Egypt's people power - the year-long struggle

by Lin Abdul Rahman
Photo courtesy of MSNBC
The Sputnik, Winter 2012, Issue 11

Millions of Egyptians gathered at Tahrir Square to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the January 25 uprising and to demand the resignation of Hussein Al-Tantawi from his post as Chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

On January 25, 2011, the air in Medan Tahrir was ebullient and heavy with hope. Millions of Egyptians congregated there – and in many other public spaces across Egypt – with one deceptively simple goal: to demand Hosni Mubarak’s resignation through country-wide peaceful resistance. And they succeeded.

After days of enduring rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, live rounds and attacks by Mubarak’s machete-wielding thugs on horseback and camels, the Egyptian people finally loosened Mubarak’s 30-year death grip on the country. As a victorious roar swept across the square, people all over Egypt and all over the world joined in the triumphant celebration as though the heavy weight of dictatorship had been lifted off the world’s collective shoulders.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) was put in charge as an interim government – it had gained popular support by refusing to obey Mubarak’s orders to brutally clamp down on protesters – and was set to hand over power following Egypt’s democratic election later that year.

There was a minor disagreement between the Muslim brotherhood and political parties that were less than organized to face an election in such short notice. Despite that, an election was carried out and Egyptians hit the polls. The country’s future was as yet unclear but it was full of promises and optimism nonetheless.

Now, one year later, Tahrir Square is again occupied by protesters. This time, they are demanding the resignation of Husssein Tantawi, the head of the military council. Staffed with many of Mubarak’s former thugs, SCAF has in effectively revived Mubarak’s strong-arm tactics of forcing civil compliance.

Egyptian protesters are once again fending off rubber bullets, tear gas canisters and thugs in uniform. Protesters are still being beaten and harassed, bloggers are still being aggressively silenced with intimidation and arbitrary detention. One journalist remarked that the media is now operating under much harsher conditions than when Mubarak was in power. Most recently, Al Jazeera’s bureau in Cairo was shut down by SCAF after being accused of operating and reporting on live events without a license.

Egyptians now have legitimate fears that the military council will interfere with the country’s new constitution, thereby boosting its power and effectively turning Egypt back into an autocratic regime under the guise of democracy.

Egypt’s current predicament is a far-cry from the optimistic forecasts made by the political intelligentsia a year ago. Tahrir Square – now the 21^st century’s proverbial symbol of people power – is once again the site of resistance and continued struggle. Whatever happened to the potential and promises that came with Egypt’s return to democracy? If this sterling example of good’s triumph over evil is unable to fulfill its democratic ideals, is there hope for other democratic aspirants like Syria and Libya?

As bleak as the situation is in Egypt, the answer to that question is a resounding “yes.” The country is labouring to shape for itself a genuinely democratic state in which its members can live a fully dignified life – something that was unattainable during Mubarak’s rule. This development alone is a sign of hope and of progress.

Although there may be seemingly insurmountable roadblocks in Egypt’s road towards becoming a democratic state, they are no excuse to throw in the towel and surrender. After all, struggles and resistance are the hallmark of revolutions. From the 1989 Velvet Revolution which tore down the Berlin Wall to the currently on-going Occupy movement, history has shown that our rights as citizens in a democratic state is gained and expanded through battles fought and won.

The reality is that no government has ever willingly conceded power; and when people are prevented by formal authority from living a dignified life, resistance is the only way. As Mahatma Ghandi presciently put it, “The choice is no longer between violence and non-violence. It is either non-violence or non-existence.” So in order to peacefully exist, resist we must.

Slacker Uprising

Starring Michael Moore as…the `Journalist`?
JN201 Fall 2008

Michael Moore’s latest addition to his repertoire of satirical films about the US has caused as many tongues wagging and heads rolling as did his previous cinematic endeavours. Released less than 2 months prior to the 2008 US Presidential elections, Slacker Uprising was strategically placed on the election timeline to swing voters and carried a palpable message - vote the Republicans out of the White House. While the film has somewhat fulfilled its cause of propagating awareness among Americans about their responsibility as voters, some of the issues Moore raised in this film merit further scrutiny.

Throughout his tour to battlefield states, Moore consistently utilised a word to it’s full potential - ‘truth’. He fervently states that his film is not a propaganda. In the film, he chastised the press for letting themselves be used as a tool of propaganda by the government and that the American people would have opposed the US government’s decision to invade Iraq had they been properly and truthfully informed. ‘My movie exists to counter the managed, manufactured news which is essentially a propaganda arm of the Bush administration. My movies are the anti-propaganda,’ says Moore. This statement in and by itself is problematic. Slacker Uprising’s main objective was to influence public opinion, specifically from being for the Republicans to being against them. Propaganda, by the definition given by Britannica Online, is exactly what Moore is spreading through Slacker Uprising. In other words, Moore is running a campaign of his own, just like the politicos he is criticizing. The only distinction here being his approach - non rhetorical and aimed at middle America at the grass roots level.

During an interview about Slacker Uprising on Larry King Live, Moore summarized the 2008 presidential race as ‘Obama versus ignorance.’ He theorizes that, while people who vote for Senator McCain may do so out their firm belief in him as a leader, a large number of people will vote for the Senator out of ignorance. What Moore is directly implying here is consistent with his stand conspicuous in the film - that the US public has been kept in the dark about matters of war, economy, healthcare and others. However, the undertone of that statement and, most obviously, the movie, connotes that followers of the Republican camp are largely ignorant. The film was saturated with clips depicting Republican supporters as painfully inarticulate and, despite their admiration for Senator McCain, were unable to even form one coherent sentence of praise. On the other hand, supporters of Moore and his campaign against the Republicans were consistently portrayed as passionate, discerning and articulate about issues that concern the American public. This lop-sided portrayal of sources brings to question Moore’s integrity as a ‘journalist’ - as one who claims to be trying to clear up the ‘misstatements and untruths’ apparently spread by the American national media. His portrayal of Republican supporters can easily be seen as a conveniently ‘managed’ piece of information ‘manufactured’ to support his propaganda.

However, one has to question; is the journalist and the human being that he or she is to be kept separate? If the answer is yes then, how does one go about doing that? Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, exposed herself to a barrage of criticism when she voiced her disappointment in the US government during a public speech. This, despite her clean record of unbiased reporting throughout her career at the Times. Ergo the question - when does the journalist get to voice his or her personal stand? The answer to that hinges upon the context within which the journalist is operating. Michael Moore the concerned, patriotic, somewhat left-wing radical citizen has every right to stand up for his convictions. But, Michael Moore the neo-journalist, illuminator of misstatements and untruths, holds the obligation to disseminate to the public information that is non-partisan and independent of his bias.