Without deep change in society itself, its values and modes of behaviour, the Egyptian revolution will remain but half a revolution, writes Khalil El-Anani* Although the Egyptian revolution succeeded in ousting the Mubarak regime, it has not yet managed to uproot the ills of its culture, value system and prevailing modes of behaviour. In this sense, therefore, it remains "half a revolution", or more precisely, a "revolutionary act" that still needs follow- through towards completion. During the past three months we have seen only surface changes in the Egyptian state. Leading political figures and symbols were toppled, but the "heart", or foundation, of that state remains unchanged. That "heart" is society whose cells consist of individual citizens. Change at both levels -- the political system and society -- is a prerequisite for the completion of any revolution. Of course, there is no denying that the Egyptian revolutionary act was sudden and very powerful. However, its major thrust emanated from and remained largely restricted to a particular stratum of society, namely the middle to upper- middle class. It has yet to spread to other strata of society, which remain essentially the same as they were before the revolution. This phenomenon is not peculiar to Egypt. Other countries have experienced similar popular uprisings that succeeded in overturning regimes but did not go as far as to engender radical change in the prevailing values, culture and structures of society. Examples are to be found in the events in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, San Salvador, the Philippines and Peru in the 1980s and in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan at the outset of this millennium. In all these cases, regime change was not accompanied by fundamental transformations in the social structures, value systems and modes of behaviour that govern the relations between individuals, institutions and the horizontal networks of society. The Egyptian revolution can, therefore, be described so far as a minimal revolution -- it achieved the minimal level of the dream of the majority of Egyptians, which was the overthrow of the old regime and the prosecution of its leaders and most prominent figures. However, it remains a considerable way off from the upper level, which involves the transformation of social and institutional structures and value and behavioural systems so as to enable society to regain its health and proceed towards the realisation of human development and prosperity. Of course, the general resurgence of hope and optimism has reinvigorated the Egyptian spirit, but translating such sentiments into action remains difficult if not impossible. Not every outburst of collective anger and frustration is a revolution. Not every defiance and overthrow of an old regime and its legal edifice is proof of a successful revolutionary act. The sole guarantor of the success of a revolution is society itself. Herein lies the crux of the dilemma: the performer of the revolutionary act (the agent) needs a revolution so that the act and the agent can be brought into harmony, and so that the results are consistent with the beginnings. A single example should suffice as proof of the foregoing. Since the 25 January Revolution, not a single political party, movement (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) or public institution has undertaken internal reforms, let along radical overhauls, to bring it in line with the spirit of the revolution. Not a single official has voluntarily left office, admitted to error, or expressed a desire to reform himself. We have yet to hear of any business magnate taking the initiative to redistribute their wealth for the sake of social justice. What we have seen since the departure of Mubarak is a feverish scramble to harvest the "spoils" and consolidate new situations and gains before society wakes up and government resumes normal authority. Everyone is operating on the basis of "me first" in their behaviour and their outlook. The regime has fallen, the institutions of state are on the verge of collapse, and political and religious groups are trying to fill the void, but without a sense of responsibility. It is as though we have reverted to our initial state of nature, "the war of all against all". The state has vanished as a ruling authority and a frame of reference, and society has yet to formulate a new governing authority. The counter-revolution is not coming solely from the remnants of the former regime that are trying by all possible means to abort the revolutionary act and minimise their losses. It is also coming from political and social forces that now sport a revolutionary cloak but are afraid that change will affect them or are unwilling to pay the price of change, as the former regime has done. These forces are an extension of the traditional structures that the Mubarak regime fostered, and they are now trying to capitalise on its fall with the aim of edging themselves into its place. The strident resurgence of extreme fundamentalist movements, such as the Salafis in their various shades, and the rampages of anarchic groups made up of thugs and ex-cons, are tangible indications of a society that has lost the equilibrium that would enable it to tame these tendencies that depart from the general norm. I certainly do not subscribe to any form of historical imperativism or cultural essentialism, which presume that a people, such as the Egyptians, are incapable of change. All such notions met their demise when millions of Egyptians took to the streets to defy the Mubarak regime. Nevertheless, the change that has taken place so far will not necessarily lead to a stable democratic system or the development of a mature society aware of its responsibilities and the challenges that await it. Again, Egypt would not be alone in this. The revolution that overthrew the Fernando Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986 has so far failed to produce a stable political order, let alone a democratic one. The same applies to Mexico, Chile, Iran and Cuba since the 1970s. Otherwise put, the Egyptian revolution is a political one that has yet to make the transition into a comprehensive social revolution, as occurred with the French revolution of 1789, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and the Chinese revolution of 1911-1949. To a considerable extent, this explains the current state of political confusion, sectarian tension, security breakdown, bureaucratic gridlock, moral fragmentation, and the disinclination on the part of the lower and lower-middle classes to participate in revolutionary action until state and society are reconstructed. If the revolution had spread through all the arteries of society, which had grown congested and calcified over the past decades, and if the revolutionary mentality that was born in Tahrir Square had spread roots and branches in the central squares of all towns and villages in the country, the value system that governs the Egyptian personality would have changed and the arteries would have expanded, enabling society to expel all the residual ills of the July 1952 order, which bred an indolent, self-exonerating mentality that sustained itself by censuring others. If any revolution is to make the transition from a political one to a social one it must meet three conditions. First, it must make a clear cut with the past -- the past here being everything associated with the old order, especially that corrupt ethical system founded on the triad of ignorance, fanaticism and egotism. Second, society must embrace, in thought and practice, the new revolutionary values, the most important of which form another triad: knowledge, tolerance and inclusiveness. Third, a drive must be undertaken to reconstruct intermediary social institutions such as waqf [religious endowment] foundations, community colleges and interregional social clubs in order to promote harmony between the centre and the peripheries, and to spread the benefits of the revolution among all. Of course, it takes time to fulfil these conditions. However, to ignore them or to regard them of marginal importance is to allow the 25 January Revolution to remain no more than an exceptional uprising, after which everything reverts to how it was before, or perhaps even worse, which is far from what we want for our beloved country. * The writer is a researcher at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University.
