Egypt
“Al-Sisi is the worse Mubarak”
As Mubarak on 11. February 2011 stepped down, cheered Egypt’s activists. Today, many are dead or in prison. What of the Revolution remained, said political scientist Cilja Harders in the Interview.
The victims of the Revolution: Since the uprising of 2011 have been hundreds regimekritische Egyptians killed
DW: tens of thousands of dissidents and opposition sit today in Egyptian prisons. Many activists are dead. There is the Egyptian civil society during the riots five years ago, was formed, at all?
Cilja Harders: There are a lot of people who through this revolutionary experience have fundamentally changed. This has quite a lot of activism initiated at the local level, the is still. Since we have a very exposed political actors from the Opposition, the Islamists, and many smaller initiatives, which is a little entpolitisiert. In particular the young people the freedom that they fought for and won, not without Another take.
Who were these people, at the time on Tahrir square against Mubarak demonstrated?
In January and February 2011, was a broad and rather heterogeneous lot of people on the Tahrir square. The protests by youth groups organized, but also of trade unions, football fans, at some point the Muslim brotherhood and ordinary people that have seen you with your Worries and troubles are not alone and under the Motto “freedom, bread, Dignity, social justice” gathered.
Thus were these people at that time, for her political commitment to motivate?
At the protests, it was – and is still – in Essence, the space of the Political to regain as a place of peaceful negotiation, of social ways of life. So out of this political paralysis and corruption to break free, to live your own life to make themselves and the Ruling to criticize.
Cilja Harders teaches at the FU Berlin
And what is today, five years after the Revolution, these Ideals still left?
The Arab protests have on the level of a changed political consciousness brought much. In terms of civil liberties and Puralisierung we have it but with the opposite to do. Egypt is a comparatively arbitrary ruling military dictator at the head of a government, the repression always aggravated. This leads to uncertainty and fear. The price the Egyptians for this understandable desire for some stability numbers, is extremely high. Therefore, I do not think that the violence by the Regime, the wishes and aspirations of the people at that time on the road have driven that can wipe out.
Human rights organisations speak in the face of Massentodesurteilen, Polizeifolter and tens of thousands of political prisoners by a new quality of the Repression. Is Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the worse Mubarak?
Yes, because under the System of Mubarak, the written as the unwritten rules, at least, were known. I think that the population, but also the political activists are very good at assessing what the price of this was, when the authority challenged. At the Moment the repression is very flat and difficult to calculate. This is a part of any dictatorial rule.
In November, Ahmed Said arrested, as a doctor, the demonstrators on Tahrir square in 2011 treated. He sits in a maximum-security wing and should there be tortured. Why the new Egyptian government of the people, such as Said threatened?
There are no rational reasons for this kind of arbitrary and brutal persecution. In part the arrests are an expression of this, that al-Sisi on the security apparatus of extremely large scope. This way he can take revenge, which he already 2011 has sworn. In addition, the judiciary of their judicial role in the service of a ruling Elite put on the so-called war against Terror, sworn. Since then, every critic is a Terrorist.
An activist sits in Berlin for the liberation of the dissident doctor Ahmed Said a
Egypt suffers from a persistent economic crisis, the corruption and mismanagement is still being promoted. Youth unemployment stands at nearly 40 percent. How to discharge the displeasure of the Egyptian youth of today?
After the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Mursi in 2013 was a very heterogeneous movement massively suppressed. This always carries the danger that the young followers say: you are fighting is not enough, that is why we go to Libya to Al-Qaeda or “Islamic state”. But there are also a lot of apathy and hopelessness that not even a strong man from the military to the head of state can make a difference.
If the economic situation continues to deteriorate and the political realities do not change, there will be another Revolution in Egypt?
Revolutions are never predictable. What to predict: on the one Hand, the violence of the state, its citizens continue to exist. On the other hand, there are but civil society niches, which will immediately bloom again and flourish, once the Regime is to give you some more air. This can to a new more powerful Democratization movement or insurgency. But this also means that the people is still a whole while the repression by the Regime to tolerate, because they feel that any other development would be even worse.
Cilja Harders is a Professor at the Free University of Berlin and specialized in the politics of the middle East. She has, amongst other things, transformation and Demokratierungsprozessen in the Region.