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Eve Tushnet

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Last updated on: February 1, 2011 at 1:27 am by Eve Tushnet

2011-02-01T01:27:00-04:00 Eve Tushnet

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SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS: A slightly edited email from a friend, who has traveled extensively in the Middle East and has studied the region (and who noted that these are “random disorganized thoughts,” but I thought they were worth posting):

Random thoughts on the ongoing political-economic revolution in Egypt, some my own and others from Egyptian friends – of course things are happening very fast so all this could change:

If you have not been watching al-Jazeera English, you ought to give it a shot – their coverage is far better and more interesting than any of the American channels (where the analysis quite frankly borders on the bizarre) – live stream is here: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

The police were defeated by the sheer number of protesters last week, which nobody predicted, not even the organizers of the original “day of wrath” on 1/25/11. Of course the organizers hit a nerve when they chose Police Day as their day of protest, since hatred of the police has reached new heights since the Khaled Saeed episode last summer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_Mohamed_Saeed and http://www.facebook.com/elshaheeed.co.uk

Nobody fears the 1.7-million strong police anymore after what happened in Tunisia. Tunisians showed Arabs everywhere that the secret police can be defeated, and Egyptians did that on the second massive day of protests, last Friday. The police then disappeared and were replaced by the army. There were lots of thoughts as to why the police withdrew from the streets: they allegedly ran out of tear gas because there were just too many protesters, some were going over to the protesters’ side, and it was a regime plot to demonstrate what would happen if there was nobody to maintain security. And indeed, Cairo and other cities were chaotic, but much of the chaos was instigated by plainclothes policemen with police id cards found when they were arrested. Regime thugs also tried to loot the National Museum and burn cars in downtown Cairo. Some others tried to attack random homes to instill fear that would reduce the number of people out on the streets (since they’d want to protect their homes) – this failed too (see below). But the most important thing here is the absence of fear: the people know they can defeat one of the most corrupt and brutal police forces in the world (ranked by Amnesty Int’l as the worst in the world in use of torture).

The army is divided. The generals close to Mubarak are career officers and regime loyalists. They gave the orders to enforce the curfew, which proved impossible given the sheer numbers of people on the streets. The soldiers on the ground are conscripts and thus basically like the protesters, and lots of fraternization is taking place between the two sides – tea, sweets, flowers, giving children rides in tanks, etc. They’ve been told to enforce the curfew, are refusing to obey orders, and also refusing to mutiny. So in the army there is something of a standoff.

The Presidential Guard will probably show up tomorrow (today, by the time most of you read this) when the people march from Tahrir Square to the Presidential Palace. Naturally this force is loyal to Mubarak, and may open fire, but any massacre will only increase popular fury at the Pharaoh. Conversely, any concession on his part will be interpreted as a sign of weakness. He is finished – all these appointments of new ministers and a VP are just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. The people know they can win, and it is only a matter of time, especially since the army has announced it will not fire on protesters.

The Muslim Brotherhood is definitely present on the streets, but it is not a leading force at all. A “Group of Ten” has formed in Tahrir Square to coordinate and includes only one from the MB. In any case, the organization is not extremist and its leadership is far closer to Erdogan than to Khomeini. So Egypt will not become Iran, as things are going now. Usually Muslim Brotherhood protests could get about 200K-300K Egyptians on the streets in all of Egypt. The current protests are far, far larger than this, suggesting that normally apolitical people who wouldn’t stand for another extremist dictatorship are out marching (a thoroughly apolitical grandmother of a friend of mine went out to march in Alexandria). The Brotherhood will almost certainly be part of a new government, but it will be better for America to deal with it than to be seen as opposing the will of the people (again).

Lots of people say the Egyptians aren’t ready for democracy and can’t govern themselves, etc. This is totally absurd and even if it were true, Mubarak has failed abysmally at governing Egypt. In the last few days, the people organized neighborhood militias to guard against criminals and police thugs (this happened in Tunis as well), appointed a temporary parliament in Tahrir, guarded the National Museum and Library in Alexandria against fire and looting, directed traffic, and – most amazingly for anyone who’s ever been to Egypt – actually cleaned the streets and organized garbage collection. In short, this is not Iraq post-Saddam. People know what needs to be done and are doing it.

The attempted shutdown of the internet and al-Jazeera was the regime’s big mistake and an implicit acknowledgement of its lack of moral authority among the people. The word will always get out. In fact it pushed people onto the streets because there was no other way to find out what was happening. Even now, information is getting out electronically. The government cannot win this battle.

The best thing for the US to do is continue to offer messages of support for the protesters, endorse their rights, push Mubarak to step down, and otherwise stay out of the way. We should have used all our covert strength and will to push Mubarak out sometime over the last ten years, but I guess nobody thinks outside the box anymore in Langley. In the end we have far more to gain by supporting the Egyptian people and maintaining a legitimate democratic government than by supporting a hated and incompetent kleptocracy.

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