When does an uprising become a revolution, asks Salah Eissa* Long after its final chapter has closed the Egyptian youth Intifada or uprising that opened on 25 January 2011 will continue to perplex historians and political scientists who are still stumped as to whether to categorise it as a mass riot, a popular insurrection, or a people's revolution. The latter classification is favoured by the leaders of the Intifada and a portion of its most ardent supporters, one of whom went so far as to describe it as "the first Egyptian grassroots revolution since the Pharaonic era." According to historians of revolutions, a mass riot is a violent act of protest that erupts spontaneously and lacks organisation and sufficient political awareness. It is generally given to anarchy, violence and rampant vandalism, offering the authorities it revolted against the opportunity to stamp it out. As a result, it subsides after a short period without achieving any of its aims. A popular insurrection, by contrast, has a certain degree of organisation, political awareness and clarity in its objectives, which are generally of a limited nature. This form of mass protest, therefore, tends to last longer and achieve better results. Revolutions, however, are on a different scale. They seek more comprehensive and radical change. They are more tightly organised, reflect a greater political awareness, set more clearly defined goals and have greater stamina. Therefore, they generally produce sweeping changes in society that yield a new political system and a different social order in terms of class structure. The common denominator that links these three types of mass action together is that it is impossible to predict exactly when they will erupt. The most one can do is to note the existence of a "revolutionary climate" shaped by widespread discontent on the part of the governed at the way they have been ruled and the inability of the rulers to persist in the same manner of rule. In such a climate, mass riots and popular uprisings can be expected at any moment. All it takes is a single incident that can spark the rage of the people, or a portion of the people, and drive them into the streets where they become the kernel around which amass the various factions of the discontented, setting in motion the wheels of revolution. Naturally, it is not rare for repeated outbursts of rioting to take place before leading to an uprising that culminates in a revolution. The 25 January Intifada was as sudden as other Egyptian uprisings, the most prominent being those of 1935-36, 21 February 1946, and 18 and 19 January 1977. In the first two instances there was a prearranged date for some kind of protest action. The first was marked by the statement issued by the British foreign minister in early November 1935 announcing his government's opposition to the restoration of the 1923 Constitution in Egypt. The second set 21 February 1946 as the date for a national demonstration by all political forces and parties, including the government at the time, to demand the evacuation of the British occupiers from the country. The same thing applies to this year's events. 25 January had been designated as the date for a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Interior to protest the excesses perpetrated by the police. The surprise in all three cases was that what had been anticipated as an ordinary act of protest escalated into a mass uprising. The 25 January Intifada shares a number of traits with its predecessors, yet it is also unique in several ways. In all three cases, the leaders were educated, middle-class young people, a major portion of whom were students. This is the segment of the populace that has formed the backbone of all Egyptian uprisings and revolutions since the turn of the 19th century. It played a major role in the first Cairo revolution in 1799 against the French expedition to Egypt, when students and younger members of Al-Azhar took to the streets and were then joined by other segments of the people. Al-Azhar students were also out in force to support the Orabi Rebellion of 1881, which was championed by students of the secular schools that had been established in the Mohamed Ali era. Students from what were then known as the "upper schools" and today are the universities were Mustafa Kamel's chief base of support when leading the National Awakening movement against the British occupation in the first decade of the 20th century. A decade later, they, along with Al-Azhar students and young Egyptian lawyers, formed the primary force in the 1919 Revolution. In like manner, students were at the vanguard of the popular uprisings in 1935, 1946, 1968, 1972 and 1977. It is important to bear in mind when considering this feature of the revolutionary condition in modern Egyptian history that students and other members of the intelligentsia, who make their living from working with their brains in various professions, only initiated and led the uprisings. No Intifada evolved into a revolution until the intelligentsia was joined by other portions of the populace, notably workers and farmers. Without these classes, the Intifada remains just an Intifada and does not become a revolution. The unique feature of the 25 January Intifada is that it was born of a mode of social interaction made possible by the IT revolution and modern social-networking channels made available by the Internet. Facebook and other such websites enabled the creation of extensive networks of indirect relationships between young people ranging in age from 17 to 30 and offered them forums in which they could exchange ideas and opinions and agree on certain positions without actually knowing each other. These modes of interaction came to replace more conventional ones relying on face-to-face contact. More significantly, they also replaced conventional forms of political organisation, such as political parties and associations organised hierarchically in order to unify the opinions of their members and generate a unified political will. Those from the older generations who have participated in or studied Egypt's popular uprisings will realise that relying on this modern mode of sociopolitical interaction alone cannot sustain political circumstances conducive to supporting demands for political and constitutional reform. Indeed, the risk is that it will sap the energies of the young people in dialogues among themselves, while at the same time depriving them of the knowledge, expertise and organisational abilities they might gain from the older generations. It might also divert them from joining the political parties that are active in the campaign for reform, and this would weaken the political and constitutional reform movement. The 25 January uprising revealed the role social-networking sites can play in revolutionary mobilisation. Yet, perhaps one of its most significant accomplishments is that it politically engaged an entire generation, much of which had been absent from, or had little influence in, the political domain in Egypt. * The writer is editor-in-chief of Al-Qahera weekly newspaper.
