Every autocrat in the Arab world must be shaking in his sandals. All of them would have experienced a frisson when the Ben Ali regime of Tunisia came crashing down after a mere four weeks of street demonstrations, but Egypt is altogether a more serious matter. The most populous nation in the Arab region (nearly 80 million) has always been perceived as somewhat of a bulwark by various external interests, and altogether too tightly controlled to be under threat of anything as cataclysmic as a popular uprising. Up until Friday the pundits were doubtful that Hosni Mubarak could be overthrown with quite the ease that his Tunisian counterpart was – if he could at all – because in Egypt the regime is backed by the military, and its four presidents over the last six decades have all been military men.
The military’s association with modern Egyptian politics began in 1952, with the overthrow of King Farouk by a group of young army officers. Lieutenant General Naguib was made a kind of figurehead of this group, but he was manoeuvred out of office by a more junior officer, Gamal Abdel Nasser, in 1954. While Nasser enjoyed immense popularity, not just in Egypt, but throughout the Arab world, he was still an autocrat. On his death in 1970, he was succeeded by his Vice President, Anwar Sadat – who had also been one of the army officers of 1952 fame. Sadat was assassinated by Islamists in 1981 at a military parade, where his successor, then Vice President and former commander of the air force, Hosni Mubarak, was wounded in the hand. Two-thirds of Egypt’s population is under the age of 30, and will therefore never have known any government other than that of Mubarak.
What is interesting about the current street action in Cairo, Suez and other cities, is that it is not led by anyone. It just represents a spontaneous outpouring of frustration and anger by people of all classes, although there was co-ordination between them at the beginning through means of the social network sites, among other things, until the government closed these down. As technology progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult for repressive governments to keep their populations in ignorance of circumstances and events, and prevent them from communicating with each other in times of protest. It was the humble fax machine which exposed the Chinese government at the time of Tiananmen Square, while twenty-odd years later the disaffected citizens of Iran, Tunisia and Egypt could resort – at least initially – to the internet and the mobile phone.
There is something else too: The kind of bloodshed that the old absolute rulers were prepared to sanction in putting down demonstrations and riots, is not so easy for their modern successors to countenance, particularly if, as in Tunisia and Egypt, they attempted to cultivate a false patina of democracy. Every move the authorities make in such circumstances is broadcast on the BBC, CNN, or in this case, al Jazeera, among many others, and the effect of a mass killing broadcast worldwide will perhaps no longer intimidate, but instead engender greater anger. This is in addition to the repercussions for an authoritarian government’s international standing in this current human rights climate, and the outpouring of condemnation which would inevitably ensue.
While invariably some deaths and innumerable beatings and injuries are inflicted on modern protestors – in addition, of course, to mass arrests – massacres in the true sense are generally avoided. The modern-day autocrat has to walk a tightrope of using just enough force to terrorize the demonstrators, but not enough to cause an international outcry or aggravate his situation in the short term. The problem comes if the protestors cannot be cowed and dispersed by water cannon, rubber bullets, beatings and some killings. Every now and then there comes a point in mass movements if the numbers are large enough, when people cease to fear for their individual safety, and subsume their identities under that of the crowd, whose ends become all consuming. And that is what seems to have happened in Egypt.
In these circumstances, a few concessions from the government will not deflect the demonstrators, and are likely only to provoke them into insisting on their ultimate demands, which in this case is Mubarak’s departure. As it is, the Egyptian President has dismissed his cabinet, made new appointments and has promised reforms; however, at the time of writing, he himself had not resigned, and that is unlikely to satisfy the citizenry. When faced with unrest on previous occasions, he made concessions by subsidizing food items to make them more affordable, and the grander sweep of his latest effort at least reflects his grasp of the fact that the situation is qualitatively different from what happened in the past. But a new cabinet does not mean regime change, and regime change is what Egyptians are demanding.
The key factor in all of this is the military. While Egyptians hate the police and the security services who are accused of all kinds of abuses including torture, the army is respected. While Mubarak has sent the army into central Cairo and Suez for the first time since 1985, it has not engaged the demonstrators so far; it has just taken up positions to protect certain key installations, including, happily, Cairo’s main museum where the treasures of Tutankhamen are held, and in the case of the desert, the pyramids, to protect them from looters. Exactly how the military decides to play this situation, will determine the outcome of the uprising.
According to the BBC, the present commander of the army is very close to the West and to the Americans in particular. After all, Egypt’s powerful military depends on funding of well over US$1 billion a year from Washington, and will not be seeking to put that in jeopardy. In addition, since Mubarak is one of their own, if they decide he has to go they would presumably seek a face-saving solution for him. One can only assume that the most senior echelons of the army would have been made aware of White House concerns; Egypt after all is one of the cornerstones of US Middle East policy, and in consequence receives a quantum of aid only second to that of Israel. Egypt’s army and the US government, therefore, have a certain commonality of interest, and neither would wish to see the situation dissolve into anarchy or produce an outcome which would undermine American policy on the one side, and put at risk its continued funding of the country and the army on the other.
If the military decides President Mubarak should step down, the question would then be, what next? One must presume there would be a transitional phase to put in place arrangements meeting some of the demands from the street. As mentioned above, this rising, like the Tunisian one, has no leaders. It is true that ElBaradei, a Nobel prize-winner and the former head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, flew into Egypt last Thursday, clearly seeking a role in any transitional government – no doubt as president. While well known outside Egypt, his name does not have a popular resonance with the masses; after all, he hasn’t worked in Egypt for many years. For all of that he is not contaminated by the Mubarak regime, and might be considered a suitable transitional figure to head a temporary government. On the other hand, the military might look for a figure whom they know and would feel comfortable with. At the time of writing, Mubarak had just named a deputy. Whether he is the transitional figure the authorities have in mind, or whether he will just take over from the President and the regime will remain intact (with different faces) remains to be seen; but either way, he will probably be unacceptable on the streets, more especially as he is the security minister.
The largest opposition group is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned as a political organization, but whose members fight elections individually as independents. They are an Islamist group, and the possibility that they might be able to take advantage of the situation, or come to power in a free and fair election is enough to cause apoplexy in Washington. They are, however, committed to non-violence as the means to their goals – with some exceptions, such as in the case of fighting Israel – and seek social justice and the eradication of poverty. They are less radical than their offspring, such as Hamas in the Palestinian territories are; however, since they seek an Islamic state, how much freedom their political structure would permit is a moot point. If nothing else, they are known to be conservative on the subject of women’s rights.
What is interesting, however, is that although the Brotherhood has leaders (at least one of them has been arrested by the authorities) these have not led the demonstrations. In addition to anger over unemployment, police brutality, high food prices, etc, the protestors have been calling for democracy, which in its Western sense is something which the Brotherhood would not endorse in its entirety. It was some days after the protests had started, therefore, before the Muslim Brotherhood told its supporters to go out into the streets after Friday prayers. Since they have come late into the action, they have little, if any purchase on the situation.
If Mubarak goes, then attention will turn to other Arab states, beginning with Yemen. If the demonstrations spread, then the year 2011 will go down in history as the 1848 of the Arab world.