By Rania Al Malky
It’s been nine months to the day since a group of virtual activists made the final tweaks to a planned January 25 protest, a date that will be forever be etched in the memory of this nation.
We all know what happened next. Or do we?
As news emerges of the sudden return of another dictator not so far from here in Yemen, as a bloodbath continues in Syria and the megalomaniac in Libya wreaks havoc in the final throes of an ignominious defeat, one question lends itself: What have we Egyptians achieved since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in February?
Here are the facts: The ex-president, his sons, his interior minister and their henchmen are on trial for ordering and/or inciting the killing of peaceful protesters; icons of the previous regime, including the all-powerful steel magnate Ahmed Ezz, are behind bars, some slapped with prison sentences and exorbitant fines while others are still locked up pending investigations.
No matter how cynical we are about the indications regarding the final outcome of these trials, we must admit that had it not been for the colossal events of the 18-day uprising, such a scenario would have continued being a figment of our wildest dreams.
But beyond the trials, has anything in Egypt really changed?
No.
The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) continues the legacy of a 60-year military dictatorship wielding absolute power while claiming to represent the legitimate choice of the people based on the results of a botched referendum last March.
Despite promises to hand over authority to a civilian government after six months and to cancel the state of emergency, the SCAF has leaked a bizarre schedule for the legislative elections that would have us in a constant state of election fever from November till March 2012; as well as broadened the scope of emergency law, giving itself a pseudo-legal cover to continue trampling human rights until June 2012.
In the meantime, SCAF has issued election and parliament laws that were rejected by political parties of all stripes since they lend themselves to abuse by members of the disbanded National Democratic Party and hence open the doors to the recreation of former structures and pockets of power. Despite promises to review these laws, nothing has been done yet.
And while officials incessantly pay lip service to the issue of restoring law and order, the security vacuum today has only slightly improved since the police retreated on January 28. Why has the interior ministry done nothing other than accuse protesters exercising their legitimate right to express themselves of fueling chaos?
Horrifying crime rates including an estimated 10,000 car thefts, kidnappings, muggings and acts of thuggery, have turned many people against the revolution.
Just two days ago an encounter with a taxi driver left me pale-faced and terrified. Veins swelling from his neck, the angry man gushed vitriol against what he called “this failure of a revolution” postulating an elaborate theory about how the Egyptian people deserved what they got from the police and how he would rather go back to a time when a handful of people controlled all the wealth, than deal with the hundreds of thugs who now think they own the streets.
There was no point reasoning with him after he said that he didn’t mind being the victim of police brutality as long as the thugs were driven back into their holes.
It’s also no coincidence after months of incitement against youth groups who led the uprising that many people have turned against them, convinced that they were serving a foreign agenda having received “revolution training” abroad.
While the political scene remains polarized and the SCAF continues to employ its carrot and stick methods to divide and conquer and to buy time, the evolving social disintegration poses the biggest threat.
Strikes have erupted in unison over the past two weeks threatening the vital health, education and transport sectors with potential paralysis. While reason would challenge the validity of such strikes at this specific historical moment, reason also dictates that these strikes did not erupt without just cause.
If Egyptians had seen real change and purges government institutions; if they had seen the interim Cabinet taking sure steps towards dismantling and restructuring the old, collapsing structures with a clear vision of how to rebuild them on the basis of professional merit and financial parity, they would have been willing to withstand the material decrepitude.
But the situation now is far from any claims of incremental, let alone, fundamental change.
A transitional period is only transitional because it sets the stage for a new democratic scene governed by strong state institutions overseen by a free and independent media, not one subjected to intimidations and outright gags all in the name of national security.
In many ways, Egypt on September 24, 2011 is not much different from the Egypt of January 24, 2011, except that today we have a little more hope.
But the struggle to achieve the goals of this uprising must never cease. The only thing worse that no revolution, is an amputated revolution.
Rania Al Malky is the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.
