The Battle for the Arab Spring

by Lin Noueihed

  The time to build alliances, haggle over lists, sign up for the polls and campaign was too short for many Egyptians to even understand the rules, let alone get to know the hundreds of new names that had emerged.61 Many of the youth activists were not party members, had little funding or political experience, and ended up running as individuals against better-known and better-financed Islamists or Mubarak-era deputies. Others did set up parties and ran in a coalition called The Revolution Continues, but lacked the resources or the experience to scoop a large share of the vote. In contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood, an eighty-three-year-old organization with established networks of hospitals and charitable groups, had a clear head start. More conservative Salafist Islamists, who seek to emulate the sayings and doings of the earliest Muslims, also had an immediate advantage by using their presence in some of Egypt's 40,000 independent mosques to campaign against a secular discourse and for Islamic rule.62

  The elections would also take place over several rounds, plus runoffs and reruns, sapping momentum as the results of one round affected the results of the next in a voting season that stretched out over some six months from the first poll for the lower house to the end of the presidential election. Overall, elections were organized in much the same haphazard way as they had always been, with no new and independent electoral commission, and there were accusations of irregularities, though Egyptians were able to cast their ballots without being harassed by baltagiya and there appeared to be little sign of the ballot-stuffing and violence that activists say had marred previous polls. Some 62 per cent of eligible Egyptians voted in the third round of post-Mubarak elections in January 2012, a major improvement on the 2010 poll, when some activists put turnout as low as 10 per cent.63

  Throughout 2011, the motives of the military junta were difficult to discern. It was not clear how the SCAF took its decisions. It seemed unwilling to make any major changes by drafting laws or amending controversial policies unless faced with significant pressure. It also appeared to respond more seriously to demands from the Muslim Brotherhood than other groups. In response, the Muslim Brotherhood were more muted in their criticism of the military council and largely stayed off the streets, preferring to focus on the elections they knew would bring them into power. Secular and Islamist groups had already fallen out over the pace of transition, with the Muslim Brotherhood seeking to consolidate its advantage by backing the military's plan for earlier elections while nascent youth and non-Islamist groups called for more time to organize.

  Despite the military's historic suspicion of the Islamists, the SCAF seemed to find itself better able to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, a traditional hierarchical organization whose senior leaders were from the same generation as the generals, than with the fragmented secular opposition and the essentially leaderless youth activists. Yet at the same time, the military-backed government sought to impose a set of 'supra-constitutional principles’ to guide the process of writing a new constitution, widely seen as an attempt to limit the influence of the Islamists, or whoever won most seats in parliament, and to keep itself and its budget independent of government oversight.64 The principles divided some liberals, who were keen to see limits imposed on the Islamists but also worried about undermining elected bodies and giving the army too much leeway to meddle in government. The principles outraged the Muslim Brotherhood, which organized a huge protest in November, and they reignited a bout of protest by youth activists who clashed with the internal security forces and the army in and around Tahrir Square in the run-up to the elections, leaving forty people dead. Protests resurfaced again in December, with the military's violent response drawing rare criticism from the United States. For youth activists, removing the military from politics had become a priority, but the generals were refusing to budge.

  All in all, an atmosphere of mutual mistrust pervaded Egypt for much of 2011. For the youth activists and opposition groups, the revolution was not over, yet that old disconnect between the politically active few and the silent majority had re-emerged. The day after the 6 October military parade was a Friday, and protests were scheduled in Tahrir Square to demand that the generals return to their barracks. Instead of presenting a united front that might have forced a concession, only a few hundred turned up in the square and the Muslim Brotherhood was not officially taking part. The protest demonstrated the divisions that plagued the opposition and failed to galvanize the support of the ordinary person on the street. On one side of Tahrir Square, from a double-height stage behind a wall of amplifiers, Salafists drowned out the speeches from a handful of other platforms and stalls set up by embryonic political parties. Nearer the Egyptian Museum, the 6 April Youth Movement was handing out red cards, apparently telling the military to get off the pitch. Carrying their trademark black flags with a symbol of the clenched fist used by non-violent revolutionaries the world over, they marched out of the square.

  Taxi drivers cursed the traffic jams caused by the regular protests, while those who could not afford to take taxis cursed the striking bus drivers. Since police no longer dared to ask for ‘tips’, they no longer bothered themselves with minor offences, so the practice of double parking had spread. Street-sellers had flourished. Many Egyptians, who were used to stability and stagnation under Mubarak, feared that the longer the transition dragged on, the more likely it was that it would lead to chaos and economic gloom; these were fears that the military stoked in its apparent effort to sap the momentum of the labour and protest movements. A poll found that the proportion of Egyptians who did not feel safe shot up from 18 per cent on the eve of the uprising to a peak of 51 per cent five months later, before declining to 38 per cent in August. At the same time, the number who had reported being assaulted or having money or property stolen had actually fallen.65 The revolts had not brought chaos, but perceptions of danger had dampened the enthusiasm of Egyptians who were not normally politically active, but had joined the protests in January and February. A poll conducted between March and October found that 90 per cent of Egyptians had confidence in the military and 85 per cent thought that continuing protests were a bad thing.66

  In addition to flagging popular energy and a divided opposition movement, the momentum for change was being sapped by a military council that was run by ageing men. These generals viewed the world through the prism of security and stability, to which revolution could only be a threat. For many activists, they appeared to lack the vision to seize what was a historic opportunity to build a new Egypt, preferring instead to limit the scope of change. Of all the military men who could have led the transition, Tantawi was one of the least likely to take bold steps, to encourage debate over the future of the country, or to nurture a younger generation of political leaders with grand ambitions. According to a leaked US diplomatic cable from 2008, the Egyptian military had declined under Tantawi's tutelage. He was unpopular with mid-ranking officers who complained that he valued loyalty over merit. Ambitious, young officers with new ideas were considered to be a threat and effectively sidelined. Derided as ‘Mubarak's poodle’, the cable claimed that Tantawi was also unpopular for his dictatorial style, discouraging criticism in a way that led younger cadres to feel the military had atrophied and lost touch with the nation, much as Mubarak himself had done. Indeed, it was widely rumoured that Tantawi had been appointed defence minister in 1989 precisely because he lacked charisma; his predecessor, Abdel Halim Abu Ghazalah, was more popular and considered as a potential rival to the president.67

  In another 2008 cable, the US ambassador at the time described Tantawi as ‘aged and change-resistant’. Though he was ‘charming and courtly’, Tantawi was ‘nonetheless mired in a post-Camp David military paradigm that has served his cohorts’ narrow interests for the last three decades. He and Mubarak are focused on regime stability and maintaining the status quo through the end of their time. They simply do not have the energy, inclination or world view to do anything differently.’ Given the halting progress of change since the resignation of Mubarak, T
antawi's tenure raised the spectre of a new era of Mubarakism without Mubarak. And for many of those who had embraced the soldiers and tanks in February, the military had gone from ally to enemy.

  Islamic Egypt

  It was meant to be the ‘Friday of Unity and Popular Will’, when Egypt's diverse opposition groups would show their strength in a message to the country's military rulers. It was meant to call for an end to military trials of civilians, justice for the families of dead protesters, and the creation of special courts to try Mubarak and his cronies – common goals that all groups, Islamist and secular, left and liberal, could agree on. It was meant to set aside differences over the constitution and the elections, and more than twenty-six groups were taking part in what was expected to be one of the biggest mass mobilizations since Mubarak vacated the presidency.68 Instead, 29 July 2011 turned into a show of force by the full spectrum of Egypt's Islamists, who filled Tahrir Square calling for an Islamic state. Secular activists and youth groups, vastly outnumbered by a mostly male crowd sporting beards and carrying banners calling for the imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, were eventually forced to withdraw from the demonstration.69

  In stark contrast to the February uprising, where Muslims and Christians had prayed side by side and protesters were unified by the slogan of the Arab Spring – ‘The people want the fall of the regime’ – the Islamists now shouted ‘Islamic, Islamic’ and ‘the people want God's law’.70 In a direct challenge to liberals and leftists pushing to limit the role of religion in legislation and politics, Islamists carried placards declaring ‘The Koran is our constitution’. In a parody of the banners reading ‘Hold your head up, you're Egyptian’ that had proliferated in the heady days of February, Islamist placards enjoined readers to ‘Hold your head up, you're a Muslim’. Except, of course, not all Egyptians are Muslims. What was a Christian protester to make of this?

  The protest was a turning point. It exposed the fault line that had divided Islamist and secular activists all along, but had been pushed beneath the surface by the unifying clamour to bring down Mubarak. It also left no room for doubt that the Islamists, in their various guises, were both more numerous and more organized than their woefully fragmented non-Islamist counterparts. And it confirmed what many moderate Muslims, secular activists and Christians had long feared, that a large section of Egyptian society would vote for the Islamists. Buffeted by a rising tide of religious conservatism that swept through Egyptian society, secular liberals and leftists had already been in retreat for decades, shifting the entire political debate to the right. Whereas a division emerged in Tunisia between secularists who wanted no role for religion in politics, and mostly moderate Islamists who have made concessions on alcohol, the veil, Islamic banking and family law, in Egypt the debate was not about whether religion should play a role in law-making and politics, but about how far its role should extend.

  In many respects Egypt was already a quasi-Islamic state. Sadat had sought from the 1970s to burnish his Islamic credentials and turn a blind eye to the Islamists as part of his campaign against Nasser-era socialism. Since 1980, the constitution had identified Islam as the religion of state and sharia as ‘the principal source of legislation’. In practice, Egypt's penal code is not based entirely on sharia, but family affairs such as marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance are. Coptic family affairs are governed by the Coptic church. The interim constitution of 2011, drawn up by a SCAF-appointed committee and approved by referendum in March, maintained the role of sharia as the principal source of legislation, a phrasing which is wide open to interpretation. Calls to extend religious law have grown louder since the uprising, which has emboldened conservative Salafists who had kept a lower profile under Mubarak.

  Few Egyptians, whether from Muslim or Christian backgrounds, would describe themselves as secularists, and even fewer would publicly admit to being atheists or agnostics. Those activists pushing against greater Islamization carefully couch their demands in terms of the need for a ‘civil state’ in Egypt, rather than a ‘secular state’, which is often painted by Islamists as an anti-religious import from the West. Secular groups have campaigned against the spread of narrow interpretations of sharia they say will turn back the clock, but have been hampered by their reluctance to appear ‘against religion’, which would be tantamount to political suicide.

  The single loudest voice in the debate over religion is that of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was Egypt's largest and most organized opposition group long before its Freedom and Justice Party scooped up almost half of the votes in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Established in 1928 by schoolteacher and imam Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood is one of the oldest existing Islamic organizations in the world and originally focused on promoting piety through mosques and schools. In keeping with Banna's view that Islam offered a comprehensive way of life, the Muslim Brotherhood was at once involved in teaching, prayer, political activism and social welfare, offering healthcare and aid to the needy. Within a few years of its creation it boasted hundreds of thousands of members, with its headquarters in Cairo.

  As early as the 1930s, a debate raged inside the group about whether violence was a legitimate means of achieving its aims of reforming society through a programme based on the fundamentals of Islam that would ultimately lead to the creation of an Islamic state. For Banna, the emphasis was on changing society before seizing political power. Banna's view was that violence was not an acceptable means of achieving reform, but in 1948 a member of the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated the Egyptian prime minister. The following year, Banna himself was assassinated, probably in retaliation, and the Muslim Brotherhood was officially suppressed.71 These were turbulent times, and Egypt was heading for the revolution that came in 1952.

  Nasser clamped down severely on the Muslim Brotherhood, imprisoning and even executing members and driving the movement underground. The repression was to backfire. It was inside one of Nasser's jails that Sayyid Qutb wrote Maalim fi al-Tarik, or Milestones, which became the handbook of jihad. Hassan al-Hudaybi, Banna's successor as general guide, wrote a repudiation of Qutb, and the Muslim Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s.72 But some militants split away to form their own organizations, such as the Gamaa Islamiya, or Islamic Group, some of whose members were later involved in the 1981 assassination of Sadat and which mounted violent attacks including the 1997 slaughter of sixty-two people at a Pharaonic temple in Luxor. Reeling from public disgust at the assault, which hit Egypt's tourism sector hard, the group was rehabilitated and later renounced violence. Another offshoot was the Egyptian Jihad, whose leader Ayman al-Zawahri merged it with the late Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda just three months before 9/11.73

  For many of its older generation, the Muslim Brotherhood had already come a long way by 2011. It now positioned itself as the antithesis of what Al-Qaeda stood for, even though it acted as an early incubator of the radical ideas that still dominate jihadi thinking. It has sought to define itself as a moderate group that embraces democracy, the rule of law and the separation of powers, but has nonetheless argued that sharia should be the source of all legislation and cover all aspects of life.74 Unlike Tunisia's Ennahda, which clarified its position on controversial issues such as the permissibility of alcohol, the Muslim Brotherhood proffered contradictory opinions before and during the election campaign, and it was unclear how their policies might differ on specifics from those of more conservative Salafists.

  That ambiguity could be seen in the manifesto of the Freedom and Justice Party, formed by the Muslim Brotherhood to compete in the 2011 elections, which raised almost as many questions as it answered. It called for a civil state based on citizenship, specifying that this meant a state ruled neither by the military nor by a theocracy, and in which all citizens were equal.75 Yet according to Islamic law, women receive less inheritance than men and a Muslim woman, for instance, is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim man, though the opposite is permitted. Under these rules, citizens would not be equal. Addressing
the rights of women, it calls for equality within the bounds of basic social values. What those values are, who measures them and what exactly they mean for women when it comes to the nitty-gritty of marriage, divorce or registering children in their own names is not clear. And while the concept of a civil state implies that all citizens would be treated equally, the party's manifesto suggested that Christians should be ruled by their own religious laws in family matters. The rights of a Muslim and a Christian in divorce, for instance, would not be the same, even if both were Egyptians.

  Secular Egyptians were also suspicious of the group's real motives due to a draft manifesto that had been leaked to the media in 2007 and attracted enormous controversy. It suggested the creation of a council of religious scholars that would ensure legislation was in keeping with sharia, an idea that sounded rather similar to Iran's Council of Guardians. The 2011 manifesto backed away from that position, but did not specifically repudiate it. The 2007 platform also suggested that women and Christians should be banned from occupying top offices, a position which in 2011 was still backed by the Salafists. The Freedom and Justice Party omitted this clause in its new manifesto, but did not explicitly renounce it or offer a new position.76 It is a moot point in any case, some Islamists say, as neither a woman nor a Christian could realistically hope to become president, but for many women, Christians and secular Egyptians, it is a matter of principle.