Egypt: the history behind the revolution

Many see the Egyptian revolution as a quantum leap into a new world of real democracy, spreading to Libya, Bahrain, Algeria and elsewhere. Others fear that Egypt has never known democracy and that the army, with its huge business stake and much to hide, will never let go. All agree that at present there is strong momentum for the establishment of some kind of democracy.

Nonetheless, old prejudices die hard in Egypt. When I covered the first reasonably fair Egyptian elections in 1984, I asked my taxi driver which party he would vote for. “Al Hizb al Watani, tab’an (“The National Party”—meaning the ruling NDP—“of course”), he replied, perplexed. To vote anything else would be unpatriotic.

These entrenched factions and loyalties will no doubt play a part in Egypt’s first genuine democratic election later this year. But democracy is not alien to Egypt. Far from being a radical and unfamiliar form of politics, the forthcoming elections are the product of a long history of periodic upheaval and international interference.

New democracies in Europe have EU models to copy; there are no such models in the Middle East. But Egypt is by no means new to values the West promotes. Napoleon’s brief invasion opened Egypt to the modern world. After the French were expelled, the Macedonian, Muhammad Ali, turned the country into a part of Europe—a process continued by his grandson, Isma'il Pasha, who invited the French Empress Eugenie to open the Suez Canal. This led to bankruptcy and Britain’s fiscal supervision. In 1880 an Egyptian officer, Urabi Pasha, provoked an uprising that accelerated British control, yet memories of Urabi combined with US President Woodrow Wilson’s doctrine of self-determination to inspire the demonstrations of 1919. The attempt by Islamic reformer Sa'd Zaghloul to send a delegation to the Versailles peace talks failed, but out of this rejection was formed The Wafd (Delegation Party), Egypt's first political party—which was even active in the crowds in Tahrir Square last week.

Yet while interaction with international politics exposed Egypt to democratic values, it also led to instability and, ultimately, authoritarianism. Egypt's failure in the 1948 war with Israel exacerbated a feeling of desperation. In January 1952 anti-British feeling led to mobs burning symbols of Western influence, and in July Nasser led a bloodless coup d'etat. His immense pan-Arab influence was eventually checked by Israel in June 1967.

When I lived in Cairo as a student in 1968 my movements as a foreigner were heavily curtailed. All foreigners were suspect. The streets were filled with noisy funerals of Fateh men and trains were filled with soldiers wounded on the banks of the Suez Canal. Secret policemen listened to every word spoken in cafés.

Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat raised military morale in the 1973 war, but the bread riots of 1977 showed just how unhappy Egyptians were. Sadat recovered by signing a peace treaty with Israel but he also locked up the Muslim Brothers—acts that provoked his assassination in 1981. Mubarak reacted by developing a vast state security system. Demonstrations were ruthlessly suppressed: in 2005, the police beat and tore off the blouses of middle class women protesting in central Cairo.

It is in this environment that the Muslim Brotherhood has operated over the past few decades. The west fears the Brotherhood through the lens of Egyptian state paranoia, but it was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna as a peaceful reform movement. Defeat in the 1948 war with Israel changed all that. The Brotherhood blamed Mahmoud al-Nuqrashi's government for the loss, and, as a result, the group was suppressed. A Muslim Brother gunned down Nuqrashi but al-Banna denied involvement and tried to calm the situation. The government turned a deaf ear and al-Banna was himself shot and killed in the following year.

Nasser initially befriended the Brotherhood, inviting Sayyid Qutb, its leading thinker, to draft the constitution of the new official party. However, two years later a Brother tried to kill Nasser and Qutb was arrested and tortured. Qutb likened the developing struggle between the Brotherhood and Nasser’s Free Officers to a Qur’anic verse, “The Makers of the Pit,” in which believers are burned by tyrants. In 1966 Qutb was hanged and his key disciple, Zaynab al Ghazali, was given 25 years with hard labour.

The Brotherhood has since moderated its activities, but the government has not responded with greater tolerance. When English PEN sent me to Cairo in 2003 to cover the trial of Sa'd ad-Din Ibrahim—accused of challenging Mubarak and his sponsorship of his son Gamal as successor—I learnt that Tora prison was full of Islamists who were routinely tortured and denied access to family or lawyers.

It is no wonder that the Brotherhood was so slow in joining the crowds over the past weeks. Had this revolution failed, they believed that they were in danger of extermination. While much western anxiety about the prospects for democracy in Egypt is based on fear of the Muslim Brotherhood, they must play a part in a new broad alliance if Egyptian democracy is to overcome its turbulent history.