Lawyer Tarek el-Khouly blames the Brotherhood for undermining the uprising by seeking to impose Islamic rule. Security measures post were needed to prevent militant attacks, and those jailed for social media posts were inciting crimes, he said. Tens of thousands of civil society organisations are allowed to operate in Egypt, he added, praising government efforts to improve living conditions and saying parliament was gaining strength as an expression of popular will. A surgeon active in opposition politics before the uprising, Shady el-Ghazaly Harb was jailed from on charges of spreading false news and joining a terrorist organisation, accusations frequently levelled at opposition figures.
Harb, 42, believes he was arrested due to social media posts critical of government policies. He has returned to his Cairo clinic but remains suspended from a university teaching job. In 18 days, hundreds of Egyptians were killed and thousands injured.
In the two tumultuous years which followed, between the fall of President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, and the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood rule on July 3, , thousands more would be killed and wounded. Since then, the armed forces were instrumental in restoring order and bringing the country back to an authoritarian order not very different from the one which preceded the January Revolution.
The Egypt scenario was one of a series of revolutions that broke out in no less than four other Arab countries and which all ended in a general erosion of what was until then considered an Arab regional order to the benefit of non-Arab Middle Eastern countries. It is therefore legitimate to inquire about the actors who produced this drastic shift in domestic and regional power relations.
Political scientists tried to shed light on these events, offering their own interpretations. A third explanation located these events in a wider perspective of a global wave of protests against an emerging world capitalist order. Still, some of them found the answer in the dialectics of modernization which raises levels of expectations among mobilized masses but deprives them of the capabilities necessary to fulfill these expectations. These interpretations could be consumption items for scholars of different disciplines in their academic meetings and publications.
However , Arab public opinion did not seem to be much concerned with their debates and did not offer a convincing explanation of the causes that brought to the ground the apparently solid structures of authoritarianism in most of the countries which were swept by this wave of massive protest.
For several Arab commentators, all these blows to Arab dignity and position in the world system must have been the work of an evil power that does not wish good for the Arabs. Conspiracy theories are not new in the Arab world, nor are they uniquely an Arab phenomenon. They feed popular imagination in nearly all countries, highly advanced and the poor, in the North and the South, in the past and at present.
The most recent of such theories was articulated in the United States among supporters of former President Donald Trump who thought that foreign powers including China, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations secretly planned to remove the country from its leadership position on the world stage. Conspiracy theory could be defined as a theory that rejects the standard explanation of an event and instead credits a covert group or organization with carrying out a secret plot.
Such a plot could be a manifestation of an irrational mind, or a feature of a certain societal culture. It usually prevails among less educated people. No matter which of these theoretical definitions is accepted by scholars, it is also true that conspiracies did and do take place in domestic and international politics.
Examples abound of conspiracies that preceded major events in world history in specific countries. Another example well-known in Arab history was the drawing of the map of the modern Middle East in secret negotiations between British and French officials during the First World War. Mubarak promises reforms to the constitution, particularly Article 76, which makes it virtually impossible for independent candidates to run for office.
He says his government will focus on improving the economy and providing jobs. US President Barack Obama praises the Egyptian military for their patriotism and for allowing peaceful demonstrations.
He says only the Egyptian people can determine their leaders. Thousands more take to the streets throughout Egypt, including in Alexandria and Suez. The army is still deployed with tanks throughout different positions in and around Tahrir Square. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Boston entrepreneur Hadid Habbab has called for volunteers to help find his missing friend, Google executive Wael Ghonim, who went missing during the protests of the past week.
Internet services are at least partially restored in Cairo after a five-day blackout aimed at stymieing protests. Violent clashes rage for much of the day around Tahrir Square in central Cairo. Pro-democracy protesters say the military allowed thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters, armed with sticks and knives, to enter the square. February 3: Bursts of heavy gunfire early aimed at anti-government demonstrators in Tahrir [Liberation] Square, leave at least five people dead and several more wounded, according to reports from Cairo.
Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots begin at around around 4am local time GMT and continue for more than an hour. Chants urging Hosni Mubarak to leave reverberate across the square, as the country enters its eleventh day of unrest and mass demonstrations. February 5: Thousands who remain inside Tahrir Square fear an approaching attempt by the military to evacuate the square.
The Egyptian health minister says 11 people have died, while the United Nations says people may have been killed across the country since protests began. News agencies have counted more than dead in morgues in Alexandria, Suez and Cairo. The new secretary-general of the party is Hossam Badrawi, seen as a member of the liberal wing of the party.
Banks officially re-open for 3. Al Jazeera correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin is detained by the Egyptian military. Protests continue in Tahrir Square; there are reports of gunshots fired by the army into the air near the cordon set up inside the barricades, near the Egyptian museum. Leaked US diplomatic cables suggest Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, long sought to demonise the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his contacts with skeptical US officials.
Reports say Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, spoke with Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Shafiq on February 5 , emphasising the need to ensure the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people are met, also stressing that incidents of harassment and detention of activists and journalists must stop.
February 7: Thousands are camping out in Tahrir Square, refusing to budge. While banks have reopened, schools and the stock exhange remain closed. A symbolic funeral procession is held for journalist Ahmed Mahmoud, shot as he filmed the clashes between protesters and riot police from his Cairo office.
Protesters are demanding an investigation into the cause of his death. Wael Ghonim, a Google executive and political activist arrested by state authorities, is released; some see him as a potential figurehead for the pro-democracy camp. February 8: Protesters continue to gather at Tahrir Square, which now resembles a tented camp. Protesters in the capital also gather to protest outside parliament. The city sees possibly the biggest crowd of demonstrators, including Egyptians who have returned from abroad and other newcomers mobilised by the release of activist Wael Ghonim.
From then on, Saudi Arabia and the UAE pumped billions of dollars into Egypt to bolster the rule of General Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and prevent another uprising that could lead to the establishment of a democratic polity, one that could threaten their influence and stability. Indeed, had it not been for their recklessness and ineptitude in establishing a clear road map for democratic transition, the deep state and external players would not have succeeded in intervening and thwarting the revolution.
The revolutionary forces did not transition from a social movement to organize themselves into political parties competing for power in the post-revolutionary period. Their political behavior fell victim to a degree of romanticism and idealism that made them unable to keep pace with more organized groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the remnants of the Mubarak regime.
Likewise, the revolutionary forces lacked a unified, coherent leadership able to negotiate either with the deep state, especially the army, or with the well-coordinated Muslim Brotherhood, to enforce their demands. Rather, they experienced many internal divisions that led to their disintegration and weakened their political weight in the post-revolutionary period.
The revolutionary forces lacked a unified, coherent leadership able to negotiate either with the deep state, especially the army, or with the well-coordinated Muslim Brotherhood, to enforce their demands. Likewise, political forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the liberal and leftist parties did not set aside their political and ideological differences during the transitional period and agree on a political agenda that would lead the transition from authoritarianism to a pluralistic democracy, one that would be respectful of all.
Instead, they were too consumed by identity politics and matters related to the relationship between the state and religion. As a result, they both paid dearly. Regardless of who bears responsibility for the failure of the January revolution, the consequence they all share is the return of authoritarianism under the rule of the military.
The events in Egypt illustrate that, in the end, a half revolution is doomed. It is one that creates and utilizes new tools of repression and control in order to prevent any future uprising.
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