Table Of ContentRobert Fisk on Egypt:
A Revolution Betrayed
Robert Fisk
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Robert Fisk
on
Egypt:
A Revolution Betrayed
More than any other nation, Egypt epitomises the cruel disappointments of the
Arab Spring. In less than four years, its people have come full circle. A sclerotic,
cynical, seemingly immovable military regime, disguised by a fig-leaf of
ostensible representation, was swept away on a joyous tsunami of popular
idealism; a corrupt dictator was ousted, tried and jailed; free elections were held,
a new president peacefully installed, and a new age of freedom and democracy
seemed genuinely possible.
Then, with tragic predictability, the new regime degenerated. Corruption,
incompetence and repression provoked a counter-revolution; the elected
president was ousted and jailed, his supporters massacred or rounded up. The old
dictator was freed (for a while), the opposition was outlawed, the faceless men
of the military resumed and tightened their grip on the reins of power – and
thousands of ordinary Egyptians were left wondering what all their suffering and
sacrifice had been for.
No commentator is better qualified to tell this tragic tale than Robert Fisk,
unflinching critic of the Mubarak regime and acclaimed chronicler of Middle-
Eastern affairs for The Independent for 25 years. This powerful anthology of his
journalism describes the full cycle of Egypt’s awakening and relapse, episode by
episode, as it happened – from the first stirrings of unrest to the glorious dawn of
Tahrir Square, and the days of shame and atrocity that followed.
Told with rare insight into both Egyptian culture and the hypocrisy of the West,
this is history at its most compelling, written by one of the very greatest
commentators on the Arab world.
2010
5th March 2010
MUBARAK’S CHALLENGER CAN’T RELY ON A
FAIR RACE
WHAT KEEPS old men in power in Egypt? And what keeps middle-aged men
wanting power in a country whose crippled society, increasing sectarianism,
brutal police force and endemic corruption is only compounded by an electoral
system widely regarded as a fraud? Most Egyptians don't think that President
Hosni Mubarak is immortal, even though he still reigns supreme at the age of 81.
Even the pharaohs believed they would live on only in the next world.
But now the former head of the UN's nuclear agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, says
that if there's a fair election next year, he might stand for president. "If" is a big
word in Egyptian politics, however, and the saintly El-Baradei shows no sign of
appreciating just how tough are his chances. He has called for changes in the
Egyptian constitution and an end to emergency laws. But even he must realise
that Hosni Mubarak will not be shaking in his shoes at this news.
The real problem, of course, is not El-Baradei's chances - pretty much nil - but
Mubarak's age. Both the president and his son, Gamal, deny that Gamal wants to
be president, but the son's steady ascent in Egyptian political life suggests
otherwise. If he did inherit his father's throne, of course, there would be a second
caliphate in the Arab world - the other being Syria, where Bashar al-Assad took
over after his father's death and some deft switching of Baath Party rules.
Omar Sulieman, Mubarak's senior intelligence man - he is also involved in the
constant negotiations with Hamas over the future of Gaza - has never publicly
expressed interest in the presidency. Besides he suffers heart problems.
Meanwhile in interviews with news agencies over the past week, El-Baradei has
been waffling about Egypt's youth and the internet as organs of change. Indeed,
his new coalition is called the National Front for Change. "People are talking
about all sorts of things and they might go to civil disobedience if there is no
change," he said. But when the opposition "Enough!" movement could not get
enough support from youth in the streets of Cairo - some of its female members
were assaulted by plain-clothes police officers - what chance does El-Baradei
have? The internet is watched closely by the security cops, and El-Baradei is
going to get no support from the likes of Barack Obama.
Many Egyptian intellectuals now suspect that the corrupted old Egyptian
governments are partly responsible for the increasingly sectarian nature of
disputes between Muslims and Egyptian Copts - always presented by the
government, of course, as domestic disputes which have nothing to do with
religion. But the alienation of the Christians and the increasingly
"Islamicisation" of the country has got a lot to do with it.
The police force is virtually outside the law, and routine state violence is now
accepted as a fact of life - or death. Indeed, the killing of 60 economic migrants
by Egyptian police since 2007 - they were seeking to cross the border into Israel
- has simply gone unreported.
Osama al-Ghazali Harb, editor of the monthly Al-Siyassa al-Sawliyya (published
by Al-Ahram), traces the sectarian tensions right back to the 1952 military coup,
when members of the Egyptian Free Officers had close links with the Muslim
Brotherhood. All the coup officers were Muslims. He points out that great harm
was also done to the Egyptian body politic later when Anwar Sadat described
himself as "the Muslim president of a Muslim state".
But El-Baradei has other problems. Some opposition politicians in Egypt believe
that he did not do enough to prevent the US invasion of Iraq, accuse him of
wanting to play Hamid Karzai in a new pro-American Egypt, and even suggest
that there should be a mock trial of the Nobel Prize winner for his failure to stop
the American occupation of Iraq. Egyptian politics is an unkind sport.
El-Baradei says he is trying to make the connection between economic and
social development and political reform, and that "if you move into a democratic
system, everything else will fall into place". But why should the Mubarak father-
and-son team try to change the system?
The previous contender for Mubarak's job, Ayman Nour, was imprisoned after
the 2005 election for forgery, a charge which he said was fraudulent. It might be
more difficult to lock up Mohamed El-Baradei. But he's likely to find
"democracy" in Egypt a more daunting task than keeping his eye on Iran.
24th August 2010
EGYPTIANS PREPARE FOR LIFE AFTER
MUBARAK
SO HERE comes the latest Egyptian joke about 82-year-old President Hosni
Mubarak. The president, a keen squash player - how else could he keep his jet-
black hair? - calls up the sheikh of Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni Muslim cleric in
the land, to ask if there are squash courts in heaven. The sheikh asks for a couple
of days to consult the Almighty. Two days later, he calls Mr Mubarak back.
"There's good news and bad news," he says. Give me the good news, snaps Mr
Mubarak. "Well," says the sheikh, "there are lots of squash courts in heaven."
And the bad news, asks the president? "You have a match there in two weeks'
time!"
The fact that the intelligence services ignore the usual suspects when this sort of
joke is made does not signify a new freedom of speech or - dare one say it - a
new democracy in Egypt. The truth is that the president, in poor health since a
gall bladder operation in Germany, is a very old man who has no appointed
successor and whose imminent demise is the only story in town, told with that
familiar vein of cruel humour in which Egyptians are rivalled only by the
Lebanese. The days when Mr Mubarak was called "La vache qui rit" (the cow
who smiles) - the Egyptians know the joke in its French form - are gone.
A lot of them want him dead - not out of personal animosity, but because they
want political change. They probably will not get it. Telling Egyptians that "only
God knows" who the next president will be - Mr Mubarak actually said this - is
ridiculous. Will it be his son, Gamal? The head of Egyptian intelligence, Omar
Sulieman? He's probably had too many heart problems.
But either way, it would change nothing. Of Mohamed El-Baradei, more later.
The opposition "Kifaya" - "Enough" - party is regularly attacked by the security
services. Perhaps Mr Mubarak does not care.
Cairo has been labouring under an intense heat wave these past two weeks -
when the local papers report it on page one, you know it's serious - and in the
foetid slums of Beaulac al-Daqrour, sweating through 47 degrees, the millions of
Egyptians who live under Mr Mubarak's exhausted rule have little time for
politics.
Like the Iraqis under UN sanctions, whom the West always hoped would
overthrow Saddam, most Egyptians are too weary to rise up against the regime,
more anxious to protect their families from poverty than to abuse the man who
leaves them in such misery. Even the open sewers of al-Daqruor have dried up,
leaving a black stream at the bottom, in which barefoot children play.
Just as Victorian governments always feared revolution amid the slums of
London, Manchester and Liverpool, so the Egyptian authorities have layered the
slums with a carapace of competing intelligence services to ensure that no
serious political opposition can be sustained amid the piety and filth of Cairo.
A splurge of posters carrying a photograph of Mr Mubarak's 47-year old
businessman son, Gamal, below the bleak caption "Gamal... Egypt" - a sad
gesture to Egypt's 28 per cent illiteracy rate rather than a chic slogan by his
National Democratic Party - has been disowned by his supporters, who now
oddly include a member of the opposition leftist Tagammu party, Magdy el-
Kurdi.
True to the methods of all good Arab socialist movements, poor Mr el-Kurdi is
to be "interrogated" for violating the Tagammu's principles. "...We don't support
individuals," the party's co-founder said. "Rather, we seek democracy."
And so say all of us. The problem with Mr Mubarak's presidency - and with
Gamal, if this is to become the second caliphate in the Middle East (the capital
of the first being Damascus) - is that after decades of promised improvements,
most Egyptians still feel that their country has no physical or political
movement. The country's state of emergency curbs their tongues. Poverty breaks
down their energy. They have been injected with political boredom.
The rich live in gated communities outside the city; indeed, all the major hotels
in Cairo have become gated communities for foreigners, tourists and
businessmen and women, who breathe air-conditioning, sip cold beers beside the
pool, sweep to their appointments in luxury buses or limousines. For the rich,
there are tennis clubs, horse-riding, boutiques, concert performances. For the
poor, there is controlled religion, Dickensian housing and television soap opera.
No wonder Egyptian television is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the
slogan: "We started big, and we remain big." Big - as in fat.
For, as a Cairo freelance writer, Nael Shama, noted last month, Egyptian
television's Nile News, launched in English and French in 1994 as a rival to
CNN, is a flop.
"Because Nile News has... been owned and run by the Egyptian state, its
freedom of expression has always been curtailed... As in all dictatorships, news
reports must start with highlighting the inane announcements of the president
followed by the 'less important' world news, be it the collapse of the Twin
Towers in New York, or the start of a new war in the Middle East..."
Demonstrations and strikes - trade unions have grasped back a little power in
recent months - are rarely reported. The Muslim Brotherhood, the theoretically
banned but tolerated opposition party, is forbidden from all Nile News
programmes.
That's the way Egypt is run. There is a kind of facade of toleration. It's like
riding on a familiar old train, puffing round the Cairo loop-line to Giza. You
already know the names of the stations by heart. Call Egypt a dictatorship and
the government will tell you that democracy takes time - at least 29 years under
Mr Mubarak and counting - and ask why the Brotherhood can campaign at
elections if the country is so undemocratic. Forget for a moment that an awful lot
of the Brotherhood are regularly banged up, and you will also be told of the
freedom of the press. Forget for a moment that journalists are regularly banged
up, and you will be told that even the president enjoys the jokes told against him.
"If this was a Saddam-style dictatorship," an old friend and Mubarak loyalist
asked me, "do you think we'd have the internet so freely available to our youth?"
But there you have to signal red and stop the train. For, two months ago, a 28-
year old human rights activist called Khaled Said was dragged out of an
Alexandria internet cafe by two cops, Awad Sulieman and Mahmoud Salah
Mahmoud - the names are important because Egyptian policemen are usually
allowed anonymity - who, in a vicious assault, smashed his head against a wall
and killed him. The reason for his murder, his mother suspects, is that Mr Said
possessed a videotape of some cops sharing out drugs seized during a police
raid.
Even before the autopsy, however, the Egyptian interior ministry said that Mr
Said had criminal convictions, evaded national service and had swallowed a
packet of marijuana when he saw the police arrive. The initial autopsy claimed
that Mr Said died by asphyxiating on this plastic wrap of drugs, a conclusion
disputed by international forensic pathologists, who said that photographs of the
Description:More than any other nation, Egypt epitomises the cruel disappointments of the Arab Spring. In less than four years, its people have come full circle. A sclerotic, cynical, seemingly immovable military regime, disguised by a fig-leaf of ostensible representation, was swept away on a joyous tsunami of
