January 26, 2014
It has
been illuminating this week to spend time in Cairo during the constitutional
referendum and the run-up to the January 25 anniversary of the massive
demonstrations that eventually toppled the Husni Mubarak regime in Egypt three
years ago. The ever-changing dynamics in Egypt and across the Arab world paint
a volatile picture of a region lurching forwards and backwards in its people’s
determined drive to shape their own political cultures, after over half a
century of police state-like governance systems.
Egypt
will have a huge impact on developments across the Arab world in the years
ahead, but how Egypt develops itself will not be clear for a few more years. It
is simplistic and childish to note, as many have in the region and abroad, that
the Arab “Spring” has turned into a forlorn Autumn or even a dark Winter. Such
hasty and absolutist verdicts reflect deep amateurism, infant-like ignorance,
and perhaps even some cultural-nationalist hostility towards Arabs, in not
acknowledging the time-consuming normal trajectory of the kinds of historic,
complex transformations that we are experiencing around the region. Making the
transitions from primitive governance or police state systems to pluralistic
democracies that safeguard the equal rights of all citizens requires decades at
best, and a century and a half in most cases (as in the American and Western
European cases).
So three
years is a very short period of time in the very initial phases of our Arab
transformations, and it is absolutely normal to witness the wild swings in
developments that we experience across our region, including episodic violence
alongside intense constitution-writing.
I spent
quite a bit of time driving all around Cairo to speak with Egyptians and
resident foreign observers from different walks of life, but mostly to get a
feel for the rhythms of street life and the public arena that ultimately will
shape the course of Egypt’s future. Experiencing my first-ever faint whiff of
teargas as we drove near Cairo University while demonstrations were taking
place was most noteworthy mainly for showing how life continued apace for
millions of Egyptians who simply detoured a few blocks around the university
district. Two students were killed in the demonstrations that day, and it is
likely that many more men and women across the region will lose their lives in
the continuing struggles for freedom, dignity, democracy and whatever other
desired objectives ordinary Arab men and women seek as they continue exiting
from the dark chamber of their frozen history of the past half century or so.
The most
fascinating thing I saw in Cairo was the range of graffiti scrawled across
walls, advertising billboards, street signs, flower pots, park benches and any
other surface that allowed Egyptians to express their political sentiments.
This captured for me the two most important historical developments that we can
identify at the end of the third year of the ongoing Arab uprisings and transformations:
first, the birth of Arab citizens who feel they have socio-economic and
political rights and are prepared to speak out, mobilize and take action to
achieve those rights; and, second, the birth of a public political sphere in
which citizens can express themselves and compete peacefully for the exercise
of power.
Citizens
writing graffiti capture those two developments quite nicely, and the content
of the graffiti is equally telling. The formal public space of Cairo
(billboards, advertisement panels, newspapers and magazine covers on the
sidewalks) was dominated by admonitions to vote ‘yes’ in the referendum and
support the interim government installed by General Abdul Fattah Sisi and his
military colleagues. The walls and other informal spaces reflected many more
varied views, including the very common statement “yasqut kul min khan, ‘askar,
fulul, ikhwan” (“down with all those who betrayed us; the military, the old
guard, and the Muslim Brothers”). Other graffiti called Sisi a killer, or
warned that another revolution was imminent.
The
military-appointed government tried in places to paint over the graffiti but
gave up after every wall it painted white was full of graffiti again 24 hours
later. So the new public political sphere that continues to experience its
birth across Egypt lurches back and forth between popular sentiments that
support and oppose all three principal actors who have dominated the public
power structure in the past few years—the old guard of the Mubarak era, the
military, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The new
element today that Egypt still displays is that those who control the power
structure—now it is the second military republic in three years—do not totally
control the public sphere, or the minds of all Egyptians. That is a meaningful
milestone on this third year of the Egyptian and other Arab uprisings that
cannot be denominated in seasons of the year, but rather only in the attitudes
of individual citizens who are determined to express themselves politically and
in public.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large
of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute
for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of
Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright
© 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global