The Square and the Future of Egypt

8/13/2019 The Square and the Future of Egypt

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The Squareand the Future of gyptThe Square, a film/documentary by Jehane Noujaim, had been receiving many

plaudits from critics and was nominated for an Oscar award. When I saw Jehane

Noujaim being interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and heard the film

would be released on Netflix on January 17, I had to see it for myself. As I sat and

watched the film the Saturday morning after it was released on Netflix, I experienced

many emotions and flashbacks of events.

Overall, the film was well produced and followed the lives of a few people from different

backgrounds in their struggle for democracy and freedom from a repressive regime inEgypt. The 104-minute long film was good in that it had enough facts to inform people

who did not follow the events in Egypt closely, but at the same time not bore them while

watching. I felt the film tried to be politically balanced at times, but fell very short at

some stages. Despite these shortfalls, I believe the film gave me hope again that Egypt

has a bright future and that it could one day see that magical unification of Egyptians

from all walks of life that we witnessed in early 2011.

The film did not spend much screen time on pre-2011 revolution Egypt or the 18 days

that saw the toppling of Mubarak. Instead, it focused most of the screen time on the

days after the revolution until the removal of Morsi from the presidency. The film

mentions that the Muslim Brotherhood betrayed the revolution and made a deal with the

army so that they can make political gains. The film also mentions that Morsi slowly

became the new Pharaohand had powers not even Mubarak enjoyed. However, what

the film failed to mention is that a day before Morsi was set to be announced as the new

President of Egypt, the army issued a declaration that highly limited the powers of the

new President and it dissolved the elected parliament. The film also failed to mention

that the judiciary in Egypt was still corrupt and filled with Felool, or remnants of the

Mubarak regime. The army and the Felool were still well alive and actively worked to

undermine the new President and his party. So when Morsi regained some of those


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powers from the military and temporarily restricted the powers of the judiciary, he was

seen as a new dictator, one even worse than Mubarak. However, Mubarak never

needed all those powers because he was just one member of the deep statethat

ruled Egypt. Lets not forget that Morsi tried to revive the sacked parliament and called

for new parliamentary elections during his term so that it can perform its legislative

duties.

The film ended with a short text about the dispersal of pro-Morsi or pro-democracy sit-

ins in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. Even though the film was first released in January

2013 and the main time frame of the films plot was during the revolution up till the

protests against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the edited version includes several

footage since January 2013 up to and including the removal of Morsi. Only a few

seconds of footage was shown of the killings of pro-Morsi supporters in front of the

Presidential Palace in July 2013 and not a single footage was shown of the biggest

massacre by security forces and the military when they dispersed the protests in Rabaa

al-Adawiya Square and Al-Nahda Square in August 2013.

All Egyptians from all walks of life have suffered and been deceived in the past three

years since the removal of Mubarak. What we are seeing in Egypt now is a huge

division amongst the people who once held hands in Tahrir Square against the

repressive regime of Mubarak and we are once again seeing the revival of the Mubarak

regime and the military. Egypt can be viewed in four major categories. The first category

is described as the miltiary, felool, or deep state. This category of people have been

ruling the country for the past 60 years with corruption and repression. The second

category is the politically active secularists. This category is consisted of liberals,

socialists, and any other party that is secular in nature. The third category of people isthe politically active Islamists which include the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. The

fourth and final category can be described as the Couch Party. These are people who

are not politically active and just want to live a trouble-free life. They also are easily


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swayed by propaganda from anyone and represent a good portion of the Egyptian

population.

When people from the second and third category joined forces to stand up against the

first category of people for 18 days, they eventually managed to remove Mubarak from

power. Some people from the fourth category joined the forces during this time while

other people from this category were against the revolution, depending on how much

conditions affected their lives and how apathetic they were towards the lives of others.

The military was smart enough to distance itself from Mubarak and pretended to be

protectors of the revolution. Once Mubarak was removed, the military directly and

officially took power of the country. However, police brutality continued and no big

changes were made by the military as seen in the film. The film mentions that the

Muslim Brotherhood made a deal with the militaryand deserted the second and some

of the fourth category of people who were still fighting against the military. Once

parliamentary and presidential elections took place, the Islamists, who were better

organized and more powerful than other political parties, took a majority of parliament

and Morsi won the presidency. The undefeated first category of people were still well

alive and used this opportunity to plot against the third category of people. However,

they could not easily defeat them alone, so they convinced the second and fourth

category of people to stand up to the Islamists. In the summer of 2013, the combined

forces removed Morsi from office. What is happening in Egypt today can be described

as the second category of people making a deal with the militaryand deserting the

third category of people who are currently being killed, jailed, and silenced like never

before. A majority of the fourth category of people are still being apathetic and have had

enough of revolutions. Many of them are even announcing their support to a clear

military rule and the return of the Mubarak regime, which they see as the only solutionfor Egypt. The military is still pretending to be the savior of the revolution and has not

been shy of attacking some of the people from the second category of people who dare

to stand up to them.


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As we have seen since 2011, its always one category of people in power and it takes at

least two categories of people united to defeat it. The future of Egypt can develop into

three different scenarios now. The first scenario is for the first category of people, the

current rulers, to go ahead with elections and the second category of people will win

and rule Egypt. If the cycle is to continue, we will see the first category of people

actively plot against the second category and get them overthrown as well. At the point,

they will say we have tried the Islamists and secularists and neither of them succeeded.

Both categories will be heavily defeated and the fourth category will not side with either

of them, thus continuing perhaps another 60 years of military rule. The second scenario

is for the first category to ditch elections or hold sham elections and crackdown on the

second category of people, thus continuing military rule. With Al-Sisi hinting at running

for the presidency and previous presidential hopefuls pulling out and supporting Al-Sisi

for President, this could very easily be a plausible scenario for Egypt. The third and

most positive scenario for Egypt is for the second and third category of people to

combine forces once again, like they did in early 2011, and defeat the first category of

people once and for all.

Egypt needs a revival of the scenes of January 25th, 2011 that the film displayed.

Egyptians need to forgive their fellow people and put aside their political differences to

stand up to the real enemy, the corrupt deep state which controls the military, judicial

bodies, security organizations, and media. True revolutions do not happen overnight

and they are never easy. Once the deep state is defeated and completely reformed,

Egypt needs stability. After three years of constant protests and violence, the Egyptian

economy has plummeted. Once the deep state is defeated, free and fair parliamentary

elections need to be held. This parliamentary body should rule Egypt until a new and

hopefully long lasting constitution is written and approved. Once a new constitution hasbeen established, a new parliament and President should be elected based on this new

constitution and a new judiciary should be established. From there, democracy should

continue as political powers battle through the ballot box in a civilized manner.

Documents

The Square and the Future of Egypt