The Occupy Wall Street protest movement has spawned many analogies to the Egyptian revolution, especially after the arrest of 700 demonstrators this weekend. However, the protests more closely resemble Egypt in 2004 when the Kefaya movement warned Hosni Mubarak to heed their demands or face the consequences. Without question, Occupy Wall Street has drawn direct inspiration from the Egyptian revolution. In its original call for demonstrations, the group Adbusters asked Americans, “Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?” Thousands have answered the call, hoping America's moment has come. The protests have begun to find support internationally, including from some of the Egyptian online personalities best known by the American public like Gigi Ibrahim and Zeinobia. With citizens across the globe speaking the same language of economic distress and political disenchantment, the solidarity is anything but surprising. According to a recent CNN/ORC International poll, 90 percent of Americans say the economy is in poor condition. Unemployment stubbornly hovers at over 9 percent. Federal debt as a percentage of GDP will reach 70 percent by 2012, up from 40 percent in 2008. The millstone of Europe's debt crisis threatens to drown the US in a double-dip recession. And according to the World Bank, the US suffers from greater income inequality than Egypt. Political dysfunction compounds America's economic troubles. Every debate seemingly threatens a government shutdown. Ideology trumps truth, bickering trumps dialogue, and politics trump the national interest. According to a recent New York Times/CBS poll, Congress only musters 12 percent job approval from Americans, matching an all-time low. The anger felt by the Wall Street protesters is real, and their grievances are legitimate. In that sense, the situation mirrors January 24 in Egypt. But the Wall Street protests will falter before they achieve anything like January 25 for three reasons. First, the protesters have yet to coalesce over a single, unifying demand. The demands of the protesters are as diverse as the protesters who demand them. Of course, this is nothing new for Egyptians who are used to liberals, leftists and Islamists all occupying Tahrir Square. Yet, the Occupy Wall Street movement has yet to find its equivalent of “The People Want the Fall of the Regime.” They still need a simple demand that, at least temporarily, can unify thousands of protesters into one cohesive movement. Moreover, Occupy Wall Street faces a strong and legitimate counter-mobilization in the Tea Party. Both movements have taken to the streets out of economic distress and political disenchantment, but their visions for the future are diametrically opposed. The occupiers of Wall Street seek an expansion of government authority while the Tea Party seeks its limitation. Second, Occupy Wall Street cannot rely on police brutality to unify the movement and attract support. There will be no equivalent of the Battle of the Camels. With some unfortunate exceptions, the New York Police Department has acted professionally. Yet some protesters, perhaps in an effort to tie their struggle with the Arab Spring, have tried too hard to paint themselves as victims. In one video, a protester lays on the ground complaining about the tightness of his handcuffs – hardly the kind of brutality that has horrified Americans during the Arab Spring and hardly the kind of brutality that will get Americans off the couch and into the streets. Finally, American democracy is designed precisely to accommodate and incorporate movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The Mubarak regime's stability proved to be a farce in which a single crack of mass dissent could bring the whole system down. In comparison, the American system can not only survive dissent, but thrive off of it. From the American Revolution, to the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement, dissent has always played a central and foundational role in American politics. As a result, the vast majority of Americans will prefer to voice dissent within the system as opposed to mobilize against it. For these reasons, the Occupy Wall Street movement will soon peak and eventually be co-opted by the Democratic Party, just as the Tea Party with the Republican Party. Politics will be energized by the movement, but not fundamentally changed. That is the way the American system works. In 2004, Egyptians began to descend to the streets to tell Mubarak “Kefaya! Enough!” The movement ultimately failed to achieve real change as a result of Mubarak's intransigence, public indifference and internal in-fighting. Yet the movement should have served as a warning to Mubarak to change the system or eventually the system will be changed for him. Seven years later, he now lies in a gurney behind bars. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements should also be a warning to America's political leaders. This is their Kefaya movement. Americans are saying “Enough!” of the dysfunction, the divisiveness, and the deadlock. These movements will likely fade as did Kefaya. But without serious change and reform, their ideological offspring will return with a vengeance to the streets. The result won't be revolution like Egypt, but it will shake America's political foundation nonetheless. ** Jason Stern is a graduate student of Middle East studies at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He blogs and tweets under the handle @IbnLarry BM
