Many who participated in the 25 January Revolution, including the Muslim Brothers, thought that the revolution had ended with the fall of Hosni Mubarak's regime. Their chief concern at the time was to variously work with or pressure the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which had assumed control during the interim phase, so as to manipulate developments during that phase in ways that served their own particular ends. The 19 March 2011 referendum over the Constitutional Declaration and the promulgation of an electoral law that tailored and timed legislative elections to ensure majorities of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies in the two houses of parliament were landmarks in what was at the least a process of convergence of interests — if not active collusion — between the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF. Meanwhile, demonstrations against the events at the Egyptian Museum, the virginity tests, the attacks against protesters at Maspero, Abbasiya and elsewhere were by no means fabricated or isolated incidents as they had imagined. They were signs that the revolution was still in progress, even if public opinion, now content with the fall of Mubarak, wanted stability and a return to “normality”. Moreover, it was a revolution in the true sense of the term — rather than a coup, for example — which meant that it would persist toward the realisation of its aims, even if this took many years. This reality totally eluded the Muslim Brotherhood, whose game plan for attaining power was primarily based on the exploitation of religion and smear campaigns against all opponents. Therefore, their various schemes and ploys could not prevent the revolution from extending into its third year or diminish the faith of Egyptian youth in their revolution and its goals. But it was a difficult struggle. The revolutionary youth sustained their symbolic presence in public squares even as the Muslim Brotherhood pressed to hold parliamentary elections as soon as possible. The fact that many political forces participated in those elections, despite the uneven playing field, put the revolutionary youth in an awkward position with respect to public opinion, yet they held their ground in the squares and continued to cry for the revolution's demands, which they believed were not being met. A series of events continued to confirm the principle and reality of sustained revolution. Prime among them was the confrontation between revolutionaries and SCAF in November-December 2011 over the appointment of a new prime minister who was perceived as a figure loyal to the former regime. The notorious Mohamed Mahmoud Street massacre, which claimed numerous casualties among the protesters, may have occurred as the result of miscalculations on the part of SCAF, but it also received the tacit blessing of the Muslim Brothers and their Islamist allies who now saw the continued presence of the revolutionaries in the streets as an obstacle to the realisation of the Muslim Brotherhood/Islamist project. The legislative elections, held in accordance with the conditions that the Muslim Brothers and their allies forced on SCAF, helped enable the Islamists to secure 75 per cent of the seats in parliament. Circumstances at the time did, indeed, favour the Islamists' electoral prospects. Other political forces had had little time to organise themselves beforehand, while the Muslim Brotherhood, tightly organised and with long experience in electoral campaigning, no longer had to contend with the now defunct National Democratic Party. In addition, revolutionary youth forces had been effectively neutralised as contenders in the polls. As soon as the People's Assembly and Shura Council elections were over, the country began to prepare for presidential elections. None of the candidates expressed the youthful heart of Tahrir Square, but this time most of the revolutionaries decided to take part in the electoral process and put their weight behind the candidate they felt was closest to the ideals of the revolution. Hamdeen Sabahi and Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh were the foremost contenders in this respect. Unfortunately, the results of the first round, as close as they were, presented the revolutionaries with a bitter surprise: the two candidates they had supported had been eliminated from the race and the choice was now between Ahmed Shafik, regarded as representing the old regime, and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi. In spite of strong reservations against the Muslim Brotherhood, which the revolutionaries felt had betrayed them during the interim period, most cast their vote for Morsi. He was perceived as the lesser of two evils, since a Shafik victory would have signalled the failure of the revolution. That Morsi won was, in a sense, a victory for the revolution in view of the support by the revolutionaries whose votes gave him the margin he needed in what turned out to be a neck-to-neck race. But the Muslim Brotherhood failed to appreciate the importance of this constituency that had helped elevate their candidate to the presidency and was expecting a president who would support the realisation of the revolution's demands. Morsi's first 100 days in office passed without significant progress towards the fulfillment of his pledges, apart from his success in ousting SCAF from government against the backdrop of the attack against Egyptian soldiers in Sinai in August 2012. This “soft coup” against “military rule” gave Morsi a burst of self-confidence and impetus. But instead of turning such advantages towards the advancement of the goals of the revolution, he capitalised on them to promote the political aims and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. As this trend became more and more apparent during the developments that unfolded in the autumn of 2012, Morsi not only continued to provoke the revolutionary forces, but also increasingly alienated broad sectors of public opinion. A major turning point came in November that year, when Morsi's constitutional declaration, according himself unprecedented executive and legislative powers, ignited a new revolutionary wave. This one surpassed, quantitatively and qualitatively, all the previous revolutionary waves that had erupted against military rule. It was much broader in scope, extending for the first time beyond Tahrir to the gates of the presidential palace. It was also much larger, as the middle classes had been galvanised into action. And it was longer, lasting for more than two months until the president was finally forced to rescind his constitutional declaration. Significantly, too, it came after a mere six months into the term of an elected president. But rather than perceiving the depth of anger that had generated such massive demonstrations, and responding to popular demands, the president and his group opted for the confrontationist approach. They steamrolled a highly controversial draft constitution through an Islamist dominated Constituent Assembly that no longer presented even a façade of diversity after all the non-Islamist representatives had resigned out of sheer frustration. Then, again in unseemly haste, the president rushed that document to a referendum in order to create a fait accompli. The two-month long wave of protests affirmed, again, the continuity of the revolution, which now turned its focus on “Muslim Brotherhood rule”. This turning point in Egypt's political and cultural struggle should not be underestimated. For the first time in contemporary Egyptian history, “the street” had begun to turn against Islamists, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular. Formerly, “the street” was their arena of action and source of power against the backdrop of a dictatorial regime whose repressive mode of handling political Islam only fed their strength and sustained their legitimacy in the eyes of a discontented public. Now that the Islamists, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, found themselves on the defensive they began to fight back, sometimes revealing their more violent side. But suddenly, the revolution scored another remarkable breakthrough in the form of the Tamarod (Rebel) movement. This action set into motion a campaign to collect, within the space of little over a month, 15 million signatures on a petition calling for Morsi to step aside, on the grounds that his government did nothing to advance the welfare of the people and the aims of the revolution, and for new presidential elections to be held. It was nothing less than a stroke of genius, demonstrating the innovativeness of Egypt's revolutionary youth. In fact, by the eve of 30 June, the date set to conclude the drive as it coincided with Morsi's first anniversary in office, the Tamarod campaigners succeeded in far surpassing their target. They had collected 22 million signatures, all corroborated by the signer's national ID number. As Egypt moved closer towards 30 June, it began to pulse with the spirit of a new revolutionary wave. One could easily observe the ubiquitous proliferation of copies of the petition and the red card (which in football disqualifies a player from the match) that demonstrators would wave on the appointed day. Both were powerful symbols of the democratic nature of this movement that underscored the right to peaceful protest and that embraced all Egyptians and was free of the type of incendiary hate language that could often be heard from supporters of the president. It should be stressed that the revolution is not an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood, per se. It is the enemy of any party that works against its aspirations for equality, freedom and social justice. The army will always be commemorated for its role in protecting the revolution and helping to oust Mubarak. But in the face of SCAF's mishandling of power during the transitional period, the squares filled again calling for the end to military rule. The same applies today. The revolutionary anger is not so much directed at the Muslim Brothers as it is against their failure in government and their betrayal of the revolution. It was their very relentlessness and single-mindedness in their course that generated the revolutionary waves calling for them to relinquish power. The Muslim Brotherhood claims last year's ballot box as the source of their legitimacy, and have since acted as though this gave them carte blanche. On 30 June they were presented with a petition signed by nearly twice as many as those who voted for Morsi a year ago asking them to leave. The revolution will continue. It confirmed this under the period of military rule, it is confirming it again today under Muslim Brotherhood rule, and it will confirm it again in the future under any civil government that fails to realise the goals of the revolution.
The writer is managing editor of the quarterly journal Al-Demoqrateya published by Al-Ahram.
