MERIP PIN 90: Sparks of Activist Spirit in Egypt

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 15:17:45 -0400
>From: MERIP Media <ctoensing at merip.org>
>Subject: PIN 90: Sparks of Activist Spirit in Egypt
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>
>MERIP Press Information Note 90
>
>Sparks of Activist Spirit in Egypt
>
>Paul Schemm
>
>April 13, 2002
>
>(Paul Schemm writes for the Cairo Times.)
>
>For a few days in October 2000, near the beginning of the second Palestinian
>intifada, it looked as though Egypt's student movement had finally found its
>voice again after years of quiescence. Students at Cairo University and
>other schools demonstrated daily and even clashed with security forces
>during attempts to march on the Israeli embassy to show their solidarity
>with the Palestinians. When this movement petered out soon after it began,
>most observers sympathetic to the student movement shook their heads and
>lamented the loss of Egypt's activist spirit.
>
>Today, October 2000 looks like a dress rehearsal. A year and a half later,
>the universities have exploded again as the war of attrition in the occupied
>Palestinian territories has taken a new and more awful turn. Minor protests
>occurred throughout the month of March, in advance of the Arab League summit
>in Beirut. But when the West Bank city of Ramallah was invaded on March 29,
>large demonstrations began in earnest. Two weeks later demonstrations are
>still going on daily. Though the protests may lack their initial fervor, the
>current round of student unrest represents the longest period of activism in
>Egypt since the 1990-1991 Gulf war, if not before. The militant tone of many
>of today's rallies and marches seems qualitatively different from earlier
>rounds of protest under President Husni Mubarak.
>
>The demonstrators' slogans started out condemning Israel, but not long into
>each rally, the Egyptian government came in for criticism as well. "I've
>been an activist for years," said one student, "and I've never seen them
>attack Mubarak so directly." The usual chants reviling Israeli Prime
>Minister Ariel Sharon or lamenting the absence of Arab armies from the
>Israeli-Palestinian battlefield are now regularly supplemented with:
>"Mubarak, you coward, you are the client of the Americans" or "We want a new
>government because we've hit rock bottom." Even as demonstrations subside
>following the shooting death of Muhammad Ali al-Saqqa, a student in
>Alexandria, militancy and anger remain in the student population -- which
>has now taken the opportunity to organize and network. "The objective
>conditions for another outburst are there, but you never know when the spark
>will come," said the long-time activist.
>
>COMPETING FORCES
>
>The glory days of the student movement in Egypt came in the early 1970s,
>when demonstrations of hundreds of thousands filled the main square of
>Cairo. Students were ostensibly urging then-President Anwar Sadat to go to
>war with Israel to wrest back occupied Arab land, but after the 1973 war the
>protests continued, focusing more on Egypt's lack of democracy and economic
>hardship. In 1979, the government clipped the students' wings by passing a
>new university law which forbade political activity by students --
>effectively confining student demonstrations to the campuses. Battles
>between students and police were no longer fought in the main streets of the
>capital, but at the university gates -- usually far away from the rest of
>the population.
>
>Since the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood has become the strongest force on
>the Egyptian campus. Usually the Brotherhood has been more interested in
>spreading its influence by providing social services and encouraging its
>particular brand of public morality than in stirring up protest on the
>street.
>
>For this reason, it appears to be a fledgling movement of campus
>"socialists," and to a lesser extent supporters of the old-guard, secular
>Nasserist party, who have been galvanizing the students this time around.
>The Brotherhood can mobilize more students to create a bigger demonstration,
>but they won't clash with police.
>
>"THE LINE NOT TO CROSS"
>
>The most militant demonstrations have been at Alexandria University, long
>considered a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood. On April 9, a
>demonstration of 9,000 turned tragic when at least one student, al-Saqqa,
>was killed and over 260 were wounded as police broke up the march with
>rubber bullets and buckshot.
>
>"The police stopped the students in the street outside the university and
>the students starting throwing things and destroying cars," said Muhammad,
>an officer with the State Security, Egypt's plainclothes security service.
>Different reports have claimed that the demonstrators were heading for an
>American cultural center or the new Alexandria Library, where a conference
>of oil companies was underway. The State Security officer maintained that
>Brotherhood activists could not have been leading the demonstration. "There
>is no religion in all of this. The religious groups are very smart; they
>know the line not to cross." He attributed the violence in Alexandria to
>"communists."
>
>Others familiar with the student movements concur -- the Brotherhood
>activists are under strict instructions not to face off with police and
>often coordinate protests with security officials ahead of time to make sure
>that all goes without incident. The socialists, who describe themselves as
>Trotskyites but insist that they are not affiliated with any international
>movement, believe that a more confrontational attitude is necessary. Their
>slogans target the Mubarak government directly, asserting that reform must
>happen in Egypt before Palestine can be saved. "The road to Jerusalem runs
>through Cairo," as one activist explained. The Brotherhood believes that
>criticism of the regime must take a back seat to a united front against
>Israel.
>
>What probably happened in Alexandria was that a demonstration originally
>organized by the Brotherhood was taken over by socialist (or independent)
>students who accurately read the crowd's temperament and led them out to the
>streets. Security forces were unable to control the 9,000 students with
>their conventional weapons of tear gas and police cordons, and resorted to
>firearms. With the inauguration of the new Alexandria Library approaching on
>April 23, the authorities did not want any event there disrupted.
>
>USUAL PRACTICE
>
>Security forces have been much more restrained in Cairo, partly because
>there have not been any demonstrations in the streets by 9,000 people. With
>notable exceptions, protests in Cairo have been fairly small, limited to a
>few hundred people. As per usual practice, police have arrived in large
>numbers, separated the demonstrators from the general public and then
>allowed them to exhaust themselves chanting.
>
>The April 12 demonstration at al-Azhar mosque in the heart of Islamic Cairo
>was an excellent example. Since it was well-known that a demonstration would
>occur after Friday prayers, the authorities were prepared. More than 2,000
>black-clad Central Security policemen, in riot gear, were on hand. While at
>one point 10,000 people massed protesting inside the mosque, they were
>unable to get out as a group. Instead protesters were allowed out in small
>groups and then swiftly ushered away from the mosque. Only around 200 were
>able to gather and shout slogans in front of al-Azhar.
>
>The previous week, a similar small demonstration in front of al-Azhar was
>reinforced by several hundred people marching up from nearby Ataba square.
>On April 12, several lines of security blocked traffic and cut off
>pedestrian access to al-Azhar from any direction.
>
>CAUGHT BY SURPRISE
>
>This elaborate routine contrasted vividly with the Cairo University
>demonstration of April 1, which caught security forces by surprise. Until
>that point, there had not been such a large rally so soon after an Israeli
>incursion into Palestinian-controlled areas. The demonstration was
>originally organized by a group called the Popular Committee for Support of
>the Palestinian Intifada, comprised of various NGO activists and
>representatives of the different opposition political parties. Their rally
>was reinforced by some 10,000 students who suddenly left the university
>campus, broke through the security cordon and headed for the Israeli embassy
>down the street. Police eventually beat the protesters back with tear gas
>and for the rest of the day, a fairly quiet standoff simmered at the main
>gate of the university.
>
>Meanwhile, at a side gate near the Faculty of Commerce, a small force of
>Central Security men was caught between several converging demonstrations,
>including one composed of high school students and one from the university.
>During the running battles that resulted between about 1,000 students and
>police, protesters smashed several symbols of "America" -- including an
>entire Kentucky Fried Chicken store and its accompanying street
>advertisements. Students threw rocks at police and at one point overwhelmed
>and pummeled a police captain who strode into their midst and tried to
>arrest a stone thrower.
>
>It wasn't until the police began throwing rocks themselves and drove the
>students back inside the university that order was restored. The next day,
>there were similar clashes between police and students around the
>university, but since then violent demonstrations in Cairo have ceased. At
>an April 8 demonstration at Cairo University, only several hundred students
>gathered outside the front gate, too few to contemplate a dash through the
>security cordons. The demonstration was mostly characterized by squabbling
>between the political factions over which slogans to chant. Later it turned
>out that plainclothes security elements on the campus had prevented students
>from joining the demonstration.
>
>While security seems to have now found the trick for strangling protests and
>there hasn't been much active support from Egyptians off the campuses, the
>students did affect government policy over the last few weeks, if only in
>symbolic ways. The state announced it would downgrade
>government-to-government relations with Israel (though not diplomatic ties)
>and also halted Egypt Air flights to Tel Aviv. These gestures came in
>response to the street protests. The sheikh of al-Azhar, Muhammad
>al-Tantawi, recently reversed himself on the issue of suicide bombings. Once
>he called them wrong, but now he is saying that Palestinians who perform
>them are martyrs.
>
>"NOT THE END OF THE STORY"
>
>According to activists, the student leaders and political parties are
>working to sustain the movement of the last two weeks. Political parties
>have been trying to take credit for the students' sudden activism as well as
>lead their own protests, but for the most part these have been small affairs
>and Egypt's small opposition parties remain cut off from the militants. Most
>socialist students expressed scorn for Tagammu', Egypt's legal left-wing
>party.
>
>The Lawyers' Syndicate, however, has re-emerged over the last few weeks as a
>center of political activism. Once this body was considered the political
>bellwether of the nation. But when the Muslim Brotherhood won the syndicate
>elections, the government suspended the board and appointed regime loyalists
>in their place. The sequestration was lifted two years ago, but Egyptians
>had already stopped looking to the syndicate for leadership.
>
>With the onset of the latest crisis in Palestine, the syndicate began
>holding rallies and seminars on current events. As the universities are
>riddled with informers and encircled by vigilant security, the syndicate
>grounds have become a kind of "liberated territory" for student activists.
>Here student leaders from different universities meet to get to know each
>other as well as activists from older generations. Students are coming not
>just from traditionally activist institutions like Cairo University and Ain
>Shams University, but also from the polytechnic colleges and secondary
>schools.
>
>"The real politics start after the demonstrations end," said one activist
>who says that a political movement born out of the demonstrations of October
>2000 and the past two weeks is starting to form. He didn't count out the
>possibility of further unrest in the country, despite the increasingly heavy
>security crackdown. "This is not the end of the story," he declared. "The
>public mood right now is a lot more militant than in October 2000."
>
>(When quoting from this PIN, please cite MERIP Press Information Note 90,
>"Sparks of Activist Spirit in Egypt," by Paul Schemm, April 13, 2002.)
>
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-- 
Yoshie

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