The revolutionary force was never as divided as it was over the dodged Ministry of Defense sit-in in Abasiyah. They were basically split between three groups.

The first believed that Hazem Abu Ismael’s supporters’ march from Tahrir to the MOD was a perfect opportunity for them to put pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) even if Abu Ismael’s supporters’ demands revolved aroind their candidate (a.k.a their god). The second group said that past year’s events proved you can never trust an Islamist. You can trust an angry transsexual 57 years old prostitute, but you can’t put your trust in a political Islamist. They’ll always eat your flesh and throw away your bones after they take what they want from you. This group refused to join hands with Abu Ismael’s supporters, yet declared their willingness to stand by the protesters’ right to demonstrate if they were attacked by the army. The third group said that such an unpopular sit-in amounted to political suicide and they will not be joining anyway.

The way the MOD sit-in ended and the repercussions it will have on the revolution and the revolutionary force makes us ask these questions: what happened to the Egyptian revolution? Is it going through a period of demise and will eventually remedy itself? Yet the most important question in my opinion is: what did Egypt’s revolutionaries do wrong? We can never expect the revolution to remedy itself without self criticism from the revolutionary force.

In this blog post I will tell you about what I think the revolutionaries have done wrong during the past year.

Leaving Tahrir on February 12

Ask any revolutionary about the single most drastic mistake committed in the revolution and the answer will most probably be this: we left Tahrir right after Mubarak stepped down. The revolutionary force had so much momentum and public support back then, if they have stayed, they could have asked for anything. A constitution, a presidential council, you name it.

I am not a fan of Mohamed Hassanien Haikal, but he said something profound right after February 11 last year. “The revolutionaries reached the moon and asked for a kilo of kebab.”

Staying in the bubble

A tweep on twitter reported something very profound. She was sitting in a traditional cafe and she saw the people cheer right after SCAF announced they will impose a curfew over Abasiyah. I believe it was very clear the MOD sit-in had almost zero public support and revolutionaries who were drawn into it did not do the revolution any good. On the contrary, they further alienating the people and handed extra points to SCAF.

The revolutionaries are still living in their own self created bubble. They only talk to themselves, they rarely talk to the people on the street. They are all cocooned in their own meetings, facebook pages and on twitter. There has been very little attempt to burst this bubble and talk directly to the public; except the successful Kazeboon (Liars) and Masrena (our Egypt) campaigns that were carried out nationwide at the end of last year.

When I raise this point, fellow revolutionaries often confront me with this rationale: revolutions are done by the minority and we can never expect the majority to support us; they will only cheer when we win just as they did when Mubarak stepped down last year.

The above rationale is partially correct. While it is true that revolutions are done by the minority, and it is also equally true that millions of Egyptians had no problem to give Mubarak the few months he requested before relinquishing power, the revolutionaries who took to the street on January 25th needed the throng that descended on January 28th to break the police force and put Mubarak’s regime on its downward spiral. This throng, because of various post-revolution reasons, are not part of the revolution anymore. This is why revolutionaries are now fighting the might of SCAF alone and often against the will of the “street”. Revolutionaries need to understand that without recruiting this “January 28 throng” once again they will never move an inch towards achieving their demands.

Avoiding Politics

Why did SCAF kill revolutionaries yet they never thought of attacking a demonstration by the Islamists? Because revolutionaries are much more dangerous to SCAF than the Islamists. SCAF could strike all sorts of deals with the valueless political Islamists yet they cannot do so with the revolutionaries. SCAF just cannot bring the revolutionaries around a table and negotiate something with them. These guys are hardcore. They are ready to die for what they believe in. Unlike the political Islamists, you cannot throw the revolutionaries a bone.

This staunch adherence to principles and their unwavering determination to achieve all the revolution’s demands prevented the revolutionaries from channeling their zeal into the budding political life of new Egypt. They tend to regard politics as an “unclean thing” that amounts to treason against the aim of achieving the full demands of the revolution.

Revolutionaries need to understand that Egyptians are currently tired of revolution. They might be revolting in their own factories and other workplaces, but I believe the vast majority are not willing to repeat a January 28th with all its associated repercussions. As a result, revolutionaries have little choice at the moment besides getting involved in the political life. This is definitely not a call to “abandon the square”, or to compromise on the revolution principles, but to put politics in parallel with the revolutionary activities. Fortunately, some revolutionaries have learned this and started to get more involved in politics whether through joining political parties or forming independent movements.

Revolutionaries will achieve very little without getting in touch with the street once again; without regaining the “January 28 throng”. Political parties and movements could be a viable vehicle to rekindle the relationship once again.

Down with military rule. OK. But then what?

“The people want the regime to fall.” That was the chant that characterized the 18 days of the revolution. Right after the first army baton fell on a protester days after victory day, the chant of the revolutionaries changed to “down down with military rule”. However, weary of the revolution aftermath, the masses did not rally behind this chant.

The revolutionaries failed to provide a way forward or a plan if military rule did indeed fall. I was once in a march and overheard a bystander react to the chant by asking a very logical question: who will take over if Tantawi fell?

The chant demanding Mubarak’s downfall on the other hand was more acceptable to the multitudes who joined the revolutionaries on January 28th. There were several scenarios back then that could have followed Mubarak’s demise. The vagueness and the uncertainty that accompanied the anti-SCAF chants made revolutionaries appear as if they were crying their lungs out in a completely different country.

While it was true that there were several initiatives to end military rule presented by the revolution force, they never materialized because of lack of public support and also because the revolutionaries where divided themselves over these intiatives.

It is crystal clear Egypt’s revolution force needs to ponder its future. Things just cannot go on as they are now. The revolutionaries cannot continue to be “sit-in and protest laborers”. Something much change and a new way forward needs to be derived. And it is better to start now before it is too late.

A couple of days ago a colleague at work told me this story.

“I went to my barber whom I know voted for the Muslim Brotherhood. He kept telling me about how he regrets voting for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and he won’t repeat the same mistake the next elections,” said my delighted friend.

Stories likes these are found all over Facebook and Twitter. I have my own story too. An acquaintance who owns a factory told me about her employee who regretted voting for the MB after watching our parliament decent into the useless circus it is now. “This guy is even a member of the MB’s Freedom and Justice Party,” she added. Even my own housekeeper told me about how she overheard passengers on microbuses expressing their discontent with the MB led parliament.

Nevertheless, we do not have concrete evidence that the Islamists are losing support. In light of the absence of any solid research data, we cannot presume that voters are turning away from neither the Salafis nor the MB on a national level.  However, let us assume that Islmaists are in fact losing support. The question now is: do we have an alternative to present to the people? The answer is a no. We do not have the political or the religious alternative to the Islamists.

Political Alternative:

The civil forces are all in disarray. They’re unorganized and out of touch with the street. They’re all mired by arrogance and egoism, any attempt of unity disintegrates into quarrels and disagreements. The civil forces, whether liberals or leftists, do not have the political machine of the MB nor the finances the Salafis get from Arab sympathizers in the Gulf. And above all, the civil forces do not have the mosques.

However, I still truly believe that if a viable political alternative was presented to the Egyptian people, they will consider voting for it if they decided not to vote Islamists. Look at the student union elections at Ain Shams University, one of the MB’s strongholds. The MB lost massively to a coalition of pro-revolution independents. Angry at the Islamists’ indifference to last year’s Tahrir clashes, Ain Shams University students, who lost more than one of their colleagues in these clashes, voted for the alternative. And kudos to these young independents who managed to win in spite of their meager means and the fact that they don’t have a political party supporting them.

I am waiting eagerly for the presidential election results. If the winner turned out to be a non-Islamists, that will be proof Egyptians vote for whomever they think will put bread on the table and not necessary those who want to ban porn sites. In a recent Al Masry Al Youm poll, only 4% of respondents mentioned “Shariah law” among the things they want the next president to do.

So who will be that political alternative? Who is willing to brush aside their personal interests, leave the comfortable seats of the TV talk shows and get their hands dirty in the street?

Religious Alternative:

The quest for a religious alternative is as crucial as the political alternative we’re looking for. By religious alternative I mean someone who can present a different religious discourse than what the MB and their more radical cohorts are presenting, an interpretation of religious law that is more compatible with our age.

Currently, in light of an Al Azhar that was weakened years ago and has lost its credibility in the street, our religious discourse is monopolized by the political islamists.  I believe what Egypt needs is not a radical secularist, but someone who can incorporate the overall tenets of religious law into modern day life. Someone who can differentiate between what was suitable for life 1400 years ago and what needs to be reformed and reinterpreted.

I’ve discussed the historical events that led to the demise of our religious reform movement in my post Islam Needs Another Revolution

In Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, the voice told him “If you build it, he will come”.  I here say “If you offer an alternative, they will vote”.

Update: 3 candidates from the below list were disqualified: Omar Soliman, Shater, Hazem Abu Ismael. They have 48 hours to appeal the decision of the Elections High Comission.

Below is your guide to the candidates in the upcoming presidential elections:

Abdel Moniem Aboul Fotouh: you’ll vote for him if you’re looking for a go between between political Islam and liberalism. You’ll give him your vote if you respect the bold stands he took vis a vis SCAF and the MB during the past year. Aboul Fotouh stood by Tahrir against SCAF when it was unpopular to do so and when the MB were busy forging deals and “understandings” with the army generals.

It is not clear how Aboul Fotouh really stands on social issues, he never gave a clear cut answer as to how he will implement religious laws or his relationship with the MB if he became president. Nevertheless, his comforting rhetoric managed to increase his popularity among university students, the middle class and surprisingly among certain middle class Christians.

Omar Soliman: you’ll vote for him if you think he can restore security and curtail the increasing power of the Islamists. You’re willing to disregard the fact that he was Mubarak’s vice and was involved in the CIA’s rendition plan in order to vote for someone whom you think will bring back Egypt back to normality. You’re not pro or anti the revolution. You just want to live in peace and hand the presidency to someone whom you think knows how to run it.

Even if you voted for the MB and Salafis during the parliament elections, you might consider Omar Soliman if you are not so obsessed about the necessity of involving religion in politics. During the parliament elections, you voted for those you know and believe can deliver if they were elected to the parliament. You will follow the same rule next May and vote for the guy you know best and think can be the “strong president” you believe Egypt needs.

Hazem Abu Ismael (if he was allowed to run): Abu Ismael’s rise to prominence is one thing that I just do not understand till now. I remember when he used to call for protests in Tahrir, he could barely amass a crowd of 2000. How he ascended to be one of Egypt’s most popular men in a month is something that have to be studied.

You’ll vote for him because you adhere to his radical interpretation of religious law. You simply believe that God would be happier if he found Egypt to be a second Kabul. You somehow brought what Abu Ismael says during his mosque sermons in spite of the fact that he said Pepsi means “Pay Every Penny to Save Israel” and believes Bill Clinton was the US president who ratified the Camp David agreement. You think the US is busy setting up a conspiracy against the guy despite the fact that his mother, sister and brother are US citizens living in hottie Santa Monica.

Amr Moussa: he is the experienced diplomat whom Mubarak persecuted because of his popularity. You’ll vote for him because, like Omar Soliman, he’s the guy you know, and as we say in Egypt: what you know is better than what you don’t know.

Amr Moussa wears nice suits, he is an eloquent speaker and he just looks presidential.

Ahmed Shafik: you will vote for him because you like Terminal 3 in Cairo airport.

Khaled Ali: if you’re voting for Khaled Ali, then you’re most probably a leftist and part of the Tahrir protest movement. You are a revolutionary who see in Khaled Ali a dream of having a young president who represents the revolution and its values. If you are a revolutionary and will not vote for Khaled Ali, then most probably you’re either boycotting the elections or voting for Abdel Moniem Aboul Fotouh.

Khairat El Shater: you will vote for Shater because you obey what the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide says. Period.

Mohamed Moursy: Mohamed Moursy is Khairat El Shater’s substitute if the latter was disqualified because of a legal implication. Yet before voting for Moursy you would also get your order from the MB supreme guide to do so.

Hamdeen Sabahy: you’ll vote for Sabahy if you’re a Nasserite (adherent to Nasser’s ideology) and like what he says on the talk shows.

Selim el Awa: you’ll vote for Awa only if you’re a jerk and an a*s h*le.

دى قصة ثلاثة كاذبون

الكاذب الاول

أنور البلكيمى. نائب فى البرلمان عن حزب النور. راح يعمل عملية تجميل فى مناخيره. عشان يغطى على العملية راح قدم بلاغ انه انضرب من بلطجية. كذبته انكشفت و حزبه فصله. و طبعا نادر بكار اعتذر. كالعادة

الكاذب الثانى

حازم ابو اسماعيل. رشح نفسه فى الانتخابات الرئاسية و هو عارف ان ماينفعش حد يترشح و احد والديه معاه جنسية اخرى بجانب المصرية. رشح نفسه و ملاء البلد بوسترات و استعرض عضلاته و هو بيقدم ورق ترشيحه. بعد ما ظهرت بوادر الكدبة سارع الى تكذيبها. لكن زى ما بيقولوا الكدب ملوش رجلين و ظهرت الحقيقة سواء من خلال الجوازات او موقع تسجيل الناخبين الامريكان فى لوس انجيلوس او من خلال زوج شقيقته. و مش هانقول حاجة عن امام مسجد بروكلين اللى اتهمه ابو اسماعيل انه شيعى و حرامى

الكاذب الثالث

الكاذب الثالث اسمه عماد عفت. شيخ ازهرى مش معروف غير لتلاميذه. هو كان رئيسا للفتوى المكتوبة بدار الافتاء و لكن محدش منا سمع عنه. ايه بقى كذبة الراجل ده. كان بينزل الميدان و يبقى وسط الثوار. مش بس وقت الثورة. لا. ده كان بينزل حتى بعد 12 فبراير. كان عنده مشكلة. مكانش عايز حد يعرف انه شيخ ازهرى فكان بيكدب. كان بيخلع ملابس الازهر و يلبس قميص و بنطلون و ينزل يقعد فى الاعتصامات و يشارك فى المظاهرات

عماد عفت كان فى اعتصام مجلس الوزراء فى شهر ديسمبر الماضى. برضو لابس قميص و بنطلون. برضو متخفى. برضو محدش عارفه. و فى يوم 16 ديسمبر اخد عماد عفت رصاصة فى قلبة. مات و مات معاه كذبه. انكشفت حقيقته. و عرفنا هو مين

المهم. الكاذب الاول مازال فى خناقته مع سما المصرى. الكاذب الثانى مازال فى حالة انكار حتى بعد ما زوج شقيقته كشف حقيقة خداعه و كذبه. اما عن الكاذب الثالث فهو موجود. موجود فى قلوبنا. فى عقولنا. موجود فى حلمنا ان يوما ما يرجع التدين المصرى السمح . موجود فى حلمنا ان يوما ما يرجع الازهر كما كان فى الماضى

الكاذب الاول و الثانى هايتنسوا. الكاذب الثالث سايظل خالد على جدران المبانى و على جدران قلوبنا

It was Sunday morning, February 20th 1910; Egypt was on the verge of a political earthquake. Ibrahim Nassif El Werdany waited patiently outside the parliament building clutching a loaded gun. The tranquility of this Cairo morning was shattered by the sound of 6 bullets shot by El Werdany towards Prime Minister Botrus Ghali Pasha. Egypt’s first Coptic Christian Prime Minister was instantly killed.

The assassination of Botrus Ghali Pasha created a tremendous rift between Muslims and Christians at that period, a rift that our British colonialists were keen on exacerbating. El Werdany claimed that his motives were purely political. He regarded Botrus Ghali Pasha as a traitor for his “decision to support a proposed extension to the Suez Canal Company’s concession for forty years beyond the expiry of the original concession in 1968, in exchange for increased payments to Egypt.” El Werdany said he would have done the same thing if the Prime Minister was a Muslim.

Nevertheless, El Werdany’s justifications to his act did little to save the country from the schism that awaited it. Many Christians were furious at what happened and regarded the assassination as an attack on their community as a whole. A year later, a group of prominent Christian figures opposed the Coptic Pope and held what was known as “The Coptic Conference” to discuss grievances Christians complained of. The idea of this conference was anathema in a country that was trying to unite and fight for its independence from the world’s superpower back then. To counter the sectarian “Coptic Conference”, another conference called “The Egyptian Conference” was held in Heliopolis that included both Muslims and Christians. Among the Christian participants was Wesa Wasif Pasha who in the 30s was elected as President of Parliament.

A few years after the death of Botrus Ghali Pasha, Egypt witnessed the emergence of a leader who managed to overturn the political landscape of the country and place our case for independence on the world’s stage. Saad Zaghloul, considered to be one of the greatest Egyptian minds ever, managed in an unbelievable short time to obliterate the effect of Botrus Ghali’s assassination and bring Christians to the fold of the Egyptian dream of independence. He understood that the Muslim majority had to take the initiative and extend justice, security and acceptance towards the Christian minority. Not only was Zaghloul restoring Muslim-Christian relations, he was basically ushering in the golden liberal era that remained until the military coup of 1952.

Saad Zaghloul’s remedy, or what I call Zaghloulism, was so powerful that when the British, in 1919, forced Sultan Fouad (he became King in 1922) to appoint one of their Christian allies as Prime Minister, the Christian community were the first to oppose him. In fact there was an attempt on the Prime Minister’s life. This time it was a Christian who tried to kill him!

Why am I giving you a history lesson? Because I believe this revolution has created smaller “Saad Zaghlouls” who were born in Tahrir square on January 25th and the months that followed the downfall of Mubarak. Young nationalist Muslim Egyptians who believe in the same principles of equality and justice that Saad Zaghloul believed in. Exactly the same principles, nothing more nothing less. And Christians will always get attracted to a Saad Zaghloul.

For the past months, I have seen a rise in the number of Christians who’ve joined the revolutionaries in Tahrir or have at least became politically active in some party or movement. This is quiet significant. Christians in Egypt for the past 40 years have normally been found in three locations: their homes, their churches and their secluded area inside a university or school. Today I can see that a number of them have chosen to leave the confines of their churches and make history with their fellow citizens whether by joining the protest movement or simply getting more involved in political affairs. I am not claiming that the numbers are big, but I can definitely see a phenomena. These Christians are basically doing exactly what their grandfathers did with Saad Zaghloul. They are responding to the call of someone willing to accept them on the basis of justice, security and equality.

I am often accused of being too optimistic regarding the future of this country. I admit it is very hard to be optimistic given the current situation in Egypt. I mean look at the joke called the parliament! But I still believe that just as this revolution has unearthed every ill we have in our society, it has also exposed the good which often go unnoticed. It is exactly like digging the earth with a shovel. You will unearth lots of worms. Your attention will only be on the worms and you won’t notice that you’ve also exposed fresh clean mud that you can use to plant new seeds.

The “Saad Zaghlouls” this revolution has uncovered are definitely the new seeds we’re hoping will one day, if ever, pull the country away from its abyss and towards a better future. The same future Saad Zaghloul had in mind when he was forcibly evicted from the country with his 5 close companions, 2 of whom were Christian.

It was 1954. Gamal Abdul Nasser had just managed to get rid of his predecessor General Mohamed Naguib and put him under house arrest. He also went ahead and banned every aspect of democracy we had before the military coup of 1952. Parliament, parties, elections and free media were all abolished when Nasser became sure he was on his way to single handedly rule Egypt. However, one thing was still missing. A thing that ensured Nasser had minimum opposition to his rule: an enemy.

Egypt’s new military dictator had to keep the country in a constant state of war in order to portray dissidents as foreign agents aimed at undermining Egypt “when the whole world was conspiring against it”. Nasser managed to rule for 17 years before death decided to end his regime. During that period, we’ve been to 3 wars and between these wars, thousands of opposition figures ranging from communists to Muslim Brothers were imprisoned, tortured and killed.

I believe our military generals or the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), are trying to copycat the same plan. They might not be able to singlehandedly rule like Nasser, but given the pressure exerted on them these days, portraying that we are under the threat of an outside enemy will definitely give them more freedom to undermine and tarnish their opposition, namely the revolutionary force. This is where the whole confrontation with the US comes in.

SCAF is under considerable pressure both from the revolutionary street and from within the army itself. What better way to protect their position than to portray themselves as victims of the world’s sole superpower that have nothing else to do except “fomenting plans against Egypt”. This is one of the things SCAF wants from this whole NGOs crisis. The other thing is to silence and intimidate the institutions that help in creating an Egypt quiet different from the one they have in mind.

I have to admit I have been pondering over this whole NGOs saga for quiet some time. I just couldn’t reach a solid theory behind why our military rulers, or the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), decided to agitate the Americans in such a way. I cannot remember that it ever happened that foreign workers in Egypt were banned from leaving the country in such a manner. What is happening is quiet serious. Come on, the son of an Obama Administration member is hiding inside the US embassy!

After much thought, I think I reached a theory that my mind can accept. Still I do not presume that my theory constitutes the full truth.

Before I tell you my theory, we have to agree together on certain things. First, SCAF are in control of almost every institution in the country including the General Prosecutor. There was no way on earth our judiciary system would take such a move against American and German linked NGOs without at least tacit SCAF approval. Second, these pro democracy institutions are definitely a headache to whomever rules Egypt. They work on human rights issues and help nascent political parties. In fact, the investigators even reported that the Muslim Brotherhood’s own party had received funds from one of these NGOs. Ironically, the MB did not react after the NGOs were stormed last December. Bums comfortably parked on parliament seats, why would the MB speak against the persecution of the same institutions that supported them when Mubarak threw high profile MB leaders in military jails?

The third thing we have to agree upon is this: SCAF’s popularity has been underminded during the past months and the generals are under immense pressure from the street. They might still be enjoying the approval of a weary and revolution-tired population, but the anti-SCAF movement, especially among the middle class and university students, is growing. Last January 25th, we saw crowds that far exceeded any protest during the past year, including the 18 days of the revolution.

So, you’re under pressure from the revolutionary force, what do you do? You do exactly what Gamal Abdul Nasser did in 1954. You pick up a fight with the West, you portray yourself as if you’re standing to the US. Above all, you make it appear as if the country is being threatened from some sort of “foreign plan” aimed at dividing or conquering it. This is what SCAF are doing now to gain popularity and undermine the revolutionary force working against them.

The NGOs case has to been seen within the context of everything else that is happening. The news that they found maps inside one of the NGOs detailing a plan to “divide the country across religious lines.” SCAF’s Facebook Admin page that recently claimed the American University in Cairo students and faculty were behind a plan to “destroy the Egyptian state” through calling for civil disobedience. NGOs, maps, dividing Egypt, foreign money, American university, foreign hands, American threatening to cut aid. Connect these words and you have a perfect conspiracy to sell to the general public.

Now, can SCAF risk loosing the annual US1.3 billion in US aid they get? According to Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif, yes they might be willing to loose the aid if that helped their sinking ship:

They’re trying to provoke [the severing of US aid], because they’re desperate and they want to present themselves as popular defenders of the nation. So what better way to do it?

Springborg adds:

It wouldn’t mean a thing to Egypt’s military were the aid to stop. A great bulk of that has gone into the procurement of weapons systems that have not been used, are not likely to be used, and that [Egyptian forces] haven’t been properly trained on.

The above poses a very important question: are the generals willing to forgo Abram tanks that are destined to rust in order to save their political future in Egypt. Or are they just going the extra mile with the belief that the US cannot go its own extra mile: cutting the aid. Days will tell.

Update:

Foreign Policy analysis that basically explains what I mentioned above.

How Egypt’s New Rulers are Silencing Their Only Opposition

I have stated before that there are three main players on Egypt’s political stage: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the revolutionaries.

Judging from current events on the ground, it is quiet apparent that SCAF and MB have managed to reach some sort of a “power deal” or an understanding between them. The agreement is not coherent nor officially documented and it did have its own ups and downs. It was basically born out of the mutual interests of both parties. The SCAF want to hand over power while retaining as much Mubarak-era benefits as possible. The MB just want to enjoy and celebrate what post-Mubarak Egypt have unexpectedly bestowed on them.

The third player is the revolutionaries; a mosaic of Egyptians from all walks of life who are determined to continue the revolution till all its demands are met. They are young, old, Muslims, Christians, well off and poor. Some of their girls don the nikab, others do not cover their hair. You cannot even group them ideologically. They range from the anarchists to the salafis. Yet the bulk do not adhere to a specific ideology.

The revolutionaries are the most difficult to satisfy. SCAF just want to retain their economical interests and independence. The MB just want the seat they’ve been drooling over for the past 80 years.  The revolutionaries are different though. You cannot throw them a bone. These people are willing to die or lose an eye for their cause. This is the reason why they’re a pain in the neck to whoever is calling the shots in Egypt. This is the reason why the other two players in the above pie would rather see them silenced, weakened and above all tarnished.

SCAF’s war against the revolutionaries started days after the toppling of Mubarak. With the bulk of those who participated in the January revolution gone from Tahrir, SCAF made sure to obliterate the remaining hardcore protesters who would not relent until all revolution’s demands were met. And we all know what befell those protesters last year: military trials, torture inside Cairo’s museum, virginity tests, violent crackdowns on sit-ins and a state media orchestrated campaign to tarnish whoever remained in Tahrir after February 11.

Since the revolutionaries are so diverse and unorganized, SCAF needed a sole body to direct the campaign towards. April 6, probably the only organized and coherent body besides the MB became the target. SCAF were so successful in their fear mongering campaign to the extent that the mere mention of the words “April 6” to average apolitical Egyptians today would send chills of fear down  their spines.

After securing the majority of seats in parliament, it seems that the MB are joining SCAF in their attempts to silence and tarnish their common rival in the Egyptian political equation.  A month before the scheduled protests on January 25^th,  SCAF started yet another scare mongering campaign targeting that day. They spoke of plans to “burn the country” by certain groups and “hidden hands.” It was very surprising to see the MB joining this campaign. Secured by the number of seats they won, the MB wanted to be the only legitimate voice of the people, in other words, the only voice to be heard.

Their campaign started by picking another group this time besides April 6. It was the Revolutionary Socialists’ (RevSoc) turn. The workers advocacy group that supported the MB back in 2007 when Mubarak’s security apparatus cracked down on them. On December 24, MB’s official newspaper carried a main headline that read: RevSoc…Violence Comes First. MB attacks even reached independent women who participated in a march denouncing violence against female protesters by army soldiers back in December. MB’s head of Women Affairs, Manal Aboul Hassan, said in a newspaper interview that those who participated in the march received foreign funds and have an agenda of their own. After the backlash her statement caused, she claimed the newspaper twisted what she actually said and promised to show a recording of the actual interview. This recording has not surfaced up till now.

The attempts to silence or drown protesters’ voice continued till January 25^th. On the night of that day, the MB descended on Tahrir and built the largest stage there. And for the very first time they placed loud speakers in almost every corner of the square. Their goal was clear: to “drown” the protesters and to dominate the square. The message was: I am the parliament, I am the people and you shut up. I have an understanding with SCAF and I won’t allow you to disrupt it.

They were up to a big surprised though. Masses of protesters joined the marches to Tahrir from the four corners of Cairo and it was the MB who got drowned and not the other way round. They had, again for the first time, to beam Quran out of their loud speakers in order to cover up the chants coming from the throngs around them.

The above leads us to a very important current question: will the Ultras, the hardcore soccer fans who proved to be instrumental in the revolution and who were the main victims of the Port Said massacre, end up being the next target? They are as organized as April 6. They can mobilize and they’re starting to be politically active. They have all the necessary elements to make them detested by Egypt’s new rulers.

In the first half of the 19th century, the founder of modern Egypt, Mohamed Ali Pacha, decided to send 40 Egyptian students to complete their education in France. Our Albanian ruler was so keen on these student missions and regarded them to be a major way of channeling European modernity to Egypt. Nevertheless, our great Pacha was also keen that his students won’t slip and adopt European traditions that were not welcomed in Egypt. A Muslim Sheikh used to accompany these student missions in order to make sure the kids prayed, maintained the tenants of their faith and stayed away from European beauties; and definitely European booze.

Before these 40 Egyptian knowledge seekers were allowed to leave Egypt, an Al Azhar Sheikh and guardian was assigned to them. We do not know much of what happened to the 40 students in France. But we do know a lot about what the Sheikh did. The Sheikh did not do his job. He wondered around Paris. He learned the French language. Instead of just reading the Quran to the kids, he read works by Voltaire, Rousseau, Condillac and Bezout. Our Sheikh then wrote a book considered to be among the most prominent in Egypt’s modern history: The Extraction of Gold From Summarizing Paris. Our Sheikh is Rifa’a el-Tahtawi.

A few years after Rifa’a el-Tahtawi’s emergence, another Sheikh was born in 1849.  Considered to be the founder of Islamic Modernism, Sheikh Mohamed Abdou was a jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer. Upon visiting the West, Sheikh Abdou did not care much about what European ladies were dressed in. He did not care much about what Europeans were drinking and eating. He just cared about the work ethics and values he witnessed in Europe back then. Sheikh Abdou returned home and said: I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam. His main argument was that we could not just rely on the interpretations of medieval clerics, but we needed reason in order to keep up with a changing world.  When the great emancipator of Egyptian women, Qassim Amin, wanted to emancipate women, he often depended on Sheikh Mohamed Abdou’s thoughts and writings.

The two Sheikhs, along with others, helped in ushering in a period that witnessed a renaissance in almost every aspect of life: politics, nationalism to counter British occupation, arts, women rights, minority rights and a golden era for the Al Azhar institution. It was the period of the early 20th century when we had a Jewish finance minister and a Christian president of parliament. It was a period when Al Azhar was a powerful independent institution that produced scholars who walked the same path as Mohamed Abdou and Rifa’a el-Tahtawi.

Unfortunately, after the 1952 coup, everything in the country, including Al Azhar, was nationalized and brought under the direct control of the country’s dictatorial government. Gamal Abdel Nasser annulled Al Azhar’s democratic process of electing a head and stripped the institution of its financial resources. In the 1970s, thousands of Egyptians went to work in the Gulf and returned back with a religious ideology that was quiet different from what Egyptians were used to in the first half of the 20th century. An ideology that knows nothing about Sheikh Mohamed Abdou’s call for reason and depend solely on the interpretations of clerics who never departed their desert dwelling.

Why am I giving you a history lesson? Because the example of Egypt in the first half of last century proves that we as a nation will not develop without religious reformation. We cannot excel in other forms of life without curing ourselves from the disease that struck us since the 70s.

Religious reformation was a prerequisite for development and advancement of other nations as well. Imagine Europe without the Protestant Reformation that forced the Catholic church to enter the furnace of reform. Imagine Judaism now without its own reform movement. We would have had only lunatic ultra-orthodox Jews running around in Israel and Brooklyn.

To sum up, we need our religion back! We need the Islam of Mohamed Abdou. The Islam of Sheikh Maraghy, the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar from 1935 till 1945 who rivaled the power of the King Farouk’s throne.

I want to end with a little experiment.  Look at the below picture. On the left I’ve put the picture of Sheikh Emad Effat, the Al Azhar Sheikh who was shot dead a few weeks ago while he was with protesters in Tahrir. On the right, I’ve put the pictures of so-called Salafi clerics who currently monopolize the religious discourse in Egypt and who’re currently sleeping with SCAF on the same blood stained bed. Whom do you want to represent Islam? Whom do you feel reflects the mercy, grace and holiness that a religion should reflect?

My prayer is that the blood of Sheikh Emad Effat will not be in vain. I pray that it will be the seed that will blossom bringing back what we have lost 40 years ago.

Right after the election results in my own Heliopolis district were announced, I sarcastically wrote about the Republic of Heliopolis. This post, which turned out to be one of the most popular in my 8 years of blogging, was purely tongue in cheek and aimed at triggering a laugh amid the horror the elections results caused to many.

Actually, I do not want to live in the Republic of Heliopolis. I want to live in the Republic of Tahrir.

Tahrir has become a utopia to many of us. A dream. A place that enabled us, Egyptians, to overcome many of our ills. I sometimes believe  there is something supernatural in Tahrir; some kind of energy that transforms whomever chooses to be part of it.

They say we Egyptians are lazy. Tahrir is a beehive. During sit-ins, everyone has a thing to do; from the elderly woman who prepares sandwiches to the young men who guard the gates.

It’s believed we are not creative. Tahrir is a bastion of creativity. Our creativity was articulated in the numerous political slogans, banners, graffiti and the protective gear we invented to protect our heads from rocks and our lungs from tear gas. You will see the poet, the musician, the political analyst, the writer, the blogger, the photographer. Want to see how creative we are?  Take a stroll down Mohamed Mahmoud street and look at its walls. Look at its walls before they remove what our artists painted there. Because our paintings make them look in the mirror and see their ugly faces.

It’s believed Egyptians are intolerant. Not a month passes without a sectarian crisis somewhere. Not in Tahrir though. In the square, the Muslim Brotherhood doctor treats patients inside a church. Christians form a protective circle around praying Muslims. In fact, Tahrir might be the only place Christians prayed in outside their churches. In Tahrir, you find Christians whom you never thought would be politically active. You would find Mina Danial.

It’s believed sexual harassment is rampant on Egypt’s streets. Again, not in Tahrir. The square is the only place where sexual harassment is an exception and not the norm.

They say the privileged don’t care about the poor in Egypt. In Tahrir, you will see the rich man sleeping in the same tent with the unprivileged man. You will see street kids roaming around protesters feeling a sense of security they wouldn’t feel if they were left at the mercy of Cairo’s streets. You will see Tahrir School where poor and street kids learn to read and draw. You will see a female protester teaching a street kid to shoot pictures with her Canon.

It’s believed we became radical religiously. We forsook our moderate and intelligent religion and replaced it with a rigid ugly form of religiosity we imported from the oil fiefdoms. In Tahrir, you find Sheikh Emad Effat.

As mentioned above, I tend to look at Tahrir as a mental state. As a seed that was planted in this country. And just like any seed, it is destined to grow. This is the reason why they’re doing everything to choke it. Because if Tahrir came out of Tahrir, this country will change forever and threaten whatever interests they’re trying to protect.