Egypt One Year On: Stark Message for Arab Revolutionaries

RSIS presents the following commentary Egypt One Year On: Stark Message for Arab  Revolutionaries by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print  it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS  Commentaries, at  RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg No. 018/2012 dated 25 January 2012 Egypt One Year On:  Stark Message for Arab Revolutionaries  By James M. Dorsey        Synopsis This month's first anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak contains a stark  message for Egypt’s revolutionaries. They are being marginalised as vested interests  and traditional political forces experienced in political horse trading fill the vacuum  of leadership. This message may well also be meant for other revolutionaries in the Arab  world.          EGYPT’S MILITARY council, backed by Islamist and secular political parties, has  upstaged the 25 January celebrations of the anniversary of the protests that ousted  President Hosni Mubarak even before the party gets underway. The military  pre-empted plans by the revolutionary youth and militant soccer fan groups whose  mass protests early last year forced Mubarak from office by announcing that they  would organise their own celebration together with the Muslim Brotherhood on Cairo’s  Tahrir Square. The military’s co-opting of the celebrations is certain to dash hopes of the  protesters to exploit the anniversary to launch what they call a second revolution that  would force the armed forces to immediately relinquish power. Instead, it is likely to  seal their defeat in a country that has grown tired of demonstrations, still largely  reveres the military despite its brutal response to anti-government protests late last  year and wants to see tangible results of its revolt. A stark message The military’s move also signals the primacy of electoral over contentious politics in  post-autocratic transition societies with the backing of the Brotherhood, which emerged  as Egypt’s foremost political grouping with some 40 per cent of the vote in the first  post-Mubarak elections. The Brotherhood’s backing of the military celebration is  significant given its demonstrated ability to fill Tahrir Square and mobilise opposition  against the military if it wanted to.      The military is sending a stark message not only to Egyptian youth and soccer fan  groups that established political organisations with well-oiled party machines rather  than newly emerging political forces will shape the country’s future. The message  is also to protesters elsewhere in the region that unless they can match their  mobilisation and street skills with the art of electoral politics and backroom horse  trading they too will be relegated to the sidelines of history. Much of the youth and soccer groups’ criticism of the post-Mubarak transition  rings true even if does not resonate with a majority of the population. They accuse  the military of subverting a promised transition to real democracy in a bid to  preserve its political and economic perks and interests and employing to do so  the same if not worse repressive measures than the Mubarak regime. Scores  have been killed in protests since Mubarak’s downfall, thousands injured and some  12,000 people, including activists, bloggers and soccer fans dragged in front of  military courts. The one joker in the military’s plans to upstage the youth and soccer fan groups  and give them the death knell is the spectre of violent confrontation during the  celebrations. Fear of a repeat of the bitter street battles that took place between  security forces and soccer fans in November and December last year could  persuade many Egyptians to steer clear of Tahrir Square on 25 January. Egypt’s  military ruler, Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi issued a thinly veiled  warning to the youth and soccer fan groups days before the 25 January  celebrations that Egypt faced unprecedented “grave dangers” but that the  military would protect it. The statement, echoing Mubarak’s tactic of distracting  attention from domestic issues by invoking an alleged foreign threat, was  contrived to rally public opinion against the protesters. Treacherous ground           A failure to rally the masses would dent the military’s efforts to maintain the  high ground and would boost revolutionary moves to thwart its plans. Nonetheless,  the youth and soccer fan groups are on treacherous ground. They have lost much  of the popular support they enjoyed in the run-up to and immediate aftermath  of Mubarak’s ousting. Their refusal to surrender Tahrir Square in favour of traditional  politics has won them few brownie points with the public. Their marginalisation is  compounded by the fact that men and women perceived to be honest and of faith  have emerged victorious in the election, raising hopes that government will be free of  nepotism and corruption. Revolutionaries in other Middle Eastern and North African societies in transition may  well conclude from the Egyptian experience that it is a fatal mistake to simply topple an  autocratic leader and not to push for the ultimate uprooting of a failed system. It  promises to make transitions even more contentious and could inspire the kind  of resilience and determination displayed by protesters in Syria who have refused to  give ground to a ten-month old brutal government crackdown that has already cost some  5,000 lives. Protesters across the Middle East and North Africa like their counterparts in other  parts of the world have mastered the art of seemingly leaderless revolt and exploitation  of new technology. However, the lesson of Egypt is that they will also increasingly have  to harness the skills of traditional politics and face up to the reality of realpolitik to  ensure that they not only win a battle but also the war.     James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International  Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering  the Middle East for over 30 years.                                              Click here for past commentaries. Find us on Facebook. 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