Current state of Egypt

Blog by Cole Stoecklein:

            This Monday, January 25^th marked one of the most pivotal moments in the common era of Egypt, the Egyptian Revolution. It was pivotal socially, politically and religiously. However, looking back five years it seems this pivotal moment has merely led to the same circumstances.

            In 2011, thousands of people came out to Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt to protest their president, Hosni Mubarak. They protested peacefully for several days, and planned on doing so until President Mubarak stepped down from his presidency. Their peaceful protests were met with violent force, and up to 800 people were killed. Adding fuel to the flame, Mubarak and Egyptian officials then shut down communication via social media for Egyptians in Cairo, which only infuriated protestors more. After several tumultuous days, Mubarak eventually stepped down.

This moment was celebrated as a triumphant moment for the people of Egypt, and there was a glimmer of hope for a new, representative government. After the short reign of the Muslim Brotherhood as a political group, a new president by the name Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in June 2014.

In the eye-opening story by Iyad El-Baghdadi of the Huffington Post, “On the Anniversary of the EgyptianRevolution, Sisi is terrified” it is clear that not much has changed since the 2011 revolution. The people of Egypt still feel oppressed as ever; in fact, the hashtag “#Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” (the people want to bring down the regime) became the top trending topic among the Arab Twittersphere.

Sisi, seemingly out of sheer fear, took identical approaches to quiet down the activists. Like Mubarak, he secured Tahrir Square with military enforcements. Many arrests were made of young, political activists. In an eerily similar scene to 2011, many young activists homes were broken into and their social media history was searched. It is very clear that Sisi is scrambling to silent a movement that most Egyptian officials have claimed to be silenced. The irony of the situation lies in the claims made by Sisi at the start of 2016, for he declared 2016 to be the “year of the youth”, yet the youth have found themselves suppressed, harassed, and helpless.

On young Egyptian man posted on his Facebook that during Mubarak’s reign he wanted to immigrate, but now under Sisi he dreams of “getting asylum anywhere to escape your hell and your injustice” (Huffington). Sisi is publicly begging for young Egyptians not to migrate; yet the young Egyptians feel as if they have no choice. El-Baghdadi calls the state of Egypt a “tragic comedy”, for indeed it is sad what the state of the country has come too, but it is also predictable.

So, how did we get here? El-Baghdadi points to viewing Sisi as a paradigm (Huffington).  Sisi is a paradigm in the way that he makes people view Tyranny as a way to bring stability, and that the foundation of a strong country isn’t the people, but the government. In the time of unrest following the 2011 revolution, people were looking for a political savior, and people thought that they had found that in Sisi. In fact, around the peak of his campaign in 2014, an Egyptian newspaper dubbed him “The messiah, the savior”. It’s unfortunate how far off the people of Egypt were on Sisi, and now that they have come to that realization change is in the near future.

Sisi’s fear has never been more evident, and he has every reason to be afraid. The Egyptian people have proven strong enough to make a political change when they rally together. But after 5 years of no change, do they have the will power to revolt again?