After that, he never referred to the event in public. Not long after the London visit, Eldakhakhny left the Presidential press corps. Just take the press release and deliver it to the newspaper. Of the four military men who have ruled Egypt during the past sixty years, Sisi stands out for his lack of interest in formal politics. Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat were activists as young men, and both flirted with the Muslim Brotherhood before rejecting political Islam.
As President, each worked to build a political organization, which under Sadat became known as the National Democratic Party, or N. In some respects, Sisi is a natural politician, and his speeches, delivered in colloquial Arabic, often impress average Egyptians as sincere and sympathetic. But his political instincts are personal, not institutional, and the subject of politics does not seem to have interested him while he was growing up.
The Sisi clan came to dominate the arabesque trade in Khan al-Khalili, the premier tourist market in Cairo, and the family still owns nearly ten shops there. In the black-and-white picture, he sits imperiously in a galabiya, a cane in one hand and a tarboosh on his head. Hamama said that during summer vacation all teen-age male family members are apprenticed into some aspect of the business. Sisi trained as a sadafgi —he used a long-handled knife to carve out tiny pieces of mother-of-pearl.
Our family is not from Upper Egypt, but you can say we have this tradition of the Upper Egyptians. Upper Egypt is known for conservatism, and I asked Hamama if he is sometimes bothered by this tradition. When Sisi was in his mid-teens, he entered a military high school. The combination of Army discipline, a rigid family structure, and sincere religious conviction has created a person who by all accounts is deeply traditional.
He married his first cousin, which is common for conservative Egyptians, and his wife and daughter are homemakers. I could find no evidence in the Egyptian press of any Sisi women having careers. For Sisi, the Mubarak regime has served as a cautionary tale. Mubarak openly groomed his son Gamal for political power, and the extended family profited from corruption on a staggering scale.
After the revolution, Mubarak and his sons were imprisoned, and their fate is undoubtedly one reason that Sisi has kept his family out of the public eye. Sisi seems to have taken similar lessons from the N. For Sisi and other military men, Shafiq may have been even more threatening than Morsi. They seemed to believe that the Brotherhood could be easily controlled, whereas Shafiq might resurrect a party with real power. It divides the nation. State Department said that Sisi perceives only the risks and none of the benefits of a party.
The headquarters were in the remote outskirts of Cairo, and, when the European diplomat visited, she passed through heavy security and then found the place empty except for two retired government officials. But that could have been an opportunity to build a connection with young people.
Without real parties, real political institutions, and real professional politicians, there are few ways for young Egyptians to get involved in politics, other than protesting in the streets.
The existing parties are too weak and disorganized to enlist aides or volunteers on a regular basis, and laws aimed at limiting foreign influence have dismantled nongovernmental organizations. Roughly sixty per cent of the population is under the age of thirty, and young people dominated the original protests in Tahrir Square. They are also a major presence in the field of journalism. In the press, there was talk of following the example of the Chinese. The implication was that Egypt could use authoritarianism to make decisive economic policy, but few outsiders take this seriously.
One Chinese diplomat in Cairo told me bluntly that Egypt is going in the opposite direction from China. But in Egypt you have authoritarianism in exchange for non-development. But the cultural differences between the countries, and the ways in which they affect economic and social outcomes, are immense. In China, manufacturing has averaged more than thirty per cent of gross domestic product for the past three decades.
In Egypt—a populous, young country, with cheap labor and great access to shipping lanes—manufacturing is only sixteen per cent of a weak G. Tourism once contributed more than a tenth of the economy, but, with the turmoil of the Middle East, it has no immediate hope of recovery. One result has been a spike in pregnancies: in , Egypt recorded its highest birth rate in two decades. The bloated civil service is one of the few sectors that employ many Egyptians.
Not counting the police and the Army, the government has an estimated six million workers, more than twice as many as the United States and the United Kingdom combined. More than a quarter of the Egyptian budget is spent on government salaries. Another quarter is spent on interest payments for loans.
Thirty per cent more is spent on subsidies, largely for energy. For decades, Egypt has been propped up by foreign aid; since the coup, Gulf countries, which rely on Sunni Egypt to help counterbalance Iran and the Shiites, have provided more than thirty billion dollars. The question of whether this money bought the respect and gratitude of the Egyptians was effectively answered by SisiLeaks. In a series of secretly recorded conversations that were released to a Turkish television station starting in , Sisi and his associates discuss Gulf money in the bluntest terms imaginable.
In one conversation, Sisi and Abbas Kamel, the chief of staff, talk about making another request of Gulf leaders:. S isi : Listen, you tell him that we need ten [billion] to be put in the account of the Army. Those ten, when God makes us successful, will work for the state. And we need from the U. Sisi and Kamel make casual calculations, with every number representing a billion dollars.
K amel : That makes it twenty-five. Like I was saying to you, sir, and the oil. Nobody in Cairo seems to know who is directing economic policy. After taking office, Sisi reduced some subsidies for fuel and electricity, which economists cheered as a first step toward a more sustainable system. But few other proactive measures were taken. Instead, Sisi mostly focussed on grandiose mega-projects, like the expansion of the Suez Canal, which cost more than eight billion dollars and, in the opinion of most economists, is unlikely to provide much benefit in the near future.
A relatively weak attempt to reform the civil service was finally passed by parliament in October. In the past year, the black-market rate for U. Manufacturers like General Motors and L.
Egypt considered such an action in and , but support from the Gulf, the United States, and elsewhere allowed the government to postpone hard economic decisions. The delay has proved costly. A new law has effectively frozen government salaries, and the I.
In the beginning of November, the government allowed the pound to float, and the currency has lost more than half its value.
During the coming months, life will become much harder for the average Egyptian. More than a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, and yet the country as a whole has enjoyed a kind of economic fantasy. Government officials rarely seem to comprehend the situation, in part because they have been conditioned by a long history of subsidies.
Since , when Egypt agreed to a peace treaty with Israel, the United States has given Egypt approximately fifty billion dollars in aid. Naturally, the recipients tend to fixate on these objects rather than on larger economic issues. After Morsi was removed, the Obama Administration decided not to designate the event as a coup, which would have triggered an automatic cancellation of aid.
As a half-measure, the U. But this policy, instead of inspiring deep reflection about democracy and human rights, resulted in ever more obsessive thinking about certain pieces of shiny metal. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican congressman from Orange County who is a staunch supporter of Sisi, told me that during meetings in the past two years the President has talked about the need to get spare parts for tanks.
All of them want an Egyptian government that fights Islamic extremism. But long-term political stability may require immediate economic and social change. On February 3, , the body of Giulio Regeni, a twenty-eight-year-old Italian graduate student at the University of Cambridge, was discovered in a ditch beside the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road.
Regeni had been researching a dissertation about Egyptian labor activism, and friends last saw him on January 25th, the fifth anniversary of the revolution. As the story emerged, the details constantly changed. An Egyptian forensics official estimated that he had been tortured for up to seven days. In late March, the Ministry of Interior claimed that four men who had been killed in a shoot-out with police were part of a criminal gang that had kidnapped Regeni.
Italy recalled its Ambassador to Egypt, in protest. While the crisis was building, Sisi delivered a nationally televised address.
During this period, a number of influential talk-show hosts, who a year earlier had been staunch supporters of the President, openly criticized him. At the time, the appointment was considered a positive sign, because Sadat is well respected by the international community. He spoke of the hundreds of disappearances that have occurred since Sisi came to power. Sadat said that under previous regimes it would have been unimaginable for a foreigner to be tortured to death, and he believed that it might reflect a breakdown in command.
Mubarak never fully trusted the Army—for one thing, Islamist officers had assassinated his predecessor—and he built up the Ministry of Interior as a bulwark of support. His police became notorious for their brutality and poor discipline.
Egypt has mandatory military service for males, and conscripts with the lowest levels of education are assigned to the police. The behavior of the security forces was one cause of the revolution, but none of the subsequent governments have been strong enough to force reforms.
State Department told me. During the summer of , after the coup, thousands of Morsi supporters held sit-ins at two locations in Cairo. Chuck Hagel told me that he repeatedly warned Sisi not to take violent action, but Sisi emphasized the difference between the police and the Army.
Even under Mubarak, each institution strived to carve out its own sphere of influence, a dynamic that has become much more pronounced since the revolution. The Revolution was a key moment in the history of Egyptian and Islamic feminism. The arrests sparked the Egyptian Revolution.
Egyptians from all religions and classes united against the British. Student demonstrations led to strikes by transport workers supported by trade unions, and morphed into a national general strike that paralysed the country.
Rioting broke out in Cairo and other places such as Tanta. British forces opened fire on these demonstrations and killed many people. March 15 saw a massive demonstration in support of the Revolution in Cairo, when thousands of Egyptians marched on Abdin Palace. The next day, an even more historic event occurred, when several hundred Egyptian women gathered to protest against the British occupation.
In the Egyptian countryside, the Revolution was very violent. Peasant resentment against the British, especially in relation to the hardships of the war, exploded into violent actions.
Railway tracks and telegraph lines were sabotaged. British soldiers and civilians were killed, along with Egyptian officials and others who collaborated with the British regime. The British effectively lost control of most of Egypt during March Wingate was replaced by war hero General Allenby as High Commissioner, who realised that negotiations were necessary as Egypt could not be held by military means indefinitely; he swiftly released the Egyptian nationalist politicians.
Their release, and British permission for them to travel to Paris for the Peace Conference, led the politicians to sign a letter calling off the demonstrations. The British faced a difficult question: how could they deal with Egyptian demands for independence but maintain their interests in the country — military, strategic, and economic?
British statesmen Lord Milner was sent to Egypt in December to find a solution but was faced with strikes and unrest. Milner brought Zaghlul and his associates to London for talks and in won the condition that the abolition of the British protectorate was a prerequisite for further negotiations. Strikes and demonstrations ensued.
The British decided to proceed with their plan for Egypt without consulting Zaghlul and nationalist politicians. Egypt was declared an independent country on February 28th But the situation on the ground suggested this independence was limited.
Foreign interests in Egypt, notably its large European community, were maintained by the British. British troops remained stationed in Egypt, and Britain reserved the right to increase troop levels during a state of war.
The interwar years saw a political dance take place between the British, Egyptian nationalist politicians, and the Egyptian king, who mistrusted the nationalists. The last British troops left in June , although the Suez Crisis later that year saw their temporary return.
After , the British had to consider the strength of Egyptian nationalism and deal with nationalist politicians.
The Revolution was an inspiration for other anti-colonial struggles across Africa and Asia. The negative effects of the war on Egypt unleashed powerful forces in Egyptian politics and society that could not be ignored. After the armistice of , why did the British occupy Mosul, Iraq?
When you think of the First World War, you may think of the Western Front or the dates - , but did you know that this truly global war was still being fought in in the Middle East? Dr John Slight explains.. Take an in-depth look at how Europe ended up fighting a four-year war on a global scale with this collection on the First World War.
Given that the military retook power only two years later in June , the widespread view is that this revolution failed utterly. However, the protests of and left an enduring legacy—and elements of this legacy have influenced the postprotest pathways that Egyptian activists have adopted. The revolution still resonates in the hearts and minds of Egyptians. The current military-led regime, whatever the discourse it has spun about its own popularity, does not enjoy widespread support.
Despite the creeping brutal repression the regime metes out, public opinion is growing against the various authoritarian measures that have taken hold since All this means that an underground ethos of resistance persists and a reshaped activism is struggling to take root as and where it can in a highly repressive political context.
In Egypt, the most significant factor is that a division between secular and Islamist activists heavily conditioned postprotest pathways—ultimately to the disadvantage of both these groups. In , protests broke out because the levels of frustration and hopelessness reached peak levels across a critical mass of the population.
Civic activists worked smartly and quietly in the months that led up to the breakout of protests in January They coalesced against specific regime measures, and different groups across the civic space reached a consensus on the aims of their actions. More senior leaders formed political entities, such as the Revolution Youth Coalition and the Revolutionary Socialists, as political negotiations unfolded during the protests.
As wore on, new political parties emerged from the square, and some movements splintered while others merged. Disaffected young Islamist youth abandoned the Muslim Brotherhood and its wider project.
As is natural among such an eclectic mix of people, different ideologies spawned differing opinions over what was the best pathway to realize democratic gains and fulfill the hopes of a promised transition. These differences became more prominent as the resoundingly successful protest moved into a fractious postprotest period.
It was not the case that all citizens returned to their homes as the military council moved to control the transition. The target of the mass mobilization had been removed, and the unity of the protesters evaporated. Moreover, the protests were disrupting daily life, and civilian support for the movement gradually fell away. Targeted clashes ensued, and Egyptians witnessed mass civilian-on-civilian violence for the first time in living memory. The Brotherhood mobilized its supporters to take on the civilian protest movement, while its political leadership pursued supra-constitutional amendments to stifle opposition.
This situation opened the way for the military, then led by major general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to become the key peace broker and kingmaker in the failing transition. As anger grew, a small petition movement named Tamarrod Rebel took over the protests and engineered a petition calling for fresh elections.
The Egyptian security apparatus ultimately coopted this movement, enabling the coup that took place on July 3, Even during the eighteen days of the protest, realpolitik and a misunderstanding of the deep interests of the security apparatus became apparent, as activists in the square were omitted from important negotiations.
High-profile personalities in business and politics appointed themselves as leaders of the revolution, despite a lack of core, legitimate support from the street. With the fall of president Hosni Mubarak came opportunity and openness. The immediate years that followed, from to , were a flourishing opportunity for all quarters of society: civil society, politics, arts and culture, and entrepreneurship. There was almost too much for activists to do in Such diversity of choice for postprotest pathways should have been an advantage, allowing different activists to pursue their own paths and their own roles in society.
It meant that activists failed to develop united political roadmaps to steer the transition in a durable direction. As the country prepared for elections and citizens returned home, the majority of those civic actors stayed where they felt most comfortable: the street.
Fewer activists than expected moved into new political parties, as many of these parties formed after When elections were held in November , more than parties registered and almost seventy won seats in the first post parliament.
More than domestic and international nongovernmental organizations NGOs were accredited in — to observe the elections, while hundreds more civic actors participated in programs that supported political party engagement. However, the vast majority of civic activists stayed away from party politics. Indeed, tensions grew between new politicians and the activists.
By not engaging in mainstream politics, the protest movement lost support from among the general population and the opposition parties who wanted to advance the transition. For those who did move into the political space, the ruling SCAF soon hindered their activities. The military leadership moved ahead so quickly with elections that the liberal, secular, nonpolitical strand of Tahrir had little to no time to organize.
Most of the new parties born out of the activism in the square had no financial or grassroots means to make inroads beyond small clusters of activists who were looking for political representation.
Some prominent activists rejected fellow protest leaders or participants who chose to explore politics or engage in the political bargaining and horse-trading that dragged on through the transition. They accused those who showed interest in politics of betraying the revolution by helping the Muslim Brotherhood or by allying with the SCAF. The country continued to think in terms of a binary political and social landscape: a strongman or Islamists.
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