Egypt: the moment of truth

Camp at Tahrir Square last night. Photo: 3arabawy.The
whole of Egypt is now in a precarious balance. That same precariousness
applies to the role of the armed forces, the sole remaining fulcrum of
the regime. On paper it is a formidable force, as solid as the
aforementioned pyramid. But armies are composed of human beings, and are
subject to the same pressures as any other social stratum or
institution.

From one minute to the next the protesters awaited the order from the
President for the army to disperse the crowds. "The soldiers are not
out here for the people, they are out for the president," said a
middle-aged man. As darkness fell, the loud whirring of military
helicopters could again be heard above central Cairo. Despite this, the
rebels continued to chant angrily for President Hosni Mubarak to step
down, some waving the Egyptian flags. Air force jets made multiple
passes overhead. But on the ground the troops made no attempt to break
up the protests.

The tanks that rolled into Tahrir Square were meant to intimidate.
But they were immediately surrounded by a human mass that impeded their
progress. There have been shows of solidarity with protesters sharing
their food with soldiers and in one case, carrying a young officer on
their shoulders. The longer the army is in contact with the
revolutionary masses, the greater will be the effect and the more
difficult it will be to use it to crush the revolution.

The display of military might was meant to have a psychological
effect on the tens of thousands of protesters gathering in Tahrir
Square. However, the tanks have failed to stop the protests. Mubarak, a
former air force officer, decided that fighter planes might get better
results, since it is difficult to fraternise with a high-flying pilot.
Yesterday fighter jets flew low over the protesters in an attempt to
cause panic. But just as they had quickly adjusted to the presence of
tanks on the streets, demonstrators were undeterred.

Instead of fear, however, this intimidatory gesture caused anger.
“Look! They are sending the air force against us. From this moment we
have no President. We will get rid of Mubarak or we will die here.” That
was the reaction of one protester. "At first, I was frightened from the
sound of the planes, but now it’s as if I’m listening to music,"
commented a student who had come out to protest for the first time.
"It’s okay, they’re not going to kill us," she said, then added,
"although some people do say the president might kill all the country
just to stay on."

In a revolution, as in a war, timing is of the essence. The same is
true of a counterrevolution. Decisive action is necessary if order is to
be imposed by force of arms. But here there is no decisive action, only
hesitation, prevarication and indecision. Mubarak is “willing to wound,
and yet afraid to strike”. This is a sure recipe for undermining any
authority he may still have had. Machiavelli said that it was better for
a ruler to be feared than to be loved. Just one week ago Mubarak was
not loved but he was feared. Now he is regarded with contempt. He has
lost the initiative and it will be impossible to regain it.

General strike

It is obvious that society cannot continue like this. Either the old
order will re-impose its authority – a perspective that is becoming
increasingly unlikely – or the masses will impose a new order. There is
talk of a general strike. Groups of protesters camped out in the capital
overnight, determined not to leave until Hosni Mubarak goes. The
momentum of the movement continues to grow as we write these lines.
Thousands rallied over the weekend in Alexandria and there were also
sizeable demonstrations in Mansoura, Damanhour and Suez.

Crowds are again building in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, despite army
checkpoints designed to limit access. A march billed as the "protest of
the millions" is taking place today (Tuesday). More than a million
people are out in Tahrir Square, 300,000 in Suez, 250,000 in Mahalla,
250,000 in Mansoura, and 500,000 in Alexandria. Protesters are out in
every single city and town in Egypt, approximately four million all over
Egypt. It is the moment of truth.

Even without a general strike normal economic life has already ground
to a halt. The Japanese car maker Nissan has announced that it is
halting production at its Egypt plant for a week, and it has urged
non-Egyptian employees to leave the country. The impact is already being
felt in global markets. The Nikkei fell in early trading in Tokyo as
the Egyptian unrest prompted investors to dump risky assets.

‘The Will of The Egyptian People is above you Mubarak’. Photo: 3arabawyMost
shops and businesses in Cairo are closed. The middle classes are
rushing to withdraw money from bank cash machines. The few supermarkets
that are open are stripped bare by shoppers, stocking up with food. In
the poor areas, the bakeries are running out of the small round loaves
of bread that are a staple of the national diet. Streets are said to be
piling up with rubbish as shops and hotels run out of basic supplies as
infrastructure breaks down due to the unrest.

In a further vacillation the police have been ordered back on the
streets again. State television has warned there are gangs on the
rampage, although some believe it is exaggerating the threat to scare
people. The regime is trying to create an atmosphere of tension to
justify a clampdown. Security forces in plainclothes are engaged in
destroying public property in order to give the impression that many
protesters represent a public menace. A recent Stratfor report indicated
that plainclothes police from Egypt’s internal security apparatus are
the main drivers behind the growing insecurity in the streets over the
past few days. It says:

“It is important to keep in mind that historically, animosity has
existed between Egyptian police and army officers. The Interior
Ministry, according to STRATFOR sources, wanted to prevent the military
from imposing control in the streets. It appears that the absence of
police on the streets Jan. 29 was (at least in part) encouraged by the
outgoing interior minister, who was sacked the same day along with the
rest of the Cabinet. Egyptian plainclothes police allegedly were behind a
number of the jailbreaks, robberies of major banks and the spread of
attacks and break-ins in high-class neighbourhoods. The idea behind the
violent campaign was to portray the protesters as a public menace and
elicit a heavy-handed army crackdown to embroil the military in an even
bigger crisis.”

The reaction of the people has been to begin to take over the running
of their areas. The protester are forming people’s committees to
protect public property and also to coordinate demonstrators’
activities, including supplying them with food, beverages and first aid.
In some neighbourhoods, residents are erecting makeshift checkpoints.
They arm themselves with sticks and pistols against looters. Some use
equipment left by police officers after they abandoned their usual
positions.

Images of the scenes unfolding are being broadcast into homes across
Egypt and the Arab world, and large audiences are watching and waiting
to see what happens. The authorities are attempting to get a monopoly
over the means of communication by restricting the printed media and the
internet. The information ministry has closed the local Al-Jazeera
office in a fresh attempt to control the message. However, such efforts
seem futile. The ever-resourceful Egyptians are continuing to tune in to
satellite television to hear the news.

An “orderly transition”

Amid growing fears in London and other European capitals that
“extremists could try to exploit the situation”, British premier David
Cameron spoke to King Abdullah of Jordan on Sunday about the situation
in the Middle East and North Africa. (*) British foreign secretary
William Hague told the BBC: "It’s to avert those risks and meet the
legitimate grievances and aspirations of the Egyptian people that we are
urging the Egyptian authorities… to create a more broadly-based
government." He said reforms should be "real and visible" and elections
"free and fair".

But there is one small problem with all this well-meaning advice.
Mubarak seems determined not to run away as Ben Ali did. And in fact the
Americans don’t wish that either. They can see that the resulting power
vacuum would be very dangerous for them. The Americans have warned
President Mubarak urgently that there must be no more killings. They
know that one bloody clash would be sufficient to split the army in
pieces. Then the floodgates would open. That is why the army has stated
that it will not use force to suppress the demonstrations. This is the
kiss of death for Mubarak.

ElBaradei and the other “reformers” are pleading with the Americans
to intervene: "It is better for President Obama not to appear that he is
the last one to say to President Mubarak: ‘It’s time for you to go’."
But Obama has not said this – not yet anyway. The masses want a complete
transformation. But Barack Obama wants only an "orderly transition". An
orderly transition – to what? We do not know. But we do know that Obama
has called for Mr Mubarak to initiate it. That is to say, he is willing
to give the old dictator a key role in making arrangements for the
future of Egypt. We know also that Washington sees Egypt is a key “ally”
in the Middle East. It has given it billions of dollars of aid, and it
wants value for its money.

The White House says Mr Obama made a number of calls about the
situation over the weekend to foreign leaders including Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and British
Prime Minister David Cameron. The protests in Egypt are top of the
agenda of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on
Monday. All are terrified about the effect of “contagion” from Egypt.

The BBC correspondent John Simpson says: “From the American point of
view, the best thing that could happen would be a peaceful end to the
protests, the retirement of Mr Mubarak and the continuation of some part
(at least) of the system which he has created – shorn, hopefully, of
its corruption.” But he adds a warning: “It won’t be easy and it won’t
appeal greatly to the demonstrators, who have condemned Mr Mubarak’s
entire political structure and want to bring it down.”

The strategists of Capital are relying on the fact that people will
be tired, and that there will be a general desire to get back to
ordinary life, and this will bring a gradual end to the protest. Then
the system   if not the president himself   might survive. But
everything depends on the demonstrators: if they hold out – an “orderly
transition” will not be possible, and the movement could go far further
than anybody suspects.

Last night on (British) Channel Four News there was a debate between
an American and a British “expert”. The American – a typically
bone-headed right winger – was optimistic about a “managed transition to
democracy”. His British counterpart was not impressed. “This is a
revolutionary situation,” he replied with icy sarcasm. “You cannot hope
to manage a situation like that.” There can be no doubt that the latter
evaluation is the correct one.

Meanwhile, China has added its voice to the chorus calling for a
return to “order”. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday:
"Egypt is a friend of China’s, and we hope social stability and order
will return to Egypt as soon as possible". The Chinese regime is
interested in global economic stability because it wants to continue to
earn a lot of money from exports. But it is also afraid of anything that
could provide an impetus for strikes and protests in China itself. That
explains why the Chinese regime has blocked the use of search engines
to find news on the events unfolding in Egypt!

The masses fight, the politicians intrigue

The Americans are desperately manoeuvring behind the scenes. For the
last week there have been intense discussions with senior U.S.
officials, the government and the tops of the army. The military is
preparing the time for Mubarak’s political exit. Until this happens, the
unrest in the streets will continue. But who and what will take his
place?

In its search for an “orderly transition”, the western media is
trying to build up the figure Mohamed ElBaradei. The television cameras
somehow always manage to locate him among a mass of demonstrators. But
it brings to mind the following anecdote. A man was seen wandering
aimlessly behind a crowd of demonstrators. When someone asked him who he
was, he answered: “Me? I’m their leader.”

Although he played no role in organising the protests, he is
nevertheless presented as the leader of a mysterious “opposition
coalition”, which apparently includes the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood,
which also played no role in organising the protests and at first did
not even participate in them. This “coalition” is calling for a national
unity government to be set up. Who will be in this government? Nobody
knows. Who elected this “opposition coalition”? Nobody knows. Yet behind
the backs of the masses, these gentlemen are already making plans to
seize the reins of power.

The leaders are jockeying for power. The opposition is unified in its
hatred against Mubarak, yet divided on almost everything else. Already
there were signs of disunity within the “united” opposition. The Muslim
Brotherhood is having second thoughts about its endorsement of leading
figure Mohamed ElBaradei as a negotiator with Mr Mubarak. A spokesman
for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsy, told the BBC:

"The people have not appointed Mohamed ElBaradei to become a
spokesman of them." That is quite true. The people have not appointed
Mohamed ElBaradei, but neither have they appointed the Muslim
Brotherhood. They have not appointed anybody because they have not been
consulted. They are fighting and dying on the streets, and their
objective is not to further the careers of opportunist politicians but
to change their lives.

The revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are largely secularist and
democratic, and often deliberately excluding the Islamists. The
conventional wisdom that only the Muslim Brotherhood can organise
grassroots opposition movements in the Middle East is false, as is the
idea that it is the ‘only real opposition’. The protests indicate the
extent to which Egyptians have rejected jihadist ideology. They prove
that Islamists do not have a monopoly on grassroots movements. The
basic demands of the Egyptian demonstrators are for jobs, food and
democratic rights. This is nothing to do with the Islamists and is a
bridge to socialism, which has deep roots in the traditions of Egypt and
other Arab countries.

The moment of truth

Tensions are growing between the army and the police and between the
police and protesters. The revolution has provoked a crisis in the
state. There are reports of a major confrontation that has been played
out behind the scenes between the Interior Ministry and the military.
The army must try to end the protests on the streets. But it will not be
easy, now that the masses have got a sense of their own power.

The political structure of the state is crumbling, forcing the army
to assume direct responsibility for the running of society. The military
is supposed to be the guarantor of the state. But the military is not a
monolithic entity. The army in Egypt is not like the army in Britain or
the USA. The lower and middle ranks of the officer caste reflect the
pressure of the masses. The entire history of Egypt places the
possibility of a colonel’s coup on the agenda. The result could be a
nationalist regime like that of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a colonel in the
armed forces, who overthrew the British-backed monarchy in 1952.

In the present situation, it is possible that history will be
repeated. But whatever “transitional” government is formed will be under
close scrutiny. It will feel the hot breath of the masses on its neck.
The key to the whole situation is the mass movement. All the
contradictions are coming to a head. The coming hours will be decisive.
The moment of truth has arrived.

1

(*) Note: No doubt Cameron was advising the King of Jordan on what to
do to placate the masses. The latest news is that King Abdullah II of
Jordan has now sacked his government. This has come after huge street
protests inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. This is
confirmation that, after the protests in Yemen, Algeria and other
countries, what started in Tunisia could engulf the whole of the Arab
world.