REFLECTIONS

ON THE
REVOLUTION
IN EGYPT
HERBERT AND J ANE DWI GHT WORKI NG GROUP
ON I SL AMI SM AND THE I NTERNATI ONAL ORDER
Many of the writings associated with this
Working Group will be published by the Hoover Institution.
Materials published to date, or in production, are listed below.
ESSAY SERI ES:
THE GREAT UNRAVELI NG: THE REMAKI NG OF THE MI DDLE EAST
In Retreat: Americas Withdrawal from the Middle East
Russell A. Berman
Israel and the Arab Turmoil
Itamar Rabinovich
Refections on the Revolution in Egypt
Samuel Tadros
Te Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent
Fouad Ajami
Te Weavers Lost Art
Charles Hill
Te Consequences of Syria
Lee Smith
ESSAYS
Saudi Arabia and the New Strategic Landscape
Joshua Teitelbaum
Islamism and the Future of the Christians of the Middle East
Habib C. Malik
Syria through Jihadist Eyes: A Perfect Enemy
Nibras Kazimi
Te Ideological Struggle for Pakistan
Ziad Haider
Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah: Te Unholy Alliance and
Its War on Lebanon
Marius Deeb
[For a list of books published under the auspices of the
WORKING GROUP ON ISLAMISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER,
please see page 76.]
REFLECTIONS
ON THE
REVOLUTION
IN EGYPT
Samuel Tadros
H O O V E R I N S T I T U T I O N P R E S S
Stanford University Stanford, California
HERBERT & JANE DWIGHT WORKING GROUP ON ISLAMISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER
ESSAY SERIES: THE GREAT UNRAVELING: THE REMAKING OF THE MIDDLE EAST
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HERBERT AND JANE DWIGHT WORKING GROUP
ON ISLAMISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER:
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Lakeside Foundation
vii
Series Foreword
by Fouad Ajami and Charles Hill / ix
Refections on the Revolution in Egypt / 1
About the Author / 73
About the Hoover Institutions Herbert and
Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism
and the International Order / 74
Index / 77
CONTENTS
ix
It s a mantra, but it is also true: the Middle
East is being unmade and remade. Te autocra-
cies that gave so many of these states the appear-
ance of stability are gone, their dreaded rulers
dispatched to prison or exile or cut down by
young people who had yearned for the end of the
despotisms. Tese autocracies were large prisons,
and in 2011, a storm overtook that stagnant
world. Te spectacle wasnt pretty, but prison
riots never are. In the Fertile Crescent, the work
of the colonial cartographersGertrude Bell,
Winston Churchill, and Georges Clemenceau
are in play as they have never been before. Arab
SERIES FOREWORD
The Great Unraveling:
The Remaking of the Middle East
x
SE RI E S F ORE WORD
G
nationalists were given to lamenting that they
lived in nation-states invented by Western pow-
ers in the afermath of the Great War. Now, a cen-
tury later, with the ground burning in Lebanon,
Syria, and Iraq and the religious sects at war, not
even the most ardent nationalists can be sure
that they can put in place anything better than
the old order.
Men get used to the troubles they know, and
the Greater Middle East seems fated for grief
and breakdown. Outside powers approach it
with dread; merciless political contenders have
the run of it. Tere is swagger in Iran and a
belief that the radical theocracy can bully its
rivals into submission. Tere was a period when
the United States provided a modicum of order
in these Middle Eastern lands. But pleading
fatigue, and fnancial scarcity at home, we have
all but announced the end of that stewardship.
We are poorer for that abdication, and the Middle
East is thus lef to the mercy of predators of
every kind.
xi
SE RI E S F ORE WORD
G
We asked a number of authors to give this
spectacle of disorder their best try. We imposed
no rules on them, as we were sure their essays
would take us close to the sources of the
malady.
fouad ajami
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Cochairman, Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group
on Islamism and the International Order
charles hill
Distinguished Fellow of the Brady-Johnson Program
in Grand Strategy at Yale University;
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Cochairman, Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group
on Islamism and the International Order
1
Refections on the
Revolution in Egypt
SAMUEL TADROS
It is said that . . .
1
It is said that . . . once upon a time / Tey stole our
country, the Americans
Tey will enter Baghdad by noon / By evening they
will enter Egypt
It is said that . . . that what? / Our people grabbed the
light with their hands
It is said that . . . generation afer generation / Egypt
was born in Tahrir
It is said that . . . our dawn is arising / And Roses are
blossoming in the street
2
(Amin Haddad)
But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame
to any thing which relates to human actions, and
human concerns, on a simple view of the object,
as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the
nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction.
Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for
nothing) give in reality to every political principle its
distinguishing colour, and discriminating efect.
Te circumstances are what render every civil and
political scheme benefcial or noxious to mankind.
(Edmund Burke: Refections on the Revolution in France)
It was not an event depending on chance or
contingency. It was inevitable; it was necessary;
it was planted in the nature of things.
(Edmund Burke: Refections on the Revolution in France)
1. Te poem was written by Amin Haddad ten days before the
fall of Baghdad in 2003 and sung by the band Eskenderella. Te
poem refects the feeling of helplessness and ends with a depress-
ing note.
2. Afer the Egyptian revolution, new lines were added to the
song, refecting the newly discovered optimism and salvation found
in the square.
3
At 4:34 a.m. Cairo time on March 20, 2003,
coalition forces led by the United States began
their invasion of Iraq. Less than six hours later
security lines in Cairos Tahrir Square were
being overrun by the most unlikely protesters:
students of the American University in Cairo.
Egyptian opposition parties had called for a
protest at one oclock in Tahrir, but three hours
earlier 1,000 students had taken the initiative,
surprised security forces, and managed to reach
the square. Te smell of euphoria was in the air
as the students set their gaze on a building a
few blocks from the square, that symbolized US
hegemony over their country, the fortifed US
Embassy. Te mass of people did not hesitate as
4
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
they attacked line afer line of security forces
trying to break through, their attacks bearing
fruit. Tey reached Omar Makram Mosque and
then set foot on Simon Bolivar Square. Tell
Bush, tell Blair . . . Iraq is not Afghanistan, they
shouted. Tere their attacks fell short; the secu-
rity forces were better organized, and they could
not break their lines no matter how much they
tried. Some fell on the sides, their faces covered
in blood; they were carried by their comrades.
Half the protesters managed to reach the street
leading to the Nile Corniche. Bringing traf c to
a halt, they broke for freedom and tried to sur-
round the British Embassy. Tey failed to encir-
cle it, and two hours later they returned and
joined their comrades in Simon Bolivar Square.
Tey made a last attack and broke security lines
back to Tahrir Square.
Opposition activists had arrived by then. Tou-
sands were now in the square. Tey would attempt
several times to reach the US Embassy but be
rebufed. Circles were forming in the square,
graf ti was being drawn on the asphalt, and
people were singing. Magda El-Roumis famous
song Te Street Is Ours could be heard in the
5
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
square. Voices chanting, the street is ours . . .
the square is ours . . . tomorrow Egypt will be
ours. Tat generation of Egyptians had never
seen anything like it. Egypt had not seen any-
thing like this since the bread riots of 1977. Te
next day demonstrators started in Al-Azhar
Mosque and took over the square again. Clashes
continued throughout the day, and a fre truck
used to disperse the crowds was reportedly set
on fre. In the following days police arrested
numerous activists of all political stripes. What
remained of the crowds spirit died twenty
days later as they saw on TV Iraqis bring down
Saddam Husseins statue in Baghdad. Te honor
and dignity of a nation stretching from the Gulf
to the Atlantic Ocean was lost in the streets of
Baghdad.
Te gods must have been rolling the dice that
day on March 20, 2003. Little did the protesters
in Tahrir Square know they were writing the
frst line in the story of the Egyptian revolution.
G
Tat Egypts revolution has failed is hardly dis-
putable today. Te excitement of those magical
6
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
eighteen days in Tahrir Square and the hopes of
a dawn of democracy in Egypt are long gone.
Replacing them is widespread despair among
Egypts revolutionary activists and their interna-
tional cheerleaders, and who would blame them?
Te man they sought to topple enjoys his free-
dom afer two years in prison, the old faces of
his regime are now back, and the revolutionary
activiststhose who are not cheering the very
military they were chanting against two years
earlierare now among the jailed, the cursed,
the emigrant, and the depressed.
It is true some still believe the revolution con-
tinues or, more fancifully, the ouster of Mohamed
Morsi is but the second wave of the original rev-
olution. Joining the ranks of the delusional is the
American Secretary of State John Kerry, who
suggested the revolution was stolen by the
Muslim Brotherhood, with Egypt now apparently
set on the right path to democracy. But outside
of those few voicesand regardless of whether
one believes that Egypt is witnessing a counter-
revolution, as the author contends, or a coup, or
that no revolution occurred in the frst place, as
7
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
Hugh Roberts
3
argues in the pages of the Lon-
don Review of Booksthe general consensus is
that Egypt has returned to an authoritarian grip
albeit this time with the masses cheering along.
Whatever happened on January 25 failed miser-
ably in transforming the country in the direction
of a true democracy.
For those lamenting the failure of a revolu-
tion that captivated the world, the blame is usu-
ally placed on two forces: Egypts military and
the Muslim Brotherhood. A military that never
accepted the notion of civilian control and that
aimed to protect its exclusive domination of the
state and its economy and a Brotherhood that
ruled in a noninclusive manner and alienated
many segments of Egypts population have
formed the basis of the explanations given by
analysts as to why Egypt reached the state it is
in today.
Remarkably little attention has been given to
the actions and choices of Egypts non-Islamist
3. Hugh Roberts, Te Revolution Tat Wasnt, London
Review of Books, Volume 35, No. 17, September 12, 2013.
8
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
revolutionaries. Besides the usual criticism of
their organizational weakness and the more
recent critical look at those among them who
supported the military coup, they have largely
escaped any critical examination and hence
blame. Tis is all the more surprising given the
fact that three years earlier, when the crowds
occupied Tahrir Square, both the media and
Western analysts fxed their gazes on those young
men and women, ofen described as liberals,
democrats, moderates, and secular, to the extent
of seeing nothing but them. Egypts revolution-
aries were hailed as the heroic force that ended
what seemed like an eternal dichotomy between
repressive authoritarian regimes and totalitar-
ian Islamists. People like Google executive Wael
Ghonim, April 6 founder Ahmed Maher, and
international diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei
would create the much-awaited third alternative
or route.
On January 25, 2011, thousands of Egyptians
some of them veterans of earlier demonstrations
against Hosni Mubarak, some of them demon-
strating for the frst time in their livestook to
the streets to demand change. Tree days later
9
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
hundreds of thousands joined them, and ffeen
days later Mubarak resigned as Egypts presi-
dent. Who were those revolutionaries and where
did they come from? What was their composi-
tion ideologically and organizationally? Why
were they angry with the Mubarak regime and
decided to bring it down? What were their
demands and aspirations for a new Egypt? And
how did they go about attempting to achieve
them? To understand the story of Egypts revo-
lution, one has to begin, not on January 25, 2011,
but years earlier when those revolutionaries
were meeting one another for the frst time and
acquiring the skills that they would later use to
bring down the regime.
Te lack of a thorough investigation of Egypts
revolutionaries creates a serious gap in our
understanding of the events that unfolded in the
past three years. From their decision to call for
mass demonstrations on January 25, 2011, their
rejection of participating in politics, their calls
for an end to the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces (SCAF) rule, their continuous demon-
strations and violent clashes with the police, and
the choices they made in the par liamentary and
10
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
presidential elections, Egypts revolutionaries
were not helpless victims but actors who afected
and shaped the direction of the country. As
Egypt continues on its destructive path into the
abyss, it is important to examine what role the
revolutionaries played in its trajectory.
G
On December 12, 2004, the Egyptian Movement
for Change held its frst demonstration. Te
movement quickly became known by its slogan
Kefaya (Enough). Kefaya demonstrators were
few in numbers, but their public act of defance
created a stir in the dull political scene that was
Mubaraks Egypt. Te demonstrators chants,
while attacking the regimes foreign policy and
its capitulation to US and Israeli hegemony, also
targeted the regimes domestic policies and, more
importantly, the regime itself. Mubarak; his wife,
Suzanne; and their son Gamal, rumored to be
groomed for the throne, were no longer of-limits.
A red line seemed to have been crossed. Taboos
were being shattered.
Te movement had its roots in the pro-
Palestinian demonstrations in October 2000, with
11
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
the start of the second intifada, but those had
quickly fzzled away. Smaller campaigns had
followed calling for the boycott of American
products and organizing aid convoys to the Pal-
estinians, but they had little efect. Te Ameri-
can invasion of Iraq in 2003 created the frst real
spark that gathered those opposition activists
together. In July 2004 a new Egyptian govern-
ment was sworn in that included a signifcant
number of new faces, businessmen who had
prospered in the private sector were recruited
for government ministries. With Mubaraks
health rumored to be in decline and Gamals
increasing public role, a transition moment
seemed to be in the air. Roughly 300 intellectuals
and activists gathered to write and sign Kefayas
manifesto during the hot summer months. Teir
demands were hardly small. Tey demanded
real political change in the country. Mubaraks
fourth term was to end in September 2005, and
they wanted it to be his last. Gamal shall not
inherit us from his father, they insisted.
Who were the 300 men who signed Kefayas
manifesto? Tey came from all stripes of the
Egyptian opposition. Nearly all of them were
12
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
veterans of the roaring 70s. George Ishak was
the movements frst coordinator. A communist,
he had used his of cial position in the adminis-
tration of Catholic schools in Egypt to gather a
group of young men around him. Abdel Halim
Kandil was a committed Nasserite who was edi-
tor in chief of the leading Nasserite newspaper,
in which he cursed Mubarak for abandoning
Nassers domestic project and his anti-American
foreign policy. Abdel Wahab El Misiri, who was
later chosen to lead the movement, dedicated
his life to writing about Jews and Israel. His
conspiracy-driven mind led him to believe the
Camp David accords included secret clauses
calling for the banning of his writings. Kamal
Khalil was a Revolutionary Socialist, the name
given to Egypts Trotskyites, and a veteran dem-
onstrator. Magdy Ahmed Hussein was the son
of Ahmed Hussein, Egypts fascist leader in
the 30s and 40s. In the 80s Magdy had made
the political transformation from socialism to
Islamism, with the fnal outcome uniting the
worst of both worlds. Kamal Abu Eita was
another Nasserite who had never missed an anti-
regime demonstration in his life.
13
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
None of these men could excite a revolution-
ary populace, let alone one that had been apa-
thetic for years. Tey were more representative
of the ills of Egypt than its cure. Formed by a
group of communists, Islamists, and Nasserites,
there was nothing novel about its message with
the exception of its bald animosity toward
Mubarak and his son. Te message was simply
the repetition of every long-held myth and
demand of the Egyptian opposition; these men
decried social and economic exploitation, believ-
ing that the country was rich but was being sto-
len by corrupt businessmen and that the regime
was serving American and Israeli interests.
Teir hatred of Mubarak dwarfed the hatred
they expressed toward the United States and
Israel, and anti-Semitism was rampant among
them. Teir real objection to Mubarak was not
his authoritarianism, but his abandonment, like
that of Sadat before him, of the pan-Arab vision
Nasser had proclaimed, Roberts said.
4
As Abdel
Halim Kandil stated: Egypt falls under American
4. Hugh Roberts, Te Revolution Tat Wasnt, London
Review of Books, Volume 35, No. 17, September 12, 2013.
14
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
hegemony and Israeli occupation, and the
regime is loyal to them. Terefore, opposition
toward Israel and America is a cornerstone of
Kefayas program.
5
What was novel was their
decision to bring their message out of the salons
of the lefist intellectuals and to the street.
Kefaya activists were soon creating sister orga-
nizations, the most important of which was Youth
for Change. Te initial members were hardly sur-
prising. Tey were the sons and daughters of vet-
eran lefist activists. However, they had at their
disposal a tool not available to their parents gen-
eration: blogging. Blogs became very powerful
tools not just for self-expression, but more impor-
tantly for disseminating information. Trough
videos of police torture, election fraud, or dem-
onstrations, activists were reaching a new gen-
eration of young, middle-class Egyptians. Citizen
journalism was the new hit in town as thousands
of young Egyptians started blogs. Naturally jour-
nalistic standards were hardly present and the
quality and truthfulness of many of them were
5. Tarek Masoud, US must back democracy in Egypt regard-
less, Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2011.
15
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
lacking. But with state propaganda techniques
unchanged for decades, the activists held a sig-
nifcant advantage in the war of perception. Blogs
also served as an important forum for network-
ing. A bond was being created between activists
across the political spectrum.
Blogs were hardly the domain of lefist activ-
ists alone. Numerous young Muslim Brother-
hood members began blogging, and the new
phenomenon caught the attention of analysts
desperate for a moderate Brotherhood. Kefaya
was not the only group that took notice of the
winds of change unleashed by President George
W. Bushs Freedom Agenda and the opportuni-
ties it presented. Te Muslim Brotherhood
took note and attempted to present a new face.
It increasingly coordinated with the rest of
the opposition, though unlike them it always
remained aware of the red lines imposed by the
regime. Women were being presented as candi-
dates for Parliament, and a platform for change
was presented to the public and more impor-
tantly to Western analysts and policy-makers.
Egypts of cial opposition parties were also
infuenced by the changing political environment.
16
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
Te parliamentary elections of 2005 were
extremely frustrating to the two main parties:
Al Wafd and El Tagamuu. Many of their members,
especially the younger ones, had already begun to
question the wisdom of their parties tamed oppo-
sition approach to the regime. Te man who best
embodied those changes was Ayman Nour. An
unimpressive journalist with Al Wafd newspaper,
Nour had distinguished himself with fabricated
and sensationalist stories. His relationship with
the regime was hardly bad. He twice won a seat in
Egypts Parliament and had been useful as a con-
trolled opposition face to use as a mouthpiece
when the regime faced an international scandal
over its police behavior in the El Kosheh massacre
of Copts. His ambitions were matched only by
his ego. He lef Al Wafd in 2001 and sought to
establish his own party. When he received the
party approval from the regime-controlled com-
mittee in October 2004, it was another sign of
the regimes approval. Suddenly on January 30,
2005, Nour was arrested on charges of forging
applications for his new party. While the charges
were correct, leveling them was indisputably a
political decision.
17
REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT
G
Nours real crime was perceived to be his meet-
ing with former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright in which he presented himself as a lib-
eral alternative to the regime. His liberalism, of
course, had very little to do with the actual mean-
ing of the term: but he wasnt an Islamist, and
for many that automatically made him a liberal.
More importantly, between October and Janu-
ary, the Orange Revolution had taken place in
Ukraine and the regime became scared. Nour
was allowed to stand against Mubarak in the
presidential election in September of that year,
but his fate was sealed. He soon landed in jail,
though not before his case had become a cause
clbre for Western journalists, analysts, and
governments.
Kefayas last serious stand was in the spring of
2006 when it supported two judges who were
investigated by the regime for their protests
against election fraud during the parliamentary
elections. Te Judges Club had been fghting for
judicial independence for years and had increas-
ingly played a vocal role in criticizing regime
practices. Te regime viewed a challenge by the
judiciary as a serious threat and moved swifly
18
SAMUE L T ADROS
G
to silence the judges and attack protesters in soli-
darity with them.
Kefayas eforts did not bear fruit, and the
movement soon lost steam. With its largest
demonstration attracting no more than a few
thousand participants, the movement was hardly
a challenge to the regime. Nevertheless, while it
lasted, it served an important role in linking
Egypts lefist, Islamist, Nasserite, and quasi-
liberal opposition. More profoundly it served as
a training ground for many of the young stars
who would later play a key role in the Egyptian
revolution.
G
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