Between the conflict and revolution that changed Egypt

The overall situation of conflict transformation—— John Paul Lederach

The full article was published in the Al-Safir Al-Arabi newspaper under the title “The Egyptian Revolution: Monitoring its Progress“Dated September 4, 2013, link to

http://arabi.assafir.com/article.asp?aid=1178&refsite=arabi&reftype=home&refzone=slider

Ismail Iskandarani

There are three ways to resolve conflict: They are: conflict management, conflict resolution and conflict transformation. When the outbreak of conflict is inevitable, or when the conflict already exists and cannot be remedied or reduced, “Conflict Management“By containing it so that it does not deteriorate in quality or geographical extent, while recognizing that it is present or inevitable. As for “Resolving Conflicts“It aims to move the conflicting parties from a zero-sum solution to a state of mutual/parallel gains, where mediation and negotiation are essential to reach understandings and compromises acceptable to both parties. However, the saying “peace does not mean the absence of war” tells us that”Resolving Conflicts“This is not a solution. The outbreak of conflict has less to do with the position of the parties in it than with the relationship between them, their conflicting interests, their mutual discourse. A deeper approach that goes beyond the obvious moments of conflict may force the parties to seek “Conflict Transformation“, that is, to make structural changes to the social structure/environment surrounding the conflict in order to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and level the soil for it. So”Conflict Transformation“Its aim is not to achieve a cold, static state of peace or to reduce interaction between conflicting parties, but rather to actively and dynamically change the course of relations so that the product is peaceful.”

Take the Egyptian revolution for example, the revolution of January 25, in every sense of the word, was a conflict between the masses of revolutionaries and their values ​​and ideas about the state and society, and between old and outdated ideas about the state and society. According to researcher friend Ali Al-Rijal, the old society had its own political, economic and religious components, while the Jenin society was born from successive revolutionary waves, with a different value system and a different vision of power, revolution. , and their distribution. The conflict broke out with the decision of the uprising masses not to give up their rights to a decent life, freedom and social justice. It was too late for Mubarak and his gang to control the revolutionary conflict or contain its demands after his overthrow. The slow response increased his arrogance and arrogance even more. Then the Military Council, the hard drive of the military state since the July 1952 coup/revolution, failed to negotiate with the revolutionary movement and was involved in more bloodshed, unable to manage the affairs of livelihood and life, and therefore did not resolve the revolutionary conflict between the two communities. The two waves of revolution that followed the first eighteen days (January 25 to February 11, 2011) were launched in the events of Mohamed Mahmoud Street and the sit-in in the Council of Ministers (November-December 2011), which were launched in protest against the establishment of authoritarianism by the deposed president Mohamed Morsi in the garb of religious discourse in the constitutional declaration of November 21, 2012, and the subsequent events around the Ittihadiya Palace until the second anniversary of the revolution in January 2013. None of these three waves has passed. There was no bloodshed, confirming the continuation of the conflict between the old society and the embryonic society, but rather increasing its depth and strengthening the tendency to free oneself from old relations and outdated authoritarian practices, thus managing the revolution/conflict or resolving it. The existing conflict between the old society and the embryonic revolutionary society has become two conflicting propositions, the remnants of the cohesive power structure of the old state institutions have made it clear that the time for confrontation or negotiation with the revolution is over, leaving no room for anything other than radical/counter-revolutionary changes in the content of relations, structures, discourses and environments, i.e., “changing revolution/conflict”.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s approach imposed the fact that their authority was just the other side of Mubarak’s and the Military Council’s authority. The desire to rule, oppressive authoritarian practices, the desire to confiscate the public sphere, the tendency to control the individual behavior of citizens, to police the beliefs they hold and the ideas they adopt, to prescribe military guardianship over the Constitution and legally elected civilian authorities, and others, are among the common features of both sides of the coin, called the old society. When the political and social situation worsened due to the hesitant and sycophantic performance of the Muslim Brotherhood’s authority led by the deposed Mohamed Morsi in the old society’s power structure and its bureaucratic, military, security and judicial structures, the revolutionaries on all sides were forced to contradict themselves. After the revolutionaries demanded the dismissal of the Attorney General and even to hold him accountable, they found themselves in the position of a mechanical opposition, which Mohamed Morsi used to remove him from office. The slogans of the revolutionaries for the purification of the judicial system turned into a celebration of the integrity and nobility of the Egyptian judicial system.

At the same time, those who seek to escape the polarization of ideologies and identities have endeavored to launch a number of BroadCast Unitedlectual, social and political initiatives, some announced, some unannounced, some urgent, some long-term, all of which are aimed at what we call social transformation. The conflict between the revolution and the old society ensures the victory of the content of the revolution and the aspirations of the fetal society.

A sweet dream that ended in a nightmare

Our dream is to restore the fluid mass mobilization that outdated institutions and hierarchical organizations can hardly absorb, to put pressure on the authorities and impose the will of the masses, while building strong civic entities – parties and institutions – that carry the needs of the people. ​​​The values ​​of the revolution and its highest demands, and focus on training young cadres to participate in the upcoming parliamentary and local elections, while supporting revolutionary capabilities to participate in the bureaucratic wheels of the ancient state, provided that this is carried out in parallel with the legislative struggle to guarantee the protection of the legal environment around economic, social and political struggles. At the same time, some revolutionary actors focus their attention on horizontal networks that transcend professional, age and geographical differences, eager to change relations and mutual discourses, hoping to change power structures and economic systems that can be changed. It is hoped that different social components and different local communities can dialogue in a variety of forms and activities, aimed at assessing the way each side sees its interests, opportunities and threats, re-formulating private and public priorities, and trying to arrange the agenda.

There are calls for a fourth revolutionary wave to revolt against the authority of the Brotherhood, represented by the President of the Republic, and for early presidential elections to clearly reject the intentions of the Islamists to continue to rule and implement their alleged plans. Initially, the form of the “Tamarud” movement, which received millions of signatures, was a tool to transform the violent weekly gatherings and the burning of the Brotherhood headquarters every Friday afternoon into a means of peaceful protest and gradually escalating mobilization against the Muslim Brotherhood’s authority and authoritarianism. But the powerful mechanism is seeking something deeper than the transformation of superficial violence into political peace. He overturned at the foot of the January Revolution, which broke out on Police Day to protest against oppression, abuse and humiliation, and then a second wave of demands for the overthrow of military rule broke out with slogans. On June 30, the slogan “The army, the police and the people, one hand” rose over Egypt, followed by slogans such as “The Ministry of the Interior is a thug” and “Down with military rule.” On the sixtieth anniversary of the July 1952 coup, policemen were carried on their shoulders and the police band played music on the platform of Tahrir Square, without consolation for revenge, purges or bloodshed. Martyrs. I am not inclined to rely on conspiracy theories, reductionist explanations, but to completely exclude them is only anti-reductionism. If the slogan “The army and the people are one hand” was triggered by the problems of morale in the armed forces and was the slogan shouted by military investigators on the tanks at the beginning of the curfew on January 28, 2011, then it is impossible to exclude his relationship with the BroadCast Unitedligence services, creating the difference between the state of the embryonic society and the old society.

Beyond the scene of the crowd and its ambiguity, we find that the discourse of social justice and freedom has almost disappeared, even under attack from those who first proposed it, amid the call for a war on terror. After the January Revolution, which ignored all external parties, did not care about it or opposed it, we now see external parties intervene in the internal arena and are accused of conspiracy and participate in a role far beyond what these parties could play. As for the revolution of the broad masses without a leader or leaders, it begins to disappear in front of the image of the “led” Minister of Defense. The official discourse begins to ignore the January 25 Revolution and praise the so-called June 30 Revolution, while unofficially betraying the January revolutionaries, denouncing them as national pagans and portraying the “January Events” as a conspiracy of the Brotherhood to seize power.

Transformation Revolution

The first enemy of the revolution was oppression and authoritarianism, but then it turned to the Brotherhood, the political Islamist movement and the circles of those who sympathized with them or resembled them in appearance and clothing. The driving force of the revolution was dignity and insistence on revenge, so it turned into the fear of “possible terrorism”, as the Minister of Defense said in his famous authorization speech. The police, who were not aware of purification and reform, were the first enemy of the revolution, so the deposed president of the Muslim Brotherhood placed them “at the center of the revolution”, as he said, and in the revolution of June 30 “the people embraced them”. According to the Minister of the Interior, many of the gains of the January Revolution and the rights of its revolutionaries were lost due to concerns about the poverty of the legal path and structural and procedural problems, as well as the moderation of the revolutionaries in the revolution and special trials due to concerns about some external budget. Then the military leader asked the masses for something that had no legal description, which he called “commands”, to fight against something that had no definition, which he called “potential terrorism”.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters say that what happened was a military coup against the rule of the elected president. But I think it curbed the fourth revolutionary wave of June 30, 2013 and the military coup of July 3. It is certain that the millions of people who responded to the call of the “Tamarud” movement and signed its forms/documents did not include the immediate expulsion of Mohamed Morsi, nor his illegal detention in secret locations, nor the suspension of his regime. Do not close channels and newspapers related to the Islamist movement. The demands launched by the masses on June 30 have been placed at the bottom of the roadmap imposed by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, with no possibility of changing the roadmap supported by the legitimacy of the fighters, who attracted the hearts of the people on the heads of military supporters and scattered warning leaflets on the heads of the deposed return supporters before her sisters participated in the helicopter killing of sit-ins and demonstrators.

Changes into a circle—— John Paul Ledrak

The political situation is not optimistic, and its problems are deeper than they appear on the surface. There is a serious sociological crisis in the transformation of the January Revolution into the June Revolution, which has produced a discourse that is very different from the usual revolutionary discourse, which, in addition to popular support, structurally and temporally reshapes the relations that preceded the January Revolution, and calls upon interest networks and their old alliances to end her with a strong sense of gloating and a desire to control the people. Finally, the Constitution is being rewritten by a committee that does not represent the people, to create a new/old legislative and legal structure that will manage and ensure a radical change in the course of the January Revolution, which may be an extension of the previous revolution. January 2011. Time will not turn back, Mubarak may move ten kilometers from the Tora prison hospital to the Armed Forces Hospital on the Maadi Corniche, but Omar Suleiman will not come back from the afterlife, nor will the Tantawi Military Council. After the rise to power, the relationship between the police and the people will not return to the same state, and it may even be worse. Worse than unilateral repression is the implicit or perhaps explicit collusion between the police and some popular thug groups or those who are more capable of conflict and forming new power networks, in which civilians are not worried about the areas they previously burned, nor about the fact that police deviance has not changed, and who will be punished for their crimes, they have broken their power and humiliated their self-esteem.

The challenge now is not to prevent the past from leaping into the future, for that will not happen, but to prevent the January Revolution and its pure dreams of a decent life, freedom and social justice from becoming a thing of the past. The transformation of revolution into counter-revolution is bound to take place in the opposite direction, and to turn the January waters back in their original direction requires the will of a convincing coalition, and the key to this may lie in the stupidity, dictatorship and economic failure of the July 3rd ruling coalition.

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