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Joining the ‘Million Man March’

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By Nesma El Shazly

I was not allowed to leave the house throughout the first week of the revolution. Although my parents wholeheartedly endorsed the revolution, they feared for my life and would not let me join the protests. For this reason I spent that week documenting the events as they unfolded from my own home. The Egyptian people were revolting against sixty years of military rule, calling for three demands: bread, freedom and social justice. For eighteen consecutive days, protesters were engaged in face-to-face confrontations with President Mubarak’s brutal central security forces. Revolutionaries peacefully faced live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas, kidnappings and detainment with complete fearlessness.

After watching the horrifying brutality with which protesters were met on The Friday of Anger (28 January), I decided that enough was enough. I could not sit at home helplessly watching my people die. I frantically called up all my friends to see who was willing to march to Tahrir Square with me. Needless to say most of my male friends tried to discourage me out of concern for my safety. I was one of many women facing difficulty in taking to the streets and so, my friends and I, all women, decided to join the ‘Million Man March’ on 1 February.

As I walked down the stairs carrying the banner that I had spent the whole night making, my mother followed me, tightly gripping my hoodie, trying to pull me back. My brother drove me to my friend’s house, where we had all planned to meet. That morning came to be a turning point in my life. As we were about to leave to Tahrir, my best friend called me from the airport to tell me that she and her husband were leaving for the U.S for the safety of their 2 year-old child.  I experienced a mixture of conflicting emotions. I felt content that I was doing the right thing, excited that I was going to be a part of making history, apprehension of the risks I was about to take and sorrow that I could not even bid my best friend farewell.

There were three phases to our day: comedy, terror and euphoria. The first phase took place on the underground train. As we purchased our tickets the vendor looked at us with pride and said “May God be with you,” while a man standing behind us in line looked at us in disgust and told his wife that we were probably drug addicts. As we boarded the train, an old man selling copies of the Quran followed us on and tried to convince us that we should buy a copy and read it before we go to Tahrir and die. The adverse reactions we received throughout our journey put us in hysterics.

We experienced the second phase – terror – as we got off the train in downtown Cairo. We marched through the streets towards the Square alongside several other small groups. Mubarak supporters were surrounding the Square yelling out foul words at all the revolutionaries. An older woman followed me and grabbed my arm asking me where I was going. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’m going to Tahrir.” She tightened her grip on my arm and started hitting me and shouting out, “You are going to ruin this country! You are going to turn Egypt into Iraq!” My friends eventually realized that I had been held back and ran to my aid.  It was only at this point that we realized the extent of danger we were subjecting ourselves to. We resumed our journey quietly.

As we got closer to the Square we started hearing the enthusiastic chants of the protesters, “Al sha’ab yoreed isqaat al nizam!” (The people demand the fall of the regime!) Surges of revolutionary spirit and energy shot into us, abolishing our fear and wiping away thoughts of our encounter with Mubarak supporters. I have never felt as safe as I did that day in the Square. We were all brothers and sisters uniting for one common goal. People welcomed us as we marched in, handing us water and fruit. Nobody looked at us. No man tried to harass us. Everyone there truly believed in the cause. They knew that this was a matter of life or death.

While the world classifies the events of 25 January as a revolution, most revolutionaries have a contrary view. We ousted one brutal figurehead, and that in itself is a tremendous accomplishment.  But we have yet to dissolve the ruthless military regime that has ruled our country for 60 years. The Egyptian public was manipulated into believing that the military supported our revolution. But their assumption of power following the ousting of Mubarak suggests otherwise. It seems more likely, in my eyes, that the military sought to reinstate their power, which had seen a downturn during Mubarak’s later years. Throughout that period, Mubarak shifted his focus towards the business elite, bringing prominent businessmen into the political sphere.

During November 2011, the public was voting in the parliamentary elections that the military was administering. Concurrently, protesters were being attacked and killed by central security forces in the Mohamed Mahmoud clashes. Not only were we seeing the military gradually replace central security forces, we were also seeing protesters being unlawfully detained and tried in military prisons and courts. Furthermore, we had yet to see the last of Omar Suleiman and Ahmed Shafiq, who later sought to run for presidency. Omar Suleiman, a leading figure of Egypt’s inhumane intelligence system, renowned for his direct implication in the CIA’s callous rendition programme, took on the role of Vice President on 29 January. Suleiman later sought to run for the 2012 presidential elections. However, he failed to garner enough support in the initial stages of the race. Ahmed Shafiq, a military-backed figurehead that turned his back on the revolution through his assumption of the position of Prime Minister on 31 January, also sought to enter the race. However, unlike Suleiman, Shafiq somehow managed to garner widespread support. His support base mainly derived from ardent anti-revolutionary supporters of the Mubarak regime and the military, as well as liberals who feared the growing dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood in the political sphere. The fact that Shafiq was even able to run for president, let alone make it to the final round of the elections, shows that the revolution is far from over

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Nesma El Shazly was born and raised in the UK. She moved to Egypt in 2007 to study at the American University in Cairo. On 1 Feb 2011, she took to the streets in protest and she has been a participant of the Egyptian Revolution ever since.

COMING SOON ON STRIFE: ‘The Lost Revolution’, by Lamya Hussein Marafi, assessing the remaining challenges for Egypt’s revolution.

Is “war” in Mali “inevitable”?

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By Melisa Tezcan

A military coup earlier this year saw the northern region of Mali fall into the hands of Islamic and separatist rebels. Eight months on and the rebels have maintained their hold, causing thousands of citizens to flee their homes and sparking an international humanitarian crisis.

Taking back the northern region of Mali from the rebels looks set to result in bloodshed. With the U.N. backing a military intervention and the rebels prepared to retaliate at all costs, commentators have argued that “war” in Mali is now “inevitable”. The assumption here is that the intervention will lead to prolonged and intense violence amongst the rebels.

Arguably, were E.U. and U.N. countries willing to deploy troops, and Algeria willing to offer military assistance, the intervention would be considerably more effective and the risk of sustained conflict significantly reduced. Increased military presence in the region may provoke settlement negotiations with some rebel groups, whilst bolstering the chance of success against others. According to Gregory Mann, Mali commentator and professor at Columbia University, “If the military skill set and political willpower is there… it would not be enormously difficult to remove the[se] Islamist fighters”.

At this stage however, policy makers are limited in both these regards. Mali itself is politically fragile. The government infrastructure rests upon a tentative coalition between the military and the executive. Both factions are relatively unpopular and lack political clout. Given this, the U.N deemed that strategic responsibility for the intervention should lie with the wider regional group ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States).

This in itself has proved problematic and reaching a consensus has not been easy. According to ECOWAS director for external relations, Abdel Fatau Musah, there are a number of “stakeholders” whose values need to be reflected in the policy, namely those of neighbouring countries, Algeria and Mauritania, the former of which is particularly opposed to any form of military intervention.

Furthermore, even if a policy is devised within ECOWAS, it may be met with scepticism on the grounds that the organisation does not have a sound human rights record when it comes to the deployment of troops. If it is to gather the support of the international community, and thereby swift implementation, accountability must be built into the proposal.

Looking to the military component, there are additional limitations that need to be considered. As previously mentioned, Western nations including France and U.S will not be offering support in the form of military personnel.  These constituents will come directly from Mali and its regional allies in ECOWAS; around 6000 troops in total. When we consider the vast terrain of northern Mali, around the size of Texas, together with thousands of miles of borderland – this military provision is relatively underwhelming. Looking at these figures in relation to the number of rebel recruits thought to be in the region, there is certainly cause for concern.

Furthermore, the military infrastructure itself is flawed. There are deep fissures between military ranks that need to be reformed before deployment can take place. Many troops remain disillusioned with the central government, and the possibility of their defection remains high. Policy makers need to be wary of the dangers that heavily armed, yet unprincipled, personnel may pose, as there is a risk that these individuals will disperse and leave their weapons in the hands of the rebels.

At this stage, we can be relatively certain that a military intervention in northern Mali is on the cards. What is still up for debate is whether or not this will lead to an outright conflict. Certainly, according to some rebel leaders, intervention means war. Hamaha, head of security for rebel group MUJAO, has threatened retaliation: “If an international or Malian military force attacks us, we will take Bamako in 24 hours…the international community is slow to strike because it knows that if it does, it will spark a worldwide jihad”.

In order to minimise the likelihood and potency of these threats, the intervention itself would need to be swift, well managed and properly equipped. As it stands, with Algeria withholding its resources, the West withholding its troops and the Malian military in tatters, the intervention may serve only to ignite a spark that it is unable to put out.