The young people who led Egypt's January Revolution should now replace their virtual organisation with a more tangible one, says Ahmed El-Tonsi The Egyptian Revolution is a unique event despite all endeavours to draw comparisons with similar events in different countries and in other historical eras and contexts. Interpretations have focussed on the fact that the revolution neither had a leadership nor a well-articulated ideology. Also, many have pointed to the role played by young people as the spark that galvanised the masses into moving into the streets and fulfilling their mission of ousting the former president. Analogies with the 1952 Revolution have been made by some commentators, particularly using the term "vanguard" to describe young people's role in the 2011 Revolution, since the very same word was used by Nasser to depict the army's role in that of 1952. On the other hand, other analysts have made a comparison with the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, and today's magic word, "liberal", has been extensively used to find a link with that revolution, while downplaying events over the past 60 years and since the 1952 Revolution. In the latter case, such commentators say, it was the military that usurped the liberal model. However, despite these historical similarities or dissimilarities, one fact remains that the present revolution is different, if not unique. Perhaps this is the first revolution to have been based on the concept of virtual organisation, and this may explain its uniqueness and help us to understand its current situation, as well as its future potential. A virtual organisation is usually defined as "an entity which, at a very minimum, exhibits the following three characteristics: is either an entire company, department, division or group; uses the Internet and web-based collaboration tools in addition to existing telecommunications infrastructure; and, most importantly, incorporates best practices, policies and procedures for operating in a virtual environment and for managing a virtual organisation in its daily routine." In other words, a virtual organisation is an informal entity that exists to serve as an ad hoc structure to achieve a specific objective shared by its members who work inter-dependently in their pursuit of its completion. Being informal means that there is no line of authority or even leadership that guides the whole process. It is team work that operates sequentially: only technical supervision may be required in terms of interconnectedness and so on. In effect, the 2011 Egyptian Revolution exhibited the three characteristics that constitute this definition, in that the youth groups aptly implemented the first digital revolution by crossing geographic boundaries to link activists and mobilise countless supporters. The webpage on Khaled Said was a typical example of how such a virtual organisation operated in a seamless world. There were no leaders because the preparation for the revolution was a collaborative effort in which all the participants shared and only technical know-how was centrally managed. No wonder, then, that Wael Ghoneim, a renowned Google expert, was among the first names to emerge from among the ranks of the young people since his technical role had been of paramount importance in streamlining the processes of the virtual organisation. However, a virtual organisation is not immune to certain inadequacies that should be understood in order to understand some current issues we are seeing in the Egyptian revolution. Among such inadequacies are defective communications, particularly face-to-face communications, dispersed or fragmented responsibility, informality, and an absence of clear leadership. Many of the members of the principal youth organisations had links with other smaller virtual or sometimes formal organisations. This feature made the principal virtual organisation, the Youth Revolution Coalition (YRC), inherently fragmented, to the extent that the young people did not have their own revolutionary command council. Instead, they formed the YRC, which was shortly followed by a plethora of similar entities all also branded as revolutionary. This may explain the inability of the revolutionaries to repeat their initial outstanding success in leading the masses to oust president Hosni Mubarak. This success has not been repeated, despite using the same vehicle of Friday demonstrations, because the revolutionaries have not been able to develop a new slogan that can meet with a consensus of the people and retain their determination. The revolution could not have happened had not this generation taken hold of the steering wheel and articulated a consensus by forming slogans such as change, freedom and social justice, which attracted nearly every Egyptian of every generation, social background and political orientation. This was the great task that allowed Egyptians to unite on a single cause and perhaps for the first time since the October War. Yet, the present internal disarray among the young people threatens their role as the vanguard of the revolution, and it is depriving the masses of their expected and accepted leadership. In fact, this is the major crux in the current political scene, where every partner within the revolutionary triad of youth, masses and army has been blaming the other. At first reluctant, and then unable to maintain their leadership, the young people have not completed their role in the revolution. According to one commentator, the one "who made the revolution either rules or is disposed of, meaning that it becomes his duty to rule and he does not have the option of abandoning his authority. A revolution is not a luxury, such that its leaders may go for it and then optionally decline to go further." No less important is the fact that the revolutionaries have not been able to develop new slogans or objectives that can sustain their solidarity with the now ruling Higher Council of the Armed Forces. In sum, the inadequacies of the young people's pre-revolutionary modus operandi are obvious, impacting their status on the political scene. The youth are still in the pre-revolutionary phase, while they should be at the front of the scene. Whether they agree or not with each other, they have become the leaders of the revolution. A leader is the one who has followers, and they have been followed by the masses since 25 January. They are no longer the innocent activists who called upon the masses to express their grievances. Rather, the masses have changed the young people's status to that of revolutionaries. They should act like them, and in order to do so certain points are worth mentioning. First, the youth should bury their sometimes immature differences and form a unified formal organisation, be it a party, a national front, a council, or whatever other forum represents the leadership of the revolution. This body should have a formal leadership that should be democratically elected from the different organisations that carry the banner of the revolution. Having their own organisation will help the revolutionaries to formalise their own structure, a feature that will enrich their contribution to the revolution by reviving their role as its vanguard and pushing the frontiers of their pre-destined role as the awaited leaders of the revolution. It is inconceivable that the revolutionary days of struggle and their aftermath have not nurtured new leaders who can assume leadership functions and represent the true revolution. Such days in many other revolutions have resulted in the emergence of new leaders: this is typical of any group dynamics where the division of labour leads to the surfacing of de facto leaders who give direction and guidance. The youth definitely have cadres who can carry out this role, but events have been swift and needless fragmentation has not paved the way for their surfacing. This unified front should act as the vehicle through which the emergence of these leaders can take place. Burying differences does not mean ignoring them. Rather, it means the recognition by the revolutionary factions of the need to accept the diversity of opinions, even as the same revolutionary current reflects the will of the majority. The new organisation should be an archetype for the new Egypt, in which all opinions can be freely expressed. A typical example of this model of political structure could be the British Labour Party, which has been called an "organisation of organisations" thanks to its many affiliated groups, including trade unions and others. It is also important to mention that the youth should be helped to identify their leaders and that they should not reduce their idea of leadership to a single variant of a subtype like charismatic leadership. Such a reduction would hinder the process of leadership identification and put too much pressure on those selecting the leaders. In this completely different revolution, and within this peculiar historical context, it is not insightful or desirable to recall the past and ask for competencies that many other nations have transcended in their selection of contemporary leaders. Waiting for an infallible, charismatic leader would be ahistorical, and it should not be allowed to impede current efforts to institutionalise the Revolution. We should be fair to the young people, as the political scene as a whole is deficient in charismatic leaders, something that is evident in many of our political parties. Moreover, the youth's new leaders should reflect the ongoing era, with its dynamics, aspirations and future purposes, and in accordance with this we should not try to impose our mindset on the new generation. Second, the slogans used by the new organisation should be the straightforward ones raised by the youth themselves in the heyday of the revolution. These slogans calling for change, freedom and social justice can help restore the coherence of the body politic and maintain solidarity with its wider context: the masses. We should return to basics, and this ought to be the young people's slogan. In fact, the youth have articulated consensus-building slogans, since the ideas of change, freedom and social justice that the young people have put forward have attracted nearly every Egyptian of every generation, social background and political orientation. No one, including those inside the ousted regime, has been able to resist such slogans, and they were one of the major tools that attracted large numbers of people to join the youth in the first place. In other words, the ability of the youth to articulate slogans and/or objectives first to attract, and second to mobilise, a growing number of people has been clear. And this fact has added further legitimacy to the youth leadership, making it high time for the youth to regroup their constituency under the same objectives that have unified the vast majority of Egyptians. Third, the youth should understand that they are the leaders and their followers are the masses and not the activists. Their tools are now direct communication, rather than web-based technology, and their future is in the streets and not just in Tahrir Square. Henceforth, every day should be a Friday, and not just days picked for special gatherings. As leaders, the youth need to be close to their constituency and their people, who have a real interest in the promises of the revolution. The masses are the real stakeholders here, not the old political elites, as the masses made the revolution, shifting its thrust from a mass protest to a true revolution. Changing 25 January from a kind of "mega 6 April" into a fully-fledged social revolution was the outcome of the masses' participation, a fact that all youth leaders should thoroughly ponder. They should see that they have become the legitimate leaders of the revolution via a direct referendum in which the overwhelming majority of the people participated in events. That said, the youth should also be up to the challenge of the legislative elections, and they should have their own list, dubbed the revolutionary list, which should be assigned the mission of restoring the revolution. The revolutionaries were able to oust Mubarak and his regime in fewer than 18 days, and they can win the legislative elections. The common denominator in both cases is the support of the masses. Fourth, the revolutionaries should perceive the tectonic changes that are impacting Egyptian society and politics. All social and political forces, though to varying degrees, should become subject to the ongoing changes. The different political forces are representatives of various historical eras and experiences in the same way as different geological eras have their own particular features. In our case, we have certain layers or forces that have resurfaced, while others have become less prominent. This may explain the reappearance of the Salafis, who have been in the political shade for decades, while the relatively more modern layers, like the Jihad, have become less visible. When dealing with these historical layers or trends, the youth should not be a kind of Trojan horse that the overlapping layers will try to use in their pursuit of power. Needless to say, none of the three forces that made the revolution, namely the youth, the army and the masses, has aspired to power. As a result, the youth should see other forces or trends, on top of which is the Muslim Brotherhood, as political actors having their own agendas. There is nothing wrong in these forces legitimately pursuing political power. This is their raison d'être, and as political parties or organisations we should not blame them or deny them their right to attain power. However, it is time that the revolutionaries themselves came onto the political scene in the form of an organisation that has proved itself effective, while it was still virtual, first in mobilising the people and second in organising them across Egypt. Fifth, the revolutionaries should rethink the role of the army in the revolution. The latter is not just the guardian of the revolution or the revolutionaries. Rather, it has been more pro-active than that, and details of its glorious role will be unravelled by historians in the future. The army did not impose a strict curfew except in the period that followed the ousting of Mubarak on 11 February, and the masses could not have joined the revolution had the curfew been properly enforced. More than that, however, was the first announcement from the Higher Council of the Armed Forces, which implicitly stated that it had been working against the then president. Inspired by its constitutional prerogative to preserve the unity of the state, the army fulfilled its obligations, which meant the victory of the revolution. In other words, the army performed its obligations and played a leading role in the victory of the revolution. Between its constitutional obligations and its siding with the revolution, the army had and has limited manoeuvrability, and the revolutionaries should understand this crucial fact in order to maintain their cohesiveness with the army. Not all events, incidents or stands may qualify for such a convergence between the army's constitutional obligations and its role in the revolution. In all cases of potential divergence, the revolutionaries should opt first to avoid confrontation and then to bring about compromise. The organisation to be established, while merging with the masses, will be able to sustain the revolution, maintain its momentum, and, most importantly, achieve its mission for the first time in our history. It is our right as Egyptians to see a fully-fledged revolution that is capable of changing Egypt and not just its ageing constitution. This should be a revolution that changes the country's social makeup, not just its corrupt old elites, and its mode of development, not just its stolen money. If this does not happen, the revolution will remain a virtual one and one that has suffered from its makers as much as from its enemies. * The writer is a political analyst.
