The truth is, however, Egyptians have always expressed political opinions, but only passively. We complain about education, health care, the economy, unemployment, police brutality, bribery, and corruption, but that is as far as we once dared to go. Few would point fingers at the officials responsible, while most kept such thoughts to themselves.
Egyptians who grew up in the fifties and sixties endured the worst repression in our modern history, including arrests, torture, military trials, and other forms of oppression. Most of them chose safety over activism. Informers were so deeply planted that many Egyptians were afraid to discuss politics in public. This generation raised their children first and foremost to fear politics and State Security. Sometimes it seemed to me that we feared the wrath of the secret police more than we feared death itself.
Egyptians practically never chose a president. The dynasty of Mohamed Ali, who is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt, ruled for almost 150 years until the revolution of July 23, 1952 (in a sense, Mohamed Ali himself was installed by popular demand, when a group of prominent Egyptians insisted in 1805 that the former governor, Ahmad Khurshid Pasha, step down). From 1952 on, the military made all key decisions. The army officers who led a military coup against the ruling monarchy chose Mohamed Naguib as Egypt’s first president, transforming the nation into a republic. Two years later the Revolutionary Command Council forced him to step down, and they kept him under house arrest for the short remainder of his life. According to Naguib, this happened because he had planned to hand over control of the country to civilian leadership.
Naguib was succeeded by the extremely charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser, best known for his pan-Arab nationalism. He was highly esteemed by Egyptians, although a lot of his actions actually planted the seeds of repression and autocracy. Under Nasser, democracy meant referendums on his popularity in which people voted either yes or no, and he somehow always garnered 99.9 percent of the vote. Egyptians joked about tracking down the 0.1 percent that opposed his rule.
Nasser’s vice president, Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat, became president when Nasser passed away in 1970, with no help from any electoral process. A referendum confirmed him as president soon after; he received 90 percent of the votes. The same scenario occurred when Sadat appointed Mohamed Hosni Mubarak as vice president. When Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Mubarak took over. Potemkin referendums continued to provide a façade of legitimacy. The percentage of “yes” votes changed slightly over time but always remained in the 90 range:
| Gamal Abdel Nasser | 1956 | 99.990% |
| Anwar al-Sadat | 1970 | 90.040% |
| Anwar al-Sadat | 1976 | 99.939% |
| Hosni Mubarak | 1981 | 98.460% |
| Hosni Mubarak | 1987 | 97.120% |
| Hosni Mubarak | 1993 | 94.910% |
| Hosni Mubarak | 1999 | 93.790% |
Mubarak ruled for five terms, each of which lasted six years. His best terms were the first and second, when he released political prisoners arrested by Sadat and promised widespread reforms. He vowed to fight corruption. He also pledged not to rule for more than two terms, as the constitution required. Many political analysts believe that Mubarak did not start out as a corrupt man. But Lord Acton’s rule prevailed: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Mubarak, like the presidents before him, held almost all the reins of power in the nation. There was a parliament to issue laws and in theory to divide power with the executive, but in practice the members were kept closely dependent on the regime. Their loyalty was maintained through what came to be called the “chain of interests”: privileges and benefits were showered on any parliament member from the ruling NDP. From land to loans to immunity from arrest to (most important) influence — these members were among the country’s movers and shakers — a chain of corruption bound them tightly to the regime.
Councils in each governorate of Egypt were selected in the same manner. Known as the Local Popular Councils, they were responsible for services and policies in their respective governorates. The fortunate members who were loyal to the NDP were akin to Communist Party members in the Soviet Union: they received special privileges unavailable to others.
Little by little these privileges eroded the rule of law. The higher up in the chain you were, the less restricted you were by the law. We suffered chronic inefficiencies because of widespread bribery and corruption. The system eroded the Egyptian character. We lost our self-confidence. The phrase “There’s no hope” became customary, especially among young Egyptians. For too many of us, dreams of an apartment, a marriage, and a decent life faded. Out of hopelessness came anger. We were ripe for revolution, even when we were terrified by the idea.
When Mubarak broke his promise of a two-term presidency in 1993, state media — the only media at the time with any effective reach — portrayed him as the epitome of wisdom, the only hope for the nation. The pharaoh’s favorite cloak, “stability,” was the primary argument advanced by the official press. The president was presented as the only viable alternative to chaos. As the ancient proverb put it, “The people you know are better than the ones you don’t.”
At the turn of the millennium, and after Mubarak had had four presidential terms, the first son, Gamal Mubarak, began — cautiously — to dip his toes into political waters. Rumors were floated to test reactions to the possibility that Mubarak Junior would become president. In nearby Syria, Bashar al-Assad had succeeded his father. Why not the same for the Mubarak dynasty?
Throughout Mubarak’s reign, the most enduring and influential opposition came from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), formed in 1928. The Brotherhood’s popularity was regularly presented to the West as a scarecrow whenever Mubarak was under pressure to reform and democratize the regime. Members of the Brotherhood were widely arrested, subjected to military tribunals, and vilified in the press.
The regime played a typical tyrant’s game. It needed a bogeyman, so it both repressed and enabled the Brotherhood. Yet after years of obsession with its chosen enemy, the Mubarak regime may have become complacent about other threats. In 2004 a group of opposition activists founded the Egyptian Movement for Change, otherwise known as Kefaya, which means “enough” in Arabic. Kefaya opposed the renewal of Mubarak’s presidency for a fifth term and also rejected the attempt to transfer power to his son. The movement’s motto became “No to renewal, no to the inherited presidency.” Members of Kefaya were diverse, including dissidents, intellectuals, journalists, Internet bloggers, university students, and artists. It was the first group to openly and explicitly express opposition to Mubarak’s presidency as well as to his son’s potential candidacy. Its first major protest against the regime was on December 12, 2004 (though many of the protesters knew one another from earlier gatherings to protest Israeli strikes on the Gaza strip and the U.S. invasion of Iraq).
The regime did not crack down on Kefaya as hard as it had on the Muslim Brotherhood. The security masterminds could not imagine such a movement mobilizing significant popular support, since many of its members were intellectuals, whose discourse is not usually appealing to the masses. And the regime was right — Kefaya never achieved a broad following. Yet just by exhibiting the courage to protest, Kefaya helped tear down a psychological barrier. And by criticizing Mubarak openly — the group’s famous chant became “Down, down, Hosni Mubarak” — Kefaya members were certainly brave pioneers.
Kefaya’s courage, however, meant very little to Mubarak Junior. Gamal Mubarak was born in 1963 and graduated from high school in 1980, the year I was born. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business at the American University in Cairo. A few years later he left Egypt to work for the Bank of America in London. With a few colleagues, Mubarak then left Bank of America to set up a London-based private equity fund. Upon his return to Egypt in 1998, his political ambitions started to become more obvious, and he joined his father’s party in 2000. As the son of the pharaoh, he rapidly became a key person in the party, which he wanted to restructure and reposition. He was promoted to lead the party’s Policies Committee, the most important division of the NDP. In addition, he became the deputy secretary-general. He was the youngest man of any consequence in an aging party.
In 2004, a new cabinet composed of Mubarak Junior’s close allies was sworn in. It came to be called