Headed for a showdown – A year of revolution: Lessons learned in Egypt’s uprising

“There is no politics except street politics… when people are there with their bodies expressing their agency and will,” said software engineer and independent activist Alaa Abd El Fattah. Abd El Fattah believes that it took the military’s atrocities and violence against civilians to bring Egyptians around to viewing the SCAF critically, which they should have done from the beginning.

A year of revolution: Lessons learned
by Mohamed Elmeshad – 22 January, 2012 – Egypt Independent

On 11 February 2011, jubilation broke out in Tahrir Square after Vice President Omar Suleiman announced a victory for the revolutionaries. The belief was that with Mubarak’s departure, Egypt’s political situation would radically improve. While some revolutionaries held their applause at the ominous prospect of an interim military-led government, the majority celebrated.

It was only a matter of time before the rest of the revolution’s goals would be achieved. Social justice was just around the corner. Corruption’s lynchpin was gone, and his underlings were soon to follow.

Almost a year has passed, and many of the same revolutionary forces plan to take to the streets to demand many of the same things they demanded last 25 January. This year’s protests can potentially be a new launching point for the revolution and a second attempt to put the country back on course toward change.

So why do the revolutionaries find themselves going back to the same place with the same demands? For many, 11 February, 2011 was a time to leave the square, and give up what is undoubtedly the revolution’s most powerful weapon, street protests, to begin work on building Egypt anew. According to many revolutionaries, this was the first and most prominent mistake.

“The most important mistake the revolutionaries made was to leave the square so easily and allow the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to assume power unopposed,” said Marwa Farouk, an activist and member of the Popular Alliance Party.

Street protests drove Mubarak out, and have arguably had the greatest effect in winning many of the concessions made by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, despite the SCAF’s consistent berating and bashing of protesters. After 8 July, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf was forced to reshuffle his cabinet. The November protests and the clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street forced the SCAF to introduce an entirely new cabinet and abandon plans for a set of supraconstitutional principles, while finally announcing that they would hand over power to a civilian government by July.

“There is no politics except street politics… when people are there with their bodies expressing their agency and will,” said software engineer and independent activist Alaa Abd El Fattah.

Abd El Fattah believes that it took the military’s atrocities and violence against civilians to bring Egyptians around to viewing the SCAF critically, which they should have done from the beginning. …more