![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccI woke up on Saturday morning and had a quick glance at Facebook. Of the feed, the top four posts were in Arabic, with lots of exclamation marks. All four were from Egyptian friends.
"OK", I thought "what's happened now?"
I honestly didn't think Mubarek would have resigned.
I am happy for them but, along with a lot of other people, wary of what comes next. One paragraph in the linked article summed things up for me well:
"Egypt is returning to the 1952 model of ruling the state via a council of army officers," the statement said. "The question now is to what extent the military elite will share power with its civilian counterparts."
Amnesty International warned that Mubarak's departure did not mean an end to the police state.
"The repressive system that Egyptians have suffered under for three decades has not gone away and the state of emergency remains in place," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general. "Those in power must grasp this opportunity to consign the systematic abuses of the past to history. Human rights reform must begin now."
Obsidian Wings posted an interesting link to analysis of who's actually armed in Egypt - further analysis of why the military stopped supporting him is here. And fascinating.
On Monday, 31 January, we saw Naguib Sawiris, perhaps Egypt’s richest businessman and the iconic leader of the developmentalist “nationalist capital” faction in Egypt, joining the protesters and demanding the exit of Mubarak. During the past decade, Sawiris and his allies had become threatened by Mubarak-and-son’s extreme neoliberalism and their favoring of Western, European and Chinese investors over national businessmen. Because their investments overlap with those of the military, these prominent Egyptian businessmen have interests literally embedded in the land, resources and development projects of the nation. They have become exasperated by the corruption of Mubarak’s inner circle.
But also:
Then in the 1990s, Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Boutros-Ghali articulated new UN doctrines of state-building and militarized humanitarian intervention. But he got fired for making the mistake of insisting that international human rights and humanitarian law needed to be applied neutrally and universally, rather than only at the convenience of the Security Council powers. Yet Egypt’s relationship to the UN continues. Notably, ‘Aida Seif Ad-Dawla, one of the most articulate, brave and creative leaders of the new generation of Egyptian social movements and feminist NGOs, is a candidate for the high office of UN Rapporteur on Torture. Egyptians have a long history for investing in and supporting international law, humanitarian norms and human rights. Egyptian internationalism insists on the equal application of human rights principles and humanitarian laws of war even in the face of superpower pressure. In this context, ElBaradei’s emergence as a leader makes perfect sense. Although this internationalist dimension of Egypt’s “local” uprising is utterly ignored by most self-conscious liberal commentators who assume that international means “the West” and that Egypt’s protesters are driven by the politics of the belly rather than matters of principle.
I would argue that both are drivers - but certainly there is a generation of underemployed, tertiary-educated youth who are pushing things forward, and part may well spring from frustration at the lack of jobs and prospects, but also from ideals they wish the state would hold. When we were in Egypt in 2007 there was a presidential election on. None of the Egyptians I knew voted. "What's the point? It's bullshit." Mubarek won with 97% of the vote. They were right. It was bullshit. And they were frustrated as hell by it.
No one knows how things will pan out here. The dissolution of parliament and suspension of the constitution by the military could go either way at this stage. Whatever happens the military will play some sort of role, that much is pretty much guaranteed. Whether it's a role in which they are the servant of parliament, or whether they dictate terms to parliament remains to be seen. My guess is probably they'll attempt the latter - whether/how long they'll get away with it is anyone's guess. The people are frustrated - if the military dictate terms but provide jobs and less corruption then they'll probably be OK. If the corruption levels remain the same and the underemployment stays stable then I think people will be out in the streets again. One interesting note came from a BBC report by John Simpson:
The military leaders realised that cracks were starting to appear in the army's structure. Many junior officers, ordinary soldiers, sided with the demonstrators. The generals backed the president who was one of their own.
There is a historical echo to this. In the 1952 revolution against the monarchy, some senior officers supported the king, while younger ones like Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser backed the coup.
Whether the younger officers will obey and pass on orders to fire on civilians is debatable at this point. They certainly declined to do so during these protests. Simpson seems to think that the regime change has a chance to be a permanent form of government change:
In Egypt's 5,000 years as a unitary state, these people have never been able to choose their government before.
Will the army let it happen? It is hard to think now that they could prevent it. The people who have taken control of their cities and their country once know how to do it again. It would be foolhardy for the army to try to stop them.
I really hope that that is the case, and that the quite literally Military-Industrial complex which has been in power since 1952 realises that. I'm not as sure as Simpson is that the army won't try and stop them though... but again, whether different factions of the military - to confuse things further Mubarek was supported by the Air Force, which is the branch he was originally from, but not by the Army - end up facing off (hopefully in boardrooms rather than the streets) to determine where to go next and whether to try this democracy experiment or whether to maintain the status quo with a new puppet leader is anyone's guess.
Anyway. I joined a facebook group today urging people to return to visit Egypt. Given that tourism is Egypt's main industry (possibly after agriculture) I can understand why they want tourists back as soon as possible. I would like to go back - but I'll probably have to wait a bit first. Not so much for political unrest reasons (although they're in there - I generally try to avoid active zones of unrest[1]), more finances and leave. In the meantime I hope for a new dawn for Egypt - and good luck to the people there.
[1] Yes I am going to Fiji this year. Which is... sort of a zone of unrest. Although as my friend put it - "it all happens in Suva. Outside of Suva people go 'oh didn't they already have a coup? Is this another one? Oh. OK.' and go on with their daily lives..."
"OK", I thought "what's happened now?"
I honestly didn't think Mubarek would have resigned.
I am happy for them but, along with a lot of other people, wary of what comes next. One paragraph in the linked article summed things up for me well:
"Egypt is returning to the 1952 model of ruling the state via a council of army officers," the statement said. "The question now is to what extent the military elite will share power with its civilian counterparts."
Amnesty International warned that Mubarak's departure did not mean an end to the police state.
"The repressive system that Egyptians have suffered under for three decades has not gone away and the state of emergency remains in place," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general. "Those in power must grasp this opportunity to consign the systematic abuses of the past to history. Human rights reform must begin now."
Obsidian Wings posted an interesting link to analysis of who's actually armed in Egypt - further analysis of why the military stopped supporting him is here. And fascinating.
On Monday, 31 January, we saw Naguib Sawiris, perhaps Egypt’s richest businessman and the iconic leader of the developmentalist “nationalist capital” faction in Egypt, joining the protesters and demanding the exit of Mubarak. During the past decade, Sawiris and his allies had become threatened by Mubarak-and-son’s extreme neoliberalism and their favoring of Western, European and Chinese investors over national businessmen. Because their investments overlap with those of the military, these prominent Egyptian businessmen have interests literally embedded in the land, resources and development projects of the nation. They have become exasperated by the corruption of Mubarak’s inner circle.
But also:
Then in the 1990s, Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Boutros-Ghali articulated new UN doctrines of state-building and militarized humanitarian intervention. But he got fired for making the mistake of insisting that international human rights and humanitarian law needed to be applied neutrally and universally, rather than only at the convenience of the Security Council powers. Yet Egypt’s relationship to the UN continues. Notably, ‘Aida Seif Ad-Dawla, one of the most articulate, brave and creative leaders of the new generation of Egyptian social movements and feminist NGOs, is a candidate for the high office of UN Rapporteur on Torture. Egyptians have a long history for investing in and supporting international law, humanitarian norms and human rights. Egyptian internationalism insists on the equal application of human rights principles and humanitarian laws of war even in the face of superpower pressure. In this context, ElBaradei’s emergence as a leader makes perfect sense. Although this internationalist dimension of Egypt’s “local” uprising is utterly ignored by most self-conscious liberal commentators who assume that international means “the West” and that Egypt’s protesters are driven by the politics of the belly rather than matters of principle.
I would argue that both are drivers - but certainly there is a generation of underemployed, tertiary-educated youth who are pushing things forward, and part may well spring from frustration at the lack of jobs and prospects, but also from ideals they wish the state would hold. When we were in Egypt in 2007 there was a presidential election on. None of the Egyptians I knew voted. "What's the point? It's bullshit." Mubarek won with 97% of the vote. They were right. It was bullshit. And they were frustrated as hell by it.
No one knows how things will pan out here. The dissolution of parliament and suspension of the constitution by the military could go either way at this stage. Whatever happens the military will play some sort of role, that much is pretty much guaranteed. Whether it's a role in which they are the servant of parliament, or whether they dictate terms to parliament remains to be seen. My guess is probably they'll attempt the latter - whether/how long they'll get away with it is anyone's guess. The people are frustrated - if the military dictate terms but provide jobs and less corruption then they'll probably be OK. If the corruption levels remain the same and the underemployment stays stable then I think people will be out in the streets again. One interesting note came from a BBC report by John Simpson:
The military leaders realised that cracks were starting to appear in the army's structure. Many junior officers, ordinary soldiers, sided with the demonstrators. The generals backed the president who was one of their own.
There is a historical echo to this. In the 1952 revolution against the monarchy, some senior officers supported the king, while younger ones like Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser backed the coup.
Whether the younger officers will obey and pass on orders to fire on civilians is debatable at this point. They certainly declined to do so during these protests. Simpson seems to think that the regime change has a chance to be a permanent form of government change:
In Egypt's 5,000 years as a unitary state, these people have never been able to choose their government before.
Will the army let it happen? It is hard to think now that they could prevent it. The people who have taken control of their cities and their country once know how to do it again. It would be foolhardy for the army to try to stop them.
I really hope that that is the case, and that the quite literally Military-Industrial complex which has been in power since 1952 realises that. I'm not as sure as Simpson is that the army won't try and stop them though... but again, whether different factions of the military - to confuse things further Mubarek was supported by the Air Force, which is the branch he was originally from, but not by the Army - end up facing off (hopefully in boardrooms rather than the streets) to determine where to go next and whether to try this democracy experiment or whether to maintain the status quo with a new puppet leader is anyone's guess.
Anyway. I joined a facebook group today urging people to return to visit Egypt. Given that tourism is Egypt's main industry (possibly after agriculture) I can understand why they want tourists back as soon as possible. I would like to go back - but I'll probably have to wait a bit first. Not so much for political unrest reasons (although they're in there - I generally try to avoid active zones of unrest[1]), more finances and leave. In the meantime I hope for a new dawn for Egypt - and good luck to the people there.
[1] Yes I am going to Fiji this year. Which is... sort of a zone of unrest. Although as my friend put it - "it all happens in Suva. Outside of Suva people go 'oh didn't they already have a coup? Is this another one? Oh. OK.' and go on with their daily lives..."
