and his interior minister, Habib al-Adli, committed every possible crime in order to stop the revolution. The riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters, and then orders went out to kill them. I was in the midst of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators when the snipers started firing. They were standing on the roof of the Interior Ministry, using rifles equipped with laser sights. The shots would hit the protesters right in middle of the head and kill them instantly. Two young men fell close to me within half an hour. The amazing thing is that the protesters did not retreat. As far as I could I urged the young men to move away from the Interior Ministry so that the snipers would not kill them. But no one cared any longer for their life or safety. It seemed that millions of people had melded into one giant human throng fighting for freedom regardless of the difficulties and the sacrifices. When all these crimes failed to stop the revolution, the regime carried out its emergency plan: police officers received orders to withdraw so that not a single policeman would be left in all Egypt. Then the prisons were opened and thousands of dangerous criminals were set free, armed, and sent out to attack houses and start fires. The aim was to frighten Egyptians into giving up the protests and staying at home to protect their houses from attack. But this vile scheme made Egyptians more determined than ever to continue the revolution. In every street in Egypt people set up neighborhood watch groups to protect people from criminals and thugs. Day after day the revolution made progress, and the regime tottered. On the eighteenth day I was standing near Tahrir Square having a discussion with some protesters when I heard a sharp cry, followed by more loud shouts of “He’s stepped down!” Millions of Egyptians then launched into a riotous celebration throughout the night, overjoyed that Mubarak had resigned and the dictatorship had fallen.
The Egyptian revolution took the world by surprise and forced western interests to review the superficial and mistaken political analysis of Egypt that has long been current. From the first day broad international solidarity with the revolution was evident. Across the west people declared their support for the demands of the Egyptian people, while some western governments hesitated until the last moment between supporting the revolution and backing Mubarak, their dictatorial ally. In the end the most important question remains: Why did Egypt unexpectedly revolt? What were the problems and contradictions in Egyptian society that made revolution inevitable? This book may contain many of the answers.
February 2011
The Egyptian Campaign against
the Succession
Those who work in the theater know the moment when one scene ends, the stage goes dark, and the stage hands move in at speed to remove the set from the previous scene and replace it with the set for the next scene. This process, known as changing the set, calls for training and skill but first of all precise knowledge of what the next scene requires. Like all Egyptians I watched the latest conference of the National Democratic Party and was surprised at the extraordinary ability of the senior officials to fabricate and lie. They speak about achievements that exist only in their reports and their imaginations while millions of Egyptians live in complete misery. But I also felt that Egypt is now undergoing a ‘changing the set’ moment that was meant to take place quickly but has dragged on and faltered, and there are many reasons for that. First, President Mubarak has been ruling Egypt for thirty years and is now more than eighty years old. Although I have full respect for him, by virtue of age and the law of nature he cannot continue in his position forever. A few days ago Mr. Emad Adib suddenly confronted public opinion with a most unusual remark: he said he hoped the president would give up his office and suggested presidents should be able to leave power safely, in the sense that they should not be held to account, politically or legally, for their deeds while in office. It’s hard to imagine that a veteran commentator who is close to the presidency, such as Emad Adib, would venture such a precise and serious suggestion unless he had permission or instructions to do so. These signs add to the confusion on the political stage in our country, because we don’t know whether the president will step down or stay in office. It often seems as though there are two wills at work at the summit of power: one in favor of the president remaining and the other in favor of him stepping down.
Second, for years the Egyptian regime has worked hard to prepare Mr. Gamal Mubarak to inherit the government of Egypt from his father. This effort has not been confined to Egypt but has extended abroad as well, and the main aim of Egyptian foreign policy is now, I’m sorry to say, to muster the support of western countries for Mr. Gamal Mubarak. The price for this western consent is the interests, the money, and the dignity of Egyptians. The Egyptian regime has understood that the key to the West’s heart is in Israel’s hands. If Israel is content, then all the western countries will immediately be content. For the sake of the succession the Egyptian regime has fallen over itself to offer services to Israel. From 2005 until today Israel has obtained from Egypt things it had not obtained since Camp David in 1978: the return of the Egyptian ambassador, gas, oil, and cement agreements, and, more important than all that, Egypt’s attempts to persuade or force the Palestinians to do everything Israel demands. This went as far as closing the Rafah border crossing and taking part in the blockade of the Palestinians, and punishing Hamas so that it submits to Israel’s will.
In return for these services the Egyptian regime has been able to obtain implicit international support on the succession question. We may recall the Sharm al-Sheikh conference that took place after the Gaza massacre, how western leaders feted President Mubarak and thanked him officially for what they called “his efforts for peace.” We may also recall how President Obama, whom the American people elected to defend human rights and democracy through the world, himself heaped praise on President Mubarak as a wise leader taking steps toward democracy. This double standard has always marked the attitudes of western governments. Any allegation of electoral fraud in Iran (Israel’s prime enemy) is immediately met with an intense and relentless campaign by western media and officials in defense of democracy, whereas the emergency law, detentions, torture, constitutional amendments to enable the succession, and the abolition of judicial supervision in Egypt, all that does not at all arouse the indignation of westerners, because the Egyptian regime is an important and loyal ally to Israel and the United States.
Third, the succession campaign may have succeeded internationally but inside Egypt it has been an abject failure, because Egyptians have never accepted the idea that Egypt should become a monarchical republic in which the son inherits his father’s throne. Add to that the fact that Gamal Mubarak himself, while I fully respect his person, may be a successful expert on banks and business management but he does not have any political talent or experience of any kind. Dozens of meetings and seminars have been held at which Gamal Mubarak has made speeches hailed by hypocritical members of the National Democratic Party and government writers, and Mr. Gamal Mubarak has been to villages and poor neighborhoods on numerous visits where some wretched people are chosen by State Security to have their pictures taken as they clap and cheer for him. None of these campaigns has convinced Egyptians that succession is a good idea. On the contrary, they have made Egyptians reject, condemn, and sometimes joke about the succession.
Fourth, conditions in Egypt have reached rock bottom in the full sense: poverty, disease, oppression, corruption, unemployment, lack of healthcare, and deteriorating education. Would anyone have imagined that Egyptians would end up drinking sewage water? The number of people who have died on the ferry that sank, on burning trains, and in collapsed buildings is more than the number who died in all the wars Egypt has fought. That’s why protests and strikes have proliferated in a way that Egypt has not seen since the revolution of 1952. The regime’s apologists say these protests do not reflect a real desire for radical reform but are aimed at achieving narrow professional demands. It escapes those people that most revolutions in history started out with protest movements that did not fundamentally seek revolution, because revolution is not a slogan or a prior objective but a stage a society goes through at a certain moment, when everything becomes liable to ignite. We are definitely at such a stage. All Egyptians know that the
