My name is William Bruce. I'm a fellow of the Middle East Centre, and it is my immense pleasure to introduce tonight's student who is Russia, Latif.
She is a researcher and a writer based in the San Francisco Bay area, and she's a first generation Egyptian-American.
And she travelled to Cairo in 2011 to conduct research and graphic research on the uprising.
Uprising, which is known as the January 25th Revolution.
Her interests include social movements and revolutions, the study of gender, class, race and ethnicity, Islamic studies, and Middle Eastern studies.
She she's the author of a book that came out of her research titled Tahrir Youth Leaders of the Leaderless Revolution.
We have them here. I'll take a couple of copies. Yeah, unfortunately.
I'll give you guys a QR code at the end. Uh, okay. Yeah. So there'll be a QR code at the end, which you can use to get a discount on buying the book.
Um. Her book is an activist ethnography that explores the themes of leadership and organisation in the Egyptian revolution.
Today, she's going to discuss the links between Egypt's Revolutionary Youth Coalition,
which was the most prominent movement during the revolution, and activism with the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
I was also in Egypt during oh, 2011 and 2012.
For me, the revolution seems both near and far, like it happened yesterday, but also at the same time, it feels like a distant memory.
Uh, and so I'm looking forward very much to Russia. This talk, which I'm sure will once again make the January 25th revolution vivid for us.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Long term. Thank you all for coming.
Um, I'm really, uh, honoured and grateful for this opportunity to be here with you today.
Um, not just to share my research on the Egyptian revolution, um,
but to also think out loud with you about its relevance to, uh, to this current moment of rupture.
We're in, uh, with the Gaza and the global movement building up in solidarity with Palestinians and their struggle for liberation.
Um, and I think it's important that we think about these two causes together.
Uh, because they're inextricably, um, interlinked with deeply intertwined histories and bound up futures, making them basically, uh, one in the same.
And, of course, uh, what ties them together are the common forces they're up against.
Um, so on the one hand is the settler colonial, uh, state of Israel, the US's imperial outposts in the region.
Um, dispossessing and massacring Palestinians. Um, and, on the other hand, are the sort of authoritarian regimes, um, complicit in this oppression.
Uh, chief among them, um, Washington's clients and Cairo.
Um, so since the Camp David peace Accords in 1979, uh, Egypt has been an indispensable ally in maintaining U.S. interests in the region.
Um, it has worked closely, uh, with Israel to protect its, um, security, uh,
by repressing Palestinians alongside them and upholding the blockade on the houses from the Rafah border.
Um, and at the same time, Egypt, the Egyptian state, represses its own people, um, much of whom are in solidarity with,
uh, their neighbours and object to their government's complicity, um, in this grave injustice against them.
Um, and Egyptians know very well, um, that this solidarity is one of the reasons, uh, why the US propped up the autocrats that tyrannised them.
Um, obstructing them from achieving genuine democratisation, um, in their country.
So it's both the anti-Zionism of Egyptians, um, and their desire to upend this imperial order,
uh, that keeps Egypt subservient to us, uh, to the interests of the US, um, and the West.
That really makes them this huge threat. Um, so, as we know, a government responsive to Egyptian public opinion, uh,
would basically spell the end of the Zionist project, U.S. hegemony and, um, the Arab powers that, uh, profit from them.
Um, and so this is why a Palestinian intellectuals such as George Habash saw that region while wide revolts were necessary for their liberation.
Um, his famous slogan, the road to Jerusalem passes through um, man, Damascus and Cairo speaks to this,
uh, and it's a, uh, a belief that Egyptians have actually long shared.
Um, and in fact, we saw echoes of this slogan, um, during the 2011, uh,
revolution with signs that read, uh, Jerusalem's liberation begins with Cairo's um,
and we actually saw actions from the revolutionaries that, um, demonstrated their solidarity and belief in this idea.
So in 2011, for instance, uh, Egyptian protesters stormed the Israeli embassy, uh, in Cairo twice and expelled the ambassador.
And in November of 2012, during another Israeli operation in the US, uh, a convoy of Egyptian activists, uh, broke the siege.
Rafah border. Um, and this convoy was over 550 people strong, making it the largest, uh, civilian group to enter the strip since 1967.
And in fact, one of the most moving, um, Egyptian expression expressions of, uh, solidarity, uh, ever.
Um, and in this joint press conference they had with Palestinian um, activists at that hospital, uh, during this, um, kind of convoy mission.
Uh, Egyptian organisers emphasised that the Egyptian revolution would not succeed unless Palestine was free.
Okay, so now with that preface, um, and these kind of interconnections, uh,
between these struggles in mind, uh, I want to shift gears to focus on the question of praxis, um,
by taking a closer look at, like, what actually happened when Egyptian activists tried to, uh,
their kind of their hand at liberating Cairo and by extension, Jerusalem, uh, through revolution in 2011.
Um, and what we can learn from that experience, uh, for the struggle ahead.
Um, and my remaining discussion will be based on my book that is used,
which tells the story of the young people who instigated the Egyptian revolution.
Um, and through their story explores the themes of leadership and organisation, uh,
in the movement and so beyond, just trying to shed light on the experience of Egypt's revolutionaries.
Uh, my goal with this book is to ask some bigger questions about the future of revolutionary organising,
um, in the 21st century, as well as the challenges facing mass movements today.
Um, I think with this escalating crisis in the region, um, and the new opportunities, it's opening up for activists there and beyond.
Uh, these questions to me feel especially urgent.
Um, and so the questions that drive this study, uh, revolve around tropes that, um, surfaced during the early days of the revolt.
Um, as many of you will recall, when those kind of I mean, some of you might be young, but those of us who are older,
when those kind of inspiring images of the, you know, Egyptian masses, um,
you know, revolt were kind of erupting onto our social media feeds back in 2011.
Uh, there were all kinds of, um, new phenomena that we were being told we were witnessing.
So the media narrative at the time was that this was a spontaneous, leaderless uprising that was powered by social media.
Um, for the first time, we heard terms like Facebook revolution. Um, and at the same time, a lot was being said about it being youth led.
And so these scenes and sort of descriptions really, um, inspired and fascinated, fascinated me,
not just as Egyptian, um, all the way in California, but also as a student of social movements.
Uh, I was especially intrigued by this tension between these descriptions.
Like I wondered, how could it be leaderless and youth led, you know, which one was it?
Could it be both? Um, and so I decided to travel to Cairo to see what I might learn.
Um, and sure enough, what I discovered was that, uh, this kind of spontaneous, leaderless, um, tropes were inaccurate, right?
They really failed to understand, uh, the movement on its own terms.
Um, and so I realised that a more useful and maybe theoretically generative approach was to take for granted that there were leaders in the movement,
as in any movement, because there's really no such thing as a truly leaderless movement.
Um, and instead try to understand, uh, their agency in this moment.
Um, and so the questions I'm going to focus on for today's presentation are.
What were the key conditions that enabled the use agency as revolutionary leaders?
And then what were the constraints on that agency that prevented them from achieving a winning outcome for their movement?
Um, and so these questions in my mind, I think, uh, help us recover really critical learnings from the, the, um,
protagonists behind this movement, um, including lessons that we would miss if we just kind of accepted this leaderless narrative.
Um, asking any questions. Um, so I'm going to give you some brief context for my, um, study.
Um, I'm just going to remind you of the key players and, um, you know,
this kind of brief timeline of what we call the revolutionary period, uh, which spanned about four years total.
And this includes four sub periods. Um, the first is, of course, the 18 day mass uprising that began on January 25th, 2011.
Um, and this was, uh, the event that kind of led to the ouster of Mubarak,
who had been in power for 30 years and had consolidated Egypt into an authoritarian, neoliberal police state.
Um, the epicentre of the uprising was, of course, the famous Tahrir Square and the grievances that drove Egyptians to the streets.
Um, were both social, economic and political in nature.
They included crushing poverty, political repression, police brutality, rampant corruption, and,
of course, discontent with the country's foreign policy, especially its U.S. Israeli relations.
Um, the second is the 18 month democratic transition period that was overseen by the military body known as GAF,
uh, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. Um, they took over power after removing Mubarak.
This now marks the beginning of, uh, when the Muslim Brotherhood also, um, which was Egypt's largest, most organised, um and oldest opposition group,
they now break away from the multi ideological, um,
revolutionary coalition that ousted Mubarak and begin to look out for their own interests and play the political game accordingly.
Uh, the third period of Morsi's one year presidency, following Egypt's first free democratic, uh, election in June 2012.
Um, he's, of course, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Um, and then the fourth period begins, uh, with the June 30th, um, uprising against Morsi,
which was followed by the July 3rd coup that removed him from power.
Um, and then we saw the horrific events of the year of, uh, and, um,
now the square massacres, uh, of his supporters who were calling for his reinstatement.
Um, and so this now marks this rise, the beginning of his rise to power, um,
which signalled the defeat of the revolution at the hands of the counter-revolution.
Um, and it also marked the beginning of what is arguably, um, Egypt's most, uh,
repressive, uh, you know, the most repressive period in Egypt's modern history.
Uh, which we're still unfortunately living through today.
Um, and so this is just to give you a sense of, like, how my field work, um, and interviews with activists mapped out onto this timeline.
Um, so the group that I ended up focusing on, um, is the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, um, also known as ROIC or extraction in Arabic.
Um, and let me just clarify that this was only one of many different groups that were active in the revolution.
Um, but they stood out as an important group to focus on for a few reasons.
Uh, first, the ROIC was made up of the six major, uh, youth movements that were most active on the ground, um,
leading up to January 25th, um, all of whom were united, uh, in their opposition to the regime and sort of the oppressive status quo.
They, uh, reflected the heterogeneity of, uh, Egypt's revolutionaries.
So they included men and women, um, working in upper class youth, uh,
Muslims and Coptic Christians, uh, liberals, leftists and um importantly, Islamists.
Um, mainly used from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Um, and they played a key role in planning, uh, the mass actions on January 25th, including a really critical protest march,
um, without which we might not have actually had a revolution to speak of today, um, or even an Arab Spring.
And I know that's a bold claim, but I will defend it shortly.
Um, and then after January 25th, they took a lead role in sort of organising the sit in, um, in Tahrir Square.
They continue to play an important leadership and organising role in the, uh, revolutionary scene after Mubarak's ouster.
Um, the RBC was also the first unified front, uh, born of this nationwide revolt.
Um, and they were, in fact, the closest thing the revolution, um, ever had to a vanguard organisation.
Um, which makes them the best candidates in my mind for, uh, helping us understand, um,
leadership processes in the movement and activist, uh, agency in the revolution in general.
Um, so now I want to take a closer look at the activist agency, um, during this period by looking at it through three different themes.
Uh, the first has to do, uh, with this question of spontaneity and leader lessness.
Um, the second has to do with the challenges the activists, uh, faced as they tried to establish revolutionary leadership.
You know, like how that unfolded in the 18 day uprising and then the remaining revolutionary period.
The third has to do with how, uh, horizontal ism played out, uh, during the movement.
So how it was an advantage, um, early on, then a liability and even a catastrophe by the end.
Um, and so these latter two things are going to go hand in hand, and I'll discuss them, uh, together.
So I'm going to begin by telling you the story of January 25th, 2011,
this watershed day in Egyptian history, from, I think, an angle that will be new to a lot of you.
Um, imagine it's the end of the day on January 25th.
There are thousands and thousands of Egyptians protesting in Tahrir Square calling for the regime's downfall,
um, and an unprecedented uprising that shocked pundits and the protesters themselves alike.
What made this event such a game changer wasn't just the exceptionally large number of protesters who came out,
but it was the type of people who came out. So we saw old people, young people, wealthy people, and notably very poor people.
Um, and the fact that they managed to circumvent the police that were deployed against them and descend upon this strategically located,
uh, sprawling open square in the centre of Cairo.
And this latter point really can't be emphasised enough because, remember,
Egypt was a police state with a terrifying riot police force that was specifically
designed to prevent the large amassing of people and quash protests.
Um, and the authorities themselves had anticipated these protests, um, widely, um, and, uh, because they were widely announced.
Right. Um, and they warned that they were going to be heavy handed in their response.
So the question then is, you know, what made all of these people come out despite this threat?
And then how were they able to, uh, overcome the security forces to get to, to higher.
So it turns out there's this incredible back story here that Western media mostly missed.
And it's still largely very well, uh, very popular today.
And the protagonists of this story are a group of activists who are energised by this unprecedented revolt that just happened in Tunisia,
um, where the, you know, protesters there unseated, uh, Ben Ali, who had also been in power for 30 years.
And, of course, this was the first successful uprising, what we call the Arab Spring today.
Um, the activists had already in Egypt had a day of protest already planned for what was, police say, January 25th, uh, in Egypt.
And this was a national holiday that Mubarak had instituted back in 2009 to celebrate the service, um, police and maintaining Egypt's security.
Um, and activists had since appropriated it to protest the, you know, ruthless police state.
Um, so following Tunisia's success, they were like looking at this day of protest and thought, okay, what if we can make it bigger and bolder?
Um, so this is just, uh, an illustration of a really brilliant mobilisation strategy the activists came up with for drawing out a critical mass, uh,
of protesters onto the streets, um, starting with Egyptians from lower um,
and working classes who don't normally protest but had plenty of reasons to.
And so the goal of this strategy was, um, in fact, to help people overcome their fear of the police.
Um, and it was the brainchild of this, uh, wonderful young activists, Muhammad Sami from the April 6th movement.
And it was two pronged. The first involved a ruse to distract police.
Um, so they announced 20 protest locations all over Cairo for demonstrators to gather at,
um, uh, you know, and then they promoted this on social media. So the idea was to deploy the police to these locations.
And then the second prong involved mobilising a march from a secret 21st location.
Um, so they chose this popular poor area called, uh, black with the crude as their starting point of this march.
And so the plan was to mobilise, um, a large march that could quickly snowball down Cairo's, uh, streets into this unstoppable force.
Arriving at Muhammad's stopping Muhammad Square, uh, before the police caught wind of them.
So that's what they did on January 25th, um, on the morning of Mahmoud, in about 250 of his fellow organisers, uh, meet to execute the plan.
Um, and the response is incredible. Uh, far surpasses their, uh, expectations.
And so these are just some of the recollections after the share with me on that day.
Um, there have been, um, describe the shock and euphoria, um, as they poured over the bridge.
Is tiny part of their strategy? Um, it was the first line of their strategy and they had executed it successfully.
It was as if the people were gushing from beneath the ground. We began crying and hugging each other, and we kept shouting into Sorna.
We won! What had we won exactly? Who knew what was coming?
Nobody knew. Um. Mustafa also was very excited when he shared, um, his memory the moment.
Uh, before this, we'd organise a march, and at times would be only 20 or 30 people when there were 500 in our protests.
We were over the moon. Now we couldn't see the beginning of the march from its end.
We were so beside ourselves.
There was this feeling that something major had shifted in the country, and then thought it shares how they reacted when they got to,
um, stuff on the square and found way more protesters there than they had expected.
We were all dazed and like, what are we going to do with all these people?
That's when we started to say to Tahrir Square. So then the activists on the spot quickly sketched this route for their march to the area.
And while there are other veins of protesters pouring into to here from all over Cairo that day,
this is the one that brings in the critical mass that helped facilitate the people's game changing siege of the square.
And so that's why we say, um, or I say that perhaps without it, we might not have had an Egyptian revolution or an Arab Spring.
So I shared this story to demonstrate basically why it's reductive to call this movement spontaneous because rather than spontaneous,
this was actually a case of painstaking planning by purposeful actors that was met with the wildly unexpected um,
and the speaks to a second problem with this, um, kind of framing, which is, you know,
the activists like Mostafa are talking about previous protests they've organised.
Right? So they're in fact building on a history of, uh, action and practices that they had been developing in the years before.
So calling this uprising spontaneous is problematic because it's just a historical.
Um, and really it glosses over the fact that, um, the movement that, you know,
the uprising was made possible by, uh, young activists who were part of this growing oppositional movement,
uh, in Egypt, that they themselves were actively radicalising through new, um, and youthful forms of, uh, political action, uh, and imagination.
And so, in fact, uh, this movement began ten years earlier, uh, in a moment,
much like today with the, uh, second Palestinian intifada in the year 2000, uh,
which had radicalised and inspired many of them to protest for the first time as students,
uh, in solidarity, they joined the protest on Cairo's streets.
And they also organised protests and acts of civil disobedience on their own campuses as students.
Um, and so, along with the uh, anti-Iraq War movement, uh, that followed, uh,
the the intifada served as sort of their gateway into anti-regime dissent.
Uh, and then this movement wave was followed. Um, so this movement wave was around regional struggles.
It was followed by three subsequent waves, uh, one around calls for democratic reform with what was known as the cafe movement.
Um, another around, uh, an explosive, right, uh, labour struggle.
Uh, then a third around police brutality, which was sparked by the police killing of Saeed, the young man, and the city of Alexandria in 2010.
So what we saw was that in the first two movement waves, um, which were led by an older generation,
these activists were being radicalised and socialised into activism for the first time.
And then in the second two waves, it was now this new generation of young activists who were establishing, uh, the movements and leading them,
um, and they were coming up with these new protest strategies and tactics, which included, you know, these kinds of protests,
uh, and popular quarters that we saw, um, on January 25th, um, the aim of which was specifically to bring the ordinary masses,
uh, into the struggle which Egypt's old guard, uh, political old, you know, older opposition guard had failed to do.
Um, and so the activists were sort of learning from their the mistakes of their elders, um,
and they were raising the culture of resistance and, uh, and Egypt to new heights as they were building this robust activist network,
uh, this, this decentralised,
horizontal movement structure that now make space for participants like Mahmoud to act autonomously and creatively and just step up as leaders.
Um, and so now this horizontal ism becomes the defining feature of this movement.
Um, this this whole resistance movement. Um, it's important to note that because I'll come back to it later.
But this is a crucial point.
But this brings me, um, to the next point I want to make, which was the reason why, um, the youth were able to conceive, um,
and successfully even execute a strategy like this was because they themselves identified as members of these marginalised, marginalised classes.
Uh, and they were embedded among them in the urban periphery, where they had been experimenting with this, with these tactics.
So Mahmoud, for example, himself had grown up in the popular corners, uh, of Cairo.
He was therefore well versed in the grievances, the spaces, mobility, uh, and vulnerabilities of its residents.
And he knew how to negotiate them, and he knew how to leverage them in his planning to the advantage of January 25th.
And of course, one of those vulnerabilities was the fear people had of police who dominated these neighbourhoods.
Right. They were actually there to erect barriers between citizens and dissidents like Mahmood and his peers,
who might inspire them to express their discontent and rise up.
Um, an activist knew this, and so they were actually trying to test these boundaries in the years before the revolution,
trying to find those blind spots as cracks in the dam. Um, and they were doing this not as outsiders, but as insiders to these areas.
So this now knowledge and experience is was shaping their, um, agency, um, in this January 25th moment as activists.
Um, and I emphasise his popular class background and the social capital it gave them um, as organisers because the impression the media gave us, um,
early on was that the activists who were behind this revolt were these highly cosmopolitan, English speaking,
tech and internet savvy young people who came from, you know, urban, financially comfortable, middle and upper class families.
They might have been current students or former students at elite schools like the American University of Cairo.
Um, and I think that this time magazine cover I showed earlier is a perfect example of that.
I know several of these people, and they're not from the popular classes. So it was an accurate portrayal.
And most of the activists, in fact, you were behind the revolt, didn't speak English.
They didn't go to elite universities, and they certainly were not digital activists, um, operating from behind a screen.
These were popular class youth who were organising and putting their bodies on the line in these urban areas where they came from.
Um, and so that's why I say, you know, you know, this isn't really a, say, a social media story as it's been portrayed.
Um, that's one part of the story of, of, I would say, how activists are exercising their agency.
Um, and all of this really makes them question this leaderless, uh,
term and wonder if there is maybe a, um, a better term, maybe something like literal.
And we can discuss that more as we move along. Okay.
So now I want to look at what happens with the activists during the 18 days, beginning with, uh,
a return to this quote by Todd when he says, what are we going to do with all these people?
Um, and I was thinking about this, and I really love this quote because I think it captures the shock.
Um, and, you know, sort of the the dilemma of the activists on this day, right?
What this moment, they found themselves on January 21st. So, like with the success of their mass action, something unexpected is happening to them,
which is their status is changing from activists to revolutionaries.
And they're trying to figure out what this means, right, and wrap their heads around it.
So none of them had actually imagined the possibility of revolution.
Um, so when this moment came, um, they found themselves unprepared for this opportunity.
Right. And the eradication of political space, um, under Mubarak meant that they didn't have any opportunity to engage in real political life,
um, and develop any, like, serious political acumen beyond protesting.
Um, so now in this moment, they're trying to figure out what role they should play, if any, as leaders in this nascent, uh, revolutionary struggle.
And this brings me to the second reason why I really like this quote. It it reminds me of another quote that a famous revolutionary once asked,
and I want to see who could guess what I'm talking about and what that protest.
The question is, is it interactive conversation?
Any guesses? What is to be done?
What is to be done again? This almost sounds like a spin off to me of this question, and I hope we can talk about that more.
But basically, it turns out that the activists, the questions activists were engaging um,
with in this moment were really no different from those that occupied,
uh, these celebrated revolutionary strategists from the Marxist tradition like Lenin and Luxemburg.
And it's the question of, you know, are the masses of carrot capable of carrying out a revolution on their own?
Uh, or do they need leaders to organise them? Um, and of course, Lenin was of the opinion that the masses couldn't do it on their own.
They needed the guidance and leadership of, um, professional revolutionaries who were tied to this,
uh, highly disciplined, centralised, hierarchical, vanguard organisation.
Um, and then Luxemburg, on the other hand, saw that this was elitist, and she argued that the masses,
uh, were capable of becoming leaders on their own naturally through their engagement with the struggle.
So I'm basically interested in how these ideas, which generally map out onto, um, the ideas of vertical ism and horizontal ism movements,
how that played out among, uh, the activists and, uh, shaped their agency during the uprising.
So eventually, as events escalate, the network of youth movements,
um activism youth movements that um had together sparked January 25th come to the realisation that they do need to,
in fact, provide some kind of leadership to the square or else this whole thing was going to fall apart.
Um, so about ten days into the uprising, they announced their consolidation as the Revolutionary Youth Coalition.
And I'll talk a little bit now about the dynamics, uh, that led to the formation and the challenges they faced afterwards.
Um. So up until the point they announced themselves, um, as the coalition,
the activists were kind of reluctant to step to the forefront of the movement in any way as leaders.
Uh, and instead they were sort of leading behind the scenes and engaging what I like to call, uh, performing leaderless.
So there were several reasons for this.
Um, the first had to do with this horizontal, decentralised, uh, nature of the movement which now carried over from the previous period.
Um, so remember the, the activist status changed to revolutionaries, but their movement structure didn't.
This is an important tension. So just as this horizontal ism had for years empowered them to take initiatives and act autonomously and creatively,
it was now empowering the thousands of Egyptians who had joined the movement to do the same.
And so in doing so, it now started to constrain the activists and how they could show up as leaders in the movement.
So the more the movement grew, the less the revolutionaries felt it was their place to proclaim to be its leaders.
Right? This is now a people's movement.
And in fact, they couldn't claim leadership even if they wanted to, because the movement itself fetishised its popular, leaderless nature.
Um, so what if you turned them down? And it was really seen like the movement's leaderless.
This is what made it legitimate in everyone's eyes, right?
So that was the images, the image that both the activists and the protesters kept promoting.
And then, of course, declaring themselves as the leaders, um, would have made them regime targets.
Right. So there was that threat. And then lastly, claiming this kind of leadership was a really big move that like,
nobody was really prepared to make because what does it mean to like, lead a revolution, right.
What kind of responsibility are you committing to shouldering?
So they're kind of wrestling with this tension.
Um, so this was the position of the activists until after, um, an event called the battle of the camel,
which was a violent episode in which, uh, the regime sent thugs, uh,
into the square to try to break in, um, the sit in, um, and thereafter,
some members of the opposition formed themselves into a group they called the Council of Wise Men.
Right. Which was really triggering for the young people and women.
Um, but essentially they now enter into negotiations, uh, with government officials about how to bring an end to this impasse.
Um, and that's what the activists realised.
Um, we had to have some kind of official group that, uh, represented the radical position of the square to prevent it from being,
um, or protect it from being undermined, sold out, and, um, you know, just demobilised.
Um, so they announced the strike on February 6th. The first proclamation was there's no, uh, there's no, uh, negotiations for before the departure.
Um, so they said they would, uh, continue to occupy the square until their demands were met.
Um, and now in this moment, they become sort of the closest thing, uh, to a vanguard in the revolution and in the square.
Um, but then after the crises formation, it became clear to the armed forces,
the members themselves and other groups that as sort of an organisational front to the revolution, it was insufficient.
There was still this need, um, to institute, um, a wider consensus among the many opposition forces who were present,
um, on how to move forward through the establishment of, uh, sort of a more representative body.
Um, and this was seen as especially urgent because they were trying to escalate and get Mubarak to step down,
and they still didn't have some kind of a body that could, uh, claim power on behalf of the revolution.
So one of the constraints that the RBC ran up against as they were trying to figure out, um,
what to do in this moment was the fact that they lacked political experience, um, and senior rank.
They attempted to overcome this by engaging with the old guard, um, and bringing them into kind of a larger revolutionary coalition.
But there was like these intergenerational tensions that surfaced.
Um, the the old guard in that moment had felt, uh, upstaged by the youth.
Um, and there was this friction that resulted that greatly hindered efforts to produce some kind of,
uh, leadership, um, collective leadership or build a revolutionary organisation in that moment.
Um, and then the other challenge the revolutionaries faced had to do with their commitment to bottom up, uh,
consensus building processes, um, known as participatory democratic practice as their method of collective decision making.
So this horizontal ism, this democratic practice proved to be extremely time consuming.
Um, and it didn't match the urgency of the moment that they were in.
Um, especially as the elite were making moves, um, to contain the movement.
Um, this method was just like slowing them down and undermining them.
So in the end, the revolutionaries revolutionaries were basically outmanoeuvred by staff who took power before
they could coordinate and seize it themselves in the form of some kind of a popularly backed,
uh, civilian led transitional government or something else.
Um, and then these dynamics carry over to the transition period and become even more complicated, uh,
because Mubarak removed, uh, the young revolutionaries now lose that common, um, cause that unified them.
Uh, and they now have to deal with a scarf, uh, being in power. And the Muslim Brotherhood basically throwing them under the bus.
Um, so they're they're all organised, basically. They were sort of put in this position where they had to build the plane as they were flying it.
Right, like figure out how to carry out a revolution. Um, and they just couldn't ever get ahead of their opponents.
Um, so there were these moments in the revolution that felt like history was repeating
itself and giving revolutionaries a second chance to make up for their mistakes.
Uh, in the 18 day uprising. And one of those moments was the so-called Second Revolution, which coincided with,
um, an event called the Mohamed Mahmoud Street clashes in November of 2011.
Uh, but what happens is that the activists fall into the same dynamics they did, um, earlier in 2011.
They basically struggle to escape them. Uh, and I saw a lot of this for myself because I was, uh, doing my field work at the time.
Uh, so this pressure to perform later, Lessness comes up again.
And the perfect example of that, I think, is the sign, um, that showed up in Tahrir.
Um, so it articulates rules for the protesters to follow in the square.
Um, but it's signed by, you know, the Egyptian people, um, when in fact,
clearly there's a group behind it and they're unwilling to put their name on it.
Um, the second was this, uh, kind of leadership archipelago phenomena,
where the movement felt like a bunch of islands with different leadership groups emerging on them.
Um, and so these groups were often unaware of each other's activities,
and they were even acting at cross-purposes as they each tried to figure out
how to capitalise on the political opening and seize power for the movement.
Uh, there were a lot of, uh, endless meetings.
Um, and I got this term from the title of a book called freedom is an Endless Meeting, which I think is a brilliant title.
Um, but these meetings basically took forever because, again, the aim was to reach consensus about the way forward.
Um, but again, this method was, uh, it didn't match the urgency of the moment.
Um, and then again, we saw the limits of usefulness.
So there was a, uh, the activist wanted to form some sort of civilian authority to speak on behalf of the square,
uh, and take back ownership of the transition period from the military.
But they couldn't say, well, you know, we're the transitional government because nobody would, uh, take them seriously.
They tried to get some senior opposition figures, um, on board.
Um, and several of them were interested in the activist proposed initiative,
but then later they backed, backed out, and the whole thing sort of fell apart.
Um, so the culmination of all of this is that another opportunity to seize power is lost.
And by doing in terms of time. Um, 5 to 6.
Okay. So the activists really needed to be able to pivot into more structure and vision in order to cohere and sustain the movement.
But they couldn't due to these various constraints.
Um, and this just became more and more difficult as time passed and the movement became more decentralised and fractured.
Um. Um, so as one of the main forces of the revolution, the ROIC is embedded in these horizontal dynamics.
They're contributing to them and reflecting them as they're trying to navigate them and overcome them.
It's an interesting dynamic. Um, but eventually they disband.
And, um, in 2012, after the election of Mohammed Morsi, uh, the way they saw it, uh, you know, uh, like with the end of the transition,
it was time for them to think about new organisational forms that could serve them in the, uh, next stage of the struggle.
Um, but the truth is, they also disbanded, uh, because by this point, they had been struggling, um,
a lot as a coalition, um, due to the kind of internal and external challenges that were caused by these dynamics.
Um, and I want to talk briefly now about how the, uh, you know, about the camera revolution and how the movement's horizontal is,
um, played into that, uh, looking specifically at the tumult of movement which erupted against Morsi in 2013.
Uh, it's basically this decentralised petition campaign demanding that Morsi resigns and it's embraced widely and quickly by Egyptians.
Um, and what's notable about this movement is that it erupted leadership vacuum, uh,
and it became very clear that there were unsavoury actors behind it, the military, the police and remnants of the old regime.
Um, so this is when we start to see the most serious drawbacks of this horizontal ism,
which is that if a revolution has two horizontal and two open, um, then anyone can claim to speak on its behalf.
Uh, so that's what happened. The deep state appropriated the language and tactics of the revolution to carry out the counter-revolution.
And so what the model shows us is that this agenda, less, uh, leaderless structure,
less diffuse movement model, can be very vulnerable to being co-opted.
Okay, so where does this leave us all today? Um, I want to share this hopeful reflection from activist Ola Shaba.
I think revolution is still achievable. I don't think of it as a step back.
I think of it as a process that we've always realised it will be ups and downs.
I think we had to go through this. Let's see. We're hoping it doesn't bring us down.
Um, uh, I really love this quote because I think it speaks to this idea of revolution as an iterative process.
Um, and as a learning experience.
Um, it's a reminder to not, you know, fixate on the outcome and calling this a failed revolution, but to stay focussed on the potential.
Um, and it reminds me of another quote from our friend Lenin.
Um, he says, uh, there are moments of history where the desperate struggle of the masses,
even for a hopeless cause, is essential for the further schooling of these masses.
And the struggle training the next generation. So, jumping off of Lenin's remarks, um,
I like to think of the Egyptian revolution as a masterclass in the challenges of revolutionary organising and the, uh, 21st century.
And my hope is that my work, uh, will help us better understand the complexity of this challenge, um,
and stretch the ideas of classical thinkers like, uh, you know, Lenin, as we learn from this experience and theorise new ways forward.
Um, so in that spirit, I'll just share some of the questions that I'm grappling with for you to consider.
Um, and I have a lot, but these are some of the general ones.
Um, you know, once the revolution permanently defeated, or when we think about defeating movement in general, do we think of them as defeats,
um, that are permanent or is this simply a stage, uh, in a longer process of revolutionary action and transformation?
How might this experiment lead us to more effective modes of revolutionary leadership and organisation?
Are the choices between vertical ism and horizontal ism?
Or is the lesson that contemporary revolutionary movements have to be imagined and organised and led completely differently?
And I think that these are really important questions to think about in light of the wave of mass and mass movements that erupted,
um, around the globe following the revolution in 2011, in Egypt.
A lot of these movements have, in some ways, shared characteristics or even intentionally inherited characteristics from the Egyptian revolution.
And one of those is its, uh, loose horizontal organisational form.
Uh, and just as we saw that kind of become a liability for the Egyptian revolution, the same thing has happened with some of these movements.
Um, and so this brings me back full circle to the moment we're in today with Rasa.
Um, I think as horrific as the tragedy has been, it's also, um, given us this really unprecedented, hopeful opening.
Uh, it's ignited massive protests across the Middle East again, you know, kind of invoking the memory of the Arab Spring.
Uh, in Cairo, we saw Egyptians bravely take to the streets despite the security risk.
Um, at one point, they marched to the rear. I think it was the first time since 2013.
Uh, and they chanted bread, freedom and an Arab Palestine, which was a spin off of that famous 2011 slogan.
And I think a clear reflection of the central place that Palestine still holds and their revolutionary imagination.
Uh, and of course, the solidarity protests globally have been some of the largest and most sustained we've seen yet.
Um, and indeed, I think the most inspiring, um, uh, expression of solidarity was the recent student uprising led by youth in the belly of U.S. empire.
Um, which to me is a remarkable twist that mirrors the Radicalising effect the second Palestinian intifada had on Egypt's would be,
uh, youth revolutionary leaders. So as that is kind of radicalising people across the global north and south, um, as it's exploded,
exposing the duplicity of the West and sort of the hollowness of the liberal, uh, rules based order.
And it seems like we're at this tipping point where more and more people are seeing their stake in
Palestine's Palestine's liberation and the role they must play in it if they also want to get free.
Um, and so the question now is, what's the way forward beyond, uh, through the crisis, beyond just protests and demanding a cease fire?
Like, if the aspiration is a free Palestine, then what is a new world, uh, in which this aspiration is realised actually look like?
And how do we get there? Um, you know, what's the vehicle for sustaining global popular commitment for the long haul?
And how do we build, uh, expand an expansive, enduring international movement that can take on global, uh, capital and empire, right.
Um, yeah. So, and just to conclude, on a personal note, I like to share that, you know, the Egyptian revolution meant a lot to me personally.
Um, it was really transformational for me to be a part of it. Um, and I learned a lot about myself and my own in, uh, agency,
sort of through my engagement with the struggle and and the activists, um, they had this expression,
um, the Egyptian revolutionaries, they used to say it often during those years of upheaval,
which was a sort, almost a matter of the revolution continues.
Um, sadly, nobody says it anymore. Um, but I'm really hopeful that, you know, by learning from this experience, we can collectively,
somehow, uh, breathe new life with them into this expression again and make it meaningful again soon.
Thank you all so much. Thank you very much.
You know, of course, the questions. Um, I have a couple of questions.
I oh, that's just to begin with. One is one thing you didn't talk about was violence.
Okay. Um, you mentioned that, you know, at the beginning, the organisational tactics of protesters decisive in the revolution.
Um, and I don't disagree. And I don't disagree about your, you know, analysis of the and the streams of protests that led into January 25th.
But. I don't think they have ever taken Tottenham Square without.
A quarter of police stations being burned down in the country. Mhm.
Um, I mean, I mean, it's true that the kind of public face of the revolution was non-violent and it was unarmed.
Sure. Um, it was always unarmed, in unarmed protest.
Um, but I don't think that that early phase would have actually succeeded.
I mean, if it weren't for the security forces being worn out.
I mean, I was in the time I was living in one part about Dean and I had an office and another part about being and, um, the night,
which is not very far from Tahrir Square and, um, the night of the 26th and the 27th of 25th,
actually, after that, after that first day of the revolution was over.
Um, I mean, Upton Square was used as a kind of staging point for the security forces.
Um, and the numbers of trucks that were going through there was just unbelievably like they were shifting forces all over the country, you know,
so desperately trying to have their forces on the 25th for the 2026 and 27,
2022, because I continued stupidly thinking, well, this seems like a big thing,
but surely, you know, it can't really be a revolution, even though people are saying,
well, it's I was actually still going to my office and, you know,
sort of the other part of our team was very close to me that I've been, um, I said, you know, I'd walk home at night and then the trucks will be here.
I'm like, yeah. Like the whole street was convoys of trucks carrying, you know,
potential security forces all over the place because because actually the attacks continued throughout the 26 into the 17th until the 28th,
when they finally really did take down your square for good.
Um, and so violence is one question, and I think violence is kind of problematic for a revolution that was in its own,
um, in its own view, a non-violent protest.
And it certainly was unarmed, but I still don't think they would have gotten as far as they did with the violence.
That's how your question is about kind of revolution. Um, that sort of suggests the restoration of the old regime.
And I'm wondering if it isn't actually more accurate to think of the Sisi regime as a revolutionary outcome.
Um, not certainly not the one that the protesters were working for.
Um, but I think that the, um, you know, kind of the, the new I mean,
there are new elites that are kind of coming into, you know, controlling the state that weren't there before.
Yeah. I don't think that there is a straight line from them and behind the scenes of kind of upgraded authoritarianism,
um, whereas the regime is pretty totalitarian, actually.
Yeah. Um, I think that also leads to the question of the protesters there now.
But I just want to ask you about whether you think that there was a continuous link between the old regime and the CCP.
Yeah. Thank you. I think the point about, yeah, violence is important.
Um, I what the burning list stations remind me.
Did that happen on the 28th or the 25th? Because what happened between the 25th and the 20.
Yeah. Yeah. And then by, you know, by the by the morning, the 29th, when I took my three year old son out for a walk through downtown Cairo,
um, carrying him on my shoulders, you know, the whole place was littered with burnt out.
Yeah. But, you know, Tahrir Square was kind of the symbolic focus of the revolution, but the attack on police stations was taking place.
Yeah, yeah, off stage. But it was very fierce. And it was I think it was largely reactive because of the overreaction of police.
People were attacking more. Yeah. I don't think that that was part of the organisation of the revolution.
Yeah, it wasn't, but it was crucial to the revolution. Successful, definitely.
Yeah. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't um, you know, argue against that.
I, I agree, I think what I was trying to focus on were the dynamics that led into like what
was happening was that on January 21st and how that initial spark happened.
But, um, I don't think even the activists themselves would deny the importance of some of that violence,
which was, like you said, more, uh, reaction to the violence of the police.
I think that violence started the night of the January 21st. There was actually a clearing of the square.
Um, and I would say it was maybe the 26th.
I mean, there was the, the it started to take on, you know, a sort of a revolutionary dimension or, you know,
situation sort of emerged, I think, when the active when when they started to hear on the 25th, people chant a shabby, despotic ism.
Right? That wasn't that was something that was imported from Tunisia.
And it wasn't part of their own chance that the activists had, uh, selected for that day.
They were very intentional about not wanting to say anything about the regime or Mubarak.
I think the extent of their charm had to do with, uh, you know,
that they had planned for the protest and that was around socioeconomic issues like education,
rising food prices and some stuff around the security state they called for, like the resignation of Adly, you know, things like that.
But they didn't go so far as asking for the regime to step down. So that actually came from the.
Um, and the activism told sells told me it was maybe the 26 and 27, especially with the killing and the waste that they saw,
because the place that's always sort of holes and the historical imagination around, uh, where they felt now it was a revolutionary situation.
So that violence was definitely, I think, a turning point.
And then feeling like, because now there was blood that was shed, that this was a revolutionary.
But they were now revolutionaries. So definitely that was a huge part of their kind of conscious, uh, you know,
that violence did play a role in their consciousness formation as revolutionaries in that moment.
And then, yeah, I agree. I mean, I think counter-revolution was the term to use early on.
And we were so unsure of like what was happening. Um, it felt like this was now the counter-revolution fighting back.
But, you know, ten years on or like we're like 13, let's say 20, 24.
Yeah. Several years on, uh, this is maybe a different this isn't, you know,
the same sort of forces that were in power back in 2011, um, at the eruption of the movement.
So that maybe needs its own, like, kind of analysis. But you could, I think, argue that this was an outcome of the revolution that wasn't expected.
I don't know if you want to go so far as to say a revolutionary outcome, but for thinking about,
you know, outcomes as aligned with the original goals of the revolutionaries.
But yeah, but but definitely an outcome.
Um, for sure. Yeah. Those are great comments. Thank you. Please join me in thanking Richard for fantastic.