By Mohammad Salah
Ordinary
Egyptian citizens stand perplexed before the post-revolutionary political
scene, and ask: when do we begin to reap the benefits of the Revolution? They
are surprised, because the parties that have leapt to the forefront of the
scene are speaking in their name! If they were to blame those parties, the
latter would accuse them of being followers of the former regime, although they
are the ones who carried out the Revolution. And if they were to follow behind
those parties, they would find the distance between the two of them to be quite
great. Certainly the Military Council in Egypt makes mistakes, as it manages
the affairs of the transitional period. Indeed, managing the affairs of a
country the size of Egypt and laying down the foundations of a modern state,
amidst the struggles of the political elites to gain a piece of the cake of the
Revolution, in addition to the conspiracies engaged in by the remnants of the
former regime, are matters that would baffle any governing body. What to say
then when the Council is facing not only such matters, but is also coming under
fire from any political faction that does not have its desires met by the
military? The Egyptian army came out of its barracks on January 28 in order to
bring the situation under control after the collapse of the police, and its
leaders did not have in mind that one of their tasks would be to change the
regime and topple the President. Indeed, until that day those gathered in
Tahrir Square themselves had not realized that the protests, demonstrations and
rallies had turned into a “Revolution” that would not rest until the regime was
overthrown or changed. And despite the fact that the first military statement
contained praise for the Revolution and asserted the legitimacy of the people’s
demands, the way things later turned out placed the army in the forefront of
the political scene, and in confrontation with all other forces. The army’s
task then became not just to topple the regime without division occurring
within its ranks, and to compensate for the collapse of other state
institutions, but also to deal with the conflicting needs, stances, desires,
goals and ideas of various segments of the population and political forces.
Such a formula was and remains a difficult one, especially as the length of
Mubarak’s rule, inasmuch as it had caused the “cancerous spread” of corruption in
government sectors, had also made the majority of state institutions, including
the political elite and opposition movements, suffer ills not much different
from those of the regime, which considered itself to be “Egypt the state”. The
regime fell by the force of those gathered in Tahrir Square, and the army did
not defend it, nor was there a reaction from the Republican Guard, the leaders
and members of which are supposed to be loyal to the President directly. It
appeared afterwards that political forces and the political elites were
divided, and that every faction acknowledged no forces other than itself in
society with goals, ideas, principles, and perhaps interests that contradict
its own goals, ideas, principles or interests. The situation reached such an
extent that the Military Council could not make decisions that would satisfy
all forces at once, and it became impossible for its policies, decisions and
laws to be announced without arousing the anger of other parties, which would
consider that a specific party had benefited from them. Thus the Council found
itself to have fallen into contradictions it would have avoided had the
political elites agreed to keep their disputes under control, and maintained a
minimum of consensus over common grounds between their demands. The political
elite overlooked an important truth that appeared patently in the “Go Back to
Your Barracks” million-man march last Friday, and was reflected in the meager
number of participants in Tahrir Square, compared to the real “million-man
marches” witnessed from the moment the Revolution erupted up until Mubarak
stepped down on February 11 – the truth that a “million-man march” can only be
complete by the will of the people, not in order to achieve the narrow interest
of this or that faction.
The
political elite did not realize that building the state anew would be an object
of discord between them, that the views of Islamists would not be accepted by
Secularists, that the plans of the Leftists and Nasserists would be sure to
clash with the ideas and the principles of Liberals and Rightists, and that the
problems faced by the wealthy and the well-off were not the same problems faced
by the poor and the destitute. The military has made mistakes, and will
throughout the transitional period make others. But what have the Revolution’s
symbolic figures done to preserve the Revolution from opportunists and from
those who ride the wave, other than talking on satellite television? Between
the Yes and No to the referendum on the constitutional announcement, then the
elections or the constitution first, then the secular or Islamic nature of the
state, then whether the military should stay or leave, then isolating all of
the remnants of the National Democratic Party (NDP) or some of them, then the
articles governing the constitution or disregarding them, we have reached the
phase of Presidential elections or the constitution first! All of them are
issues that do not involve multiple options, but only black or white. And with
every choice made or decision taken by the military, one party will be
satisfied and others will be angered. Thus the Military Council will continue
to manage the transitional period in its own way, and the political elites will
remain as they are, locked in struggle, while the symbolic figures of the
Revolution fade away, those who call for failed million-man marches do not
learn, and ordinary citizens feel that they have been let down by all parties,
and that they perhaps need to topple all those who have let them down… that they
perhaps need another revolution.
This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 10/10/2011
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