Medusa, The genie of the lamp, and peaceful protest

Most revolutions have historically had a theoretical background, some had propaganda, some were massive, some were failed, and many had mixed results. However, the Egyptian revolution stands alone in having a mythology. The mythology of the Egyptian revolution was concocted by a combination of computer savvy but logically challenged tweens, socialists living beyond their expiry date, religious zealots, an adolescent media, and a population that is fixated on easy solutions regardless of its veracity.

Myth #1: All that Mubarak did was bad, and all that was bad was done by Mubarak
The prime example here is daylight saving. For some reason we had to cancel daylight saving because ... apparently ... Mubarak invented it, and all advanced countries have abandoned its use. Of course this is not true, all countries with territory above 30N or below 30S employ daylight saving. Statistics show it saves between 1 and 10% of electricity used in summer even in hot climates. But facts are irrelevant, right after Jan25 the elite in Egypt set up an argument where all that is wrong in Egypt was due to Mubarak, and where everything that Mubarak did was wrong. This set the stage for a situation where we are revisiting all the laws that protect the rights of women and little girls (FGM anyone?) to the bitter protest of the very same elite. There's no denying that Mubarak inflated the property sector in Egypt and made the economy very dependent on tourism, and I have no qualms admitting a severe drop in education, health services, and heavy industries. But if we are gonna deny a substantial rise in self-reliance in wheat production, an explosive growth in the telecomm area (leading to his downfall), and substantial improvements to infrastructure; then we insist that facts are only for reactionaries. I am not arguing that it was not time for him to go, but oversimplification will drive us into the wall. Speaking of which ...

Myth#2: Mubarak has gazillions of dollars abroad and we'll all be fu#@ing rich
No denying he has a lot of money stashed somewhere. But the facts are the money is nothing near the 100 billion dollar mark the Egyptian media has set. Nor is it close to the ten billion mark set by British tabloids (right next to the baby fathered by a winged monkey from the star alpha-centauri). It is probably close to $1Billion. What is very frustrating is not the figure, it is the insistence of many people, laymen and politicians alike, that this money is gonna solve all of Egypt's problems. This money does not cover bread subsidies for a year. What is evil, is the role the media has played in marketing this myth, which media you say?


Myth#3: Maspero is responsible for everything from the Hyksos to Khaled Saiid
Again no denying Egyptian public television played a destructive (albeit childish) role right after Jan25. However, Maspero individually and sometimes collectively decided to shift into covering reality a few days before Mubarak was deposed. It is inconceivable to see such a decision as anything short of heroic as the building was besieged, reporters were physically hurt in Tahrir, and the outcome of the revolution was still uncertain. Right after Feb11 calls to "cleanse" Maspero started reverberating. What this was translated into was systematically stripping ERTU of all its money-making mechanism, driving away all its talent (because they were "folool") and making it much much worse than it was both in a commercial and a professional sense. All the talent driven away fueled new media outlets with questionable funding sources. The role that such media outlets play, their ethics and their responsibility are certainly more questionable than Maspero ever had the potential to be.

Myth #4: Peaceful protest includes "self-defense" by firebombs
If you've watched ONTV coverage of Mohammed-Mahmoud I & II or of the Israeli embassy you would understand the following. How can anyone with any sense in their mind cover a street riot where hundreds of teenagers and young adults are throwing firebombs at government buildings, private property, and diplomatic missions (regardless of the country of origin); and call it a peaceful protest. The common refrain is that buildings are less important than people's lives. True, but pushing these people, who have no plan, logic, or demands to peacefully protest by bombing and shooting buildings is being party to each and every death that happens. I blame everyone who "supports the revolution" for not helping to educate young people on what peaceful protest really is. There is a legitimate argument on whether to react to authorities in civil disobedience by cooperating with arrest or by going limp. However, the argument that peaceful civil disobedience be defended by shotguns when authorities try to make arrests is unique to Egypt.

Myth#5: Egypt is a rich country
It is not. We are overpopulated. We live in a desert. We don't have enough oil to cover our needs. We have no economically viable mineral resources. We decided to implode the tourist industry by electing Salafists for parliament. We don't have any quality grazing lands. The Suez canal brings in about $2Billion, less than energy subsidies. State lands sold "underprice" to investors would not sell at any higher price. Our only advantage was relatively good stable and cheap labor, as well as security and political stability. Gone!


Myth#6: The MB is a Mubarak-made scarecrow

Apparently, defunct socialists and denialist liberals instituted the belief after Feb11 that Islamists have a very minor effect on the street. And that even then, they are part of the democratic scene and have no intentions of instituting a theocratic system. Now in mid-2012 the 70% Islamist parliament is banning plays, legalizing FGM, disbanding the constitutional court, and reshaping Al-Azhar. Thanks a bunch Farida El-Shobashy.

Myth#7: Islamic countries have never had a theocracy
This has MB stamped allover it. The Islamic world has never had a pope, true that. However, the caliph had executive power based on "decrees from God". The legislature was based entirely on religious clerics ruling by a law "given by God". The legislative branch was identical with religious jurisprudence (fiqh). The three branches of government are religious and it is not a theocracy? Because? Anyway, Morsi's Islamic sewage project is proof enough that the MB has no intentions on a theocracy. Also the fact that the FGM discussion in parliament is entirely 100% religious ... No it's not a theocracy ... Because the morshed said so!  And he talks to God.


Myth#8: All situations where people died since Jan25 were orchestrated to keep SCAF in power
Alternative: Who did what depends on what the what is
If SCAF wants to remain in power, why didn't it turn the country into a veritable paradise? How come people attacking parliament are revolutionaries, and the second they start to burn a public library they are SCAF thugs? How is Port-Saiid not a horrible stampede precipitated by lack of public discipline, a terrified police force, and soccer fandom whose violence is only challenged by their shallowness. So Salafists at point A decide to go to point B, surround a church, and burn it down, then Christians at point B start attacking the Salafists, and both sides start killing each other. And SCAF did it ... because? Well because it didn't stop it, and the police is trying to teach us a lesson for January 28th. If SCAF interfered early, who would you directly accuse of doing the killing? Egypt is now a chaotic mix of righteous ignoramuses and we refuse to admit it.


Myth#9: All revolutions restricted, imprisoned, killed, or isolated previous regime
Alternative1: Revolutions don't go to the polls
Alternative2: We should quote Robbespiere
So our revolutionary elite was caught off-guard by the revolution. I understand. But please stop watching documentaries on the French revolution on Youtube and telling us what revolutions do and do not. It is true that the French revolution killed anyone who dared disagree with it. It also changed its definition of what it considered itself several times. It ended in a civil war, all of Europe actively at war with France, revolutionaries executing other revolutionaries, an economic meltdown, famine, and eventually a brutal dictatorship. The Bolshevik revolution imprisoned or executed any who publicly denounced it. It also erased the cultures of multiple countries, instituted a stagnant dictatorship, instituted the largest forced migration of people in the world, and eventually collapsed. Mao Zedong did not bother to let opponents of the revolution talk on the radio. He also instituted so many failed cultural and economic revolutions that ended in a famine that killed 40 million people. Khomeini summarily executed tens of thousands of his opponents to ensure the revolution was unimpeded. Iran now is of course a paradise of personal freedoms where women's rights are respected, and the government is at peace with all its neighbors. Just a note, the GDP per capita of Iranians has been below that of the days of the Shah ever since the revolution. At the end of the 90's it was a quarter of that under the Shah. On the other hand, communist parties in Russia and the entire Soviet bloc were not prohibited from politics for any length of time after the fall of the soviet union. In fact, in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and even Russia communist parties participated in the elections right after the revolutions. They lost, and they kept on working, not in jail, but in the public arena. Today two of these countries are in the EU and one is an economic megamonster. South Africa did not prosecute any segregationists, in fact segregationist parties are still active and still enter elections. South Africa has many problems, but it has certainly achieved the political and civil equality it set out to achieve. A little bit of irony, you know who wrote the constitution of France after the revolution? The parliament.

Myth#10: The Egyptian revolution has aims
It doesn't. The Egyptian revolution is an accident. It is a collection of the Tunisian effect, a large dissatisfied young middle class, and an aging regime. 3eish, 7oreyya, 3adala egtema3eyya are slogans not aims. The question "what do they want exactly" may be repeated but it is actually gaining legitimacy and if the youth who were the true seed of this revolution don't have an answer soon, then the revolution is over before it began. The MB is going to support you in any demand where you want to dismantle the state. But they are gonna rebuild it in their own image ... alone. So decide what you want instead of what you don't want and let the Egyptian people know.

Debatable results

So the first ever presidential debate in the history of the Arab world took was not actually the first ever debate in the history of the Arab world. A lot of "activists" and "intellectuals" have been quick to point out that Mauritania had televised debates before its presidential elections in 2007. Elections that brought democracy, multi-party politics, and ... a military coup to what is now the economic superpower of ... Mauritania? Anyway, close but no cigar activists and intellectuals, the first ever televised presidential debates in the Arab world were hosted by Amr Adeeb before the Egyptian elections of 2006. True it was pretty much an exercise in futility since Mubarak refused to participate, but still.

Anyway, beyond the stunning Twitterish revelations about how nothing is as it seems to be, Thursday was the first significant presidential debate in Egypt. The debate was between Amr Moussa and Abulfotooh. Why these two? For some reason ONTV and Dream concluded these two were most likely to score highest in the first round based on (never tried) polls. Supporters of both candidates insist theirs won the debate, but what does winning the debate really mean? What did Moussa and Abulfotooh walk into this expecting and intending to achieve?

In stable democracies, a candidate normally relies on a stable support base and goes into campaigning to gain enough of the swing vote to score a win. Are there really camps in Egypt, and is there a swing vote that can be won through words? Or is it simply waiting for someone to buy the vote or blackmail/terrorize it one way or another. Amr Moussa supposedly has a support base among the elderly, lower middle class, and significant portions of the rural vote. He has zero chance of winning the Islamist vote and the liberal/socialist revolutionaries. He is essentially seen as a vestige of the old regime and thus an insult to the revolution. So going into the debate Moussa just attacked mercilessly; stressing Abulfotooh's ties to the MB; his history with paramilitary Islamists; and his dubiousness on women's rights, minorities, and personal rights in general. The thesis is he was never going to win the Islamist vote, so why not alienate it a bit more, while at the same time solidifying his support base and fracturing his opponents. And in all honesty he might have achieved that, but what he missed is that most of Egypt's vote is still undecided and they were waiting to see him presenting anything resembling a platform so they could jump on his bandwagon. But other than the sharp and deadly attacks, Moussa's answers were meandering triangulating exercises in the unspecific.Thus he actually lost a lot people who might have voted for him based solely on name recognition. True, most of these people would not be voting for Abulfotooh instead, but he isn't getting their vote either!!

Abulfotooh went into the debate thinking he was in a much more secure position. He is seen as a "revolutionary" candidate. He was imprisoned by the Mubarak regime, which according to the metrics of the Egyptian revolution adds plenty to his credibility. On the other hand Moussa's main strength, his prior experience, can easily be used to bite him in the heiny by linking policy failures of the regime in general to Moussa in particular. However, again he was thinking of how he can hurt his opponent, not about his own position and potential.

Abulfotooh has the most fragile base of any of the serious candidates. His support base is admittedly diverse, combining socialists, liberals, non-ideological upper middle class, moderate cultural-Islamists, MB deserters, and even the formal endorsement of many extremist Islamists. How he managed to gather such a disparate base is a testament to his skill, but Moussa clearly demonstrated its fragility. Abulfotooh's main aim of the day was to paint Moussa as a regime remnant, but Moussa deftly and viciously turned every argument into a discussion of Abulfotooh's positions on church-state relations. Abulfotooh blundered badly on several occasions. He was painted as a partisan who only cares for his ideology not for the country, as a religious demagogue who can't focus on worldly events (this was so out of character it shocked me), and as a theocrat who wanted to rule with divine right. When Moussa cornered him on apostasy, the response amazingly managed to alienate both the Salafists and liberals in his support base.

Common wisdom normally sucks, but the common wisdom about this debate may be right: This debate was won by the candidates who did not participate. Moussa seemed to be intent on driving most potential supporters into the Shafiq or Sabahy camps, he only has inertia and the fear of an all-Islamist final round to carry him. Abulfotooh was determined to quickly dismantle his support base and disperse it between Morsi and Sabahy. So at the end of the day I am gonna say watch the upcoming polls very closely because the order of candidates is very likely to see a strong reshuffle. If Sabahy by some miracle manages to exceed Abulfotooh then who knows, we may have a Nasserite in the final round after all.

The Greek-Nasserite tragedy

Who is the most tragic figure in the presidential elections? Hazem Abu Ismail is a B-rated horror flick, so no it's not him, and no it's not Abdallah El-Ashal he's a diaper commercial. In my opinion the only truly tragic candidate is Hamdain Sabahy. Sabahy's revolutionary credentials are Gold. He has been in the game of being a thorn in the back of the regime since the 70's when he was an undergrad in Cairo University. He has been part of partisan politics since then, fairly earning a seat in parliament several times under very concentrated rigging efforts. He has always been opposed to the regime, in a consistent and reliable way, and he has seen the inside of prison cells more than once. He supported the January 25th revolution on the 24th (which sets him apart from many other so called revolutionaries). When the MB said it wanted to go through the parliamentary elections as part of a wide coalition, his party joined said coalition. But when it turned out the MB's agenda was basically to screw the rest of the country he immediately said he regretted his decision to join (remorse is a very rare commodity in Egypt).

Sabahy's positions and agenda are unique in how they are so Egyptian. He comes from a Nasserite background, with all the appeal that Nasserism has to older Egyptians and a section of youth. The main platform is pan-Arabism and socialism. However, if you hear him speak, he adds a critical modern twist to Nasserism that address its disastrous problems. For example the brand of socialism he advocates is more akin to Western European socialism than Nasser's view; Sabahy is an ardent supporter of political pluralism (as opposed to Nasserite authoritarianism); and his brand of pan-Arabism does not advocate any rash decisions, or any form of belligerence. He is the perfect candidate for a large section of Egyptian society, he embraces the social and cultural liberalism of Nasser's era that many Egyptians yearn for, he wants a market economy but one with tame capitalism, he wants good relations with all countries but he wants them based on equality, he is essentially non-sectarian, and he has presidential hair. He is essentially a centrist on all issues, which is what "common wisdom" claims Egypt always seeks.

But Sabahy has exactly ZERO chance of winning the elections. He is the victim of inertia and Egypt's juvenile polling practices. Sabahy has a voting base that should clearly win him the elections. However, this base is split firmly between two camps based entirely on the self-fulfilling prophecy that he has no chance of winning. On the one hand, I am absolutely certain a sizable percentage of Abulfotooh supporters are in reality Sabahy supporters but they are voting for Abulfotooh because Sabahy has no chance of winning and they think it is essential that a "revolutionary" candidate wins. On the other hand many Shafiq and especially Moussa supporters are closer to Sabahy. But they are not voting for him because he has no chance of winning and they think it is essential that a non-Islamist win the elections. This lack of inertia (and possibly the blow-dried hair) will introduce one of the many ironies of the Egyptian elections: The most popular candidate/The candidate with a position closest to the people has no chance of winning!!

Paradigm shift

The revolutionary paradigm since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution has been a contrast between revolutionary and reactionary. The definition of the borderline between the two camps was initially clear. If you supported the January 25th revolution (Jan25) you belonged to the revolutionary camp, if you opposed it in any way you were reactionary. As with everything in the Egyptian revolution the definition was based almost entirely on superficial and naive readings (if not Youtube clip watchings) of classical revolutions.

As days progressed the lines became blurred. Where do we place those that are ambivalent or ambiguous on Jan25? How do we define people who tacitly supported the revolution but essentially oppose its aims? How do we react when it seems that it is in our favor to label others as reactionary? Do we practice the suicidal practice of early Latin American revolutions and start targeting each other, or do we follow the suit of South Africa and Eastern Europe and focus on moving forward? We did something totally new, we kept redefining the two camps to include all possible permutations existing simultaneously and without any sense or logic. The revolutionary camp included everything from: The MB only, the MB and Salafists only, Salafists and liberals only, anarchists and liberals only, Salafists and anarchists only, Baradei campaign and anarchists only, socialists and liberals only. You name it, we would provide it readily through a talk show, a street riot, a peaceful protest, a sit-in, a Molotov cocktail party, or any combination thereof (how about an anarchist-socialist-Salafist peaceful Molotov cocktail party sit-in?)

So here we are at the presidential elections, the paradigm according to those who "support the revolution" is again that we are facing a dichotomy between two groups of presidential candidates. Revolutionary candidates: Abulfotooh (unless you are an MB member), Hamdein Sabahy, Khaled Ali, and Morsi (only if you are an MB member). The reactionary camp is Amr Mousa and Ahmed Shafiq. I think that this theory has been proven wrong in the parliamentary elections. Revolutionary youth made an incredible effort to convince us that the main threat and the main danger is a sweeping win by reactionaries (at that time defined as anyone who at any point had come in contact in any way with the NDP). They spent all their time and effort to battle this proclaimed tsunami of Mubarakists promising to dominate the parliament. The end result was "bartaman el-thawra" and its astounding performance.

Thus I am proposing that the true dichotomy is between Islamists and non-Islamists. This dichotomy existed in the referendum, and it reiterated itself very strongly in the parliamentary elections. Liberal and socialist youth and intelligentsia denied the existence of this division in both cases based on the fact that Mubarak said it existed thus it must be false. But deny it or not, the Islamists are certainly not denying it, and if you are going to give them everything without a fight, they will gladly accept it. The true division in the election is between Islamists: Morsi, Awwa, Abulfotooh  and non-Islamists: Mousa, Shafiq, Sabahy, and Khaled Ali. Personally, whoever surpasses the others in the second camp in opinion polls gets my vote. I have no problem for anyone from the Islamist spectrum supporting Abulfotooh, but the religious zeal with which some liberals and socialists embrace him shows an underlying suicidal romanticism that scares me more than all the bloodshed this country has seen since Jan25. At the end of the day Abulfotooh is going to line up with Abdelmenein Elshahhat as they have consistently done since the revolution.