Comparison and connection between the events of January 2011 and June/July 2013 is a very thorny topic. To revolutionaries it is very critical to ascertain that June is a continuation of January. The alternative is to admit that January 2011 was a failed revolution that did not deliver what people expected of it. This goes against the religion of January 2011 which states that the revolution was pure and bloodless but that it was subverted by innately evil outsiders. On the other hand, felool cannot admit that without January 2011 there would be no public, open, and popular denunciation of political Islamism the way there was in June 2013. For felool also have a religion that states that January is pure evil from which no good could come.
But what matters in the end is how the two events differ, and what they had in common.
Demonstrations:
January: January 2011 introduced mass rallies and occupation of public spaces as a means of applying pressure. In retrospect, the numbers in 2011 were not as huge as many people once claimed. The main reason rallies worked back then is because they were against the backdrop of so much pressure from so many sides and because of the novelty of the scene of a public square in Cairo filled to the brim with people.
June: The novelty of rallies has run out. In fact, there is now fatigue with rallies and sitins after two and a half years of constant demonstrations. To bring out numbers similar to 2011 would achieve virtually nothing since these numbers have been achieved on at least a dozen occasions over the past two years. June 30th had to turn out numbers that would blow January 2011 out of the waters, and it had to do so against a backdrop of little public sympathy for demos. June 30th 2013, delivered.
Public position on security forces:
January: Before the MB joined forces with youth on January 28th, the main focus of January 25th was reform of the police force. After some intermittent and unexplained violence on the 26th and 27th, the 28th ended with a massive simultaneous and seemingly organized attack on all police facilities in the country. Over ninety police stations were torched, over a dozen prison breaks happened simultaneously. Hundreds of prisoners, police officers, and civilians died in clashed around security offices. Attacks on security forces and Christians in North Sinai started around the end of January. The focus and turning point of January 2011 was attacks on security facilities and bringing police to halt.
June: If there is one thing that revolutionaries that revolutionaries have a problem with June 30th for, it has to be public position regarding the MoI. It is probably not an overstatement to say that one of the main aims of June 30th in the eyes of many normal folk was to restore police. Restoration of police should not mean a return to random torture or excessive use of violence in the Mubarak era. But, perhaps due to the pressures of two years with little or no security, Mubarak era police seems to be exactly what a major section of the population wants. A year under Morsi, under a barrage of bloody rhetoric by Islamists in public and official forums, is enough to sway a lot of opinions.
Public violence:
January: Official revolutionary propaganda states that the January revolution was completely nonviolent except for violence practiced by the Mubarak regime. In fact, this wasn't true. Due to the security vacuum looting was widespread, local committees formed to guard the streets in place of police practiced extreme violence and summarily executed dozens of people. January also introduced the first occasion of warring protests in what is known as the battle of the camel.
June: The security vacuum is not as sharp. In fact, there is no security vacuum as of yet. No looting or any rise in crime can be noticed. Local committees were not formed. However, public violence features in June as much as it did in January. This time in the form of constant and consistent clashes between loosely organized MB and Islamist militia and even more loosely organized locals. This constant pitter patter plus large scale use of force by the army and the police on a couple of occasions, plus the constant armed Islamist attacks in Sinai have accumulated over 300 dead among Islamists, security, and civilians.
Local media:
January: Most public media started out highly opposed to January, then switched tone as the military switched positions. Most private media started cautiously neutral, then largely adopted January 2011. Public media used scare tactics to turn people off from demonstrating. Private media whitewashed the violence.
June: Public media started completely opposed to June, then switched again as control was given to the military. Almost all private media was fully on board for June 30th from day 1. Constant public and official threats of bodily violence by the largest Islamist groups against media figures who showed the slightest hint of opposition to the MB agenda left a lot of private media with a personal axe to grind.
International media:
January: International media was almost immediately on board, adopting the lingo of the revolutionaries and the Islamists and completely supporting the removal of Mubarak. After the removal of Mubarak, international media hailed the Egyptian revolution as an example. Whitewashing was the norm. AlJazeera started its tenure as an MB propaganda outlet in the January revolution, giving an example in skewed coverage that would inform Arab media for the years that followed.
June: International media ridiculed the demonstrations. The events on July 3rd were immediately labeled a coup. Statements by the MB spokesman were immediately echoed as fact. MB casualties were covered in depth, civilian victims of MB were completely ignored. Again, AlJazeera is setting the standard for politically charged coverage. But unlike January, a barrage of Egyptian privately owned channels have already eaten up a large portion of AlJazeera's Egyptian market share. And this local media, as stated earlier, has not too many great things to say about the MB.
International community:
January: The revolution was probably not started by any foreign power. But it was certainly approved of. Intense pressure was put on Mubarak to leave power. And after he did, gushing statements of support flowed, combined with promises of support and inclusion. When Mubarak was put under house arrest, then later tried and imprisoned, there was no official comment from any country and there was little media sympathy for him.
June: This one was definitely against most of the world. There is obviously little love for the deposition of Morsi in the US, Europe, and much of the Islamic world. Statements of condemnation flowed, and explicit demands for the release of Morsi were officially made by many nations. The EU representative insisted on visiting Morsi in his location of incarceration (compare to international position re Mubarak).
Saccharine and realism:
January: January was emotional. Hopes were high. Expectations were fantastic. Youth cleaned the square. Youth painted the pavement. Cairo airport hung billboards with the gushing statements of world leaders about the Egyptian revolution. Then the economy faltered, Islamists won the elections, and personal freedoms rotted. Egyptians replaced a constitution whose problem was term limits with a constitution that legalized child rape.
June: Nobody dared paint the pavement. Nobody dared raise expectations. The only expectation was to remove Morsi and severely wound Islamists, and then restore state institutions. Yeah there was a little gushing and swooning over the military, but that's just being Egyptian. The level of nauseating false sweetness in June is definitely orders of magnitude less than January.
Deconstruction vs synthesis:
January: Everyone who participated agreed on what they didn't want (Mubarak regime) and disagreed about everything they wanted.
June: What people didn't want (Islamists) and what they wanted (state institutions) were clear.
But what matters in the end is how the two events differ, and what they had in common.
Demonstrations:
January: January 2011 introduced mass rallies and occupation of public spaces as a means of applying pressure. In retrospect, the numbers in 2011 were not as huge as many people once claimed. The main reason rallies worked back then is because they were against the backdrop of so much pressure from so many sides and because of the novelty of the scene of a public square in Cairo filled to the brim with people.
June: The novelty of rallies has run out. In fact, there is now fatigue with rallies and sitins after two and a half years of constant demonstrations. To bring out numbers similar to 2011 would achieve virtually nothing since these numbers have been achieved on at least a dozen occasions over the past two years. June 30th had to turn out numbers that would blow January 2011 out of the waters, and it had to do so against a backdrop of little public sympathy for demos. June 30th 2013, delivered.
Public position on security forces:
January: Before the MB joined forces with youth on January 28th, the main focus of January 25th was reform of the police force. After some intermittent and unexplained violence on the 26th and 27th, the 28th ended with a massive simultaneous and seemingly organized attack on all police facilities in the country. Over ninety police stations were torched, over a dozen prison breaks happened simultaneously. Hundreds of prisoners, police officers, and civilians died in clashed around security offices. Attacks on security forces and Christians in North Sinai started around the end of January. The focus and turning point of January 2011 was attacks on security facilities and bringing police to halt.
June: If there is one thing that revolutionaries that revolutionaries have a problem with June 30th for, it has to be public position regarding the MoI. It is probably not an overstatement to say that one of the main aims of June 30th in the eyes of many normal folk was to restore police. Restoration of police should not mean a return to random torture or excessive use of violence in the Mubarak era. But, perhaps due to the pressures of two years with little or no security, Mubarak era police seems to be exactly what a major section of the population wants. A year under Morsi, under a barrage of bloody rhetoric by Islamists in public and official forums, is enough to sway a lot of opinions.
Public violence:
January: Official revolutionary propaganda states that the January revolution was completely nonviolent except for violence practiced by the Mubarak regime. In fact, this wasn't true. Due to the security vacuum looting was widespread, local committees formed to guard the streets in place of police practiced extreme violence and summarily executed dozens of people. January also introduced the first occasion of warring protests in what is known as the battle of the camel.
June: The security vacuum is not as sharp. In fact, there is no security vacuum as of yet. No looting or any rise in crime can be noticed. Local committees were not formed. However, public violence features in June as much as it did in January. This time in the form of constant and consistent clashes between loosely organized MB and Islamist militia and even more loosely organized locals. This constant pitter patter plus large scale use of force by the army and the police on a couple of occasions, plus the constant armed Islamist attacks in Sinai have accumulated over 300 dead among Islamists, security, and civilians.
Local media:
January: Most public media started out highly opposed to January, then switched tone as the military switched positions. Most private media started cautiously neutral, then largely adopted January 2011. Public media used scare tactics to turn people off from demonstrating. Private media whitewashed the violence.
June: Public media started completely opposed to June, then switched again as control was given to the military. Almost all private media was fully on board for June 30th from day 1. Constant public and official threats of bodily violence by the largest Islamist groups against media figures who showed the slightest hint of opposition to the MB agenda left a lot of private media with a personal axe to grind.
International media:
January: International media was almost immediately on board, adopting the lingo of the revolutionaries and the Islamists and completely supporting the removal of Mubarak. After the removal of Mubarak, international media hailed the Egyptian revolution as an example. Whitewashing was the norm. AlJazeera started its tenure as an MB propaganda outlet in the January revolution, giving an example in skewed coverage that would inform Arab media for the years that followed.
June: International media ridiculed the demonstrations. The events on July 3rd were immediately labeled a coup. Statements by the MB spokesman were immediately echoed as fact. MB casualties were covered in depth, civilian victims of MB were completely ignored. Again, AlJazeera is setting the standard for politically charged coverage. But unlike January, a barrage of Egyptian privately owned channels have already eaten up a large portion of AlJazeera's Egyptian market share. And this local media, as stated earlier, has not too many great things to say about the MB.
International community:
January: The revolution was probably not started by any foreign power. But it was certainly approved of. Intense pressure was put on Mubarak to leave power. And after he did, gushing statements of support flowed, combined with promises of support and inclusion. When Mubarak was put under house arrest, then later tried and imprisoned, there was no official comment from any country and there was little media sympathy for him.
June: This one was definitely against most of the world. There is obviously little love for the deposition of Morsi in the US, Europe, and much of the Islamic world. Statements of condemnation flowed, and explicit demands for the release of Morsi were officially made by many nations. The EU representative insisted on visiting Morsi in his location of incarceration (compare to international position re Mubarak).
Saccharine and realism:
January: January was emotional. Hopes were high. Expectations were fantastic. Youth cleaned the square. Youth painted the pavement. Cairo airport hung billboards with the gushing statements of world leaders about the Egyptian revolution. Then the economy faltered, Islamists won the elections, and personal freedoms rotted. Egyptians replaced a constitution whose problem was term limits with a constitution that legalized child rape.
June: Nobody dared paint the pavement. Nobody dared raise expectations. The only expectation was to remove Morsi and severely wound Islamists, and then restore state institutions. Yeah there was a little gushing and swooning over the military, but that's just being Egyptian. The level of nauseating false sweetness in June is definitely orders of magnitude less than January.
Deconstruction vs synthesis:
January: Everyone who participated agreed on what they didn't want (Mubarak regime) and disagreed about everything they wanted.
June: What people didn't want (Islamists) and what they wanted (state institutions) were clear.
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