The art of failure: The Egyptian protest movement
The small to moderate protests against Egypt handing over control of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia over the weekend pose several interesting questions to observers. Why is it that the Egyptian protest movement fails to be a bargaining chip that the Egyptian government uses in international negotiations. Why is it that the Egyptian protest movement never seems to achieve anything. And why is it that protest, theoretically a safe outlet of opposition and a guard against revolution seems to have lost popular support in Egypt?
The answer lies partly in the genesis of the secular Egyptian protest movement. The incubator of the movement that produced the revolution of 2011 inserted structural issues into their very own foundation which will always abort them as the vehicle of anything productive.
Cliquism and detached leadership: The Egyptian protest movement is based on cliques. Small groups of socialist and secular leftist activists who are at once detached and aloof of their surroundings and claim to be sole representatives of said society. Social media is rife with said activists alternately claiming to represent society and denouncing it in sweeping statements. Leadership of said cliques is even worse, instituting an elitist, puritanical, and exclusionary attitude among their followers.
Denial of the power and role of Islamists: perhaps the single most important reason for the failure of the Egyptian protest movement to achieve anything. This is deeply rooted in 2011, where conscious denial of the role and influence of the MB in the protests that toppled Mubarak were followed by a sustained period of denial of MB dominance that didn't end even with Islamists unilaterally in control of two branches of government and unilaterally drafting a constitution. Said denial still runs deeps, it is apparently a necessary condition that allows the protest movement to inflate its numbers without facing the consequences to the goals of the protest.
Conflating protests and riots: This is the main reason for the deflation of popular support for protest. Insistence that protest can't be peaceful, that petrol bombs, destruction of property, and even use of weapons can be part of protest, have all been consistent positions of the Egyptian protest movement. Which is why issues where almost all Egyptians should be united, like abuse of force by security, fail to gather significant popular support. After all people would rather tolerate abuse of organized state power than abuse of chaotic mob power. The scenes of Mohammed Mahmoud are not symbols of resistance and revolt for most people, they are symbols of chaos, violence and loss that have come to characterize the revolution.
Disdain for locals: A side effect of completely missing the parameters of protest is that one misses the rights of locals. Public spaces are also in a way private spaces for locals, and disqualifying the locals livelihoods and priorities leads to repeated shock followed by disdain at the lack of support from said locals. But it's always easy to characterize them as thugs or government goons.
Foreign support: Financial and media support for specific protests movements has been open and plain since Mubarak agreed to relax laws on NGOs with international pressure. The conflation of human rights and NGOs with politics is a crime against the protection of the basic lives of Egyptians that all involved should be held responsible for. But post 2013 western support for specific organizations in Egypt has become even more vocal. With said organizations now seeking support openly, directing messaging in English, and conflating issues In a way designed to directly invite foreign intervention. This is unfortunately structural in the genesis of these movements, and well documented in 2011. Insistence that this is completely normal, or invoking inane equivalence with state foreign relations will never remove the stigma of being foreign funded and aided from the public psyche. Black lives matters is a very valid movement against a very valid issue in the US, but if it were actively and openly funded and trained by the government of Russia support for BLM would probably be much lower.
Escalation: Egyptian protest is unfettered and unfocused with all protests immediately escalating to demanding the toppling of the regime. While this makes for nice headlines and drama, it also means that protests can't maintain support, and can't hone in on specific goals. In the rare cases where protests managed to repel Islamist and NGO parasitism, protests were able to quickly achieve either partial or complete results. But only provided their demands were realistic, which brings us to..
Basis in myth not merit: To be fair, this is more a structural problem of the Egyptian psyche as a whole rather than that of the protest movement. Egyptians base their national character on a set of myths formulated in the Nasserite era and nurtured ever since. These myths include gems such as Egypt being wealthy, over population being a resource, and Egypt having a golden age not long ago when it was incredibly powerful and wealthy. These beliefs are not based on facts. Egyptians will believe Mubarak impoverished and sickened Egyptians even if GDP per capita and life expectancy soared under him. Nasserites will believe Nasser was a powerful cunning leader even though all his ventures failed, all his wars were lost, and under him Egypt's economy was destroyed for generations to come. What this leads to is an inability to discuss anything based on merits or facts from the Ethiopian dam to Tiran and Sanafir Egyptians feel and will continue to feel aggrieved and humiliated. And this will continue to be s source of protest until society decides to face the facts of its own condition, history, and the meaning of compromise and negotiation.
Not knowing what they want: The Egyptian protest movement is a heterogeneous group of people with political, social, and economic ideologies that are polar opposites. At almost all junctures, groups of Egyptian protestors managed to coalesce not around what they want, but who they don't want. The average protestor knows he doesn't want Mubarak/Morsi/Sisi. The sophisticated protestor knows he doesn't want the whole "system" without being able to define what that is exactly. But no two protestors know what exactly they want. And post 2011, we have demonstrated repeatedly that we can't converge on any stable definition of what it is we want through revolution, protest, polls, negotiations, or any combination thereof.
Egypt needs a protest movement and a vigilant NGO, human rights, and watchdog community. This has become a necessity to protect individuals' basic human rights, as well as a safety valve for society as a whole. However, the Egyptian protest movement is captive to its structural problems, denying it the ability to either be effective or sustainably popular. But for the sake of Egypt, such a movement has to find a way to exist beyond politicization, Islamism, western funding, and state sponsored loyal opposition.
