How the Tahrir protests escalated and how the Muslim Brotherhood fell out of favor.
Q:
Three years ago, what do you think Egyptians envisioned for their political future? What brought them to Tahrir?
SHEHATA: Of course, during the initial days of the uprising people were not devising detailed plans about the types of political institutions they wanted to establish after Mubarak’s departure. In fact, when the protests began they were not primarily about calling for Mubarak’s resignation. The original demands were far more modest: the removal of the despised Interior Minister (Habib Al Adly), police reform, and other political changes. But the demands quickly increased to include Mubarak’s resignation and the more all-encompassing goal of “The People want to Topple the Regime.”
One of the most common rallying cries during the eighteen days between January 25 and February 11, 2011 (the date of Mubarak’s resignation) was “Bread, Freedom and Social Justice.” “Bread” symbolized jobs, an end to poverty, economic prosperity and development. Freedom meant an end to dictatorship, tyranny, and police repression. And the call for “social justice” stood for social equity (rather than the extremes of wealth and poverty that had grown worse during the last decade of the Mubarak regime), as well as equality before the law—the demand for citizens to be treated with dignity by the state and government officials, and for the end of corruption.
By the third week of protests some in Tahrir and other parts of country had articulated very specific demands and a vision for the future that went far beyond Mubarak’s resignation. This was beautifully represented in the unfurling of a massive ten-story banner on the side of a building in Tahrir Square listing the people’s demands. They included dissolving both houses of parliament, lifting the state of Emergency, the formation of a transitional unity government, an elected parliament to amend the constitution, presidential elections, and trying (before a court of law) those responsible for killing protesters (“the revolution’s martyrs”) and stealing the country’s wealth.
More generally, I think people wanted thoroughgoing political reform that would lead to the creation of a modern, efficient, and effective state based on freedom, citizenship, equality, social and economic rights, and the accountability of elected and government officials.
Q:
What precipitated the Muslim Brotherhood's fall from power? What do you think were the organization's biggest missteps?
SHEHATA: Where to begin? Morsi and the Brotherhood made so many colossal mistakes during his one year in office that it is hard (nay, impossible) to point to a single factor. However, most would date the beginning of Morsi’s demise to November 22, 2012 and his “Constitutional Declaration” placing his edicts above judicial review.
This was immediately and widely criticized as “authoritarian” and a “power grab” (and rightly so). Of course, Morsi had his reasons for doing this (e.g. he wanted to safeguard the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly drafting a “shari‘a heavy” constitution before Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court could rule to dissolve the body). Morsi’s declaration was soon amended to become a temporary measure (until the constitution’s passage) but it was still unacceptable, as was the constitution that was eventually drafted and approved. Many Egyptians were outraged, opposition forces and parties immediately united around this issue, and the National Salvation Front was born.
The following few weeks proved equally disastrous for Morsi and the Brotherhood. When hundreds of secular, liberal and youth activists went to the presidential palace to protest the Constitutional Declaration and the proposed constitution, they were attacked by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Several people were killed and many others were injured. And during the demonstrations, senior Muslim Brotherhood figures called on their members to “defend the President and the Presidential Palace”—which was essentially a call to arms.
Morsi made a number of other terrible mistakes. He broke many of his campaign promises, (for example, he failed to appoint a woman and a Copt as Vice Presidents) and most importantly, he failed to be an inclusive leader. Rather than being a president for all Egyptians, many felt he was ruling for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, his focus seemed to be more on consolidating power than on (effectively) governing and addressing the country’s myriad problems.
However, it would be both naïve and mistaken to stop here and blame Morsi and the Brotherhood alone for the resulting crisis and his fall from power. A number of other forces were operating—sometimes in collusion—to actively undermine Morsi and ensure his demise. Elements of the Mubarak regime (the intelligence and the security forces, the military, segments of the judiciary and government-controlled media), figures in the business elite and the private media, along with some of the “liberal” opposition were actively working against Morsi and the Brotherhood, some from the very beginning, to ensure his failure. And they succeeded.
For more on Professor Shehata's take on the decline of the Muslim Brotherhood's popularity, see his New York Times op-ed. And to learn more about the Muslim Brotherhood's genesis, see Professor Beth Baron's excerpt fromThe Orphan Scandal.
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