Militarizing the Nation: The Army, Business, and Revolution in Egypt by Zeinab Abul-Magd & Zeinab Abul-Magd & Zeinab Abul-Magd

Author:Zeinab Abul-Magd & Zeinab Abul-Magd & Zeinab Abul-Magd [Abul-Magd, Zeinab]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: HIS009000, abul17062, HIS027000, HISTORY / Middle East / Egypt, HISTORY / Military / General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2017-03-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Angry Workers, Islamic Grocers, and Revolutionary Generals (2011–2014)

The social order is a war, and rebellion is the last episode that will put an end to it. . . . War [is] a permanent feature of social relations. . . . War is both the web and the secret of institutions and systems of power.

—Foucault, Society Must Be Defended

As soon as the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces assumed power in February 2011, all hell broke loose. A widespread wave of labor protests erupted throughout the country upon overthrowing Mubarak and terminating his neoliberal regime. The ruling officers strongly condemned the strikes and sit-ins and described them as selfish acts seeking merely “sectorial” benefits, or matalib fi’awiyya, rather than national demands for the entire struggling society. They accused the protesters of “stalling the wheel of production” at a time when the country was in dire need of building its postrevolutionary economy. In fact, the largest of these labor demonstrations emerged from government authorities controlled by retired generals or economic enterprises owned by the military. Moreover, many protesters in these places created pages on social media calling for the demilitarization of their workspaces. Such pages became platforms for steering a public controversy about claimed corruption of military administrators and vociferously pressing demands to recivilianize public offices. In firm reaction, military police intervened to disperse workers’ sit-ins, and SCAF issued a law that prohibited labor strikes and sent violators to civilian and military trials. In solidarity, revolutionary youth launched a campaign for demilitarizing all state civilian positions, calling it NoMilCivilPositions or li-‘Askarat al-Waza’if al-Madaniyya. The campaign diligently compiled lists and drew electronic maps locating ex-officers in such posts in Cairo and every province across the country.1

Between 2011 and 2013 the Egyptian generals turned revolutionary. They supported mass uprisings against two regimes, those of Hosni Mubarak and the Muslim Brothers, and deposed both of them. On January 25, 2011, protests erupted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand that Mubarak step down. Army tanks surrounding the square claimed to back the eighteen-day sit-in until the autocrat was eventually ousted. Immediately afterward SCAF offered its help to run the country for a short transitional period of six months. Grateful for such favors, the Egyptian masses chanted “the army and the people are one hand,” while state-owned media played the 1960s national songs of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s other revolutionary era. The army revived its historical image as the guardian of the nation and the savior of the country in times of distress. SCAF stayed in power for a full year and a half, until it delivered the authority to an elected president from the Muslim Brothers in June 2012. Exactly one year later, as this president drastically failed in running the country’s crumpling economy and public discontent escalated again, the military decided to overthrow him. Cheerfully expressing their appreciation, the celebrating masses filled Tahrir Square in the lead-up to the ouster of the brotherhood, and they carried posters of Nasser and General Abd Fattah al-Sisi, the new minister of defense.

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