Muez i Diin Street
3 FEBRUARY 2011
Mubarak has turned things round, he’s back in the driving seat. Why? Because the protesters forgot that their aim was to replace his vicious regime with a democratic system of government where they could live in freedom and security, and instead focused on defending Tahrir Square.
Midan Tahrir (Liberation Square) is symbolic and strategic, I completely understand that. It’s an enormous space in the heart of downtown Cairo, adjacent to key state buildings and right beside the Nile with two important bridges located close by. Losing control of it would allow the regime to permanently block large scale demonstrations, so the argument goes. Certainly, the view of Tahrir Square full of peaceful protesters on Sunday was breathtaking – a brilliant message to send out to the world. The pictures attested to a hugely popular, young and broad-based movement to reclaim rights long trampled upon by a regime that is heavily funded by Western democracies.
But by Tuesday Tahrir Square was no longer peaceful. The protesters were being attacked in the most hideous example of coordinated thuggery, with an apparently beloved army standing by happy to let the violence ensue.
Perhaps the protesters had no choice. If you’re being attacked you have to defend yourself. I actually have huge respect for people camping out for long periods trying to defend the square.
But thugs are thugs. Thugs like violence. That’s what they do – fight. To fight against them is to play on their terms. Very soon the violence escalates, people forget why the violence started and focus on the chaos in their city. Already I am hearing Egyptian friends saying they support ‘neither side’. Some are saying they want Mubarak to remain until September, otherwise there would be more chaos.
Violence gets the protesters off the streets. People die. People get badly injured (over 1000 of them in two days), which forces them to seek medical help. Others are exhausted. And the many who want to protest but will not contemplate taking part in pitched battles on the streets, stay off the streets (if I was there I hope I would put myself in this category. I’d be far too scared to fight anybody and would not want to throw stones to hurt people indiscriminately). This in many ways is the absolute key – convincing the vast majority to get on the streets. Bigger and bigger peaceful protests will remove Mubarak, fighting between a hard core in Tahrir won’t.
Scared people staying off the streets in itself affects the number willing to protest. If you are not sure that many thousands of others will protest, the risks to you are greater. At a certain point, you won’t take the risk. If the protesters cannot maintain the numbers on the streets, they will rapidly lose momentum. The regime wins by violence.
Earlier in the protests there was violence. But that was different – it was against (mostly) lots of riot police. It was clear who were the good guys (the protesters) and who were the bad guys (the regime). When Mubarak and Suleiman threw thugs in plain clothes onto the streets to attack protesters, the CNNs and Al Jazeera Englishes of this world had to start talking about ‘pro-Mubarak supporters’ and even ‘protesters’ (who on earth were they protesting against? And what a way to protest, riding into Tahrir Square armed with whips and clubs). Channel 4 news in the UK was adamant that they were state-organised thugs, but even Jon Snow felt he had to say there were some among them passionate for Mubarak to stay.
All of a sudden people start talking about, ‘two sides’ which of course is nonsense. There is a regime on the one side, and the people of Egypt on the other, not two equal sets of supporters who disagree. Why did the Mubarak thugs turn up in a coordinated way only on Tuesday, one week into the protests when the ‘police’ had long since disappeared? Why did they attack on horses? Why did they carry weapons? Why did many of them have ID cards showing them to be members of state ’security’. This is not two sides, it is a regime trying to retrieve its control through what it does best.
There’s another reason why holding onto Tahrir Square at all costs is a bad idea. It is easy for the regime thugs to find and hunt down the protesters. They have even been using buildings and bridges around the area to hurl stones and molotov cocktails. If the protesters were fluid it would be much harder to disrupt and attack them.
There are also other symbolic places where protesters could head for: The Presidential Palace for example. Holding Tahrir is not the endgame – Mubarak has shown that.
Part of the explanation for this is that the Mubarak regime is impervious to the hardships of its own people and to the protestations of the U.S.. Obama no longer has leverage. The $1.5billion in annual military aid cannot be touched because Mubarak retains his trump card: his peace treaty with Israel. Mubarak’s regime clearly does not care much for the economy of the country (and the well being of its people) so long as it is in control. Why else would it stand by as foreigners flee en masse and its stock market tumbles. Many of the most gruesome African dictators of the past 50 years continued to cling onto power long after their county’s economy had been devastated.
There was a time when the protesters did well out of the fact they had no leader. There was no one person the government could put behind bars to put a halt to the protests. Western governments, as always anxious to avoid the imagined Islamist takeover at all costs, could not argue against a broad-based movement of leaderless young people claiming their rights.
But now the protesters actually need a leader. They need all the opposition parties and movements (April 6, the Muslim Brotherhood, Ayman Nour, ElBaradei) to come behind a viable interim leader who can take Egypt towards free and fair elections. Otherwise too many Egyptians will continue to say that Mubarak is right – if he leaves there will be chaos (as two friends said to me today). These Egyptians need persuading that Mubarak is the problem; his regime is the cancer at the heart of Egyptian society. It offers no ’security’ or ’stability’ for Egyptians but only security and stability for itself. But to be persuaded of this, many Egyptians need to be able to imagine a credible alternative for the short term – a stable transition that leads to free and fair multi-party elections when things have settled down.
With the protesters stuck in Tahrir throwing stones, and the opposition movement failing to coordinate its message of a viable alternative, Mubarak’s regime is winning back the initiative. And the worse part is, even if Mubarak does step down in elections in September or August, as he has promised, the regime that he has spawned may be able to carry on. Mafias can survive the loss of a leader, so long as their access to the resources that sustain them remains unbroken
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