Noting the confused look on my face she reassured me, “Sufism is incredibly layered and deep — you have to walk the path to really understand. Maybe you’ll get it a bit more after tonight.”

I gazed out the window at the Giza Pyramids in the near-distance as we took the highway exit to the farm-filled Cairo suburb of Mariyoteyyah. Both slightly anxious and intrigued, I couldn’t wait to take my first steps on this so-called path.

We arrived at a magnificent Mediterranean style villa as sunset prayers had already begun. As we strolled into the beautiful garden between the villa and its private mosque, we were immediately offered dates and hibiscus juice to break our fasts, following a tradition of the last Prophet. For a few moments, we stood awkwardly at the entrance of the mosque, embarrassed to barge into the prayer late. A kind-faced Sufi lady sporting a red patterned headdress approached us saying: “Are you waiting for an invitation to go inside? There are no invitations here — everyone is invited,” and beckoned us inside to join the rest of the Sufis in prayer.

After the prayer, I followed the congregation outside where a feast awaited us. A shawarma station and piles of freshly grilled beef and lamb kebabs were accompanied by a table lined with lentil soup, salads, pita bread, rice, and spinach-kale-rabbit stew. Everyone grabbed heaping portions — once, twice, and even three times — and sat comfortably on the grass, eating, laughing, and conversing.

I looked around at the crowd of Sufis and couldn’t help but notice how happy and colorful everyone looked. Male Sufis donned long flowing robes of pink, blue, green, purple, or red, and wore turbans made from colorful pointed hats with white or colored scarves wrapped around them. Some were clean-shaven; some had soul patches or short stubble-beards, while the older Sufi ‘master’ and veterans of the order boasted magnificent, long, well-groomed beards that I couldn’t help but envy. Younger males wore chic western jeans with button downs or flannels and colored skullcaps—similar to, but larger than Jewish yamichuhs to show respect to God by covering their heads.

The women wore colorful headscarves or long ornamented headdresses. Even though they dressed modestly with loose-fitting clothing and veils, I thought almost every one of them looked beautiful; a manifestation of the Islamic concept of internalized beauty.

As we finished our epic meals and sipped our last cups of tea and Turkish coffee, the call to Salat al-Isha (night prayer) rang out. I followed everyone back into the mosque, and found a spot near the front. Worshipers formed straight lines behind the imam (leader), who was a German-born Sufi master who converted to Islam after travelling the world on the “soul-searching” journey, and later taught English at the American University of Cairo.

Closer to the Divine

As is customary, he recited verses from the Qur’an aloud, but his recitation technique was unlike anything I had ever heard before. As opposed to a slow nasal sound, he recited in a fast song-like melody that had a brilliant lightness to it. After about ten minutes of Salat al-Isha, he led the congregation through a series of non-mandatory prayers that Muslims perform during Ramadan, called Salat al-Tarawih, where we performed rounds of prayer passionately for over an hour.

When our legs became sore from the cycles of prostration-to-standing-to-prostration again, the imam sat down cross-legged on one of the many ornate Persian rugs laid across the floor and we followed suit. He recited a du’a (a short supplication) asking God for guidance and wellbeing, while many of the congregation closed their eyes and uttered prayers and wishes in an attempt to reach the Divine.

The lights of the prayer hall were suddenly dimmed and the imam began chanting: “Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah…”. Then, “He is the Truth, He is the Truth…” then “He is the Light, He is the Light…” or “He is the real One, He is the real One…” or “God is great, God is great.”

As the imam chanted, the entire hall joined in. Most in the room were rocking side-to-side or front to back to the beat of the chant; all were immersed in a feeling of divine elation. The imam recited prayers melodically in between chants, and at the end of a series of chants, the group would burst into a song that thanked God for blessing their fates through the divine path (al-Tariqah) — then chanting resumed again.

This form of worship is called dhikr, literally meaning the remembrance of God. Through repeated invocation of the name of God and sharp focus on the Being, Sufis bring their souls closer to the Divine.

Perhaps another hour went by (time was an afterthought at this point) before this round of chanting stopped. Then the Sufis stood up and everyone hugged and kissed one another with greetings of peace. They formed a mixed circle of both men and women and everyone held hands. One of the congregants situated next to the leading master unveiled a large round daff, a traditional hand drum, and began to play a beat. Chanting resumed to the tempo of the drum. One man began to sing. His voice, etched with a sincere tone of longing for God, perfectly complimented the chanting. Another Sufi with an incredible voice would periodically burst out into short stanzas of song to form a harmony or add an extra layer of vocal syncopation. They sang about the Love of God.

The master took his position in the center of the circle, and led the chants again — but this time with the stuff of ferocity: “Hu, Hu, Hu!” he would bellow, each time bowing down slightly then thrusting his arms upward toward his chest while the group followed suit, as if to affirm God’s existence within their hearts and souls. This movement, paired with the drum, chanting, heavy breaths, and soulful song made for a sort of spiritual concert, or sema, as I later learned.

“I Was at Peace With Myself”

Having gone on for perhaps 30 minutes, the sema ritual culminated with a profound sense of Divine presence. Words do not do justice, but the energy I experienced with the congregation that holy night was nothing short of spiritual ecstasy.

After the fervor reached a celebratory apex, a final du’a was recited. The members of the group went around and gave ����������­ (peace) to one another with an embrace, and then took to the floor to rest. What proceeded was a short period of silent individual meditation and embrace of God’s Love—with each of us internally channeling the sense of Divine vibes around us into our souls, while making prayers for the wellbeing of family, society, and humanity. When each had sufficiently satisfied their soulful urges, the group funneled out one by one.

Stepping back outside into the gorgeous garden was surreal. I was at peace with myself and with the world around me: a physical lightness in my heart and a natural high over my mind. I had only a taste of what the spiritual path had to offer, but if anything was certain I knew that it was a path worth trekking.

As we were leaving, Habiba was anxious to see how I had taken to the experience. “Do you see what I mean about experiencing it?” she asked. I responded simply with an ear-to-ear smile and a nod, and we sped away from that spiritual oasis back to the concrete jungle of Cairo.

For me, venturing with Sufis opened my eyes to a spectrum of Islam distinct from the religiously conservative current in Egyptian society today. The Naqshabandi Sufis I spoke with, who themselves were practicing and very dedicated to their religion, emphasize the internal aspect of religion — that is, self-improvement and love of God, over the external, legalistic shade of religion that ventures into politics and religious enforcement. This experience showed me how intimate one could be with his or her religion and God without needing to implement his interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence on society, simply to prove himself as “Islamic.”

In Egyptian Muslim society, I find that the “soul” versus “law” dichotomy of religious focus is indicative of the split between Egyptian Muslims who disagree over what extent the Egyptian government should be “Islamized.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Iftar with the Sufis appeared first on 51�Թ�.

It is two in the morning, and I wander around a Tahrir Square teeming with activity. Street carts serving chicken liver sandwiches, beans, tea, juice, and sunflower seeds pave the square's curbs to satisfy Tahrir-goers' late-night cravings. Hardcore thawar, (revolutionaries) set up camp in and around the square to rest and prepare for the next day's anti-military rule demonstrations, vowing not to leave until their demands are met. It has nearly been 18 months since the initial uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, and still, the revolution continues.

Failed Justice for the Revolution's Martyrs

On June 2, Egyptians watched as Judge Ahmed Refaat delivered a long-awaited verdict that would hold Mubarak, his sons, and some of his closest allies responsible for the death of hundreds of protesters during the revolution that brought his downfall. Mubarak and his Interior Minister, Habib el Adly, were handed life sentences for failing to stop the killings. But when Mubarak's sons and top security officials were let off the hook, thousands of Egyptians demanding justice angrily descended upon the renowned Tahrir Square once again. As sunset fell, at least a few hundred thousand entered Tahrir to protest against the verdict, while for the next week, the square continued to bustle with protesters.

That night, almost the entire square was grouped into numerous clusters. Instead of lively gossip and teasing, these cliques were engulfed in intensive political debates and discussions. Some people shouted angrily at one another about the innumerable flaws of their presidential runoff candidates (or put forth vehement defenses for them). Others urged their fellow thawar to boycott the elections, while a few delivered impassioned orations about the need for a full revolution revival to anyone who would listen.

What everyone in the square shared that night, however, was a stark dissatisfaction with their candidate options, distain for the country's current political direction, and outrage that top elements of Mubarak's security apparatus were let off the hook in the verdict that was supposed to deliver justice to the martyrs of the revolution. Egyptians in the square were confused or cynical; subsequently they turned to their fellow Tahrir-goers as a guiding light.

An Islamist or a Felool

The scene I witnessed in Tahrir on June 2 was a microcosm of the political limbo, that even many non-politically active Egyptians continue to experience from their homes. With over half the Egyptian population having voted for a candidate that will not appear on the ballot on June 16-17, disillusionment with Egypt’s young democratic path is at an all time high. With each remaining presidential candidate comes his own set of inconsistencies with revolutionary aspirations. This weekend, Egyptians will be forced to choose between a conservative Islamist in the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammad Morsi, and a felool (old regime remnant) from the deepest antechambers of the military regime's old guard, Ahmad Shafiq.

Shafiq's flaws vis-a-vis the revolution are obvious. Before being installed as prime minister by Mubarak in a failed attempt to appease protesters during the January 2011 revolution, he served as the former president's aviation minister for nine years. Prior to that he was a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) as Commander of the Egyptian Air Force – position held by none other than Mubarak prior to becoming Anwar el Sadat's vice president.

Labeled as the quintessential counter-revolutionary candidate by many observers, Shafiq's agenda will cater as much as possible to restoring the old status quo, maintaining military power over governance, and suppressing the resurging trend of political Islam. His oft-touted campaign promise of bringing "stability and security" back to Egypt in the first 24 hours of his presidency is a potential guise for a fascist-like crackdown on the revolutionary, anti-regime, and Islamist opposition that will inevitably erupt if he wins the election.

How then, could such a regressive anti-revolutionary candidate make it this far in the Egyptian elections? Indeed, Shafiq's success certainly blindsided many Egyptians, who dismissed his campaign as the SCAF's feeble attempt to achieve democratic legitimacy.

The answer is dual pronged: First, Shafiq's appearance on the runoff ballot is not so much a testament to the strength of the counter-revolution as it is a lack of cohesion amongst those who are pro-revolution. The so-called "liberal" candidates scraped together over 50% of the popular vote. However, the liberal vote was split. Amr Moussa and Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh who seemed poised to make it to the runoff at the very least, lost large amounts of their votes to Hamdeen Sabbahi. The populist Nasserist candidate was virtually unheard of a month before the election, as the media shined its limelight on Moussa and Aboul-Fotouh, previously dubbed the "frontrunners." But after televised debate between the two, many Egyptian liberals reexamined their options and opted for Sabbahi who vowed to restore Egypt's dignity and champion the cause of the common man. Still, his surge of support was not enough to beat Morsi and Shafiq, two candidates with established political bases – the Muslim Brotherhood and the old guard.

Second, Shafiq capitalized on the fear stemming from prospects of a theocratic state, given the rise of political Islam in Egypt. He is seen as the safest bet for secular and Christian Egyptians who find comfort, given his degree of association with the old regime. Some believe Shafiq is willing to quash the Islamist trend.

Meanwhile, unlike Shafiq, Morsi's electoral success in the first round was not a surprise. The Muslim Brotherhood developed an apt political know-how while they were forced to function underground in order to survive sixty-plus years of harsh political repression. Over the years, the Brotherhood developed a "parallel Islamic sector" – an extensive network of professionals, intellectuals, social welfare workers and religious activists whose outreach has touched the lives of millions of Egyptians over the years, especially the underprivileged. Now that the Brotherhood functions legally and without the fear of imprisonment, its network has evolved into a full-fledged political machine, able to mobilize thousands of volunteers at short notice. This, coupled with the resurgent trends of Islamic conservatism, makes Morsi and the Brotherhood a political force to reckon with.

Nonetheless, many Egyptians have serious qualms with Morsi and the Brotherhood. The anti-Morsi crowd's most pronounced fear is that Egypt will take an Iran-like turn towards theocracy under his helm. With ultraconservative Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood already dominating both upper and lower houses of parliament and the committee that will oversee the drafting of the new constitution, opponents fear that Brotherhood control of the executive branch will extend a carte blanc to Islamists seeking to apply Shari'a law in a strict codified form à la Saudi Arabia. Under the strict application of Shari'a, many Egyptians feel that their personal freedoms will be severely curtailed.

While I was vacationing in a Red Sea resort, a souvenir shopkeeper pulled me aside and begged me to vote for Shafiq for his own sake. He felt that tourists will be turned off by an Islamist tide, and that current historically low levels of tourism will not recover if an Islamic regime bans alcohol.

Members of Egypt's Christian population – 10% of the country's 80 million – are terrified that their religious freedoms will diminish and that those carrying out sectarian violence will be emboldened. Morsi exacerbates fears of long-term Islamic rule when he spells out his 25 year Nahda (Renaissance) plan for Egypt's reformation. The plan outlines the Muslim Brotherhood's intentions; they do not simply plan on taking office for the next four years, but they are in it for the long haul.

"The Last Revolution Failed"

With flaws on both sides of the ballot, Egyptians are torn between two "evils"; should they betray the revolution and empower the old regime, or opt for a man who may usher in a religious era that restricts personal freedoms. Like the confused and disenchanted in Tahrir, many are stumped.

"Shafiq doesn't satisfy me, Morsi doesn't satisfy me, the devil doesn't satisfy me," stated A'laa Abdel Aziz, a 52-year old schoolteacher from Alexandria. "It's the worst case election scenario for the revolution. I hate to say it, but I feel like the blood of our martyrs has gone to waste."

Abanoub Samir, a 21-year old member of the Ultras Ahlawy angrily stated: "screw them both." When pressed, he said he will end up having to vote for Morsi – as much as he hates him – because he cannot risk empowering the old regime.

Reluctant support is the cornerstone of this election. The outcome of the vote depends not on the size of each candidate's political base, but on the amount of wary supporters it can drag along with them. Many of Shafiq's supporters do no like him but they hate Morsi, and vice versa. Indeed, Egyptians are forced to choose between a rock and a hard place.

Asmaa Mahfouz, a prominent pro-democracy activist whose famous YouTube video in January 2011 was credited with inspiring Egyptians to galvanize in Tahrir Square, has boycotted the election for this reason. "We already know Shafiq will win. The SCAF put him in the elections, ran the elections, and now the SCAF will see him through," she argued. Mahfouz is amongst the growing portion of Egyptians who are boycotting the vote. Analysts have predicted that the run-off will yield the lowest turnout yet.

"It's a corrupt election by a corrupt regime that never left. There will not be legitimate elections so long as the SCAF remains in power," claimed Mahfouz. She went on to argue that: "true victory for the Egyptian revolution means taking power from the military regime and installing a civilian authority. The last revolution failed, and we need a new one to oppose the SCAF."

Dissatisfied and dismayed with their options for a new leader, the aspirations of the revolutionary youth are under siege. Indeed, activists like Mahfouz are already looking ahead to Egypt's next uprising.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�'s editorial policy.

The post Egypt’s Revolution Under Siege appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Finally, the moment we have all been waiting for. Nearly a year and a half after a popular revolution that accomplished the once unfathomable and toppled the brutish dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, the time has come to witness the next leap forward in Egypt’s quest for democracy. The first round of polling on May 23 and 24 will mark the first free and fair presidential elections in Egypt’s history.

As Egyptians ponder over whom they will choose to lead their country through the aftermath of a tumultuous revolution, the question at the back of many observers’ minds lingers: what form will the county take when the next president presses his agenda? Will he be successful in prying power away from the military and to a civilian authority?

With presidential candidates running the ideological gamut, Egyptians and outside observers anxiously wait to see whether Egypt will follow the currents of resurgent Islamism to assume the form of a conservative theocracy, revert to Nasserist socialism, blossom into a liberal civil state, or return to a Mubarak-esque state of political dystopia.

Amongst the cornucopia of candidates, five frontrunners have emerged. What follows is an attempt to simplify this diverse political portrait.

Amr Moussa

A long-time statesman, accomplished diplomat, and self-proclaimed liberal, Amr Moussa served as foreign minister to former President Mubarak from 1991 to 2001. He was then the secretary-general of the Arab League from 2001 until 2011.

Earlier in his career, Moussa served as Egypt’s permanent representative to the United Nations and worked in several Egyptian missions in foreign countries, namely the US and Switzerland. Under Mubarak, Moussa forged good personal relationships with many Arab leaders — especially in the Gulf — while gaining popularity in Egypt for his harsh criticisms of Israeli policies and for his vocal support for Palestinians during the second Intifada.

During the revolution, he voiced cautious support for the popular uprising but never directly called for Mubarak to step down. In fact, during an interview he stated that he would vote for Mubarak if he ran for a sixth term (he later clarified that this was his alternative to voting for Gamal, Mubarak’s son who was being groomed as his successor) — nonetheless, this is surely held against him by anti-regime activists.

Moussa has managed to garner significant support among secular liberals, Copts, as well as supporters of the old regime who find comfort in his commitment to a civil (as opposed to Islamic) state and his progressive political agenda. His close association with the old regime leads many revolutionary youths to shun his candidacy and dub him a felool — a derogatory term used to insult remnants of Mubarak’s regime.

However, the fact that he was removed from the foreign ministry at the height of his popularity makes many believe that Mubarak perceived him as a potential political threat. This explanation, his supporters argue, sufficiently distances him from the previous regime. Moussa’s supporters argue that his charisma grouped with his political savvy and diplomatic experience makes him best suited to mitigate the challenges of the post-revolution era. His familiarity with the old regime may prove useful in negotiating power away from the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and into a civilian authority. Critics say that at 75, his age gives him an inherently “old school” mentality incapable of adapting to the aspirations of youthful revolutionaries.

Abdel Moneim Abol-Fotouh

Educated as both a physician and a lawyer, Abdel Moneim Abol-Fotouh led a politically active life since his university years. Abol-Fotouh made his first mark on the political scene whilst president of Cairo University’s student union in the 1970s. During a speech by former president Anwar el Sadat, he famously stood up and criticized the president to his face, censuring him for his repression of Islamic political activity and peaceful demonstrations. Sadat eventually jailed him along with 1500 other politically active intellectuals during a widespread crackdown against regime dissent. Abol-Fotouh was imprisoned again twice under Mubarak for allegedly conspiring to bring down the regime.

Despite repression from the regime, political Islam was trending in Egypt’s universities, and Abol-Fotouh actively participated in the grassroots social welfare and educational efforts of the underground “parallel” Islamic sector that flourished outside of government control during this time. Abol-Fotouh worked closely with the Muslim Brotherhood for many years, and rose to its highest executive office in a position he held from 1987 until he left in 2009.

He was officially dismissed from the organization in the summer of 2011 following his bid for presidency after the Brotherhood had stated it would not field a candidate (a position which it later reneged). Some observers believe his departure from the Brotherhood marked an internal purge within the organization: Abol-Fotouh, who was once markedly conservative in his Islamism, became a reformist and embraced a leftward shift in ideology, particularly regarding social issues. He maintains that he left the organization because the Muslim Brotherhood’s founders never wanted it to become a political party, wanting it to focus instead on social and religious advocacy.

A long time opponent of the old regime, Abol-Fotouh championed the January 25 revolution and actively participated in demonstrations from the very start; he was admired for setting up field hospitals for wounded protesters in Tahrir square.

His positions on religious and gender equality have gained him the support of many liberals, while his Islamist past appeals to conservatives who place a great deal of emphasis on religion. It is Abol-Fotouh’s Islamist and progressive dichotomy that gives him a broad appeal across Egyptian society unmatched by any other presidential candidate. Even before the revolution, his prominent role in the pro-democracy Kefaya (enough) movement mobilized liberals and Islamists alike in demanding democratic reforms from the Mubarak government.

With the plurality of visions for Egypt’s second republic that exists today, supporters believe that his broad appeal and populist agenda can potentially bring unity to Egypt, something that has remained elusive since the revolution. But Abol-Fotouh’s liberal critics fear that once he is elected, he will abandon his promises of moderation, and assist the Islamist-majority parliament to edge Egypt into a full-fledged theocracy — a sort of “stealth Islamization” of Egyptian society. On the other hand, critics on the far-right criticize Abol-Fotouh for being too liberal in his Islamism, especially on social issues. For instance, he has stated that he would consider appointing a female or Christian vice president.

Mohammad Morsi

Mohammad Morsi is president of the Muslim Brotherhood’s official political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party. An engineer by training, Morsi earned a bachelor’s degree in Cairo before receiving his master’s and PhD in rocket science at the University of Southern California.

After working in academia for several years both in the US and Egypt, Morsi joined the Muslim Brotherhood’s religious department and rose steadily through its ranks, finally becoming a member of its highest cabal, the Guidance Bureau. When Mubarak eased restrictions on unofficial political activity by Islamists in the mid-nineties, Morsi ran for Egypt’s lower legislative house as an independent and served as the spokesperson for the Brotherhood’s independent parliamentary bloc. He was re-elected in 2000, and in his capacity as a parliamentarian and Muslim Brotherhood leader, advocated for democratic reform, most notably as a co-founder of the Kefaya movement.

Morsi was not in Cairo at the start of the January 25 revolution, but his prominence within the Muslim Brotherhood led to his arrest in the Western Desert by Mubarak’s security forces. However, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has maintained a highly capable volunteer network since the 1970s, was a key mobilizing force against the Mubarak regime during the revolution. This efficient organizational mechanism is Morsi’s main advantage in the election, as the Brotherhood will unleash its hoards of volunteers to mobilize potential supporters and garner votes, especially in Egypt’s poorer and rural areas.

Throughout the presidential campaign, miles of Cairo’s streets could be seen lined with Muslim Brotherhood volunteers holding Mohammad Morsi placards. Ideologically, Morsi caters to the Egyptian religious right, and openly advocates for the integration of Islamic Shari’a law into Egypt’s legal apparatus. If elected, he benefits from having a Muslim Brotherhood dominated parliament with an Islamist majority to carry out his conservative Islamist agenda. Some Christians and secular liberals have vowed to leave Egypt if he is elected.

Hamdeen Sabahi

Founder of the Nasserist Al-Karama Party, Hamdeen Sabahi vows a return to a dignified, independent Egypt. Sabahi was born into a modest background of peasants and fishermen on Egypt’s north coast. He made his way into Cairo University where he studied mass communication and served as editor-in-chief of the university’s student-run magazine, as well as the head of the student union. A politically active student, Sabahi established a pro-Nasser organization aimed at opposing President Sadat’s engagement with the West and peace with Israel.

He was jailed in a crackdown against opposition in 1981 along with 1500 other political activists and intellectuals (the same sweep that captured fellow candidate Abol-Fotouh). Sabahi was jailed again under Mubarak’s regime for allegedly inciting protest by agricultural laborers against legislation that benefitted landowners over farmers.

Later, after parting ways with the Arab Democratic Nasserist party due to internal strife, he founded the Al-Karama party and ran twice for parliament under its banner in 2000 and 2005. He was jailed for a second time under Mubarak for organizing anti-US demonstrations opposing the Iraq war. Sabahi co-founded pro-democratization movements that emerged in Egypt throughout the 2000s, most notably the Kefaya movement and the National Assembly for Change that sought constitutional reform and social justice.

Sabahi took an active role during the January 25 revolution, protesting in Tahrir Square and mobilizing opposition to the old regime in his home government on the north coast. After Mubarak’s ouster, he has remained an outspoken critic of the military regime that is still in power, and has participated in a number of anti-military demonstrations since then. He believes the SCAF should be held accountable for the abuses it committed during the transitional period.

In adherence with his leftist, Nasserist platform, Sabahi aims to significantly increase the role of the public sector in the economy. He contends that the prolific privatization that took place under Mubarak was extremely corrupt, and wants to re-absorb many of these private entities into the state. He pledges a hard line against Western, specifically American, intervention in Egyptian domestic politics, and views Israel as a national threat to Egypt.

Opponents fear that these positions will alienate Egyptians on an international level, and end the American domestic and military aid that many in Egypt rely on. Other critics fear the ruthless political repression that was a namesake of former President Nasser’s regime. Some liberals worry that Sabahi’s leftist appeal will draw votes away from Abol-Fotouh and Moussa, leading to the worst case scenario for liberals: a runoff between Morsi and Ahmad Shafiq.

Ahmad Shafiq

An old regime stalwart, Ahmad Shafiq was the last prime minister appointed by Mubarak in his unsuccessful last-ditch effort to appease protesters during the popular uprising that removed him from office.

Shafiq’s career began in the military, where he graduated from the Egyptian Air Force Academy. A fighter pilot during the 1973 war against Israel, he served directly under Mubarak, who was the commander of the Egyptian Air Force until he was picked to be Sadat’s vice president. Shafiq rose steadily through Air Force ranks, becoming Air Force chief of staff and eventually reaching Mubarak’s former role as Air Force Commander. Mubarak then appointed Shafiq as his aviation minister in 2002, a position he served until the January 25 revolution.

Shafiq’s support comes primarily from those in Egyptian society who supported the ousted president and fear change to the status quo. Egyptians disillusioned by the lawlessness and political violence that have followed the revolution, feel that reverting to a member of the old regime will bring back stability. His supporters among the Egyptian high-rolling “ex-elite” hope he will continue Mubarak’s business-friendly economic policies that lined their pockets during his reign.

Many Coptic Christians support Shafiq, because their worst fear is an Islamist takeover of Egypt and a shift to an Islamic theocracy. In their view, a remnant of the old regime that suppressed Islamists for so long will prevent this from happening.

His critics call him the worst of the felool and insist that a vote for Shafiq is like a vote for Mubarak.

Shafiq’s candidacy cannot be disregarded because he is the candidate of the military establishment — the SCAF — which is still in power.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Egyptian Elections: Meet the Candidates appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Since the transition of Egyptian governance from the hands of a British-influenced monarchical system to a republic, the ruling elite and the Egyptian military apparatus have maintained a symbiotic relationship. To date, each successive Egyptian president has emerged from the military establishment. As a result, the military has played a key role in solidifying and maintaining each ruler’s power, whilst each president has ensured that military elites receive high-prestige and numerous societal perks.

The Arab Spring, however, is shifting the sands of Egyptian power. One year ago, after taking to the streets for 18 days demanding the removal of their long-standing president, Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian people overthrew a regime firmly rooted in the military establishment. But the military’s special relationship to the old regime rings true: indeed, when Mubarak stepped down from office, power was transferred directly to a cabal of high-ranking military personnel called the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

While the SCAF has promised a quick transition to a civilian government, their commitment to adhering to revolutionary demands has been doubted by millions of Egyptians as well as outside observers. The Egyptian revolutionaries demand a new constitution, parliamentary elections (which are currently taking place), presidential elections, and a rapid end to military rule. The power to adhere to these demands rests with the military junta which is headed by Field Marshall Mohammed Hussein Tantawi.

Will the ruling junta carry out their promise to abide by the demands of the revolution? Or will a power-hungry military elite thwart the demands of the Egyptian people in order to hold on to power?

A historical look at the civil-military relationship since 1952 and ensuing political trends under Gamal Abdul Nasser’s authoritarian reign, through to the “opening” (albeit slightly) of the Egyptian political system under Anwar al Sadat, and the emergence of the liberal Pan-Arab and independent media under Mubarak has created a reality in Egypt that would make any tyrant’s job very difficult. This trend demonstrates the implausibility of indefinite SCAF control of the country. After the strides made during the years of liberalization the Egyptian people simply do not want another military dictatorship. Thus, although there have been several attempts by the SCAF to stifle opposition – often violently – and maintain power, it is unlikely that they will be able to do so in the face of fearless, organized, and persistent activism in Egypt’s most liberal political climate to date.

Military Regime Takes Hold

In the wake of the perceived inefficacy of the heavily British-influenced, Wafd-party-staffed, monarchical regime, and Egypt’s embarrassing defeat by Israel in the 1948 war, a clique of elite military officers sought to utilize their military establishment as a means of correcting Egypt’s path. The 1952 Free Officer’s coup d’état formally abolished the monarch and declared Egypt a republic. A charismatic leader emerged from the military movement in Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser, who assumed the presidency for the next 18 years.

Despite his popularity around the Arab world and his populist agenda for Egypt, the nature of Nasser’s rule was highly authoritarian, and political opposition was not tolerated. After an assassination attempt on Nasser, many opposition figures including scores of Islamists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood were rounded up and either imprisoned or executed. All political parties except for Nasser’s own Arab Socialist Union were declared illegal. Egypt in its political functioning revolved solely around the presidency—like to a general in the army, everyone reported to Nasser. He and the military establishment that was built around him had a firm grasp on power that could not be legitimately challenged. The intimidating security and intelligence apparatus that he developed to stifle opposition became a staple of the Egyptian authoritarian tradition.

Seeds of Opposition

When Nasser died in 1970, his next-in-command became president. A military academy graduate and fellow (junior) Free Officer, Anwar al Sadat was another direct product of the Egyptian military establishment. Sadat pursued policies of political and economic enfitah (or "opening") that liberalized the country in these respective dimensions. Much different from the authoritarian approach of Nasser, Sadat allowed the re-emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood (although still illegal) and permitted limited political activity outside the control of the regime. He first allowed the formation of multiple “party platforms” to take hold under the Arab Socialist Union, and then eventually dissolved Nasser’s party to create the National Democratic Party. Political parties emerged out of these platforms, and limited political debate even took place in parliament. Unwittingly, this set the stage for underground opposition to the regime. A “parallel Islamic sector” began to develop in Egypt’s universities and professional syndicates. Along with its social and charitable work, the Muslim Brotherhood and like-minded Islamist groups learned to effectively organize political opposition.

These developments, unheard of in the Nasser era, made it more difficult for the regime to maintain power. It was during Sadat’s enfitah when seeds of political opposition were planted into Egyptian society. This reality culminated in the assassination of President Sadat by a radical Islamist group in 1981. Ironically—or perhaps symbolically—Sadat was assassinated while dressed in his full military uniform during a military parade. This reflects the relative weakness of the military regime after liberalization, compared to Nasser’s regime.

Liberalization Trends Persist

Again, as a consequence of the military establishment’s reign, the successor to the presidency was former Air Force Commander and SCAF member Hosni Mubarak. He, like his predecessor, took steps to further liberalize Egypt politically and economically. For the first time, opposition parties were able to field candidates in parliamentary elections. The liberal Wafd party, absent from the public realm since 1952, re-emerged and its members even forged a parliamentary coalition with members of the Muslim Brotherhood who ran as independents (the Brotherhood was still legally banned at this time). The parliament saw a semblance of ideological diversity in its chambers for the first time since 1952. Under Mubarak, the political climate made an irreversible turn down the road of political liberalization. This turn was only emboldened by trends of liberalization in the Egyptian media under Mubarak.

Before Mubarak, the only source of media was state-owned and state-run. In the 1980s, Mubarak allowed political opposition groups to publish their own periodicals—a sharp turn from the closed media under Sadat and especially under Nasser. This trend continued into the early 1990s when a Pan-Arab press emerged, particularly aimed at Egypt’s educated elite. By the end of the 1990s, Satellite TV was ubiquitous around Egypt and the liberal Qatari owned Al-Jazeera news station could criticize the regime over the airwaves, without fear of repercussion. In 2005, Masry-El-Youm, Egypt’s first independently owned newspaper emerged and consistently outsold the state owned Al-Ahram newspaper.

This emergence of a drastically freer media only amplified political opposition. News of widespread government corruption, crony capitalism, and grotesque abuses of power by the Egyptian regime’s security apparatus circulated freely amongst the public.

Eventually the Egyptian people had enough: groups of students, intellectual elites, liberals, repressed Islamists, and frustrated unemployed youths mobilized using online social media and cellular phones to organize large protests against the nizam (the "system"). January 25, 2011 marked the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution; these youth protests snowballed and spread throughout Egypt, forever giving Egyptians the sense of popular empowerment that they once found elusive. Though Mubarak tried to use his security apparatus—battalions of riot police with tear gas, rubber bullets, fire hoses, batons, and all—to violently quash the uprising, his efforts at intimidation were met only with greater numbers of youths in the streets. The “system” was far-removed from the closed iron-fisted rule of Nasser. The gradual liberalization of Egyptian society from the Nasser-era greatly loosened the grip of the military on the people.

Shifting Sands?

During the revolution itself, the military commanders saw Mubarak as the target of the people. They therefore decided not to take sides and refused to use military force against their own people. The SCAF saw the popular uprising as a potential opportunity to gain direct power. When Mubarak stepped down, he transferred authority of governance to the SCAF—leaders of the military establishment that Mubarak himself came from, so relatively speaking there was not much change.

Since the overthrow of Mubarak, there have been numerous indications that the SCAF does not want to relinquish power. They have tried over 12,000 Egyptians in military tribunals, delayed parliamentary elections more than once, attempted to limit political speech, maintained the Emergency Law (albeit recently partially lifted) that has been in place from the time that Sadat was assassinated, and have even violently suppressed protests. They massacred dozens of Coptic Christians during anti-SCAF protests at the Maspero state television building in March and they used fire, teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition in an attempt to evict demonstrators protesting against military rule from Tahrir Square.

Despite these abuses by the military, political opposition remains incredibly resilient. It is truly remarkable how 18 days of revolution and the toppling of a once seemingly invincible leader has changed Egypt. The political system in Egypt is more liberal than it has ever been. Political opposition is openly active in various forms. Over thirty-two political parties have been recently established, bringing the total number of recognized parties to 50. The media is more independent and transparent than ever before: they not only scrutinize every move of the SCAF, but criticize the junta for every wrong step that they take. Political debate and discussion have never occurred so freely in Egyptian coffee shops, sporting clubs, or at dinner tables. The youth are empowered. So are the poor, rich, old, and everyone in between—and the packed Tahrir Square on the first anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution proves it.

At present, the Egyptian people have their first truly representative parliament in decades. The people expect a new constitution and a transition of power to a civilian president; they will simply not accept anything less (or they will revive the revolution). Today, Egyptians breathe a political climate radically different from the one under Nasser, Sadat, and even Mubarak. For these reasons, despite any attempts to hold onto power longer than they are supposed to, the sheer popular will of the people against the SCAF will force them to hold fair elections and eventually relinquish power.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Shifting Sands: Political Liberalization of Egypt Since 1952 appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Few people in the world have attracted as much simultaneous hatred and adoration as Osama Bin Laden. His death several months ago spurred tears of joy to some and tears of mourning to others. Regardless of the emotion he evokes, Bin Laden’s impact on the course of world events is irrefutable. What follows is an attempt to chart key events in Bin Laden’s ideological development and trace the establishment of al-Qa’eda to its current place in world affairs.

Born into a wealthy family with close ties to Saudi royalty, Bin Laden first immersed himself into Islamist thought when he attended King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. At Abdul Aziz, Bin Laden frequented lectures of Professor Muhammad Qutb, brother of Seyyed Qutb; a prominent figure in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s – who was later imprisoned and executed by Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser’s regime. Bin Laden embraced the anti-secular works of Seyyed Qutb and adopted the ideology of Salafism. This ideology emphasizes an orthodox interpretation of Shari’ah and Islamic tradition, and frowns upon speculative Islamic theology, western Capitalism, Socialism, Sufism or any other schools of thought alien to the “original Islam” of the ancestors.  Salafim, or al-Salafiyyah, is often associated with the strict Hanballi School of Islamic jurisprudence and Wahhabism, the conservative state ideology of Saudi Arabia. What western media often labels “Islamic extremism” or “Islamic fundamentalism” can usually be more accurately associated with al-Salafiyyah.

Bin Laden’s personal ideology developed further under the works and teachings of Dr. Abdullah Yusef Azzam at Abdul Aziz University. Azzam was a Salafi theologian, preacher, and influential member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood who argued for a united front between Salafist and Islamist groups, focusing different national struggles into a united global jihad against enemies of Islam.

In the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Azzam issued a fatwa urging Muslims around the world to join in jihad against the Soviet Union to protect Muslim lands in Afghanistan. Soon after the Soviet invasion, Azzam left Abdul Aziz University for the Peshawar province of Pakistan (near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border) to develop an organizational framework for international recruits responding to calls for jihad against the Soviet Occupation. After graduating from Abdul Aziz in 1981, Bin Laden heeded the calls for jihad and joined Azzam in Pakistan.

Using the fortune he had inherited from his construction-mogul family, Bin Laden helped fund Azzam’s efforts to recruit Arab and Muslim volunteers for the Afghani Mujahedeen. He tapped his connections with Saudi elites to collect money for the cause and used the funds to establish training camps and barracks for volunteer fighters. In 1984 the pair had a wide-reaching network of donors from around the world to fund training camps for Arab and Muslim volunteers seeking to join the jihad against the Soviets. This network became known as Maktab al-Khidimat al-Mujahedeen al-Arab, or the Office of Services to the Arab Mujahedeen, and was al-Qa’eda’s organizational predecessor. They established Maktab al-Khidimat fundraising offices in the United States and the Arab World while continuing calls to Muslims to join the Mujahedeen. With the funds pouring in from around the world, Bin Laden organized and armed Arab recruits in Afghanistan, who became known as “Afghan Arabs,” to assist Afghani Mujahedeen. Bin Laden fought along-side volunteer and Mujahedeen forces in a few battles in 1986 and 1987.

The Soviets invaded and occupied Afghanistan in the midst of the Cold War, as the Kremlin sought to protect the Afghani Marxist-leaning government from an anti-Communist Islamist rebellion backed by the Mujahedeen. In Washington’s eyes, the Mujahedeen provided The United States an opportunity to combat Soviet expansion without direct military intervention. According to reports published by the Congressional Research Service, officials in the Carter administration orchestrated the covert financing of over $3 billion to aid the rebel forces fighting the Soviet occupation. This intelligence operation, codenamed Operation Cyclone by the CIA, funneled American funds and arms through its allies in the region to Mujahedeen andAfghan Arab fighters. Maktab al-Khidimat received most of its funds through the Saudi government, and some experts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.

By the end of the Soviet Occupation, Bin Laden’s Islamist network contained 10,000 to 20,000 volunteers, according to US intelligence. He had met members of Egyptian Islamist Ayman Zawahiri’s Islamic Jihad Organization who had joined the Mujahedeen. Zawahiri, keen to tap into the billionaire’s funds and network of devoted followers, coaxed Bin Laden away from Azzam’s Maktab al-Khidimat. Zawahiri, like Bin Laden, envisioned using his network to topple secular, pro-Western Arab governments such as Mubarak’s Egypt and Saddam’s Iraq. In 1988, Bin Laden, supported by his new Egyptian counterparts, created his own organization named Al Qa’eda, or “the base.” Soon after, he left Afghanistan.

When Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, Saudi tensions with Iraq were mounting. Saddam Hussein—fresh out of a war with Iran, in debt, and hungry for geo-political dominance—invaded Kuwait. Bin Laden lobbied the Saudi government to allow him to employ his vast network of militants to intervene against Saddam. Prince Sultan, the Saudi minister of defense, refused to assign him this mission. Rather, Riyadh allowed a United States-led force of Western powers to come to Kuwait’s aid, using Saudi soil as a launch pad for invading Kuwait. This decision by the Saudi regime was a slap in the face to Bin Laden and like-minded Salafists. How could the rulers of the sacred Islamic cities Mecca and Medina extend a carte blanch for military intervention to a non-Muslim, non-Arab country (not to mention Israel’s greatest ally)? To Bin Laden, allowing the United States to station its soldiers on Saudi soil made Riyadh an enemy—it had succumbed to the influence of a non-Muslim power and was allowing itself to be occupied.

Bin Laden issued manifestos to his followers denouncing the Saudi regime, criticizing its allegiance to the West. Wary of his pronounced criticisms of the Saudi Government, the regime froze his financial assets. After he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 for continuing to undermine the regime, Bin Laden went into exile in Sudan where he set up a few camps for veterans of the Afghan war. In Sudan, Bin Laden worked with Zawahiri in Khartoum, who planned to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak while he was visiting Addis Ababa, although Zawahiri spearheaded and masterminded the operation. When the assassination attempt failed in 1996, the Sudanese government forced Bin Laden and his affiliates out after facing pressure from the United States and Egypt. Without many other options, and the promise of a safe-haven for his organization from the Salafi Taliban government, Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Bin Laden joined leaders of Islamist jihad groups in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Egypt—including Zawahiri—in a joint declaration of jihad entitled “Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders”. In the declaration, the leaders provided justification for jihad, contending that the Arabian Peninsula’s holiest places have been desecrated by the United States, and that the United States uses its bases in the region as a “spearhead through which to fight the […] Muslim peoples.” They accuse the “crusader-Zionist alliance” of striking the strongest Arab countries in order to fragment Arab/Muslim unity against said alliance, referencing the 1998 United States bombing of alleged WMD sites in Iraq. This fatwa was particularly dangerous because it made—according to them—the killing of Americans and their allies, civilian and military, an “individual duty for every Muslim […] in any country which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [in Mecca]. Most importantly, the fatwa gave a religious justification for the September 11^th, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C.

The declaration of jihad attracted the attention of the CIA and prompted a series of arrests of known associates of its issuing members. The crackdown prompted retaliatory attacks on the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. After a bombing raid of training camps in Afghanistan linked to al-Qa’eda, Bin Laden and Zawahiri masterminded the autumn 2000 attacks of the USS Cole off the port of Aden in Yemen. Al-Qa’eda’s most infamous operation took place on September 11^th, 2001 when hijackers took hold of four planes, crashing them into the World Trade Center’s twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. This prompted the United States invasion of Afghanistan, where al-Qa’eda was operating. The ensuing war against pro-Taliban forces still continues to this day.

The United States’ invasion of Afghanistan overwhelmed Taliban fighters, and its government was soon replaced with a pro-American regime. Al-Qae’da was weakened as American military and intelligence specifically targeted al-Qae’da strongholds and known al-Qa’eda associates in Afghanistan. Much of its leadership, including Bin Laden and Zawahiri, fled into hiding in neighboring Pakistan.

While hiding from American forces, Bin Laden released a series of videotapes to the media, some with messages to the American people, others to the Muslim world. He served the primary role as a charismatic leader and figurehead for al-Qaeda, using his videos to inspire Islamists angry at Western intervention in the region to join the fight against the United States and their allies. On the other hand, Zawahiri was al-Qa’eda’s principal ideologue and unofficial spokesman. As the decade wore on, Bin Laden’s video appearances grew sparse while Zawahiri’s presence in the media increased. He continuously denounced Western imperialism, the United States’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, while urging Muslims around the world to attack American targets.

Some analysts argue that the United States’ invasion of Iraq had detracted away from the focus on the fight against al-Qa’eda in Afghanistan.  This argument suggests that the invasion gives fuel to al-Qa’eda’s recruitment efforts by validating its accusation of the United States as a “crusader power,” bent on plundering Muslim resources and lands and spreading its Western ideology. Since the invasion, the al-Qa’eda franchise in Iraq has successfully launched numerous attacks on United States forces and the post-Saddam American-allied Iraqi government. Experts assert that although al-Qa’eda in Afghanistan has been weakened since the invasion, top members in the organization have been able to command, inspire, and fund al-Qa’eda franchises in Yemen and Somalia while operating from the tribal regions in western Pakistan.

Despite this argument, members of the Obama administration have reported making good progress in their fight against al-Qa’eda. In 2010, then-director of the CIA Leon Panetta suggested that only fifty to one hundred al-Qa’eda members remained in Afghanistan. America’s greatest claim to success against al-Qa’eda came on May 2^nd of this year, when President Obama announced the successful killing of Bin Laden by American Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. CIA agents had been camped in a house next to Bin Laden’s hideout for five months before the operation, monitoring his daily routine and feeding Langley intelligence in preparation for the strike. The news of Bin Laden’s death triggered spontaneous celebrations in front of the White House in Washington, Ground Zero in New York, and college campuses around America. This same news prompted mourning amongst Salafists in Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Soon after reports of his killing, al-Qa’eda confirmed it with a public statement, yet assured its supporters that despite their leaders death, America “will not enjoy security until [their] people in Palestine do.”

With Bin Laden now dead, al-Qa’eda is without its founder and iconic leader, as a chapter of modern history comes to an end. It’s ironic that a man once funded has met his end at the same hands. While Bin Laden is gone, his legacy to Salafists and Islamists will endure for years to come. Ayman Zawahiri heads al-Qa’eda today, although specific details about the organization’s current backbone are well hidden for security purposes. Experts still disagree about the extent of al-Qa’eda’s role in Middle Eastern politics in the upcoming years. Al-Qa’eda affiliated groups in Somalia and Yemen remain intact, but the recent “Arab Spring” uprisings have provided Arab youth—al-Qa’eda’s usual recruitment base—an ability to voice discontent in the form of protest and revolution, rather than jihad. Only time will tell how the next chapter of Middle East history will read.

The post The Salafi Resistance: The rise and fall of al Qa’eda appeared first on 51�Թ�.