Ahmed Salah and Egyptian Revolution
The Players
On February 25, 2011 Ahmed Salah sat down with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, as part of a series entitled On the Ground Interviews: Conversations with Organizers and Activists (read full interview here). Salah talked about the various strategies that were learned, developed, and implemented by activists and civil society groups in the years leading up to the January 25, 2011 protests, which after 18 days of nonviolent mass action, forced the ouster of Egypt's former President, Hosni Mubarak.
Before the anti-Mubarak demonstrations of 2011, Salah was involved with two groups that played a central role in shaping the nature of nonviolent resistance in Egypt. He was one of the co-founders of the April 6th youth movement that in 2008 called for a workers’ strike as well as various reforms including free speech and government transparency. He was also involved with the Kefaya movement, a group that since 2004 used nonviolent tactics to fight for regime change in Egypt.
Many strategists such as Ahmed were stunned to see hundreds of thousands of people pouring into the streets in the days following the initial January 25 protests. Many Egyptian activists and organizers knew that an overwhelming majority of Egyptians harbored anti-regime sentiment. Ahmed said:
“If you asked any Egyptian, ‘Are you happy with this regime?’, they would say no, since everyone was suffering and everyone was complaining. So, if you were to ask, ‘Would you ever go to a demonstration or a protest that can get you back your rights?”, they would say ‘Are you crazy? This is too much risk, I have ‘family, I have this, and I have that.’ The only thing that would make people go to a protest is if they see other people in the street - then they could join.”
Knowing this sparked some questions. How do you get enough people in the street to reach the tipping point in which everyone with enough anti-regime sentiment will feel safe enough to demonstrate? Is this tipping point clearly defined or is there a different point for different levels of anti-regime sentiment? How do you communicate effectively within the movement and tell the movement’s side of the story to the outside world? And how do you sustain pressure on the regime while keeping people safe?
The Tools and Tactics
Organizers during the anti-Mubarak demonstrations of late January and early February 2011 used a variety of tactics that addressed some of these challenges -- the first of which is a leaderless resistance strategy referred to as “phantom cell” structure. This structure consists of a number of different cells operating independently within their locality while sharing the same notional goal as other cells. Communications between each cell are limited and highly secure, and the members of each cell only have information on the activities of their own cell. That way, the organizational structure is able to contain the damage of inevitable penetrations. It is like a ship built with a series of water tight compartments within its hull.
During the revolution each cell mobilized a group of protestors in its neighborhood . Once the groups grew in numbers they converged on Tahrir Square from multiple access points often taking back streets. The net result was more than 100,000 people in the streets, flooding into Tahrir from all directions. “The security forces cannot mass their troops in one particular area because whatever’s happening is happening everywhere,” said Ahmed
Facebook and Twitter as well as other social/digital media platforms played a critical multi- dimensional role during the revolution. On one level Twitter and Facebook allowed people to get information out with speed and efficiency. Everyone with a Facebook or Twitter account could be a citizen journalist. Citizens observed agents in civilian clothes making Molotov cocktails and using them to provoke the wrath of the security forces. But when hundreds of people independently exposed this story using video, tweets, and Facebook status updates, the provocateurs were exposed as agents of the regime, the movement was able to maintain its status as nonviolent, and truth won the day. Other platforms such as Flickr, a photo sharing social media platform, and Bambouser, an application that allows live streaming from a smartphones, helped citizen journalists get the truth out.
Witnesses saw Khaled Said, a young Egyptian man, dragged out of an internet cafe into an adjacent building where he was beaten to death. Photos of his battered corpse appeared on the internet and a Facebook group was created called “We are all Khaled Saeed.” More than 100,000 people joined the group, and thus it functioned as a place where many similar stories could go viral. In a state with extremely strict media regulations and laws against freedom of assembly, online space was used as a revelatory tool, helping fuel the emotions that powered widespread dissent, which Ahmed and fellow organizers were able to channel using their mass mobilization strategy.
The Stumbling Blocks
Ahmed spoke of being the victim of violence at the hands of the regime. In this case the regime’s use of violence was a somewhat predictable act of desperation. Regimes that have lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the people will attempt to use as much violence as they can get away with. The Mubarak regime was well equipped to handle a violent insurrection, so therefore its goal appeared to be to turn the conflict from a nonviolent one into a violent one and suppress the nonviolent resistance by instilling fear in people.
As Ahmed stated in the interview, rubber bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition were used against the protestors. After the protest reached critical mass, more people started to participate based on the logic of safety in numbers, and the regime attempted counter that logic by using snipers.
Agent provocateurs commonly referred to as ‘thugs” were used to provoke violence by attacking both the protestors and the police. This was an attempt by the regime to escalate the levels of violence on both sides while at the same time labeling the protestors violent terrorists, looters, and Islamist extremists. And in this way the mainstream media’s ignorance of the region, the culture, the language, and nonviolent movements was exploited by the regime.
The Outcome
After 18 days of resistance, President Mubarak resigned, handing his power to the Army. Ahmed, like many who took part in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations, will tell you that the revolution is ongoing, and there is still much more to be done. “We managed to stage a victory in an important battle but we still have several other battles to win this war, to reach complete liberation.” Ahmed says that he and some of his compatriots are taking the next step, working to build a new system of government based on popular representation where “each one of these groups would be open for registration to everyone who participated in the revolution, and would have elections, and then more elections when the numbers doubled (and so on) so that you are always able to have democracy from the bases that can choose someone who can represent the people.”
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