TEL AVIV - "It is unclear what is stirring beneath the surface of Egypt," wrote
influential American think-tank Stratfor three weeks ago, analyzing the
internal situation in Egypt in the wake of the church bombings that shook the
country at the time. This is even more true today, after three days of sweeping
protests against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
As of Thursday, different reports claimed that the death toll in the clashes
was somewhere between four and seven, with numerous wounded and at least 860
arrested. Reliable data is difficult to come upon, since the situation is
dynamic, government officials are tight-lipped, journalists have reported
facing restrictions, and
social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been partially
disabled at times.
By Thursday night, some human-rights groups were reporting more than 2,000
arrested.
The demonstrations started on Tuesday - a holiday in honor of the police. They
were inspired by the events in Tunisia, where authoritarian president Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted this month in a popular uprising. According to
The New York Times, the protests were driven by "Egyptian youth" rather than by
the traditional opposition [1] - another parallel with Tunisia.
"We want to see change, just like in Tunisia," one demonstrator, 24-year-old
Lamia Rayan, said, quoted by the Associated Press. Following the example of
Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation set off the revolt against Ben Ali, a
number of people have attempted to set themselves on fire in Egypt in recent
days and weeks.
Early Tuesday, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, and the police showed
unusual restraint. However, after tens of thousands of protesters calling for
Mubarak's resignation poured into Cairo's Tahrir (Liberation) Square in the
afternoon, this changed and clashes subsequently erupted in several cities.
In the next days, the demonstrations continued, albeit in lesser numbers.
Violence was reported in many places, with rumors of particularly heavy clashes
on Thursday in the city of Suez. Also on Thursday, Egypt's foremost democratic
reformer, Nobel Peace Price recipient Mohamed ElBaradei, returned from
self-imposed exile in Austria to lead the protests.
Friday is expected to be a critical day. As a rule in the Muslim world, Friday
is a particularly propitious day for demonstrations, since most men gather in
mosques for midday prayers, and can fairly easily be incited to take to the
streets by the clergy. The Muslim Brotherhood, arguably the most powerful
opposition movement in the country, had so far refrained from throwing its full
weight behind the protests.
However, on Thursday evening this changed, and the group announced that Friday
"will be the general day of rage for the Egyptian nation". This is an ominous
sign, further boosted by the presence of ElBaradei as a leader of the secular
wing of the opposition.
It is hard to predict what exactly will happen. Many observers remain confident
that Mubarak, with the help of his well-organized security services, will
weather the storm. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described
his government as "stable", even as she called for restraint and reforms.
That the Egyptian president will come out on top seems to be also the
conclusion of most analysts in neighboring Israel, where the affair is
attracting a lot of attention, even as the government tries to stay away for it
(excessive comments can lend support to conspiracy theories about Israel's
meddling in the internal affairs of Egypt).
Still, an Israeli cabinet minister commented for the Israeli Ha'aretz daily
newspaper on Thursday on condition of anonymity: "[Mubarak's] regime is
well-rooted in the military and security apparatus ... They will have to
exercise force, power in the street and do it. But they are strong enough
according to my assessment to overcome it."
Israeli tourist groups, moreover, continue to arrive in Cairo - a positive sign
that the government is not too worried for the moment.
On Thursday, one tourist, Dov Nahari, shared with Ynet that from the ground,
reports in the international media seemed overblown. "We were a bit fearful
while watching TV in Israel, but we overcame our fears," he said. "We are
standing now before the pyramids and the Sphinx along with thousands of
tourists from all over the world, so this fear has been completely allayed ...
There are cops everywhere, but everything is great."
Some analysts, however, are less certain. For example, in a report on Thursday,
Stratfor draws parallels to the situation to that in Iran in 1979. Marc Lynch
writes in his Foreign Policy blog: "The scenes in Cairo [Tuesday] stand as a
sharp rebuke to any analytical certainty. The Egyptian regime was fully
prepared, its security forces on alert and deployed, the Internet disrupted and
al-Jazeera largely off the table... and yet tens of thousands of people still
poured into the streets and put together one of the largest demonstrations in
contemporary Egyptian history."
Indeed, Mubarak is facing unprecedented levels of discontent. Such gross
violations were reported during the parliamentary elections last November [2]
that the main opposition parties (including the Muslim Brotherhood) withdrew
from the second round and were consequently left without representation. The
attacks on Christian churches a month ago underscore the tensions and
radicalization inside the country. [3]
The poverty levels are appalling. In the past two years, the global economic
crisis impacted Egypt adversely, and the current government was widely seen as
too slow to react. According to Ha'aretz, "Egypt's population of some 80
million is growing by 2 percent a year. Two thirds of the population is under
30, and that age group accounts for 90 percent of the jobless. About 40 percent
live on less than $2 a day, and a third is illiterate."
On top of this, there is a succession struggle in the country as 82-year old
Mubarak tries to arrange the transition of power after he steps down. There are
rumors that his original plan to have his son Gamal succeed him encountered
heavy resistance from the army, and he has been looking for a compromise.
Stratfor believes that there is a hidden force behind the demonstrations, and
this side plot motivates one of the think-tank's main hypotheses. According to
Stratfor:
What we have to find out is who is behind this. It could be
the military wanting to stage a coup to keep Gamal Mubarak out of power. They
would be doing this to preserve the regime, not to overthrow it. They could be
using the demonstrations to push their demands and perhaps pressure Hosni
Mubarak to leave voluntarily ... It could also be the Muslim Brotherhood
organizing quietly. Whoever it is, they are lying low, trying to make
themselves look weaker than they are - while letting the liberals undermine the
regime, generate anti-Mubarak feeling in the West, and pave the way for
whatever it is they are planning.
Not everybody would agree
with this interpretation; the analysis of The New York Times sings the praises
of "an unpredictable third force, the leaderless tens of thousands of young
Egyptians who turned out to demand an end to Mr Mubarak's 30-year rule."
Regardless, it is important to pay close attention to the structure of the
demonstrations and the cohesion between the different groups that make up the
protesters.
There is another parallel with Iran (besides Stratfor's reference to 1979) that
might help us understand what is going on in Egypt. In a story for the
Institute for War and Peace Reporting titled
Why Tunisia can but Iran can't (Asia Times Online, January 21, 2011),
Ali Reza Eshraghi argues that in 2009, Iran's government avoided the fate of
Ben Ali because in the Islamic Republic, there was no clear enemy and no unity
in the opposition. "Paradoxically," he writes, "it is the widespread and
divergent nature of dissatisfaction that allows the regime to carry on."
Whether Egypt will follow the path of Iran (2009) or Tunisia (2011), may thus
depend in large part on whether the protesters will be able to form a broad
coalition united behind well-defined goals. Both the secular and the religious
opposition have issued conciliatory statements, but it is uncertain how much
they trust each other, or how much their agendas can overlap. The decision of
the Muslim Brotherhood to join the fray with full force could be a crucial test
for their unity and a make or break moment for the protests.
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