Once Upon a Revolution Page 9

  The coalition had other public relations weapons, such as Sally Moore, with her flowing dark hair and tightly groomed, arched eyebrows. She did a lot of television. In English, she cut a perfect figure of modernized, globalized safe revolution. In Arabic, she reassured liberal Egyptians that Tahrir Square welcomed unveiled women, Christians, and the sort of Cairenes who like to drink a Sakara beer at the Dokki Jazz Club. The men and women from the April 6 and Justice and Freedom Movements had credibility among workers and leftists. And the Muslim Brotherhood Youth, with their scruffy facial hair, potbellies, and rhythmic speaking cadence, resonated with Islamist youth. These activists believed they knew what Egypt needed, even if most of the people in the square didn’t. Tahrir’s foot soldiers spoke vaguely of freedom, Islamic values, and the utopia of Egypt without Mubarak.

  The coalition leaders wanted an entirely new kind of society, and they were down in the weeds with specifics from the very beginning. “The January 25 Revolution has cancelled the old social contract between the people and the regime,” the Youth Coalition wrote in its first manifesto. The Revolutionary Youth Coalition had a plan to remake Egypt. The 1971 constitution was to be suspended. New laws would guarantee freedom to organize political parties and independent labor unions. The state of emergency would be cancelled. No more military trials for civilians. In the future, there would be separation of powers, a weaker president, and a stronger parliament. Independent technocrats would govern Egypt until a new constitution could be carefully drafted. Once a credible new body had been created to oversee fair elections, the people would choose new representatives. The secret police would be disbanded and the old ruling party banned. This was a specific and comprehensive political blueprint, and the Revolutionary Youth Coalition trotted it out at every conceivable opportunity.

  To some, it made them seem like nerds at a time when chanting “Mubarak is a fag!” could spark enthusiasm in the square. To others, it made the coalition leaders seem like little Mubaraks. “No one speaks for me!” several activists said. But the Revolutionary Youth Coalition was one of the uprising’s best hopes. The size and bravery of the crowds elevated the people into a credible threat against the established power. Yet politics, and politics alone, could channel the gushing stream of anger into a force concentrated enough to erode old formations and sculpt new ones.

  One of the main news sources for Tahrir and its supporters was a Facebook page called RSD, an Arabic acronym for Monitoring News Network, with a logo suspiciously reminiscent of the BBC’s. An old acquaintance of mine, Abdelrahman Ayyash, was editing the surprisingly thorough news coverage there. RSD precisely reflected the revolution: powered by a geyser of raw energy, it harnessed the spirited work of unpolished but talented budding journalists. Its core staff came from the Muslim Brotherhood, although at first the site claimed it was independent. RSD covered the politics and the social life of the square, which were being ignored by the entire state-run Egyptian media; a half million people were following the RSD page within a week. Ayyash and the other editors worked from wherever they could sit, on laptops with cellular connections to the internet. The site’s work was uneven; untrained webmasters frequently posted and then retracted unconfirmed rumors of attacks or political developments. The operation was quintessential Tahrir: Build what you need from scratch and perfect it later.

  Ayyash, too, was an exemplar of the revolution. He didn’t aspire to political leadership like the men and women who had founded the Revolutionary Youth Coalition; he was a back-end operative. He came from a Brotherhood family, and at fifteen he had been hired by the organization’s strongman and chief financier, Khairat el-Shater, to put together the group’s English-language website. Ayyash was now twenty and studying engineering, but his real calling was building websites, generating ideas, and building networks of people. He would have been a natural among the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. In revolutionary Egypt, he was a kind of Zelig, seemingly involved in every major event and able to blend in everywhere. He had crossed into Gaza with Moaz in 2009. He had collaborated with Basem in 2010 to collect signatures for ElBaradei’s petition. He appeared to know every activist and politician, and every player on the Islamist scene.

  When I first met Ayyash years earlier, he was working for the Brotherhood under an alias, blogging against the regime, and in his spare time compiling humorous articles for a website about Islamophobia. He had a sharp gaze and furrowed his forehead when he concentrated. He had fantastic powers to recall names, faces, and dates. He also had a prodigious appetite; at Hardee’s, he liked to garnish his burger with a hot dog. He had first been arrested in 2007 for his critical writings on the internet, and he had periodically seen his interrogator since then. Once, the police threatened to arrest Ayyash’s father to make Ayyash stop blogging. Ayyash was detained the first week of the revolution, but this time his familiar police contact released him quickly, begging Ayyash to return to his young friends and calm them down. An assistant to the prime minister had phoned Ayyash in search of any young activist willing to meet with the government. Ayyash refused but invited the aide for a tour of Tahrir Square so that he could tell the prime minister just how formidable the state’s revolutionary enemies were.

  Now, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the field hospital while Moaz slept a few feet away on the dispensary floor, Ayyash was feverishly editing stories, video clips, and newsfeeds. Much of it was critical of the Brotherhood, his own group. He was aghast that the Brotherhood officials had met with the regime while revolutionaries were still holding the square and refusing to negotiate. He suspected that the Brotherhood might sell out the revolution to carve its own path to power. He believed that the Brotherhood was brittle, incapable of tolerating pluralism within its own narrow and homogenous ranks. “How will they ever be able to accept pluralism in the rest of the world?” Ayyash asked rhetorically. For him, the revolution was opening the door to question not just the regime and the government, but also the organization that had provided the framework of his days and thoughts since adolescence. He would no longer limit the targets of his critical thinking.

  Egyptians now occupied squares all over the country; in Suez, they had taken over the entire city and installed a “people’s governor.” In Cairo, the crowds burst out of Tahrir and took over the street in front of parliament a few blocks away. Others surged north of Tahrir to the state media headquarters at Maspero. “Our mere presence here is threatening,” said the labor activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah. He was encouraging demonstrators to escalate strategically every few days. But he was also spreading the word that even when Mubarak was gone, Egypt’s problems would persist. State oppression, a fact of Egyptian life for centuries, wouldn’t disappear along with one sagging, elderly president. There was an intricate system behind Mubarak. General Tarek, the policeman I had met at the club, might have been arrogant, but he was wise to the resilience of the rule of the gun. Mubarak might go, but his regime would not surrender quietly.

  On Thursday, February 10, 2011, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, issued “Communiqué Number One,” which endorsed the “legitimate” demands of the protesters. Supposedly, the military wouldn’t be running the country, but there was a uniformed general explaining how the country would be run, with nary a word about Mubarak. The transitional order taking shape was going to wear khakis. No one had heeded the highfalutin proposals from the Revolutionary Youth Coalition for a temporary presidential council that would include four civilian dissidents and Islamists, and one token general. At that moment, no one realized that a quiet coup had transpired; it no longer mattered what Mubarak was going to do. The military had stepped out from the curtain behind which it had been running most of Egypt’s affairs since 1952. Uniformed men had openly taken control of the political realm.

  Mubarak appeared on television for a final address. The people in Tahrir expected a resignation, but the president spoke from a place of deep denial, as if he would rule for some time to come. The fat
her of the nation did not understand that his children had cast him off. People in Tahrir brandished shoes at the television screen.

  “He wants blood!” someone screamed.

  “Khawwal!” chanted others. “Faggot!”

  “He thinks he can win people over with his emotions, but it’s over,” Basem said.

  Moaz was already worried about the military’s machinations. He was looking ahead to the next step, after Mubarak’s coming departure. “We’ve had enough of military rule, but people still trust them,” Moaz said. “They know only orders. We should have guarantees the military won’t turn into another Mubarak.”

  The speech turned out to be the end for Mubarak. The next day, another Friday, more people came to Tahrir than ever before. The press of bodies was so dense that it was nearly impossible to move. The air was crisp and cool. Demonstrators exuded confidence. Some had been there for eighteen days; others had come for the first time. But they were sure that, sooner or later, Mubarak would be gone. I ran into Ayman Abouzaid, the young cardiologist. He had traded his dirty doctor’s coat for a preppy white canvas jacket. He was stepping lightly in his blue suede shoes. He trusted nobody, not the “little Mubaraks” on the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, or any of the elderly politicians suddenly proposing reforms on television. “If Hosni Mubarak disappears,” Ayman said, “the problem will remain: the deformation of a society.”

  The young revolutionaries by the green tent were smiling but nervous. They anticipated countless burdens. Zyad smoked continuously, rendering the air inside the tent unbreathable. It wasn’t that cold, but Sally wore the fur-lined hood of her trench coat erect over her head. It flew like a banner of concern. Moaz had hardly slept, shuttling between the hospital, the green tent, and Brotherhood offices outside Tahrir. Ayyash worked out of a car in the morning and out of various apartments in the afternoon; one of his tasks was to prepare work-arounds in case authorities cut the internet again. Basem kept his orange scarf knotted tightly around his throat and spent much of the day editing statements and political strategy memos.

  Without warning, Egypt’s spy chief, Omar Suleiman, appeared on television. In his low, guttural voice, he announced Mubarak’s resignation. The president was gone; the SCAF was in charge. A rumbling rose from all of Cairo. Inside the square, it was deafening, enveloping all senses. People seemed struck dumb, shouting whatever came to mind.

  “Enough!”

  “Good-bye and Godspeed!”

  “Fuck his mother!”

  Some of the soldiers in the cordon around Tahrir were grinning. Celebrants hugged them, and a few of the soldiers hugged back. Three men wept and thanked God, using newspapers as prayer mats. “This is the beginning of freedom,” a young man said. “Message to the world from Egypt: We can change the world. We hate Israel.”

  His friends murmured in assent, “God is great.”

  Fireworks were popping. Thousands were singing “Biladi,” the national anthem. The rumor spread that the Israeli Embassy had shut down, prompting more cheers. This was the revolution rolled into one ball in all its contradictions, with its hatred for injustice, powerlessness, Mubarak, and Israel; and its love of God, dignity, country, and Great Egypt’s army. Millions still thronged the square at midnight. Party boats skittered across the Nile, decked in neon and blasting music. Despite the chill, boys had stripped to their underwear and were swimming beneath the Qasr el-Nil bridge.

  For the youth leaders, the moment provided a transitory respite from the already stomach-turning anxiety about what would come next. Standing beside the tent, Zyad lifted me off the ground in a bear hug. “Tomorrow belongs to us!” he said. Sally’s hood was off. “We won!” she exclaimed, beaming. She embraced Moaz and other Islamists, whom she had considered political enemies a few years earlier. “I’ve been hugging people who normally wouldn’t even touch a woman,” she said.

  Moaz was smiling so widely it made my face hurt; I realized that I too was grinning like a fool. “It’s our country now,” he said, squeezing me tightly. “People all over the world now are going to respect us because we are Egyptian. I think these days will not be repeated in history.”

  Ayyash cried as the news set in, and said the prayer of thanks usually given once a year at the Eid al-Adha. Then he bounced through the crowd like a teenager in a mosh pit. “I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I am free.”

  Mubarak was gone. The military junta was issuing a flurry of decrees. The Revolutionary Youth Coalition was already planning a return protest, but the people in the square seemed ready to celebrate and move on, as if Mubarak’s leaving had been the sum goal of the entire uprising. All the lofty words about dignity and fear had been forgotten in the whirl over Egypt’s change of CEO. For the first time since the uprising, a soldier I had seen several times before blocked me from entering Tahrir. “Today is for Egyptians, not foreigners,” he said. “Go out.” The January 25 Revolution had most decidedly not vanquished xenophobia. I walked around and entered from a back street.

  The coalition wanted to keep momentum on the revolution’s side. It would be harder now that the battles would unfold on the less dramatic stage of governance, constitution writing, and elections—areas where their willingness to die would provide less of an advantage than it had in the street fights. But the revolutionaries hoped to summon a million or more people to the square every Friday until the nation’s laws reflected the precepts of the Republic of Tahrir. Sally was drafting a strategy for a meeting between the revolutionary youth and Egypt’s new rulers, the still-anonymous generals on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Moaz was plotting a frontal challenge to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of politics. Basem was fantasizing about a new political party.

  Heedless of these political machinations, cheerful men and women lined the square from north to south, armed with brooms, dustpans, and plastic bags. Crews of volunteers mopped the street with squeegees. Others tried to fit paving stones back into place where the sidewalks had been torn asunder during the Battle of the Camel, as if the consequences of the eighteen days could be so swiftly assimilated. The youth of Tahrir were saying with this gesture, “We’re all good kids, we didn’t come to make a mess, and we’re going to leave the place neater than we found it.” Their extreme politeness, deference, and timidity were out of sync with their revolutionary aspirations. The youth weren’t responsible for the trashing of the square; that was the fault of the police and the thugs who attacked them. It would have been more fitting for the aggressors to be forced back to sweep the square in atonement. The revolutionary cleanup suggested a naïve and premature thirst for closure. It would prove far easier to sweep away the debris in the square, and even Mubarak himself, than to topple just one pillar of the regime’s edifice of control.

  5.

  SEEDS OF DISCONTENT

  Mubarak had fled to his villa on the Red Sea, but no one had touched the guts of the regime: its secret police. Every time the Revolutionary Youth Coalition gathered in public, the same old informants and agents appeared, filming and taking notes. At one meeting, several leaders of the group had their phones stolen. One of the coalition members found a bullet hole in his car mirror. Moaz saw his old minder from State Security tailing him. These were unreconstructed regime techniques; surveillance and intimidation rolled into one. The Revolutionary Youth Coalition had made police reform a top priority. “The revolution is not complete,” Moaz said. “The police must be judged.”

  Even though the police force still retained its former power and capacity for violence, the revolutionary leaders spoke fearlessly about their plan to gut and rebuild it. All at once, restrictions had been lifted on Egyptian media, so every night the talk shows hosted a raucous, open public debate. Revolutionaries and dissidents who had been banned from television studios were invited on night after night to describe their plans and enumerate the sins of the old regime. Moaz appeared one night in February on a popular program called Coffee, where he
outlined the revolutionary agenda for police reform. The revolutionaries wanted a civilian placed in charge of the Ministry of the Interior, something that had never happened in Egyptian history. A police general had always controlled the ministry, just as a military general had always held the post of defense minister. In order to restore trust and reform the police, this independent civilian would suspend and investigate every police official suspected of crimes, from the minister down to the lowliest patrolmen. Those who broke the law or tortured or killed Egyptians would be convicted and imprisoned. A “truth commission” would handle the stories of the rest, who might have dabbled in minor corruption but couldn’t be held responsible for the odious regime that had employed them. Other countries had reversed a culture of torture and impunity in their police forces. It wasn’t impossible, but to do it required something that Egypt did not yet have: a zealous, powerful government premised on the rule of law, not fear.

  Mistrust of the police burned deep in Moaz’s heart. As a Muslim Brother, he had suffered from the security state’s caprice his entire life, unlike many of the secular revolutionaries, who had grasped only recently the negative side of the state’s authority. The police apparatus could strangle everything, Moaz believed, but he also knew that many Egyptians—perhaps most Egyptians—didn’t share his inborn skepticism. The Egyptian everyman didn’t object in principle to an all-powerful secret police force. They just wanted it to work better. Moaz sensed he was fighting against public opinion at a great disadvantage. On his way home from the studio, a large vehicle suddenly shot out of a dark alley, rammed Moaz’s car, and then sped off. It couldn’t have been an accident. He took it as a message from State Security.