Muslim Brotherhood supporters (background) clash with supporters of the Egyptian government in Cairo on January 25, 2014. (AHMED TARANH/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]
On the third anniversary of Egypt’s January 25 revolution in 2011, people from across the political spectrum claim that they alone represent its legacy, but all had different expectations for this year’s January 25. The authorities wanted a quiet celebration, because in their view the events of last year’s June 30 are just as important a great national victory as January 25 of two years before. After all, they say, the security and military forces are “one hand” with the people, in light of the threat of terrorism.
On the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters want a renewal of the revolution, hoping that this time the pro-revolution, anti-Mubarak, anti-military groups will ally themselves with the Brotherhood in spite of all the bad feeling between them. All of this conflicting sentiment comes from the many different stories about what happened on January 25, 2011.
For some in Egypt today, January 25 remains “Police Day,” a commemorative holiday announced by Mubarak in 2009 to honor the police forces—in particular the fifty officers killed in Ismailia during the 1952 revolution against the British-backed Egyptian king. But in 2011, activists chose the day to rise up against Mubarak and his security forces, rallying in part around the memory of Khaled Said, a young man brutally murdered by police in Alexandria the year before.
This year, Police Day was celebrated two days early. In the run up to this year’s January 25, the government has been keen to stress that the second stage of the revolution—June 30, 2012—was a corrective measure. Speaking on Thursday at the Police Academy in Cairo, interim President Adly Mansour declared the end of the police state in Egypt.
The minister of the interior seized the opportunity to call on all Egyptians to commemorate January 25 and not be fooled by what he called “evil plotters” who say they want to overthrow the current regime in the name of democracy, but who are actually “terrorists.” This is a clear reference to the Brotherhood, and discourse such as this allows the government to lump together the different breeds of activist it disagrees with under one label. So, quite ironically given the policy brutality that has followed both revolutions, this year’s January 25 was cast once again as a day to celebrate with the police.
The armed forces have also been in this picture since 2011, when revolutionaries in Tahrir Square chanted “The army and the people are one hand.” That was before the mistakes of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) drove a wedge between the military and the revolutionaries. But the image of the SCAF has been rehabilitated in some circles since the last January 25, following the late June demonstrations that ousted former Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi.
The general level of sympathy for the police has soared as attacks on the security services and armed forces become increasingly frequent and deadly. Responsibility for the attacks is usually claimed by an Al-Qaeda-inspired jihadist group based in the restive Sinai region, Ansar Bait Al-Maqdis, but authorities frequently blame them on the Brotherhood, which denies responsibility and claims to have renounced violence. Even more, in a country rife with conspiracy theory, many Egyptians believe some of the attacks, the ones that don’t involve fatalities, are actually staged by the security services to exaggerate the threat of terrorism and justify crackdowns on opposition groups.
Increasingly, the authorities are also attempting to rewrite recent history. The January 25 uprising has been recast, both by the government and most of the Egyptian media, as a plot to throw Egypt into chaos by either secular activists or the Muslim Brotherhood—or both—and funded by foreign powers, mainly the United States. There has been much footage of famous activists broadcast on TV to prove that point—although the authenticity of that footage remains in doubt.
But as the situation in Egypt grows worse, it may be that the state has to claim the symbolism of January 25 so as to prevent its opponents from doing so in a way it cannot control. The authorities fully expected the commemorations taking place in Tahrir Square, and announced special security measures—further enhanced following an unprecedented string of bombings in the capital on Friday and Saturday.
As the political divisions in Egypt grow more marked, activists are complaining of being followed and arrested—and not only Brotherhood-affiliated activists who can be reported to authorities with a simple phone call to a government hotline. Since the new, restrictive protest law was passed last November, police have cracked down on any rally that did not get prior approval from the authorities.
Following the downfall of Mursi, the official narrative has tended to depict anyone opposed to the new SCAF-backed interim government as either a Brotherhood member or part of an anti-Egypt fifth column. But many of those protesting Mursi’s ouster belong to groups that actually opposed the Brotherhood when it was in power, and they remain adamant that they do not support the Islamist organization.
It is not surprising then that efforts in the run-up to January 25 to get the supposedly non-Brotherhood Anti-Coup Alliance and the Brotherhood itself to join forces have been greeted with skepticism. The Way of the Revolution Front, another “anti-coup” group formed of prominent activists and former Brotherhood members that claims to offer a third way in the revolution, has rejected both these groups in spite of having very similar demands. They all oppose the strongman defense minister, Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, and his potential candidacy in upcoming presidential elections, they all want the protest law rescinded and the police and security services to keep their distance from politics and civil society, and they all call for the release of political prisoners. The main difference seems to be that while the Brotherhood saw Mursi’s election as the successful end to the revolution, the “pro-democracy” groups are more reticent to make such a claim.
In the run-up to January 25 this year, these groups called very openly on Egyptians to not “join with traitors: the army, the faloul [remnants of the Mubarak regime], and the Muslim Brotherhood.” They—and especially the Brotherhood—don’t emphasize the fact that on this day in 2011, the Brotherhood leaders did not call for demonstrations, or that during November 2011’s clashes in Mohamed Mahmoud Street the Brotherhood initially sided with authorities against the demonstrators. Neither do they point out that when Mursi issued his notorious presidential degree trying to take more power for himself, the Brotherhood predictably supported him against the revolutionaries.
With the Brotherhood now designated a terrorist organization and many of its top leaders—including former President Mursi—on trial on various murder and terrorism charges, both Brotherhood sympathizers and “pro-legitimacy” or “pro-democracy” activists called for demonstrations on January 25. Arrests of those protesters began in the days leading up to the anniversary. Notwithstanding those arrests and the calls for continued protests, many pro-revolution activists say they are tired and hopeless, worn out by three years of revolution. Some say they didn’t see the point in taking to the streets this January 25.
Most Egyptians remember January 25, 2011, as a massive show of unity—even if that is not historically accurate. In truth, the January 25 protests three years ago were relatively small compared with those that have happened since. What matters about this date is its symbolism—but for now, its true meaning and its real narrative have been lost in the furor of politics.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
