Revolution 2.0. Wael Ghonim

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СКАЧАТЬ the turn of the millennium, and after Mubarak had had four presidential terms, the first son, Gamal Mubarak, began — cautiously — to dip his toes into political waters. Rumors were floated to test reactions to the possibility that Mubarak Junior would become president. In nearby Syria, Bashar al-Assad had succeeded his father. Why not the same for the Mubarak dynasty?

      Throughout Mubarak’s reign, the most enduring and influential opposition came from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), formed in 1928. The Brotherhood’s popularity was regularly presented to the West as a scarecrow whenever Mubarak was under pressure to reform and democratize the regime. Members of the Brotherhood were widely arrested, subjected to military tribunals, and vilified in the press.

      The regime played a typical tyrant’s game. It needed a bogeyman, so it both repressed and enabled the Brotherhood. Yet after years of obsession with its chosen enemy, the Mubarak regime may have become complacent about other threats. In 2004 a group of opposition activists founded the Egyptian Movement for Change, otherwise known as Kefaya, which means “enough” in Arabic. Kefaya opposed the renewal of Mubarak’s presidency for a fifth term and also rejected the attempt to transfer power to his son. The movement’s motto became “No to renewal, no to the inherited presidency.” Members of Kefaya were diverse, including dissidents, intellectuals, journalists, Internet bloggers, university students, and artists. It was the first group to openly and explicitly express opposition to Mubarak’s presidency as well as to his son’s potential candidacy. Its first major protest against the regime was on December 12, 2004 (though many of the protesters knew one another from earlier gatherings to protest Israeli strikes on the Gaza strip and the U.S. invasion of Iraq).

      The regime did not crack down on Kefaya as hard as it had on the Muslim Brotherhood. The security masterminds could not imagine such a movement mobilizing significant popular support, since many of its members were intellectuals, whose discourse is not usually appealing to the masses. And the regime was right — Kefaya never achieved a broad following. Yet just by exhibiting the courage to protest, Kefaya helped tear down a psychological barrier. And by criticizing Mubarak openly — the group’s famous chant became “Down, down, Hosni Mubarak” — Kefaya members were certainly brave pioneers.

      Kefaya’s courage, however, meant very little to Mubarak Junior. Gamal Mubarak was born in 1963 and graduated from high school in 1980, the year I was born. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business at the American University in Cairo. A few years later he left Egypt to work for the Bank of America in London. With a few colleagues, Mubarak then left Bank of America to set up a London-based private equity fund. Upon his return to Egypt in 1998, his political ambitions started to become more obvious, and he joined his father’s party in 2000. As the son of the pharaoh, he rapidly became a key person in the party, which he wanted to restructure and reposition. He was promoted to lead the party’s Policies Committee, the most important division of the NDP. In addition, he became the deputy secretary-general. He was the youngest man of any consequence in an aging party.

      In 2004, a new cabinet composed of Mubarak Junior’s close allies was sworn in. It came to be called the businessmen’s government, because most of the ministers were rich businessmen. Mubarak nevertheless left the regime’s main pillars intact. The ministers of defense and interior affairs and the head of intelligence remained in their positions. Many Egyptians hoping for real change, including myself, were still pleased to see younger faces in government positions. The new prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, had a solid background in technology. Yet it was clear that the regime intended to groom Gamal Mubarak as the nation’s next president.

      When Gamal Mubarak appeared on the Egyptian scene, I thought it was an opportunity to empower the younger generation and get rid of the old mentality that had been dragging us into the dark for ages. He seemed like a progressive person who appreciated experience and understood the youth culture better than the dinosaurs around his aging dad. The new campaigns for the party seemed to indicate a real desire for change, but later it became obvious that this was purely cosmetic — a change in the campaign but not in the product itself. Corruption was deeply rooted within the NDP, and it seems that Gamal Mubarak agreed to play by the same rules as everyone else.

      The following year, 2005, owing to pressure from the international community, parliamentary elections were held under the supervision of the judiciary for the first time. Gamal Mubarak’s influence was growing. He had announced reforms within the ruling party (as head of the Policies Committee). The new cabinet was made up of his own men, not his father’s, and the party was coming under his control.

      Yet the election’s first and second phases (out of three, in different locations) dealt a strong blow to the NDP. The Muslim Brotherhood gained seventy-seven seats, bringing them and other opposition groups close to having a third of Parliament’s members. If that proportion continued in the third phase, the opposition would have an effective veto over legislation. The message was clear, and alarming: many Egyptians hated the NDP and would vote for anyone who stood up to its political monopoly. In those first two phases, the state police were nowhere near as aggressive as they had been in previous elections.

      In phase three, however, the regime showed its true face, blatantly rigging the results. Hundreds of polling stations were shut, and when voters protested, they were handled aggressively. The international community hardly protested, after witnessing the result of fair elections, since the West was wary of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom many regarded as extremists. More than nine people died during phase three, and the Brotherhood won only eleven seats. The result left the MB as the only strong opposition force in Parliament, with 20 percent of the seats. Despite the fact that official NDP candidates won fewer than 40 percent of the seats, the party ended up with 72 percent representation, since many independent candidates joined the party after winning, either because they desired the personal riches associated with each loyal seat or because they were too afraid to decline, or both. It was very clear that the party needed a monopolizing majority to pass any legislation without having to negotiate with any opposition groups in the country. When the emergency state was up for its biennial renewal, the party wanted at all costs to avoid a vote against it. The regime’s chief tool of oppression could not be placed at risk.

      The same year also brought yet another staged attempt to polish the regime’s image in the eyes of the international community. A presidential referendum was turned into a simulacrum of a competitive presidential election. Practically speaking, only leaders of political parties were allowed to run against Hosni Mubarak. State media at that time continued to promote the regime. Stories were written before the referendum to hail his presidential victory as a historical event: Mubarak would be the first Egyptian president to allow competition within an electoral race for presidency.

      To say that the Egyptian opposition parties were weak and fragile is an understatement. They were effectively nonexistent. I always used to say that if all the non-NDP parties had united to form one group, its sum of members and supporters would have barely filled Cairo Stadium’s 80,000 seats. The regime had even created a regulatory body that had to approve all potential political parties before they could see the light of day. Ironically, it was headed by the secretary-general of the NDP. It is no wonder that almost no new parties were formed during this era of autocracy.

      The 2005 elections were truly comical. One candidate promised to bring back the tarboosh, a cylindrical red hat that men wore until midway through the last century, if elected. Another candidate proclaimed that he personally would vote for Mubarak as the man most qualified for the job.

      Gamal Mubarak played a prominent role in the 2005 presidential campaign, and his father appeared in public for the first time ever without his regular formal attire. He wore a tieless shirt in an attempt to look young and energetic, although he was seventy-five years old. (He had always dyed his hair black to look young, but this was a bigger change.) In addition to glowing coverage in the state’s media outlets, positive PR proliferated thanks to businessmen and shop and café owners upon direct СКАЧАТЬ