Tuesday January 25 was National Police Day holiday in Egypt. In 2009 and 2010, there were small protests drawing attention to alleged police corruption and brutality. This year’s holiday, however, happened to fall just days after the so-called “jasmine revolution” in Tunisia, a popular uprising which succeeded in ousting President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Clearly, many thought something similar was possible in Egypt.
So on January 25, tens of thousands of protesters marched in the capital Cairo, and also in Alexandria, Suez and other Egyptian cities, demanding political reform, and in particular the immediate stepping down of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in favour of a new government free from the tyranny and injustice that has come to characterise the Mubarak regime.
Mubarak came to power in 1981 after the assassination of former President Anwar El Sadat, and has maintained one-party rule in a continuous state of emergency since that time. His government has the support of Western nations and Israel, and receives aid from the United States of America in return for filling a regional power vacuum which reduces the likelihood of war with Israel and a disruption of oil supplies.
Ironically, as my colleague David Gushee has observed, Mubarak’s stubborn stance at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of his people is reminiscent of Pharaoh’s attitude toward the descendants of Abraham living in Egypt in biblical times (Exodus 5:1-21). As the narrative recounts, Pharaoh outlawed religious freedom, oppressed the people, and made their lives unbearable by degrees. The people pushed back, cried out to their God, and took radical collective action resulting in devastating consequences for Egypt.
Protests in Egypt are now in their thirteenth day, and have focused on a range of issues including corruption, police brutality, the state of emergency laws, lack of free elections, restrictions on free speech, as well as high unemployment, food price inflation, and low minimum wages. But what unites almost all the protesters is a common passion for Mubarak to leave.
There has been a heavy toll: as of February 6, there were up to 300 dead, and perhaps 3000 injured (including about 700 police officers). There have also been hundreds of arrests, including citizens arrested by police, foreign media detained by security forces in defiance of international protocols, and pro-government agitators handed over to the army by citizens who, in the absence of police, have banded together to form neighborhood watch groups. Some who have been released have claimed that other detainees are being tortured by their own army.
The protests show no signs of abating. The army appears undecided on whether to support the old regime, endorse the emerging power elite, or create its own reality with a coup. There is also the threat that what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt may spill over to Jordan, Morocco and other Arab states.
While the popular uprising in Egypt calls for democratic reforms such as free and fair elections, greater freedom of speech, and the reigning in of corruption, what is envisaged by many protesters (or at least seen as preferable to the status quo) is not a Western-style secular democracy but one influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and shaped by hard-line Islamic principles.
That does not auger well for Egypt’s Christian population, or for human rights.
What does the future hold? It is too soon to tell. The United States, traditionally an ally of the Mubarak regime, and a generous aid donor in return for regional stability, appears to have been caught off guard and is reluctant to do more than make polite gestures toward democratic reform.
Iran has called for the installation of a revolutionary Islamist regime in Egypt. Israel, terrified at the prospect of losing Mubarak (who featured prominently in the 1973 war but who has proved capable of preventing a full-scale Arab-Israeli war), would want to dash Iran’s hopes.
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has urged Egypt’s government to act with “all restraint” but added that change must occur.
It may be that negotiations between Egyptian power elites, or the power of the Egyptian army, or oil price volatility ultimately decides the outcome of this latest political turmoil in the Middle East.
One thing is certain: the current popular uprising cannot continue indefinitely. The longer it takes to resolve the crisis, the more likely it is that Egyptian politics will return to business as usual, with Mubarak at the helm.
This is part one of a two-part article on current events in Egypt.
