Is the Egyptian Revolution Dead?

[27 November 2012, anti-Morsi protest in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. Image originally posted to Fllickr by Gigi Ibrahim] [27 November 2012, anti-Morsi protest in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. Image originally posted to Fllickr by Gigi Ibrahim]

Is the Egyptian Revolution Dead?

By : Philip Rizk

The short answer is “No.” A longer answer follows. What happened in Egypt between 30 June and 3 July was not a coup against an elected government. It was another attempt by the generals to co-opt Egypt’s January 25 Revolution. The situation’s complexity and its globally and ideologically charged nature makes it hard to see the forest for the trees, here is my view on why the revolution is far from over:

In the space of a few days, Mohamed Morsi went from being a ruler who implemented laws and alienated the opposition in order to monopolize power, to one without any power because the people went to the streets. To say the Muslim Brotherhood made mistakes in the last year is an understatement. They did not just replicate the Hosni Mubarak regime that we ousted from power. They took things even further. They allowed the police to maintain their use of violence against everyday citizens and revolutionaries, locking us up, maiming us, torturing us, and killing us. In response to protests against the Brotherhood’s monopolization of power, both their members and the security forces they oversaw fought back with incredible brutality. All this took place without any legal retribution of police or army members. The Brotherhood`s prosecutor general refused to reopen cases against the police who killed or were complicit in killing protestors during the revolution despite having promised to so in the name of the revolution. Police brutality did not once wane under Brotherhood rule. Instead, the police maintained their impunity to wreak havoc on a society still in revolutionary momentum.

On the economic front, the Brotherhood gained popularity during the Mubarak era, by providing free education and handouts in poor neighborhoods. These kinds of activities helped solidify their support base in an era of rising prices and decreasing opportunities for decent standards of living. Yet, once in power their commitment to charity did not translate into policies that would benefit the poor in the long run. Rather, the Brothers deepened the Mubarak era neoliberalization. In order to please the conditions of never-ending International Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiations, they had already begun removing subsidies from basic goods like fuel. They also announced tax increases on basic goods, which they then rescinded due to street opposition.

During their period in power the Brotherhood took countless loans from both governments and regional banks. They did this in the absence of a Parliament. They did this without publicizing the conditions that Egyptians will have to bare for years to come. One such condition was that of a pending IMF loan that called for the regimental devaluing of the Egyptian pound, causing an unbearable increase in the prices of Egypt’s food, much of which is imported and purchased in foreign currency. The Brotherhood government also maintained the Mubarak era opposition to independent unionization of workers, by allowing the business elite to fire union members without consequence. They did not attempt to identify or recover stolen assets of Mubarak and his cronies. Instead, they began reconciliation processes with former regime members citing the need to boost Egypt’s economy. 

The revolution’s main call was “bread, freedom and social justice.” On judicial retribution, police violence and financial redistribution, the Muslim Brotherhood did not just fail. They drove Egypt to a brink, where conditions were even worse than they had been under Mubarak reign. And all this they did with complete arrogance, alienating the entire landscape of political movements and parties in the process.

This reality drove people back to the street.

This reality discredits that thing called democracy.

In the context of the authoritarian Brotherhood regime, which their Western trading partners supported with their own political and economic interests in mind, the everyday needs of people are not a priority of the political decision-making process. This means that those who come to power in Egypt through the electoral process must first receive the approval of local elites like the military generals and their foreign backers. Then, a flawed electoral process allows their emergence to power. It is as simple as that. In Egypt we have never had “fair” elections and never will as long as this power constellation remains.

This neo-colonial reality makes the very idea of democracy redundant.

People went to the street to express their rejection of all this. But there is an uglier side to this mass mobilization. The growing rage on the streets against the Muslim Brotherhood caused their local partners—the generals—to back out of their power sharing relationship and push for the Brotherhood’s ouster. Enter the Egyptian military. In the days leading up to 30 June liberal television stations spread massive amounts of anti-Brotherhood propaganda. While much of the information was true, its timing and direct messaging revealed that it was part of a larger campaign against Brotherhood rule. Accompanying this was a fuel shortage that the secret police and military accentuated. In doing so, they allowed the Tamarod campaign to gain support it would not have otherwise had, had these same state forces intervened to stop them as they always do once they threaten state power. In a statement prior to 30 June, the Tamarod leadership convinced protesters to unify their rebellion against one target: the Muslim Brotherhood. All other battles were to be left for a later stage. This logic of “my enemy’s enemies are my friends” meant that despite their role in suppressing the revolution, the military and even more alarmingly the police were celebrated on the public stage in the past week as absolute heroes of this revolutionary moment.

At this point, we need to assess the role of the military.

The army, which now parades our streets as heroes, is ruled by the same generals that ordered our protests to be crushed at a protest march at the Maspero building. They are the same generals who oversaw the murder of seventy-two football fans because they participated in the revolution. They are the same generals who carried out military trials against more than twelve thousand Egyptian civilians to re-instill fear. They are the same generals who hog a large portion of our economy for their own interests. They are the same generals who ordered the attacks on our protests that killed Mina Danial, Emad Effat, Alaa Abd El Hady, and hundreds more, while injuring, torturing and locking up tens of thousands. They are the same generals who incited sectarianism, and conducted virginity tests to divide society and crush any form of public protest.

In this polarized political atmosphere Egyptians forget the past too quickly. We suffer from collective amnesia in order to suppress our fears and put our faith in the fata morgana of promises for change. The discourse of democracy and the illusion of a better, freer, richer life are the illusions that tempt many Egyptians to put blind faith in those who claim they will bring this about. 

Let us look at the role of the generals in key moments during the January 25 revolution.

28 January 2011: Though protests had been building, Friday 28 January, the Day of Rage, caught everybody by surprise. Yet, the neocolonial constellation of the military generals and their international backers, who had been Mubarak’s life-long partners, played it smart. They removed Mubarak from power two weeks later, claiming to fulfill the revolution’s demands. The majority of the Egyptian people celebrated them as heroes; they saw the Mubarak era faults as concentrated in one man rather than the system he symbolized. Following a period of direct rule, the military junta handed over a majority of power to a “civilian, democratically-elected” government after agreeing to terms of divided sovereignty. They decidedly removed themselves from direct responsibility for any failings of government, while maintaining their share of the political and economic pie. Their vast economic empire could not be threatened.

3 July 2013: The military repeats a tactic similar to the one they carried out after Mubarak’s ouster. This time they were more prepared. They claimed to implement the will of the people. They took full credit for a glorious “30 June Revolution.” These were steps to contain the wrath of revolution: the actual coup is not the deposing of Morsi or other elected officials. It is the attempt to overthrow a mass revolutionary mobilization. Our revolution brought down Morsi, but the army coup wants to take the credit for his ouster thereby absorbing the power of the people that made it happen. This time was different, this time the generals saw the ship sinking and wanted out. The Brotherhood’s governance had not only failed miserably, they had also started to believe they could impose their authority in the Ministry of Interior and even in the military ranks. These steps threatened to chip at the generals` piece of the power pie. On 3 July the military leaders succeeded at ridding themselves of a partnership that had gone wrong while receiving unprecedented praises of the population at large. For their international backers the game has not been so easy. First world nations, especially the Americans who consider themselves the gatekeepers of legitimate democracy, have done their utmost to stand by the Muslim Brotherhood’s legitimacy to maintain power. What is at stake is what they deem to be a timeless discourse: democracy. This discourse eases these nation’s roles in a global hegemony through which they can alternatively condemn, suppress, and fund third world leaders. Democracy is the golden key to play global judge between good and evil.

In sum let us take a step back.

There is no such thing as democracy within a neocolonial context. Such is the case in Egypt.

Further, the logic of a coup against a government falls apart completely without the possibility of a democratic order. 

The power of millions of Egyptians taking to the streets on 30 June shatters the illusion of the necessity of elected representation and has the potential to lay bare this neocolonial reality.

The fear is that the forces that maintain hegemony over our society are using every means possible to prevent the further fruition of our revolution. This includes a dirty game of exploiting these recent events by purposefully deepening divisions within Egyptian society to make their rule unavoidable, more violent and even less accountable to the population at large. Since 30 June this has meant an unending stream of bloodshed amongst Brotherhood supporters and civilians either protesting them or caught in the crossfire or within sectarian battles. We are caught in a situation where a population is being held hostage and their death is being incited and capitalized on by almost all political elites vying for power: the military generals, the Brotherhood and the liberals.

Today we are still in the midst of the January 25 Revolution. We face a serious threat of its co-optation but until now the power still lies with the people. In order to fight on we must both remember the past as well as see our immediate situation in light of the global power constellation.

We are not alone.

Despite the different contexts across Brazil, Turkey, and Chile, as in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the United States, people are taking to the street to stand in the way of the rule of local elites by the logic of the longevity of their power and the increase of a minority’s wealth. Seeing all these revolutionary moments within one frame means that with or without democracy, with or without elections, popular rule is moving to the street and out of institutions and government offices. As Max Weber wrote, representation is a “structure of domination,” and thus we maintain the revolution’s cry, “the people want the fall of the system.”

We are at a global turning point.

We must fight on.

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Occupy Gezi as Politics of the Body

Since the Gezi resistance started with bloodshed on 31 May, it has had an “anti-depressant” effect, as a friend of mine puts it, as much as it has been nerve-racking. During this period where each day has been prone to new crises and normalcy was completely disrupted, we simultaneously experienced the peaks of ecstasy and the depths of sorrow.

Analyzing such an intense event naturally requires taking some distance. Pending systematization, however, the vivid memory of each day impels one to put on paper multifarious ideas that resonate well with the resistance. Each morning, many bodies with sleep deprived eyes wake up in Istanbul, Ankara, Antakya, Urfa, and Denizli to take to the streets once again, after having quickly checked the latest news in the social media. They are astonished and impressed that they can still walk, run, stand up, and carry provisions for those in the parks. Exhausted bodies rejuvenate with every new threat that the government utters, and with thousands, tens of thousands of others they begin flowing to Taksim, Kızılay, Kuğulu Park, Gündoğdu, Abbasoğlu, and Yeniköy Park carrying home-made gas masks, swimmer goggles, anti-acid solutions, and whistles.

No one does or can govern these bodies. The masses that gather in public spaces are not formed by virtue of transferring tax money into the wallets of partisans. No one provides shuttle buses for them; no one gives them flags, or feeds them with sandwiches. No one assigns them the slogans they shout out during the demonstrations. Bodies that take heart from knowing that they are not alone do not count, or count on, numbers to meet with others in communal or virtual spaces. One standing man suffices for thousands of others to take to the streets. After all, “one” is also a number…

The government, whose tactlessness prompts these resisting and standing bodies to convene again and again every single day, could not have missed the significance of this body politics. These bodies naturally do have a language, even a few languages that are at times congruent and at others incongruent; however, as a whole, they constitute a politics of the body. The rage and dreams that have been embodied in tweets and graffiti since 31 May turn into material realities through the physical existence, visibility, and endurance of the bodies. If history is being rewritten, then its subject is the body.

Four of these bodies lost their lives during this war that the government has waged on society. Thousands of bodies have been beaten up: some lost their eyes, some received irretrievable injuries. Skins were burnt under the water from the cannons, “laced” with chemicals for maximum harm; lungs were choked with tear gas. Pounded arms, legs, and heads got crushed and broken. The long-term effects of the tons of chemicals dumped on bodies are still unknown. What is known, however, is that these chemicals killed hundreds of cats, dogs, and birds, and that they did harm to countless insects, butterflies, and other smaller organisms.

The apparatuses of the state, and the vehicles of death that responded to Gezi’s politics of the body, attempted to imitate the life force that they failed to extort. In response to the huge numbers that filled the parks and squares and astonished everyone without exception, they hoped to gather partisans together in scripted rallies. They began comparing head counts; they calculated representative percentages. When the calculations did not match, they increased the number of police in body armor and helmets and moved them from protest to protest. They built walls of flesh and steel against the wave of resisting flesh. When that did not work, they offered these bodies—which have been in contact with each other physically and virtually through meetings, banners, and tweets—a mise en scène of dialogue, the conditions of which were more or less already determined. They could not even wait for this attempt to yield fruit; two warnings and a command were enough to launch an assault to remove the bodies that produced an alternative sociability from the park, from the space in which physical resistance could be transformed into a life style. They freed the public space of the public. They collected all the banners, pictures, and colors one by one to erase them from social memory. They stripped all the trees, each dedicated to victims of state violence; they appropriated the barricades that were named after tens of people who had undergone physical and psychological torture, and they tore them to tatters. They destroyed the efforts to keep alive the memories of Fikret Encü, who was a victim of Roboski; Metin Göktepe, who was tortured and killed in detention; Dicle Koğacoğlu, who could not take all the sorrow inherent in this society any more; and the Surp Hagop Armenian Cemetery, which was destroyed by Turkish racism.

The only thing that remains is a politics of the body—but the bodies that produce this politics differ from what Giorgio Agamben calls “bare life.” They are not “mere” bodies that the arbitrary will of a sovereign can isolate from society, oppress unceremoniously, or push to the margins of the symbolic world. Rather, they evoke what Ernst Bloch calls “the upright man,” the collective Prometheus. Bloch writes:

Nothing is more fortifying than the call to begin from the beginning. It is youthful as long as it is; to it there belongs a young and aspiring class. It is innocent of the bad things that have happened, for it has never had a real opportunity to be guilty. When this happens, justice has the effect of a morning; it opposes itself to that eternal sickness which was handed down before it. Beginning anew is freshness through and through; it is a first if it appears completely ahistorical, and if it seems to lead back to the beginning of history….It carries the image of the pastoral mood, of the shepherd, of the simple and upright man; one can play with it even in the dark.[1]

Gezi is the struggle of disorderly bodies, those who do not have any dispositif other than their own bodies, against the death machines. If the machines are regulatory instances that follow commands and extort public spaces of mobility with force and violence, then the force they face is the resistance of life itself. Life flourishes at the most unexpected moments and places, just like weeds that crack the concrete and spring out of it. No apparatus of the state can succeed in dominating life absolutely.

The state seeks order; it can control only those whom it orders. It cannot cope with the demand of "freedom"; it has to ask questions such as “freedom for whom,” “freedom for what,” or “freedom under what circumstances” in order to tuck freedom into neat boxes. Order draws borders, fixes identities, and defines. It attempts to establish a hierarchy. By telling parents to take their daughters and sons home from the park, it both brands the resisting bodies as "children" and tries to trigger into action the nucleus of society: family. Through its rhetoric of security, it attributes the risks of its own making to the resisting bodies. It hangs its own flag or banner on the bodies that it prefers knocking down rather than protecting. It punishes those who do not obey; it uses punishment as retaliation. It operates through censorship, threats, and propaganda.

Life, on the other hand, is a constant flux. It challenges borders and moves beyond them. It opens up to circulation those spaces that are closed off due to construction; it paints such destructive vehicles as bulldozers pink; it transforms steps into tribunes, pieces of iron into wish trees, and trees destined to be cut down into monuments. It walks on highways and bridges that are closed to pedestrians. It does not like the empty and the sterile; it covers them up with banners, slogans, tents. It leaves its mark on every surface. It disrupts silence at times with pots and pans, and at other times with a tune from a piano. It plays with identities and definitions; it makes them fluid; it renders them indistinguishable. It can make fun of both itself and the established order thanks to its humor. By changing one single letter in a word, it can ridicule the heaviest of symbolisms. When the state apparatus sends a riot-intervention vehicle to pour tear gas on it, life stops to catch its breath for a while and goes right back to resisting. When a body grows tired, it gets replaced by a reinvigorated one. Life turns into thousands of fingers that tweet and take photographs when the state apparatus sends down vehicles of propaganda. It stops its wheelchair to grab the flag that fell on the ground while escaping from tear gas. It apologizes when it steps on someone`s foot while running; it calms down those who panic.

It is obvious that these bodies that fascism wants to militarize will not assume any ideological identity. When they do not drink alcohol, they ridicule conservatism; when they lie under a TOMA, they make fun of liberalism, which claims that life is the most valuable good. Orthodox Marxism cannot decide under which class struggle these "çapulcu" bodies are to be subsumed. As long as they stay in physical contact, as long as they remain as collective Prometheuses, as long as they—have to—continue the resistance, they grow accustomed to each other`s colors, languages, and genders. They disrupt the behavioral rules that ideologies and institutions expect from them. The natural or moral instinct of protection that has been attributed to mothers loses ground when female bodies participate in the resistance alongside their children. The nationalist and the Kurd exchange anti-acid solutions in gas-filled hotel lobbies. The upper-class college kid drinks the water handed over by the kid with an Anonymous mask without needing to ask what neighborhood he’s from. Soccer fans save their curses for the police rather than for their rivals.

What comes out of all this is trust, not chaos. That`s why the bodies multiply with every gush of tear gas, spaces expand with every police attack, and the quality of contact among the bodies increases with every propaganda speech. The life woven together by bodies born in Gezi is so tenacious that the government is right in fearing it. The power of these bodies stems from their capacity to mutualize endurance, rather than vulnerability (as Judith Butler envisioned they would). One would need to look into the extensive interstices of this politics of the body, rather than into macro-level discourses, to begin deciphering it.

NOTES

[1] Ernst Bloch, Natural Right and Human Dignity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), 61.

[An earlier version of this article was published on 26 June 2013 on BIA ("Independent Communication Network"). The link to that version can be found here. This article was translated from Turkish by Gülfer Göze.]