The Revolution and the Rule of Law (ICNL 24feb2011)

8/7/2019 The Revolution and the Rule of Law (ICNL 24feb2011)

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Told by Iman Bibars: A woman

from Egypt

The Story : Revolt on the Nile


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The Story Outline

Why and how it started (The economic,

social and political situation- and the

trigger)

Who led, who are those young people


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The Story Outline

Who led and who participated

The reaction of the regime

The entrepreneurial spirit of therevolutionaries

What is the future and what are the

roles of the different partners


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Why and how it started


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The political and legal framework

1. A 30 year regime that became a

dictatorship , that was disconnected,arrogant and disrespectful

2. A regime and system that was

controlled by a MAFIA where the

business and political leadership

became incestuous

3. A cabinet of relatives who wereselected from the business world as

saviors and turned blatantly corrupt,

dismissive and disrespectful of its

people; namely Egyptians

4. An elite old boy club that ruled

people that they did not know , norliked, nor respected

5. A sham joke of a democratic

system of elected parliament,

political partities etc


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The Rule of Law ?1. 30 years of Emergency law

2. A constitution amended to protectthe royal family and its protgs

3. The Scandal of the 2010

Parliament

4. Blatant and insolent use of power

in elections,

5. Restrictive laws for associationwhether for the civil society

organization or the political party

6. Complete control over the

political system without shame or

remorse

7. Disconnected and dismissive ofthe youth , the NGOS, the people

at large

8. Disrespect and attack on the

judiciary = penetrating and firing

dissent


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NGOs in Egypt

1. Restrictive law limiting the

formation, the funding , the ability

for mobility

2. A regular campaign to discredit

and attack NGOs in the state

media, semi state media creating

suspicion

3. Promoting the political private

sector to take over and redirect

philanthropy to either charity or

political upward mobility

Several efforts to change

the law by human rights

groups

The Development coalitionof NGOs lobbying for a

different more grass roots

law (ICNL , ADEW and

more than 150 CDAS, and

NGOS from all over Egypt)Conspiracy by federation

and MSS to create a more

restrictive law (how)


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The Economic

infrastructure1. Limited number of elitists and

regime related businessmen

given a free hand and in control of

all resources

2. Marginalized and disfranchised

medium and small business

sector

3. Corrupted and fishy deals to sell

public sector and the national

industry in a questionable and not

transparent manner4. Coincidently sold public industry

to the controlling political elite

and the close circle to the

Mubarak family

5. Deterioration of the

economic standards of

the people, lack of job

opportunities

6. Rising unemployment

and a government that

blamed people and

youth for that

7. Dysfunctional social

fund and or programs to

support SMEs8. No transfer of know how

mechanism

9. Spread of poverty in all

its forms


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The Trigger : What

happened? Why now?

Blatancy of a corrupt and

arragont regime and NDP in

2010 parliament

Independent media which

showed the abuse of power andcorrupt business deals to sell

the country

The arragonce and dismissive

insolent police apparatus

The rising unemployment,

prices, exclusion of people andblaming the people for it


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The Trigger what happened , why now

Face book Group

Khalid Saeed

Training ground for youth (kefaya

6th April we are Khalid saeed)

The wave of arrests, beating,

torture and the reporting on it

The satellite channels,independent media and exposing

the people to what could have

been

The covert or unfelt creation of

the silent majority party of the

face book

Tunisia


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Who participated ?


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Who led ? The weighting

generation

The youth who weredismissed, ignored , and

discredited

The youth whom we

thought were

disfranchised


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Who led and Who

participated ?

A united front, a new

party created by the

social media and in

cyber life

A brave and exposed

youth that united

around one goalA genderless,

classless and

religious less group


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YOUNG WOMEN

PROTESTERS


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YOUNG AND FEARLESS

WOMEN


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United : We are all Egyptians


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United : We are all Egyptians


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Demonstrating : women of

every age, education andclass


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Women of every age : familiar


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The lucky generation Children from all

walks and social and

economic

backgrounds joinedin the revolution

They came with their

mothers, fathers or

older siblings

They were called the

lucky generation


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Slogans in every language


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Slogans in every language

Emulating the

lyrics of a

famous song :

didnt it occur

to you once to

leave ; you

Mubarak whocaused my

hunger


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Leave : Go in every language


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Signs in every form saying: Go Mubarak..

In funny ways too


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Signs in every form saying: Go Mubarak..

In funny ways too


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Denial , arrogance,

disconnect


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Brutality by thugs and police

It was common

knowledge that the

old regime used

plain clothed thugswho belonged to the

security apparatus

to terrify and

terrorize the peopleand the protesters


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Brutality by thugs and police


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Brutality : Blindingteargas


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Their courage:

Will not give up


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The failure of the regime : killing its

own defenseless peaceful youth


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MARTYRS BRUTALLY BEATEN AND

KILLED BY RIOT POLICE

We Won: Their blood has not

been wasted


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The Egyptian entrepreneurial

spirit


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THE SOCIAL

ENTREPRENEURS

The square was divided into

corners;

press wall, kindergarten, hospitals,

fun areas, garbage collectioncommittees and much more


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The Egyptian entrepreneurial spirit

The hospital where

doctors volunteered

to provide medicine

and checkups

Fellow Hany and hisfriends contributed

medicine

Fellow Tandiar

provided medicalinformation to some

volunteers


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Medical care by the volunteers


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LifeinTahrirSquare

TheEgyptianentrepreneurialspirit

The people built

the bathroom They called it the

headquarters of

the National

Democratic Party


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The Egyptian entrepreneurial spirit :

Clean and Green Rubbish Bins

under the

direction of thecleanliness

committee

which was

created by theyouth


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The wall of Martyrs Many of the young

revolutionaries did

not know what

was happeningoutside so corners

for news and

newspapers were

established

This was the

martyrs corner


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The news corner Many of theyoungrevolutionariesdid not knowwhat washappeningoutside so

corners fornews andnewspaperswere

established


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The bloggers corner Bloggers in

the Midan al

Tahrir

They followedup what was

being written

and were also

addressingrumors spread

by the regime


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Kindergarten Kindergarten for

the children of

the revolution

Children were

playing but also

helping in

drawing and

writing slogans

for the

protesters Mothers were

busy protesting


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Business Entrepreneurs


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Street Vendors Aly on a wheel

chair coming

from a distance

to sell drinks to

the protesters Street vendors

were usually

harassed by

police before

and he wantedto join the

revolution.


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Kentucky of the poor Carts with

revolutionary

slogans came inwith the street

vendors

A man selling

Kushari (theKentucky of the

poor as he called it)


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Donuts of the poor Egyptian donuts

Sold by young

vendors

Men and women

bought quantities

and distributed it

among protesters

regardless of who

they were


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The Business Center Mobile phone charger

business center

Whether the prepaid

cards or charging the

phone both were

sold with actual cost

While some

merchants outside

the midan increasedtheir prices no

exploitation took

place in the midan


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Revolutionary hairstylists !!! The barber.. The most

interesting and

entrepreneurial man I

have ever met

Saw many people nearly

living there and so he got

his tools and came

He gave discounts to

rural protesters and ingeneral very good prices


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What did I do? 3rd 11 visits to hospitals and

monitoring medical care

3rd 11th helping the

awareness committee with

their flyers and connectingthem to leaders

Transporting their flyers to

square with Peter- story?

Created the page supportersto revolutionaries with Vibha

(Gandhi Mandela)


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Our Fellows : Alexandria

Fellow Sani from Alexandria ensured that thereis a list of telephone numbers of doctors and

pharmacies

He and Aly Hussein and Samy as all our men,

joined the community based committees in theirareas protecting their neighborhood

It was a strange and terrifying feeling to carry a

knife with potential of spilling blood that I try

hard to protect and save said Aly Hussein, who

works for promoting and institutionalizing blood

donations. He organized blood donations

campaigns in spite of curfew and looters

Aly and Samy joined the demonstrations


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Our Fellows : Upper Egypt

and Suez Fellow Maher Bushra worked with his local

community based represenatatives around minia

and in four other governorates to form the local

committees that protected their areas from

looters He provided them with the know how and the

process to ensure that they are inclusive and

also aware of where to go and how to handle

crisis.

He organized blood donation campaigns, and

also raised 300 thousand pounds for assisting

the victims and those who lost jobs in Suez

where violence was spread


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The Aftermath: cleaning another mess

after cleaning the Mubarak Mess


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We love Egypt:

for the first time we see people that make a revolution

)(CNNand then go back to clean


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We love Egypt:

an inspiration to the world they deserve the

Nobel prize

Egyptians changed

their country and in

doing so changed the

world Obama

To live with dignity or die as

Martyrs the heroes of 25

January


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What is now and what about

the future ?First revolutionaries and activists:

The young revolutionaries are not political

parties, not CSOs and not human right

groups They are the weighting generation

They are now organizing themselves and

negotiating with the army on future action

They are using the same media tools and

channels to create the groups around their

different plans/programs


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What is now and what about the future :

revolutionaries, activists and other people

In Egypt the people (not

civil society) are now

using the social media to

organize and promote

the leaders they want inthe coming government

There is a group for Amr

Moussa as next

President For WaelGhoneim and for

others in other positions.

There are groups that are

working on improving

tourism

Groups for cleaning Egypt

and keeping the Greenspirit and they have

organized cleaning of TS

and restoring burned

police stationsGroups for lobbying for

Egypt to be secular and

remove article 2 from

constitution


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the future ?Second the Army and current government:

The council of armed forces took over in

order to prepare the country for a civilian

regime This is a transitional period, with the cabinet

same as before Mubarak leaves

They met all the demands of the

revolutionaries: dissolved both houses,

suspended the constitution, formed a new

high committee to amend the constitution.


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the future : Ashoka fellows A meeting was held on the 13th February

We are documenting by video and other means their

experiences and how they contributed to the

revolutionaries

We are working with them to create on our face book a

list of their expertise and know how that they are

offering to the revolutionaries

ADEW began a competition for a design by youth for a

memorial monument in the square

ADEW and myself are still monitoring the hospitals

and have cases of success (Nasser hospital

demerdash hospital)


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the future : Ashoka fellows

With womens CSOs , ADEW and a number of

female fellows we are campaigning to include

women in the committee for drafting the

constitution

We are writing about women's contribution to the

revolution and lobbying for their inclusion (articles,

letters to the high council of armed forces,

interviews on the different medias and groups onface book and the other new social media)


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So to sum up; where are we?

Good steps

After Mubarak stepped down the army took over, they dissolved the twohouses, suspended the constitution, formed a committee to amend the

constitution

They announced that they are there for 6 months until a democratic and

transparent elections of the two houses and the president occur

They reshuffled the last cabinet of Mubarak to represent different

parties.They began discussion with the representatives of the revolutionary

group

They asked the General Prosecutor to prosecute the ministers and other

business people and public figures who are incriminated with the old

regime in corruption

Worrisome steps and challengesThe new committee to review and amend constitution is not what the

youth asked for and does not include women

There is now a witch hunt and a sense of vindictiveness that does not

reflect the spirit of the revolutionaries

An economic crisis --

Police lost credibility and there is no police now in the country


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So to sum up: role of Civil society

1. Should encourage and support the young leaders to create

their own CSOs and provide the know how2. Lobby for the change of the law now and not later and create

a favorable public opinion of NGOs

3. Lobby for womens active and equal participation in the new

Egypt in all spheres for more economic empowerment

programs to all -4. Work to have a social and economic agenda of Egypt with

every group or organization focusing on its expertise but

within an overall framework

5. Try to mend the recent backlash before the revolution wherepeople were encouraged to move towards charity and not

sustainable development6. To lobby with the international donors to listen to all voices not

only the highest and to inclusive and not exclusive.. To

address development efforts equal to human rights


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Change is Inevitable : The fall of theWALL OF FEAR

Documents

The Revolution and the Rule of Law (ICNL 24feb2011)