by Lin Noueihed
The Road from Tahrir
Even before the pyramids come into view, the touts have spotted the car. At the bottom of the uphill road to the entrance, young boys crowd around, dragging it to a near standstill. As one breaks away, another suddenly leaps out, forcing the driver to swerve, then jumps on the side and slithers through the window to promote his services as a guide. Inside the site itself, no more than a few dozen foreign sightseers pick their way around the sand, each looking harassed and unhappy at the centre of a scrum of touts, one carrying their tickets, another trying to sell them overpriced trinkets, another promoting camel and horse rides. Egyptian touts have long been notorious pests, wont to ruin the holidays of even the most relaxed visitors, but the phenomenon has only intensified since the uprising. This was the start of Egypt's peak tourist season, which runs from October to May, and tourists were outnumbered by increasingly desperate hawkers.
Nearly 15 million people visited Egypt in 2010, generating about $12.5 billion in earnings.96,97 The sector, which directly or indirectly employs some 12 per cent of Egypt's workforce, took a serious hit in the wake of Mubarak's departure, with arrivals dropping by 41 per cent between March and June 2011.98 The all-important tour operators that pulled their customers out when the revolt erupted in the middle of the 2010–11 season had yet to return en masse by the end of the year. In Cairo's Khan al-Khalili souq, the souvenir shops were empty. One man who used to do a roaring trade had taken to selling revolution-inspired T-shirts to journalists and more penny-pinching backpackers visiting Tahrir Square. With so much to offer, from Pharaonic temples to Nile cruises, beaches and diving, Egypt's tourism industry will recover, just as it did from a spree of attacks in the 1990s and a spate of suicide bombings at Red Sea resorts in the 2000s. But the protracted nature of the unrest in 2011 has taken its toll not just on tourism, but also on the wider economy. Whether the future Egypt becomes more liberal or conservative, democratic or authoritarian, its leadership will face the same daunting socio-economic challenges.
Real GDP growth, a robust 5.1 per cent in the 2009/10 fiscal year, fell to 1.9 per cent in 2010/11,99 not nearly enough to create sufficient jobs. Unemployment in the third quarter of 2011 was at 11.9 per cent, its highest level in ten years.100 Mining, construction, trade, finance, transport and communications – sectors of the real economy that provide business for Egyptian companies and jobs and income for Egyptian people – were all hit hard, and despite the flagging growth, inflation of between 8 and 12 per cent in the first six months of 2011 squeezed household budgets.101 All the while, strikes have continued apace. From factory workers to bus drivers to teachers, all have pushed for higher wages, better conditions and for the removal of Mubarak-era appointees. Over 500 independent unions sprang up in the eight months after the uprising, some of them representing single factories or industrial towns and others whole sectors, a growth in grass roots activism that bodes well for Egypt's budding democracy but that could complicate economic recovery.102
Yet the problems facing Egypt will not end with recovery from this downturn. In some ways, Gamal Mubarak, by late 2011 facing trial on charges of corruption and abuse of power, may have been on the right course in privatizing state-owned companies. But how those companies were privatized is of huge importance. The public perception of corruption on a grand scale has undermined privatization efforts around the region when economists say reviving the private sector is vital to growth and job creation. There is huge pressure from unions and activists to change course and offer national industries more protection from competition, even though these provide poorly-paid jobs with little prospect of progression. Both unions and political parties are pushing for the imposition of both minimum and maximum wages, which may cut income inequalities on paper but will do little to root out the corruption that has rotted the system.
In the spring and summer of 2011, Egypt's military rulers embarked on a string of trials, with Mubarak, lying on a hospital bed, his sons and his interior minister making dramatic appearances in a courtroom cage. Verdicts had yet to be handed down one year after the uprising and Mubarak and his co-defendants denied charges ranging from killing some 850 protesters to corruption and abuse of power. Former prime minister Ahmed Nazif, a Canadian-educated computer engineer, along with Ahmed Ezz, a steel magnate and associate of Gamal, former tourism minister Zouheir Gharrana and others, also faced charges of corruption.103 Yet unless the rules are changed and the whole system is cleaned up, activists say a new elite could simply step up to replace the old. Some of Egypt's judges have been outspoken in their demands to monitor elections and resist political meddling, but the independence of the judiciary as a whole has been undermined by authoritarian rulers and emergency law, raising fears that the same arbitrary rule that tarnished the Mubarak era could take years to root out. At the same time, legal challenges have seen major business contracts signed under Mubarak overturned, creating uncertainties for existing and potential investors in Egypt, both local and foreign.104 The Egyptian authorities must strike a fine balance between rooting out what activists say is Mubarak-era corruption and undermining confidence that contracts signed today will not be overturned tomorrow because of political or public pressure.
Corruption, mismanagement, waste and underemployment are so pervasive that the whole system needs reform, but few politicians may be brave enough to undertake painful structural adjustments, or streamline the public sector, for fear of renewed protests or of tipping many more Egyptians below the poverty line. Genuine efforts by an elected government to reform Egypt's economic and political system could also come up against the vested interests not just of big business, but of the army, whose role in the coming months and years is central to whether the 2011 uprising will be viewed by historians as a revolution or simply a coup.
Unlike the Tunisian army, a relatively lean institution that had long been concerned with protecting the state rather than a specific regime or ruler, the Egyptian military could not have acted as a neutral guardian of the post-Mubarak transition. It was an entrenched part of the atrophied economic and political system which the protesters had sought to remove. While it is not unheard-of for a ruling military junta to lead a transition to democracy,105 there is an inherent paradox in entrusting the armed forces with the task of supervising deep and enduring political, economic and social change that, if successful, would fundamentally downgrade its own power.
Given the extent of the Egyptian military's economic and political entrenchment, as well as the drip-feed of US money it receives to keep the peace with Israel, even activists admitted by the end of 2011 that it was hard to see how the SCAF would voluntarily choose to dismantle its political and economic edifices without a sustained popular push and US pressure that, after the fall of Mubarak, had largely tailed off. For the United States, the army continues to be the guardian of peace with Israel, and the day it ceases to be so, it will lose the more than $1.3 billion it receives each year.
The question that was occupying Egyptians by the beginning of 2012 was how much sway the army would seek to retain over politics after it officially hands over to civilian rulers. The SCAF appears at once reluctant to remain embroiled in the tiresome day-to-day management of the country, preferring to withdraw into the shadows where it has long been comfortable and well-financed, but also seems reluctant to hand over power to unpredictable elected officials. After all, neither the Islamist-dominated parliament nor the bewildering spectrum of youth, secular, socialist and liberal alternatives could guarantee stability, or the protection of the army's interests, like Mubarak. Yet the further the SCAF wades into day-to-day government, and involves itself in the policing of street protests and dissent, the more it risks undermining the cohesiveness and reputation of the army itself, a situation it would seek to avoid. 106
To complete their revolution, Egyptians need to minimize the influence of the army on politics – changes that will require a buy-in from the military establishment itself and will necessarily move slow
ly. If the first stage of the revolution took eighteen days, the next will take years, if not decades. In the meantime, Egypt may move slowly towards a hybrid system that includes an end to the rigged elections of the past, a more empowered and accountable government, relatively free competition between political parties, and the eventual lifting of emergency law, but involves some level of military influence over strategic policies. Economic reforms may be tolerated as long as they do not encroach too deeply or too quickly on the vested interests of the military. Political reforms may be allowed as long as they do not threaten Egypt's peace deal with Israel, its friendly ties to the United States, or the military aid the army values so much. Democracy could flourish as long as the Islamists play by the rules. Such changes would mark a vast expansion in the political freedoms enjoyed by Egyptians but give the army a level of independence that could allow it to intervene if its interests, or the strategic and security interests of the state, were threatened.
The role of the Muslim Brotherhood will be central. By the end of 2011, Muslim Brotherhood officials were clamouring to emphasise the importance of strengthening and working through the institutions of the state and were firmly insisting on the ultimate political supremacy of the freely elected parliament. Those comments were certain to reassure liberal and Western opponents worried that the group would cancel elections and establish an Islamic autocracy.
The demands faced by an opposition movement, however, are different from those the Brotherhood will face in government. Politics means compromise, and clear and unequivocal positions backed by actions, all of which could inflame new tensions within the Muslim Brotherhood just as it faces increasing competition from Salafists. As these divisions come to the fore and a new era of multi-party politics opens up, the Islamist camp could increasingly fragment into different groups, much as the liberal camp already has.
Egypt's revolution has only just begun and it may follow a variety of paths. Disgruntled junior officers could yet overturn the old guard. Mass mobilization could yet force the generals to speed up the transfer to civilian rule and political bickering could stand in the way of economic and political reforms. For many Egyptian activists, the deeper changes that have taken place are not, so far, within the regime itself but within Egyptian society. Egyptians, once too apathetic to vote, have embraced democracy. Though grass roots activists have faced arrests and violence, more people have the courage to speak out after the uprising, more Egyptians believe they can change their country, even if it does take years. That is the real revolution in Egypt. ‘The continuation of the revolution is a given. It is not an option. The real change that happened is that people are ready to act and have courage. People do not feel desperate and alone,’ said Amal Bakry, who had never joined a protest before the 2011 uprising but one year on was a member of a pressure group demanding an end to military trials for civilians. ‘Yes, there are a lot of hurdles and of course the regime has not fallen but that does not mean I will cry in the corner and say there is no hope. We are the ones who can create hope.‘107
Yet, just as the Egyptian people's success in overthrowing Mubarak inspired revolutionaries from Tripoli to Manama, their failure to transform those gains into a stable and democratic system could also ripple outwards across the region. There are plenty of foreign powers – not least the United States and Saudi Arabia – that would prefer to see stability rather than further upheaval, even if that upheaval is the only way that Egypt can complete its lurch towards democracy.
That desire to retain the status quo may have been strong in Egypt, but in Bahrain, where another protest movement was gathering pace in early 2011, it was overwhelming.
CHAPTER 6
Bahrain: An Island Divided
My conclusions have convinced me that the overwhelming majority of the people of Bahrain wish to gain recognition of their identity in a fully independent and sovereign state free to decide for itself its relations with other states.
– Vittorio Winspeare Guicciardi, Representative of the UN Secretary General to Bahrain, May 19711
In the alleys of Bilad al-Qadim, the mourners had begun to gather. On the tattered walls, anti-government graffiti had been painted over by police, but fresh slogans had appeared. ‘No to dialogue’ was scrawled on the closed metal shutter of a shop in this Shi'ite Muslim village, long since consumed by the urban sprawl that is Bahrain's capital city of Manama. Further down the road, someone had sprayed the words ‘Down with the 2002 constitution’. It was shortly after noon and worshippers were making their way back from the nearby suburb of Draz, where Bahrain's most senior Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh Issa Qasim, called on the faithful who filled the mosque and the streets outside to remain peaceful in their protests and to reject sectarian divisions on this majority Shi'ite island ruled since the eighteenth century by a Sunni Muslim family.2
By early afternoon, thousands were crowded together in the March sunshine for the funeral of thirty-three-year-old Hani Abdulaziz, who had been chased by police from outside his home and hit by several rounds of buckshot as he hid in an unfinished building.3 His coffin, wrapped in a Bahraini flag and strewn with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, was finally driven to a nearby cemetery in a procession of friends, family members and well-wishers calling loudly for the fall of Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and for the expulsion of the Peninsula Shield, the joint Gulf Arab military force sent in after a month of protests focused around the country's Pearl roundabout had brought the island close to a standstill.
Over a week had passed since 14 March 2011, when the first 1,000 troops rumbled across a causeway that joins Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, the region's economic and political powerhouse and bastion of Sunni Islam. Opposition activists said more than 100 people were missing and believed to be in custody.4 Many more activists had gone into hiding or fled into exile. By the end of the month another twenty-four people would be dead, including four security officers and seven bystanders. It was a drop in the lake of blood that would soon be spilt in Libya and Syria, but a national crisis in a country of just 1.2 million people that is six times smaller than the US state of Rhode Island.5
Abdulaziz had bled to death because his neighbours were too scared to take him to Bahrain's main public hospital, Salmaniya Medical Complex, where security forces had arrested wounded protesters and rounded up the doctors who had treated them or spoken out against the state's violent handling of the crisis.6 They had instead taken Abdulaziz to a private hospital where he was picked up alive by Bahraini security forces and returned to his family as a corpse six days later, the day of his funeral.7
In the ensuing weeks and months, thousands of Shi'ite Bahrainis who went on strike during the uprising were fired or suspended from their jobs. Bahrain's top Shi'ite athletes were replaced. Two stars of the Bahraini national soccer squad faced trial for taking part in the protests.8 The senior editors of Al-Wasat, Bahrain's leading independent newspaper, were forced to resign and face trial. Two of them, both Iraqi Shi'ites, were summarily deported along with their families.9 A co-founder of the newspaper died in custody.10
If the departure of Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak in January and February 2011 had electrified the region and raised popular hopes that a new and more democratic Middle East was in the making, Bahrain's crackdown on protesters the following month blew the first distinctly chill breeze through the Arab Spring. Despite the hopes of so many Arabs watching the protests spread from one country to another, their rulers would not fall like dominoes. In Bahrain, the Arab Spring came up against the cold, hard interests of larger and more powerful neighbours. In Libya, an early revolt had not spread and was about to be crushed by Muammar Gaddafi's forces. In Yemen, dozens of peaceful youth protesters had been shot already, their calls for political reform overshadowed by an unfolding elite power struggle.
The relatively professional army that was able to stand on the sidelines during the Tunisian uprising, the relative religious homogeneity in that country, the weakn
ess of tribal ties in Tunisia and Egypt and their largely unarmed populations had allowed them so far to weather remarkable and sudden change with relatively little bloodshed.
The circumstances were altogether less favourable in Bahrain. Its 2011 uprising may have been inspired by Tunisia and Egypt, but its roots go back far longer and are bound up in a regional conflict that has complicated the long tussle over power on the island.
Like all small states, Bahrain is hostage to its geography and to the wider regional power struggle between Shi'ite Muslim but non-Arab Iran and Saudi Arabia, zealous proponent of the particularly puritanical Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam. With Bahrain's Sunni ruling family relying on Saudi support, the reforms they could offer found their limits in Riyadh. Bahrain also remained closely tied up with the strategic interests of the United States, keen to maintain stability in the world's largest oil-exporting region and keep the US Fifth Fleet based on the island.
While activists have long called for political reforms that appeal to all, carefully couching demands in terms of equal citizenship and broader participation in politics for all Bahrainis, the biggest grievances lie with the country's Shi'ites, who have more to be disgruntled about and less to lose. The divides in Bahrain are not religious in nature – they revolve around universal calls for the Al Khalifa family to relinquish some political power to the people, to empower the elected parliament, to boost transparency and to end discrimination – but by the close of the year the standoff had taken on sectarian overtones.
Bahrain would end 2011 a more polarized society than it started the year, with suspicions between Sunni and Shi'ite running higher than they had even during an earlier uprising in the 1990s. A decade of painstaking efforts by the opposition and the monarchy to rebuild trust and open up the political space would be lost. Sunnis who began 2011 believing reform could resolve political tensions, ended it believing the Shi'ites would only be satisfied with the overthrow of the monarchy. Shi'ites who began 2011 believing reform was enough, ended it believing the Al Khalifa monarchy had to go.