Amru Abdelrahman is a political researcher who focuses on human rights, democratic transitions of power and judicial system reform in the Arab world.  He received a doctorate from the University of Sussex and is a founding member of the Bread and Freedom Party, which played a pivotal role in the 2011 revoultion that unseated President Hosni Mubarak.

Amru Abdelrahman is a political researcher who focuses on human rights, democratic transitions of power and judicial system reform in the Arab world.  He received a doctorate from the University of Sussex and is a founding member of the Bread and Freedom Party, which played a pivotal role in the 2011 revoultion that unseated President Hosni Mubarak. In this interview with Correspondents, Abelrahman details the latest political movement recently making waves in Egypt.

Abdelrahman gives us his views on the current political pulse of young Egyptians, a generation Abdulrahman describes as the second generation of the January revolution generation. The interview comments on the Al-Arad Friday (The Land) protests that took place two weeks ago, where thousands of Egyptian youth and citizens took to the streets protesting the new border agreement that handed sovereignty of the islands Sanafir and Tiran to Saudi Arabia.

The protests ended on  (the day of the interview) amongst calls to continue on the 25 April, after dozens of protesters were arrested. The detained protesters were released soon after, except for 25 young men in Cairo and another 21 in Alexandria, who are still in prison despite the release order that was issued by the Egyptian public prosecution.

Abdelrahman sees these protests in its historical context, considering the economic, political and social crises hitting the country. And he defines the social mass that took the stand against the ruling class and talks about the roles of the Muslim Brotherhood and government institutions in this equation.

Amru Abdelarahman, in your comments on Facebook, you speak of a new generation of Egyptians participating in the current movement. Can you define this generation and confirm whether these protests took place merely because of the border issue, or do they have other reasons?

Certainly, the dispute about the island was not the only reason for the protests; the real reasons for the protests have long been accumulating. There is a new generation of middle class Egyptians who are highly educated in the political process and have great interests in matters like the ruling system, democracy, human rights, the presidency, and the separation between authorities, and this generation is an extension of the 2011 revolution generation and the Change Movement of the 2005 generation.

The front lines of the Change Movement in 2005 had middle class and university educated young Egyptian city dwellers; a demographic that usually calls for democracy, freedom and human rights. The 2005 generation nurtured the generation of January 2011.

The three movements, of the years 2005 and 2011 and the current one, raised from within this demographic and later on were followed by other demographics in society. Perhaps the reason for that is that this demographic is always grappling with the idea that the state belongs to it in particular.

Throughout history, Egyptian institutions have privileged the educated and portrayed them as the ones who will run the state in the future; while the less educated like the farmers and the working class of the city who are being killed on the streets – referring to the tee vender who was killed by high ranking police officer last Tuesday in Cairo- were marginalized. As a result, the educated feel that, unlike others, they own the state. However, since the nineties, this feeling has been met by economic crises, lack of jobs, and a vague future. Therefore, they feel forgotten by this state that does not provide them with any services, and they feel alienated by the media that does not address their intellect. They did not benefit from the youth projects, that turned out to be a slogan for corrupt capitalist monopolies, like the youth projects of Jamal Mubarak. On the other hand, we have a state that does not even attempt at bridging the gap with these young people, which will always guarantee more protests.

Does the state feel threatened by this demographic?

Absolutely. The state recognizes their threat – the state has seen the consequences of abusing this class after what happened to Khaled Said (he was tortured to death and sparked the 2011 revolution), who is a member of this demographic. And what happened last Friday shows that the state is making trouble with the wrong group of people.

Yet the current situation is entirely new. Although, the new generation is part of the traditional revolutionary mass, the context in which it is acting is different. After the January revolution in 2011, the ruling mass was shaken to the core, and during the crises that ended the subsequent Muslim Brotherhood rule, both of the masses revised their priorities. In the end, the army won, took over the country and began controlling the relationship between the state and society; however, what happened on Friday shook the army once again.

­Why did the revolutionary mass decide to move at a certain time, although the gap between it and its opponents are still in place?

Ever since the country adapted its neo-liberal policies in the nineties, every generation has engaged in hostilities against the state. Those who entered universities in the late nineties protested against passing power down to Jamal Mubarak, and those who entered universities around 2005 protested in January 2011. Finally, those in the universities today are taking part in the current movement.

Basically, the three generations have the same problems: they all suffer from poverty, political marginalization and restrictions on freedoms in all aspects of life. More importantly, these people are being treated by the state as enemies; ever since 30 June 2013, the state’s ideological and media apparatuses and religious and cultural institutions view the Egyptian youth as enemies.

President Abdulfattah Al-Sisi said it out loud: “Human rights do not mean political and civil rights, rather they are social and economic.” This sentence carries a certain message, the economic and social rights are protected in the constitution, and those who demand these rights –usually the poorly educated working class- have the right to demand them; although, they do not demand much and the state does not respond much to their demands. However, the other sector –the highly educated- or those who are aware of their rights will see their rights diminishing.

Why did the state fail at gaining favor with the highly educated after the 2011 revolution?

Perhaps, the word “state” is not entirely correct here; I think the phrase “ruling mass” can make it easier for us to understand the situation. This ruling mass began to form in the nineties, in a time when the Egyptian regime began to take a different path socially and economically from previous times. In modern Egyptian history, there had been two grand economic shifts, before 1952, the Egyptian society was agrarian and uneducated, and the ruling mass back then consisted of the landowners (the feudal lords).

The first shift took place after the 1952 revolution, when capital was introduced in the form of state-owned industry that brought about new alliances with the city’s dwelling middle class. The middle class then began circulating the power over ministries, municipalities and executive apparatuses, and with the passage of time this class nurtured trades and professions, which led to the creation of big cities. At that time, the state’s main alliance was with the educated middle class and the labor class.

The second shift happened in the nineties, when the economy shifted towards globalized capitalism under the euphemism “foreign investments.” Gradually afterwards, this globalized capitalism took control of the decision makers and the high-ranking army officers and civilian bureaucrats. This shift removed the rest of the urban middle class from the ruling equation, leading to the disintegration of industry, and the concentration of the working class in the private sector. At this point, the educated class did not find a place for itself in the economy, whilst the ruling mass hardened and closed itself on outsiders.

The ruling mass back then had two options to solve this problem. It should either have turned back to the state capitalism and the out- of-date Nasserian policies, or have adopted the realistic solution of democracy and allowing the public to organize. The revolution in 2011 was a push towards the democratic solution. At that time everyone knew that there was no magic solution, but we also knew that a democratic system would allow solutions to surface with the passage of time.

In this context, democracy was at fundamental odds with the interests of the ruling mass; it would mean breaking the army’s control of the country, a transparent military budget and transparent foreign investment accounts – the ruling mass pushed against it vigorously.

The January 2011 revolution gravely threatened the ruling mass, and the army responded first with oppression. Later on, when the army looked for a partner, the only available option was the Muslim Brotherhood. However, this alliance failed rapidly for two reasons; first, because the ruling mass was so closed it could not accommodate them, and second, the Muslim Brotherhood was too large a faction to be accommodated. In the end, the gap between the ruling mass and the youth remained in place, because the ruling mass failed to embrace democracy and was unable to shift back to the policies of the fifties.

What are the special features characterizing the new generation, and what lessons could it have learned from the January 2011 generation?

It is still too early to make assessments now after only one collision. However, I do believe that this movement will continue and will interact for a while. It took three years, after the first protest in 2005, to form the April 6 movement, which called for the strike of 2008. The slight difference between the generations is that every new generation is aware of the experience of the previous one, unlike what happened when the Kifaya (enough!) movement was formed; the generation difference then was two generations. The close generational difference is of great effect on the movement, for it provides the new generation with vital experience in planning and organizing protests.

Although, the recent protests were not called for by any political faction, no major disagreement happened on the streets. This is due to the experience these protesters collected from the January 2011 generation. Moreover, they did not have to come up with a new speech, they only had to refer to the January 2011 talking points.

This generation knows full well that this state is beyond repair, and that the only solution is democracy. They know that the Muslim Brotherhood is no longer a viable alternative; both the military institution and the Muslim Brotherhood have lost all their credibility with the new generation.

What is the role of the January 2011 generation in the current movement, especially in the field of preventing the exploitation of the movement once again?

This generation in particular is problematic. It feels that it owns the state and represents the entire society – it does not have political affiliations and views itself above political parties. Its problem with the Muslim Brotherhood was not over the Brotherhoods’ views on democracy, rather over the Brotherhood’s opportunism and its narrow partisan interests.

This faction is the one that takes to the streets the most, yet it does not present political alternatives, and it was this disadvantage that paved the way for the army to take over and the Muslim brotherhood to a lesser extent. However, it is also fair to say that oppression through lynching, arrests or assassination was a major factor preventing this faction from organizing. Many of the generations’ bright minds like Alaa Abdulfattah and others are now in prison, and many attempts to organize were suppressed with a brutality unprecedented in Egyptian history.

It took Egypt two years to make sure that the Muslim Brotherhood was not fit to rule, and it might take Egyptians five years see that the army is not fit to rule either. Likewise, history will show the new generations the importance of organizing.

The generation of January 2011 must now take the role of creating organizational vehicles, rather than leading the movement, and it can also come up with a practical speech and applicable demands.

It is obvious that the movement did not arise solely because of the two islands; however, there must be a clear demand concerning the islands. By that, I do not mean organizing to obtain power, rather pressing to be an active part in the equation, and pushing towards the democratic option –  not necessarily reaching for power.
The issue of the islands connected the generations together, and it is part of the national narrative that is taught in schools. Therefore, selling the islands to Saudi Arabia for 60 billion Egyptian pounds (US $6.7 billion) represents an insult to the nation that even older generations felt.

People go to the streets when there is a chance, and not in response to certain policies. In 2011 the Egyptian people had a real chance to take part in ruling the country. The chance will present itself again due to the corruption and ignorance of the rulers and other sectors of the population will take part in them, if the protests last long enough. And this movement will be resumed, maybe next Monday or Tuesday or maybe after a month, the root of the movement is the frustration felt by the people and the gap between the people and the ruling mass.

Moving against the authorities without having an alternative is always met with skepticism, what is the alternative suggested by the current movement?

The alternative could be either in the form of persons or in the form of procedures. The January 2011 revolution suggested certain procedures, a transition government and election, which suggests a person. What is proposed today is a set of procedures that do not mention Al-Sisi’s removal or preservation. The proposed procedures guarantee opening the public sphere to democracy, releasing political prisoners, free media, the removal of the demonstration law and protecting the freedom of expression. These procedures can be considered an alternative, and although they do not present an economic program, they open the space for programs to surface.

The alternative person however, must come forth at some point, but not at the moment, for it would be extremely confusing to the process. What is needed now is a set of democratic procedures to solve the social, economic and political crises. Moreover, the state should not fight back with an iron fist, it should rather work with the movement to solve the problems.

Where do you place the Muslim Brotherhood in the current equation, especially after they announced their participation and joined the protests in some areas?

The Muslim Brotherhood is in a dangerous shape at the moment. Today we have a million-member organization without leadership, and with the persecution they face, many of them are now attracted to ISIS ideology. In the eighties and the nineties, the Muslim Brotherhood was more moderate, and they did not support Jihadi organizations. Today however, many Muslim Brotherhood websites and pages support ISIS in Sinai. After trying to present themselves to the west as moderates, the Brotherhood is now trying to gain favor with backward countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an authoritative right wing alternative that had presented itself to contain the crises in Egypt, and today it is more authoritative and further right wing, which validates the authorities’ threats that the country would turn into another Syria or Iraq if they were ousted.

Having such a disintegrated right wing mass in the movement is disastrous, they would do nothing but confuse the youth and Al-Kanaba Party (The Couch Party) and validate the government’s talking points. However, the solution is easy and it is up to the January 2011 generation to publically reject any alliance with the Brotherhood and denounce them as an unpatriotic faction. In addition, having clear and known organizations in the movement would protect it from the participation of any unwanted factions like the Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are talks about disagreements within the state institutions, some of whom might actually support the movement, similar to the case of the Tamarrod movement in 2013, when the security apparatuses did not crack down on the movement as usual. How do you see this assumption?

This assumption could be true, for the security forces did not brutalized the protestors last Friday. There is no perfectly harmonious ruling mass in any country in the world, they all have disagreements and these disagreements seem to escalate in times of crisis – facing crises requires strategic decisions that might not suit all parties.

The crisis in Egypt is clear, it is a struggle between a military and civilian components, alongside a less obvious struggle between the military and the security components. However, I do not think that any support for state institutions would aim at ousting Al-Sisi, for that would mean that someone from that institution would take his place, which has very heavy responsibilities.

Nonetheless, such support might be aimed at imposing a certain partnership in the decision making process or merely to practice pressure. At the end, one can neither confirm nor deny these conspiracies. However, the responsible reaction from the state to the protests shows that the Ministry of Internal Affairs did not want to be responsible for violence in dispersing protests this time.