Egypt's Protesters Struggle On, Having Dislodged Mubarak, but Not His Regime
It may be midsummer in Egypt, but Cairo's Tahrir Square has recaptured some of the heady spirit of the Arab Spring that brought down President Hosni Mubarak. For the past six days and nights, the square has been occupied by a permanent protest camp, its impromptu dance circles, mingling of families and mix of social classes reminiscent of the February days and nights that preceded Mubarak's ouster.
The revolutionary fervor in the square isn't shared by a growing number of Egyptians frustrated by the ongoing protests, which have periodically shut down businesses and infrastructure in the months following the uprising. Protesting is counterproductive and it's time to move on, many argue. And the military leadership that seized control of the country — ostensibly temporarily — after Mubarak stepped down agrees wholeheartedly.
"We have to differentiate between rightful demands that the armed forces are going to listen to and implement, and destruction, which is something that the armed forces are never going to allow," Major General Mahmoud Hegazy, a member of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, said at a press conference on Tuesday.
But the men and women blocking traffic talk politics and raise banners together late into the night. And Tahrir Square, rich with opportunity for political parties signing up new members and even the vendors hawking patriotic wares, occupies a special place in the hearts of those who made the revolution. There's a reason the tech-savvy activists tweet and Facebook message their relief and nostalgia every time thousands pour back into the square. Partly, it's a therapeutic exercise for a country still reeling from decades of repression. Mostly, though, it's because for many Egyptian activists, Tahrir remains the only way they know to press for change from a military regime that has not satisfied the demands of many.
"The ex-regime is still controlling the country," says Wafik Ghitany, a member of the liberal Wafd party, expressing an increasingly common sentiment. "The military council is the same one that was headed by Mubarak himself."
Indeed, the inherent conundrum in Egypt's now five-month-old political transition, and for the protest movement spurring it on, is that protesters are essentially demanding that a dictatorship prosecute itself; they're counting on a corrupt elite to reform a corrupt system. Mubarak has fallen, many point out, but the generals who helped keep him in power are now in charge.
This week, the protesters achieved some victories. Interim Prime Minister Essam Sharaf promised a Cabinet reshuffle. And on Wednesday, the government said it would dismiss nearly 700 police officers hired under the ex-regime — a key demand of protesters who have complained that Mubarak's brutal Interior Ministry has not been held accountable for its abuses. The military also announced that elections slated for September would be held in October or November, calming the fears of many liberal parties and activists who fear being eclipsed at the polls by better-organized Islamist rivals if the poll is held too soon.
Yet, still the protest in Tahrir winds on. That may be due in part to the realization that there's a big difference between a regime being responsive to public opinion and being willing to cede power to a democracy. "Nobody can challenge the military — [not] even a democratically elected President. At least not for another 10 years," predicts Hisham Kassem, a prominent newspaper editor and publisher. The military will be comfortable with "anyone" as President, he adds. Why? "Because they know nobody can touch them."
On Tuesday the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces held a press conference, it seemed, to reaffirm just that. "We will not let go of the role of the administrative voice in the country now," said Major General Mamdouh Shahine. The military will continue to oversee Egypt's political transition until elections have taken place and a constitution has been drafted. It reserves the right to use force and military courts to deal with "thugs" — a loosely defined term. Last week, the council reinstated the Ministry of Information, which runs the state-affiliated press, despite having disbanded it earlier this year. In short, the military leadership reserved the right to decide almost everything because, as Shahine put it, "We're putting the benefits of everyone above personal interests."
The protesters demur. Despite pledges of transparency in the upcoming election process, for instance, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces remains largely opaque: five months into its rule, no one has any idea how many members the council has, or of their identities.
Most of the ex-regime's officials who have close ties to the military also appear to have escaped the uprising's aftermath unscathed. The brunt of the judicial backlash has landed instead on the corrupt businessmen and party officials who were notoriously at odds with the military since well before Mubarak's fall. One Egyptian colonel told TIME this week that he remembers a meeting he attended in the U.S. last year between Egyptian military officers and their counterparts in the Obama Administration. The Americans were obsessed with the prospect of a Gamal Mubarak presidency, he recalls. He and his fellow officers shook their heads confidently: "All Egyptians hate Gamal," and many have said that included the military.
Indeed, Mubarak's sons may yet be handed the largest chunk of the blame for the regime's crimes. Together with the ex-President, their trial is set for Aug. 3. But Mubarak has not yet landed in jail, and instead remains in a military hospital because of poor health. Then again, no media organization or activist group has been allowed near the hospital.
"We have no clue — when they say he's under guard — what that means," says Joshua Stacher, a political scientist and Egypt expert at Kent State University. "When it comes to these military personnel, they're largely off limits," he says. "Really the only people that are being sacrificed are lesser generals from competing institutions like the Interior Ministry, and civilian politicians."
Omar Suleiman — for years Mubarak's right-hand man, chief enforcer and, briefly, the U.S.-backed alternative when it became clear the President would have to stand down — is one of the former officials most conspicuously absent from the list of those facing prosecution. Little is known about Suleiman's power behind the scenes as Mubarak's intelligence chief — a role in which he conducted a shadowy war on extremist groups and allegedly oversaw torture — or of the role he played after he was appointed Vice President during the uprising. Civil suits filed against Suleiman following Mubarak's ouster, as reported by local press, mysteriously disappeared after they were handed to military courts. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces told TIME last month it has no record of such cases.
In the chaotic disagreement over how to proceed — and perhaps realizing that the military may be too tough an adversary — some protesters have turned their anger toward Sharaf. On Tuesday, the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, an assortment of young political activists, called for Sharaf's ouster, saying that he had lost the credibility to lead Egypt's democratic transition.
But in Tahrir Square, as usual, there is little accord. "It's not about Essam Sharaf," said Mohamed Ibrahim, a medical student who was camped in the square on Tuesday night. "Essam Sharaf is a good person ... [Some activists] want him to go because they think he hasn't done anything. But that is not a crime. No matter how strong a man is, he can't do anything in the face of the armed forces."