This Saturday, January 25th marks the three-year anniversary of Egypt’s 2011 uprising. Touted as the “Day of Anger,” these protests heralded the end of a regime and ushered in a new era of tumult for the Egyptian people, whose political future still remains unclear today. To commemorate this historic event, this week the blog will feature a series of guest posts from SUP authors and editors reflecting on Egypt’s recent and ongoing upheaval.
Samer Soliman was in Cairo when the uprising began, wrapping up his book, The Autumn of Dictatorship, on the subject of Hosni Mubarak's autocratic regime. Excerpted below is the epilogue he appended to the book, written just weeks into the protests and before Mubarak was forced out of office.
In early February 2011, as I looked out on the crowds in Tahrir Square, the symbolic center in the struggle for democracy, the site now known as the “Square of Freedom,” it seemed evident that this uprising was the extension of a longstanding, ongoing conflict among a number of parties: the corrupt authoritarian ruling group headed by President Mubarak, trying to maintain power; the millions of people across nearly all the major cities of Egypt, now occupying the streets; and the various political groups, each trying to steer the events toward their own aims and political preferences. But it was equally clear that something new had been achieved—a new spirit of courage, sacrifice, and solidarity among the common people who took to the streets, as well as some political gains. Hosni Mubarak, the old “patriarch,” has promised to leave his post in September 2011 after the completion of his sixth mandate, declaring on television that his only wish now was just to die in Egypt! His son Gamal and some of his allies were expelled from the National Democratic Party, the ruling party, which had seen most of its offices destroyed by furious demonstrators. The Central Security Forces, composed of hundreds of thousands of men who have repressed demonstrations and opposition since the rules of Nasser and Sadat and generally imposed terror across the country for decades, were defeated. Their forces were observed taking off their uniforms while escaping the rage of the masses. Many state security headquarters (the offices of the political police) were set ablaze. After three days of the uprising, the ruling group recognized the legitimacy of the uprising’s demands. It took yet more days before the regime sought to negotiate with the opposition, still maneuvering all the time to find ways to continue the Mubarak regime, just without Mubarak himself.
The Egyptian uprising has so far lost more than 300 martyrs, caused thousands of injuries, and seen hundreds disappeared and arrested—the highest price paid by the Egyptian democratic movement in many decades. But the strength of today’s opposition groups and the willingness of the democratic movement to pay this ultimate price for regime change is not merely a coincidence of events. Indeed, it is a natural outcome of long-term structural changes in Egyptian political economy.
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Ultimately, the differences between the [Egyptian uprising of 2011 and the short-lived uprising in January 1977] can be explained by the changing Egyptian political economy. The uprising of 1977 came after three years of economic liberalization (infitah), a process that created a new class of nouveau riche and generated deep resentment among state employees and the poor. As for the 2011 uprising, it takes place after now twenty years of Mubarak’s open economy initiative and after a long process of decline in state services and an increasing recourse to taxing the Egyptian population. Today, Egypt has a relatively important new middle class: financially autonomous vis-à-vis the state, relatively well educated, well connected to the external world, acquiring organizational skills and capacities via the Internet and the new modes of communication. This middle class has grown increasingly worried by the deterioration of state institutions and the incapacity of the state to stimulate successful economic development, while at the same time turning to ask for more money, such as the newly imposed property tax. In the end, a new balance of power is being forged between the government and the middle class.
It is too early to predict the outcomes of the 2011 Egyptian uprising, but it is evident that we are now observing the autumn of Mubarak’s dictatorship. This uprising is not the product of euphoria among the youth, as the official media sometimes try to claim, but rather the outcome of a lengthy structural transformation in the political economy of Egypt. May the future bring democracy to this country, not a new form of authoritarianism.
Samer Soliman was an Assistant Professor of Political Economy and Political Science at the American University in Cairo. As an activist for human rights and democratic politics, he was also a frequent columnist in the Egyptian media and founder and editor of Al-Bosla a radical democratic publication. When asked by The Chronicle of Higher Education what the role of the scholar-activist in Egypt was he answered, "To put my scientific knowledge and my expertise in writing at the service of the democratic movement."
In the next post from this week's blog series, anthropology professor, Jessica Winegar, considers the Ambiguous Symbols in the Egyptian Uprising.
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