Activists in Egypt have not yet given up
A year ago I was deeply concerned about how protests against the then president Mohamed Morsi might turn out. When the military removed him days later, I worried how his followers might respond, and how the state might move against them.
Last week, two fine journalists I know, among others on trial, were jailed by a Cairo criminal court for endangering national security. The trial sent shockwaves through Egypt’s activists — another reminder of how the country’s transition had taken an unwanted turn. The question so many people outside Egypt are now asking is: What happened to these liberal revolutionaries? Why did they become cheerleaders for the suspension of democracy and champion the post-Morsi crackdown on dissent?
I know a few of those cheerleaders. Their pseudo-liberalism relates far more to their personal lifestyles than it does to their political ideologies. Hence their ease with various human rights violations. However, they were never representative of the core revolutionary movement.
Since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown on February 11, 2011, the revolutionaries have been caught between the state’s institutions, including the military, on one hand and the Islamist religious right. Many had suggested a call for an early presidential election as a way out of the impasse over Morsi’s rule.
Many who supported the protests of June 30, 2013 were adamant that the demonstrations could not allow for the return of Mubarak’s entourage or the military. They were a minority and could be considered naive, but they can’t be described as enablers of a military intervention they had openly campaigned against. The revolutionary camp is small in number and influence, and didn’t have the power to determine the final outcome of the protests. Tragically, that incapacity remains today at a time when the nation desperately needs a positive alternative to both the religious right and the new authoritarianism.
From the first days following Morsi’s overthrow, civil rights organisations such as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights published critical accounts of those violations. Media outlets such as Mada Masr and Daily News Egypt continue to promote a balanced narrative of events, reporting the violent excesses of the state and its political repression, yet also standing opposed to the sectarian rhetoric, incitement and violence of different Islamist groups. For that, the revolutionary camp has been described as akin to a fifth column by the authorities on the one hand, and promilitary by Morsi supporters on the other.
Many Egyptians have fallen for the false choice between the religious right and security through autocratic subjugation. However, three years on from the uprising, Egypt’s core revolutionaries remain resilient and aware that they have a long road ahead of them. The revolutionary camp hasn’t given up.