Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011 [1 ed.] 9789774166570

Citation preview

CAIRO PAPERS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE VO LUM E 32

NUMBER 4

WINTER 2009

Negotiating Space The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011 Dimitris Soudias

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS CAIRO

N E W YO R K

Cover photo: courtesy of Ben McTigue Conant Copyright © 2014 by the American University in Cairo Press 113, Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt 420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 www.aucpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Dar el Kutub No. 21911/13 ISBN 978 977 416 657 0 Printed in Egypt

Contents Acknowledgments

v

1

1 3

Introduction Research Methods

2 The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case Development of the Political Process Approach Criticism of the Political Process Approach The Political Process Approach in Egypt Conceptualizing a Framework for the Political Process Approach Perception, Normativity, and the Media in the Political Process Approach Construction of Protest Spaces for Representation Place and Space Power Relations Power in Space Space, Power Relations, and the Study of Protest in Egypt Summary 3

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved Hybrid Authoritarianism Why Actors Matter Resistance Authority Summary iii

10 11 13 15 17 26 28 33 34 38 39 44 47 47 49 51 61 65

Contents

iv

4 Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011 66 2000–2002: Reclaiming the Streets 68 2003: Protesting War, Outnumbering the Police 75 2004–2006: Enough! The Call for Democracy 78 2006–2010: Labor Strikes and the Art of Continuity 92 2010–2011: Thawra—The Streets Conquered 103 5

Conclusion Conclusion 1 Conclusion 2 Conclusion 3 Conclusion 4 Conclusion 5 Outlook

130 130 131 132 133 133 133

Bibliography

137

About the Author

154

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank many people who made this study possible. I would like to thank Dr. Christoph Schumann, Dr. Malak Rouchdy, Dr. Rabab el-Mahdi, and Dr. Reem Saad for helping me frame and organize my initial ideas and thoughts. I am very grateful for the time, input, and encouragement of my accountabilibuddy, Kelsy Yeargain; my editors, Ingmar Kreisl, Kristof Lowyck, and Moritz Ortegel; the many interview respondents; and all of my friends and family for calming me down in times of great distress. I would also like to thank Ruby Riad for developing the figures used in this study, and Laila Abdelkhaliq Zamora for interpreting and translating on many occasions. Finally I would like to thank Iman Hamdy, without whom this publication would not have been possible, and my copyeditor, who thoroughly read and questioned each and every word of this book. I dedicate this work to my parents, Zoi Theofanidu and Stathis Soudias, and my sister, Maria-Christina Soudia.

v

CHAPTER 1

Introduction On January 25, 2011, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo and other cities in the country to contest then-President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian rule, and to express their grievances, frustrations, and desires. Within less than three weeks, the popular uprising— though facing massive police violence—forced Mubarak to leave office. The sheer number and determination of large segments of Egypt’s population changed long-established arrangements of power structures. This process is ongoing. When people took to the streets, national and international observers were taken by surprise. Intelligence services and so-called experts were unable to predict the events that unfolded in front of their eyes. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton even described the Mubarak regime as “stable” on January 25. In Germany, the failure of political science to predict such events resonated in media discourse. Crediting social media and the prior events in Tunisia with the protests in Egypt became a fashionable explanation in many academic and media circles, effectively taking agency away from the Egyptian people. Those factors certainly facilitated mass mobilization but cannot explain the picture in its entirety: social media have been around in Egypt for years, and saying Tunisia started a domino effect raises the question of why it happened in Tunisia. So the question of “Why now?” remains; what was different in January 2011 as opposed to before? The fundamental answer is that revolutionary upsurges and other such large-scale events in history are not predictable with any kind of 1

2

Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

accuracy. In hindsight, however, as Timur Kuran rightly notes, such revolutionary processes “are anything but surprising” (1989:41). The objective of this study is a diachronic analysis of the development of street protests in Egypt since 2000 that led to the downfall of Mubarak in 2011. Under an authoritarian regime like Egypt’s, there is no transparent, legitimate set of state institutions through which the citizenry can express demands and grievances. When people are deprived of the (electoral) power to change the status quo, however, they “are likely to bring collective pressure to bear on authorities to undertake change” (Bayat 2009:11). Thus they take their discontent to public places in the form of strikes, protests, or sit-ins. After a period of hibernation of social-movement activity during the 1990s, the Egyptian street awakened in 2000 and progressed continuously, though not linearly, until 2011. I will analyze the negotiation of the status quo, that is, the relationship between resistance (protesting actors) and authority (the regime and the security forces that represent it) and their interactions in protest events. Using the January 25 uprising as a dependent variable, I will show how the ‘Egyptian street’ evolved, served as a space of discontent, and hence was the main arena for negotiating power relations between resistance and authority that ultimately led to Mubarak’s ousting. In short, I want to find out how the Egyptian street, which had been proclaimed “apathetic” and “dead” (Bayat 2003) by observers for so long, developed into a liberated protest space that forced an authoritarian ruler out of office. The January 25 uprising was the culminating episode of negotiating power relations in a series of five consecutive contentious cycles since 2000. Based on premises of social-movement theory, constructivism, and sociology of knowledge, I argue that the negotiation of power relations in Egypt has been expressed through the ‘battle’ over socially produced protest spaces. Authority, represented by security forces, attempts to keep the streets ‘orderly’ and maintain territorial control. Protesters attempt to gain this territorial control over streets and squares and try to politicize them by constituting and expanding protest spaces that symbolize resistance and discontent against existing authoritarian power structures. In other words, authority tries to maintain the status quo while resistance actors attempt to change it; the negotiation of protest space is the negotiation of power relations. What makes space political,

Introduction

3

and thus social, is the active or participative use of public places, rather than the ‘orderly’ passive use dictated by the regime (such as walking, watching, driving). The toolkit through which spaces can be expanded (as intended by protesters) and contracted (as attempted by security forces) are tactical repertoires, that is, considerations and implementations of “contestation in which bodies, symbols, identities, practices, and discourses are used to pursue or prevent changes” (Taylor and Van Dyke 2004:268) in the formation of space, and ultimately in institutionalized power relations. The tactical choices actors make are highly influenced by their (political) agenda, as well as by structural premises that have constraining effects. As I will show, each of the five protest cycles included a predominant protesting actor that introduced particular tactics from which other (involved) actors were able to learn. Along with this, tactical choices are influenced through a process that I call ‘political learning’: actors implement those available tactics that—through individual and collective experiences and observation of other actors’ experiences—have proven to be successful in order to pursue a goal. While many studies on social-movement actors in Egypt have been undertaken (Wickham 2002; Abdelrahman 2009; el-Mahdi 2009a; Beinin 2009b), few have considered spatial categories (Ismail 2006; Bayat 2009) and did so only episodically. Only recently, ‘space’ in police–protester interactions has started becoming a constant in some case study research on social movements (Zajko and Béland 2008; Wahlström 2010; Martin 2011), but a theoretical approach is still missing. This research intends to contribute to closing this research gap.

Research Methods

It took a long time to find the set of research methods most suitable for my investigation. Approaching the topic of street protests in Egypt in research conducted in 2010, I explored how tactical repertoires had influenced the evolution of these protests since 2000 and concluded with a counterfactual analysis—that is, “the exploration of things that did not happen, but (conceivably) could have” (Gerring 2001:221)—regarding the potential risks for the authorities if Midan al-Tahrir in the heart of Cairo were to be occupied by protesters for a longer period of time. The mass protests beginning in January 2011 have answered some of the questions I posed, and I found that I had to reframe parts of my research.

4

Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

I now want to find out what led to the 2011 mass protests. As mentioned above, I argue that the main locus of negotiating power relations in Egypt is the politicized street, and that ultimately episodes (or cycles) of street protests (which depend heavily on structural conditions in terms of the political process approach—PPA) led to the culminating episode of protest activity in January and February 2011. The negotiation of power relations is expressed in the battle of authority and resistance over protest spaces, which is fought through tactical repertoires. Since the starting point of my research is 2000, diachronic research seems the most suitable design: I will look carefully at changes in Egyptian society during and prior to the 2011 uprising and the acquisition and use of tactical repertoires of authority and resistance. I decided to focus on the Cairo metropolitan region, because most street protest events occur there, as it is the capital and the country’s political center, the “seat of concentrated wealth, power, people, and needs” (Bayat 2009:165) and the site of aggregated contradictions and social conflicts. Indeed, the inequalities of Cairo embody the prevailing social, political, and economic order of the state as a whole. Arguably, Egypt-wide conclusions about the efficiency of tactics can be deduced from the Cairo situation if a prevailing pattern of tactical repertoires can be found. I use a triangulation of methods to check my results in multiple ways. These methods are: (1) qualitative, semi-structured interviews with activists, politicians, scholars, and journalists (Davies 2001; Goldstein 2002; Landman 2008; Tansey 2009); (2) documentary research (Mogalakwe 2006; Scott 2006) of collective action events; and (3) participant observation in protest events. Together, these methods will explain who fights the battle over protest spaces with which set of tactical tools and for what reason, which in turn will help to explain how and why the 2011 uprising occurred. The interviews were conducted in English and recorded with a tape recorder, and the relevant sections were transcribed. During protests I would ask questions in Arabic to random participants and take written notes. Personal contacts greatly facilitated my entry into the field and further respondents were accessed through snowball interviews. Protest observations were photographed or recorded with the video camera of my phone; slogans and chants were recorded with a tape recorder, as well as in field notes that were typed out when needed. It

Introduction

5

was particularly useful to draw the positioning and movement of actors and goods at a protest scene in my notebook. The third main source of data was newspapers and online videos, plus live tweets and Facebook posts, giving real-time information about potential police violence, ‘safe’ exits and entries to protest sites, and the like. Access problems, especially regarding police information, made strategic sampling difficult. Nonetheless, even though there are certain authority and resistance perspectives that are not represented in my material, my overall evaluation is that I managed to achieve “an acceptable level of analytically motivated variation” (Wahlström 2011:53). In addition to activists from different factions, journalists from local and foreign media, politicians, and scholars, I was able to interview residents of the poor urban neighborhoods of Manshiyat Nasir (Garbage City) and al-Qarafa (City of the Dead) to learn about their involvement (in terms of poor people’s movements as suggested by Piven and Cloward 1977) in protest actions, particularly in the 2011 uprising. These latter interviews were conducted in Arabic with the help of an interpreter. The semi-structured interviews contained a prearranged set of questions, but were intended as a discussion with the interview partner. Since most answers have corresponded among interviewees, I was interested in the details and the individual perspective. These personal discussions have proven to be an inspiring source of tactical deliberations. To this extent this was a learning process for both the interviewee and me, and has been even more insightful in cases with multiple interviewees. A crucial element of data gathering was participant observation of police. Without it, my analysis would have been too one-sided. I intentionally moved to downtown Cairo in order to be close to the known protest sites. My apartment was on Sheikh Rehan street directly opposite the Ministry of Interior (MOI). On one occasion during the 2011 uprising, a plainclothes police officer refused to let me leave my building for “security reasons.” While I was disappointed at first—particularly because I had no television, and the Internet and telephones were cut off—this restriction turned out to be a unique opportunity for police observation. I was able to sneak onto my balcony and observe how the security forces organized against the protesters who tried to approach the MOI from the back. While I did not see the protesting crowd, I was able to witness the strategic placement of sharpshooters

6

Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

on top of the MOI, the advance of riot police platoons toward the protesters, and internal conflicts among the police, ranging from crying officers to scuffles and even beatings of the ones who refused to go back to the front line of police–protester fights. I unfortunately also had to witness individual protesters being dragged into the barracks of the MOI, and could hear screaming that indicated physical abuse and torture. On other occasions, particularly in the massive 2011 protests, police and protester interactions were notoriously difficult to observe, especially if the aim was to explore group processes and/or the outbreak of violence. As Wahlström notes, ideally “systematic research of police/ protester interaction requires co-ordinated efforts or multiple observers . . . , since single observers frequently find themselves in the wrong place to get an overview of crucial episodes” (2011:56–57). Distinguishing particular groups or individuals at a protest site is virtually impossible in a big protest when the identity of the subjects is not clearly marked. This problem can only be solved by finding matching answers by respondents. Additionally, close proximity to confrontations was dangerous, because of the brutality of the Egyptian security forces. There was also a risk of arrest simply for being an observer. Journalists in Egypt, particularly the ones from major foreign news networks, enjoy a certain level of protection because of their status. There is, however, no equivalent for academic researchers. I would often place myself in close proximity to journalists or even cover protests with journalists in order to be under this protection. Sometimes I would visibly wear my camera in order to look like a journalist. Interestingly enough, this particular behavior reflects how even I, though not directly involved in protest activities, would make use of tactical repertoires in order to protect my physical well-being. A permanent problem in qualitative research is the risk of not being sufficiently distant and critical enough in handling data during analysis and too easily adopting the perspectives of the respondents. This risk is particularly apparent when the researcher carries out extensive participant observation and enters into the research with an initial sympathy for the research subjects. As Wahlström notes: “You do your best to understand the life-worlds of the individuals you study and thereby easily become enmeshed in them” (2011:60). Thus it is particularly important to frame one’s role. During the 2011 mass protests I often

Introduction

7

sympathized with the protesters’ cause and it was very difficult to resist being drawn into the spell of solidarity. I framed my role as a researcher and tried to keep the necessary distance toward the research objects and subjects. Yet it has been difficult to objectify my own perspective, and I leave it up to the reader to judge whether I have maintained or lost my critical distance in the analysis. Having said this, I argue that studying the interaction of opposing forces, rather than a single movement as often occurs in social movement theory (SMT), can be a helpful corrective to the researcher’s perspective. I came to realize the possible weakness of this attempt at objectivity when I was trapped in my apartment and witnessed acts of abuse as described above. Research ethics broadly assume good scientific conduct based upon the ethics of research procedures and the assessment of the potential consequences of publicizing research results, though it is not always easy to decide what is ‘the right thing to do’ (Israel and Hay 2006:13). Ultimately, I decided that protecting my sources would be more ethical than possibly exposing them to official repercussions. Some of my respondents were arrested during the mass protests, and Egypt’s current political situation is too uncertain to expose their names. After the ousting of Mubarak, thousands of Egyptians were detained by the armed forces for sometimes dubious reasons; exposing respondents to arrest would not be in accordance with good scientific conduct, since my data include information that might be detrimental to individuals or organizations. I am quite sure that no extremely sensitive information ever came to my knowledge, but at certain points in some interviews the respondents asked me to turn off my recording device. Finally, I have to be careful not to aid security forces in identifying certain individuals and groups and their actions, particularly in the 2011 uprising. Hence I will quote respondents by stating their profession and/or group affiliation. I believe that this degree of protection is not necessary when using data from Twitter or public Facebook profiles and certain weblogs, as this openly published information can have no expectation of privacy. In sum, I agree with Wahlström (2011) that the primary focus of research ethics should not be dogmatic implementations of rules and principles, but rather the potential consequences of research. I would be happy if my research had any consequences at all beyond my readers. Nevertheless I think it is important to keep in mind the ways in which

8

Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

research results and analyses can be used, and to consider and be prepared for interpretations that could have adverse effects. Various kinds of literature are used for this research: academic publications by Western-trained scholars, reports from NGOs, and Western and Arabic newspaper and blog accounts, as well as Arabic pamphlets and leaflets. While social-movement theory seeks to explain occurrences based on general principles, it is composed almost entirely of various case studies conducted in northern industrialized countries (e.g., Tilly 1986; della Porta and Diani 2006). Only recently have an increasing number of academics started criticizing this Western bias and calling for modifications with respect to non-Western contexts (Bayat 2009; Shigetomi and Makino 2009). This will be further discussed in chapter 2. Concerning the sociology of space, the reference literature consists of Western publications, as Middle Eastern traditions have not come to my attention in the process of writing this manuscript. Apart from academic literature, I used reports from NGOs such as the International Crisis Group (ICG). The often more detailed Arabic newspaper accounts of protest events were complemented with Western news outlets, as the independence of coverage of some Arabic papers remains doubtful. Blogs and pamphlets contributed a much clearer picture of unfolding events. This study attempts to (1) look beyond the overly state-centric elite bias in most political science literature on Egypt (e.g., Brownlee 2002; Lust-Okar 2005; Rutherford 2008); (2) contribute to closing the research gap in social-movement theory, which considers spatial categories and territoriality only episodically; and (3) make the Egyptian events seem less surprising and diminish the weight of surrounding factors such as Tunisia and social media. It is structured as follows: In the second chapter I will elaborate on major paradigms of social-movement research studies and discuss what needs to be taken into consideration when applied to the Egyptian case. I will also analyze the social production of space, how power relations play out in space, and what this means for the study of protest. Both theoretical approaches serve as comprehensive premises for the case study and will be concluded by a conceptual framework for this investigation. In chapter 3, the predominant relevant actors who are found on the Egyptian street, as well as their agendas, will be examined: resistance actors (Islamists, secularists and pro-democracy actors, workers) and authority actors (riot police,

Introduction

9

plainclothes police, paid thugs). The case study in chapter 4 explores the evolution of the Egyptian street in the timeframe of 2000–2011.

CHAPTER 2

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

While collective action events, modes of protest, and forms of resistance have long been subject to social-science analysis through socialmovement research, little attention has been given to the role of space. The goal of this chapter is to close this research gap and to provide a conceptual framework for investigating the evolution of street protests in Egypt, with particular focus on the study of protest space in collective action events. Based on mixed theoretical considerations, the PPA in social-movement research and paradigms of the social production of space and power relations will be key to the framework for the study of resistance–authority interaction and their battle over protest spaces. The PPA frames social-movement actors as a form of mass politics and their relation to the state. It can therefore help us analyze the development of street protests in Egypt since 2000 within structural constraints. Approaches to the social production of space and power relations will allow us to conceptualize the role of protest space within the context of resistance–authority interaction in collective action events. This chapter is structured as follows. First, I will briefly elaborate on the development of the PPA, engage with the criticism this paradigm has received, and look at what needs to be taken into account when applying it to Egypt. I will then examine the most relevant factors for this investigation, based on Kriesi’s (2004) framework for the study of political context, in order to conceptualize an operative framework. 10

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

11

These factors include structures, configuration of actors, and interaction context. Within the interaction context, protest space materializes and is fought over by actors. Hence I will elaborate on theoretical approaches to the production and negotiation of space that are most suitable for this investigation. I will conclude this chapter by suggesting a conceptual framework for answering the research questions posed and briefly elaborate on the methodology used in the investigation. This will help us frame the emergence of social movements in Egypt since 2000 and their battle over protest spaces with security forces through tactical repertoires within structural constraints.

Development of the Political Process Approach

In most research on social movements, the ‘success’ of a movement is discussed in terms of available opportunities and restraints that can have facilitating or impeding effects on movements. Institutional accessibility and government responses, for example, are factors that influence a movement’s opportunity structure and circumscribe their choices of strategies. Depending on the extent to which structures are accessible or ‘open,’ mobilization may or may not occur. Political structures as such, however, do not prevent social movements from emerging. Three broad sets of structures have been acknowledged as analytical units that influence the emergence and development of social movements. The first one, mentioned above, is political opportunity structures (constraining social movements). The other two are mobilizing structures (informal and formal organizations available to protesters when they mobilize collective action) and framing processes (processes of reality interpretation and blame attribution by movement participants) (Hiroshi 1997:248). Before delving into the PPA itself, I will briefly outline the development of this paradigm. A study of its entire historic development, with all of its different streams and case studies and meanings, would go beyond the scope of this investigation. Therefore I will provide a brief and comprehensive account of how the study of social movements has changed since its inception. While social groups have been analyzed by great thinkers like Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, the study of collective action and social movements hardly played a role in academia before the middle of the

12 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

twentieth century. American sociologists, such as William Kornhauser (1959), developed the first concepts of collective behavior, mainly deriving from observations of the fascist movements in World War II, particularly the Nazi movement in the Third Reich. Meyer notes that such movements have been defined as “dysfunctional, irrational and inherently undesirable,” assuming that social movements represented alternatives to politics, rather than expressions of it (2004:126). The first major shift of this concept occurred with the emergence of the protest movements in the 1960s across industrialized nations. As Barnes and Kaase note, “a new set of political activities has been added to the citizen’s political repertory” (1979:149; emphasis added). Case studies have shown protesters’ ‘rational’ actions expressed through strategies in order to have their demands and grievances heard. Lipsky (1970), for example, analyzed the policing of protesters and argues that protests, as a political resource of the powerless, can influence policy-making. Piven and Cloward (1977) examined poor people’s movements and found out that social discontent can sometimes lead to government concessions. Social movements have been described as rational actors, with little access to the formal political arena. The ‘resource mobilization’ approach (RMA) came into existence and “led to a shift in the research focus from why movements emerge to how” (Meyer 2004:127; emphasis in original). This change of paradigm gave scholars a new toolkit to study social movements. Researchers directed their attention to the processes by which organizers mobilized protest activities (Meyer 2004:127). However, the RMA has been criticized by academics (e.g., Kendall 2005:570; Honda 1997:247), because it puts too much emphasis on the internal resources of social movements as the key factor in their emergence and development. Protesters’ agency has been examined, while little attention has been given to structure. Thus social-movement researchers started considering the context in which strategizing took place as a constant. In his book Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970, Doug McAdam (1982) seeks to begin a dialogue with the classical understanding of social movements and the RMA. He sees deficits in both and suggests the political process approach. His study examines civil-rights movements in the US and demonstrates the

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

13

analytical power of considering the “broad range of factors that affect activists’ prospects for mobilizing a social movement” (Meyer 2004:129). McAdam acknowledges that relatively few elites control the majority of power, but further recognizes, as Marxists long have, “that excluded groups do have the capacity to bring about structural change” (Armato and Caren 2002:94) He adds that social movements are political and represent a continuous protest from development to decline. Following his lead, analysts now directed their attention not only to the processes of generating mobilization, but also to the ‘nature’ of political context, activists’ grievances, and their interaction with mainstream politics. Social movements have since been studied through three analytical units: political opportunity structures (POS) that constrain social movements; mobilizing structures, meaning formal and informal modes of organizing collective action; and framing processes, which mediate between opportunity, organization, and action (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996). In other words, the main objective of the PPA is that protesters and activists do not choose tactics, strategies, and goals “in a vacuum” (Meyer 2004:127). Their actions are highly influenced, if not determined, by the frame of political context that sets the grievances and demands around which protesters decide to mobilize. In Egypt too, the frame of structural conditions determines the tactical considerations of security forces and resistance actors. The political process approach has become a “growth industry” (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996:2) in the US and Western Europe, and—according to Goodwin and Jasper—“the hegemonic paradigm among social movement analysts” (1999:28). However, the concept has its drawbacks. Kriesi (2004) notes that it “has given rise to all sorts of interpretations of its key terms; they have been used in many different ways” (2004:68).

Criticism of the Political Process Approach

The political process approach lacks clarity in some respects, a shortcoming which has often been criticized by experts. One of the more obvious of these has been pointed out above by Kriesi (2004): the use of terms. ‘Political opportunity’ and ‘political process’ have often been used interchangeably and lack definitional preciseness (Goodwin and Jasper 1999:28). McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald argue that “consensus

14 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

regarding the term ‘political opportunity’ has proven elusive” (1996:24). The popularity of the political process and political opportunity approaches among researchers led them to add more tasks and mechanisms to the concepts and blurred them even further. Gamson and Meyer (1996) note: “The concept of political opportunity structure is . . . in danger of becoming a sponge that soaks up every aspect of the social movement environment” (cited in Meyer and Minkoff 2004:1458). A further indicator of the lack of consensus about political process in the scholarly world is that it is sometimes understood as an approach and sometimes as a theory. The former seeks to ‘draw near’ a certain idea or concept, whereas the latter is a supposition or a system of ideas intending to explain something based on general principles. Goodwin and Jasper acknowledge this problem. At best, PPT [political process theory]1 in its current form provides a helpful albeit limited set of “sensitizing concepts” for social movement research. It does not provide what it frequently and often implicitly promises: a causally adequate universal theory or “model” of social movements. Such an invariant and transhistorical theory is simply not possible and should, therefore, not be the goal of research. (1999:28–29) In their article, “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine,” they further criticize the structural bias of the PPA. But as I will show, the PPA is fairly open and can accommodate a focus on action and agency and elements of process if the scholar wishes to do so. Finally, it must be mentioned that SMT and its associated concepts are fairly new fields in an ongoing process of improvement. For this reason, the above-mentioned criticisms will be taken into consideration in this study. The lack of power relations and spatial considerations in the PPA—which are necessary categories for this study—requires theoretical deliberations that go beyond the scope of the concept and will therefore be elaborated on in more detail throughout this chapter. Yet, as will be seen, the PPA is the most useful approach in the study of social movements because of its considerations for both structure and agency in the emergence and development of social movements. Before 1 Throughout this study, square brackets in quotes have been added by the author.

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

15

constructing an operative framework, we will look at the factors that need to be taken into account when researching social movements in a ‘non-Western’ context.

The Political Process Approach in Egypt

The study of social movements has been developed in a Western context and most of the literature dealing with SMT approaches focuses on industrialized, democratic northern countries (e.g., della Porta and Diani 2006; McAdam, McCarthy, and Zaid 1996). Yet more and more case studies of social movements can be found in the developing world in general, and in the Middle East in particular. Much of the literature on social movements in the Middle East focuses on Islamic activism (e.g., Wickham 2002; Wiktorowicz 2004). Even though this will be part of the case study, there remains more to be examined. Shigetomi notes that “only few researchers take the context of developing countries seriously in an attempt to identify the salient features of and approaches to social movements” (2009:6). While I will not be able to claim completeness of content, I will elaborate on particular factors in developing countries that need to be taken into account when studying social movements. These will help us frame social movements in Egypt. New Social Movement (NSM) theorists usually argue that conflicts in post-industrial societies arise not between classes but over how to control the production of symbols and redefine social roles. Yet in developing countries they acknowledge the need for ‘class’ as an analytical category for the study of social movements. In a case study on peasant movements in Latin America, Veltmeyer argues that most peasants “are constituted as a class, under the objectively given conditions of their relationship to the means of production, and to the state, the guarantor of this relationship” (1997:157). This can also be applied to the labor movement in Egypt. It is constituted as a class, collectively demanding higher pay and better working conditions from the company at which they are employed (the means of production), but also from the state if the company is unwilling to make concessions. Hence class is an important unit for the study of the Egyptian labor movement. Kajita’s examination of a study of NSM theorist Alan Touraine points out, that in developed countries, “social movements tend to concentrate

16 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

on matters involving society rather than the state, while those in developing countries tend to take a stand against the state, challenging the existing system of control” (cited in Shigetomi 2009:6). In Egypt’s authoritarian regime, where violence is directed against the population more regularly than in democratic regimes, conflict patterns differ from those in northern industrialized countries. The pro-democracy movement in Egypt, for example, took, and in a different way still takes, a strong stand against state authority. As Asef Bayat points out, a further factor around which people mobilize is impoverishment. Poverty has to a large extent been brought to developing countries through structural adjustment programs and resulted in poor resource distribution by the state and poor state administration (2009:233). Along the same lines, Bayat’s Street Politics (1997) examines poor people’s movements in Iran, where the poor are fighting for their most basic needs and rights. As I will show, Egyptian workers’ demands are initially socioeconomic in nature, namely living wages and better working conditions to sustain their families. The policing of protest in authoritarian contexts differs greatly from democracies. Where rule of law is being replaced through rule by law,2 the right of assembly can be criminalized and protests become outlawed. Through the emergency law and the anti-terror law in Egypt, repressive strategies have long been the legally sanctioned tools of protest policing. Most countries of the Middle East have authoritarian rulers who are far removed from ordinary people, little or no institutional access for the populace, high centralization of state power (which also results in geographic distances between the people and the state), and a huge disparity between the rich and the poor. These issues, structural conditions, and actor configurations are genuinely different or even nonexistent in the northern industrialized countries, making it all the more important to take these elements into account in the present case study.

2 “The difference . . . is that under the rule of law, the law is preeminent and can serve as a check against the abuse of power. Under rule by law, the law can serve as a mere tool for a government that suppresses in a legalistic fashion” (Shuguang as cited in Tamanaha 2004:3; emphasis added by author).

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

17

Conceptualizing a Framework for the Political Process Approach

Now that we have looked at the trajectory of the PPA paradigm, the goal of this section is to construct an operational framework for this study. As mentioned before, the PPA has been studied by different scholars through different modes of analysis—mostly as a model, framework, or theory. Elinor Ostrom provides an excellent account of these modes of analysis. Frameworks have a heuristic function and “organize diagnostic and prescriptive inquiry” (2005:28). For this research, I will work with a framework, because it will provide the most general list of factors that should be used to analyze political process arrangements, helping to generate the questions that need to be addressed for the case study (Ostrom 2005:28). These factors are: (1) structures, (2) configuration of actors, and (3) interaction context. For the purpose of this study, I will focus on the interaction context, because it is there that tactics and strategies of authority and resistance are used and enforced, and hence protest space is produced and contested. Structures. The core of the PPA is the political opportunity structure (POS). Peter Eisinger (1973) was probably the first scholar to introduce this concept. In his study “The Conditions of Protest Behavior in American Cities,” Eisinger found that the governing regime’s internal dynamics partly determine the likelihood of insurgency. Kitschelt explains the key idea of POS by stating that “political opportunity structures influence the choice of protest strategies and the impact of social movements on their environment. . . . [They] are comprised by specific configurations of resources, institutional arrangements and historical precedents” (1986:58). Since Eisinger introduced political opportunity structures, social-movement scholars have distinguished between ‘open’ institutional structures, which allow for easy access to the political system, and ‘closed’ structures, which impede access. The POS greatly influences the emergence, success, and failure of social movements. The core of political opportunities is formal political institutions that constitute institutional opportunity structures. Kriesi explains this as follows: The degree of openness of the political system is a function of its (territorial) centralization and the degree of its (functional)

18 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

separation of power. The greater the degree of decentralization, the wider is the formal access and the smaller the capacity of any one part of the system to act. . . . The greater the separation of power between the legislature (parliamentary arena), the executive (government and public administration), and the judiciary, as well as within each one of these powers, the greater the degree of formal access and the more limited the capacity of the state to act. (2004:70) Conversely, this means that highly centralized states with little or no separation of power—such as Egyptian authoritarianism—offer little or no access to formal institutions. When authorities provide meaningful avenues for access to the political system, fewer members of the populace are likely to protest, because more direct routes to influence the status quo are available at lower cost. In Egypt this has rarely been the case, and authorities have often repressed various social groups so that they have long been unable to develop the capacity required to press their claims. Through ‘divide and rule’ the authorities also turn these groups against each other and achieve a similar effect (see chapter 3). Hence, as Meyer and Lupo argue, “protest occurs when there is a space of toleration by a polity and when claimants are neither sufficiently advantaged to obviate the need to use dramatic means to express their interests nor so completely repressed to prevent them from trying to get what they want” (2007:123). In Egypt, there long existed a hybrid form of authoritarianism, a “stable state that shares both authoritarian and liberal features” (Springborg 2009:7). Such a polity allows for this political space of toleration, which in Egypt—as I will show in chapter 4—has haltingly opened up since 2000. The relationship between institutional accessibility, policymakers’ responses to popular demands, and the (protest) history of a country constitutes what Kriesi calls “cultural modes,” suggesting a sort of Streitkultur (culture of conflict) which has developed in a particular national context (2004:72). Cultural modes consist of certain practices that have a generally facilitative or constraining effect on the mobilization and success of social movements. One such practice is “prevailing strategies,” meaning “procedures that members of the political system employ when they are dealing with challengers” (Kriesi and Koopmans

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

19

1995:33). These strategies can be exclusive (repressive, confrontational) or inclusive (facilitative, cooperative) and usually have a long tradition throughout a country’s history. Egyptian authorities, for example, having a long history of repression of challengers, are more likely to rely on exclusive strategies. A second factor is the public’s perception and connectedness with certain causes and issues. If a movement’s idea or issue resonates with public opinion, it most likely will be regarded as ‘legitimate’ (in varying degrees) by authorities. These kinds of issues are called “discursive opportunity structures.” As I will show in chapter 4, solidarity with the Palestinians (during the first and second Intifadas) has been a cause around which thousands of Egyptians were willing to mobilize. Della Porta and Diani note that “while they are also structural (in the sense that they are beyond the movement’s sphere of immediate influence), discursive opportunities are distinct from political institutions” (2006:219). The issues of perception and normativity will be addressed below in more detail. If neither institutional nor discursive opportunities are available, “the challengers will find no support for its ideas and demands, nor will it be able to gain access to the polity” (Koopmans and Statham 1999:247). Where the political system is closed and hence lacks political opportunities, but the discursive opportunities are available, the challenger will be able to influence public discourse without establishing itself as a player in the formal political arena. In Egypt, political elites may take up such of these demands and ideas that do not conflict with their principles in order to satisfy the populace, while excluding and suppressing challengers. Both institutional and discursive opportunities are crucial to challengers’ success and are highly influenced by the “cleavage structures” (Lipset and Rokkan 1967) of a particular national context. Specific political cleavages may be grounded in social, economic, political, or cultural conflict structures. Kriesi notes: While the social-structural basis of a political conflict emerges from social change, the conflict itself results from the coupling of processes of social change—urbanization, population growth, industrialization, globalization and the like—with the processes of democratization, politicization, and mobilization.

20 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Social change determines structural and cultural potentials for political mobilization that remain latent as long as they are not politicized by a collective political actor such as a social movement. (2004:73) Traditional conflicts can constitute the foundation of political conflicts even today. Political groups and parties in Egypt (regardless of their legality) can be broadly divided into secular and Islamist organizations and regime and resistance actors. A further cleavage in Egypt can be found between the labor movement and the means of production, as well as between Copts and Muslims. The above-mentioned structural premises play out on the national level, which is “the most significant one as far as the political context for the mobilization of social movements is concerned” (Kriesi 2004:73). Yet with increasing internationalization and/or supranationalization of politics and political systems, global and regional structures should also be taken into account. Moreover, within the national level, regionaland local-level structures should be considered as well. For the present case study on Egypt, however, subnational structures will not be taken into account due to Egypt’s highly centralized political system. In terms of international structures, pressure from the international community for democratizing reforms can play an important role for mobilization opportunities, and hence will be considered in the case study in chapter 4. Configuration of actors. Now that structures have been discussed, I will turn to the actors within these structures and their configuration. As Koopmans rightly notes, “we must move beyond single movements, and consider dynamic interactions” (2004:21). Social movements operate in a multi-organizational field, interacting with a variety of other actors. From their viewpoint, actors can be categorized into protagonists, antagonists, and bystanders, which translates into the configuration of allies (interest groups, related movements, policymakers, media), opponents (public authorities, policymakers, countermovements, repressive forces), and the audience (media and people who are passively involved, such as bystanders or the ‘general public’) (Kriesi 2004:74). The greater the degree of closure of institutional opportunities, the more important

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

21

is the presence of allies for “gaining access to the decision-making process” (della Porta and Diani 2006:211). Through this categorization we will analyze dynamic interactions and power relations between authority and resistance in Egypt, as well as passive actors (bystanders), who certainly can turn into active ones. The order of structures, configuration of actors, and interaction context in this chapter broadly assumes an arrangement of contentious cycles, or episodes over time. I will use Tarrow’s (1994) definition of protest cycles: a phase of heightened conflict and contention across the social system that includes: a rapid diffusion of collective action from more mobilized to less mobilized sectors; a quickened pace of innovation in the forms of contention; new or transformed collective action frames; a combination of organized and unorganized participation; and sequences of intensified interactions between challengers and authorities which can end in reform, repression and sometimes revolution. (cited in della Porta and Diani 2006:188; emphasis added by author) Protest cycles often seemingly emerge out of nowhere, but then rapidly engulf broad geographical areas and sectors of society. They are widely acknowledged to be the result of changes in political alignments and relations of power (Koopmans 2004:22) and a major factor in the process of learning new tactical repertoires. The present case study will be divided chronologically into five protest cycles. Large-scale changes in structures and actor alignments, high levels of mobilization, and cleavage expressions were the main premise for constituting the cycles in this way (chapters 3 and 4 will show how each cycle has a ‘predominant’ contentious actor with a particular political agenda, which in turn highly influences tactical considerations). In order for actors to interact, they first have to come into existence, largely as a result of certain structural premises, and they have to find themselves in some sort of conflict configuration. This configuration represents “actors at a given point in time—their capabilities, perceptions and evaluations of the outcomes obtainable . . . and the degree to which their interests are compatible or incompatible with each other”

22 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

(Koopmans 2004:22). While the configuration can be an indicator of conflict, it does not stipulate how the situation will evolve. The configuration of actors is highly influenced by the structures of political context, but it is not as stable as the structure itself and hence more likely to change. Sidney Tarrow explains this as follows: Protesters can create political opportunities for elites—both in a negative sense, when their actions provide grounds for repression; and, in a positive one, when opportunistic politicians seize the opportunity created by challengers to proclaim themselves tribunes of the people. Protesters on their own seldom have the power to affect the policy priorities of elites. (2011:168) Nonetheless, as Egypt’s current transformations have shown, protesters can not only affect the elites’ policies, but can also force these very elites to step down. The likelihood of challengers finding allies for a particular cause depends on structural and discursive opportunities, as discussed earlier. A further factor is the nature of their demands. In an authoritarian regime, certain demands can be considered more risky than others. In this context, Giugni and Duyvendak’s (1995) terms, “high-profile” and “low-profile” domains, can be helpful. High-profile domains are characterized by their “critical importance for the maintenance of the established power relations in a given polity” (quoted in Kriesi 2004:77). In Egypt, demands such as regime change or democratic reforms can be considered high profile, as they threaten the regime’s survival directly. Mobilizing and allying around such causes can be more dangerous and costly. Low-profile domains, such as labor issues (minimum wage, conditions of work), do not directly interfere with established power relations in a given polity and hence are less dangerous causes to mobilize around. Finally, not all movements are dependent on the same political opportunities for their mobilization and success. For example, the labor movement in Egypt usually asks for things such as back wages and back bonuses and ends the strike once the authorities meet their demands. The pro-democracy movement demands that the regime step down,

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

23

which is not negotiable with the authorities. Hence, they depend on more opportunities for mobilization to obtain their goal. Interaction context and tactical repertoires. The third level of analysis describes the mechanisms linking structure and configuration to agency and action. It is at this level where protest space is produced and contested, and where the tactics and strategies of authorities and resistance play out. This level clarifies how and why a certain form of protest or a certain set of tactics is chosen rather than another one. Before delving into the interaction context itself, I will take a closer look at the tactics and strategies of both authority and resistance. Tactical repertoires are tools of “contestation in which bodies, symbols, identities, practices, and discourses are used to pursue or prevent changes in institutionalized power relations” (Taylor and Van Dyke 2004:268; emphasis in original). They do not ‘just exist’ in a vacuum, but have been developed over time in a process of political learning through particular actors in a particular political context: those available tactics that have proven to be successful in pursuit of a goal are the most likely to be applied. Tactics are essential to collective action, but they are also finite and constrained both in time and space. As James Ennis points out: Tactics are shaped by external limits such as poverty of resources, exclusion from the legitimate political order, scarcity of opportunities for action, difficulty of mobilization, or repression by opponents. They are also shaped by an “ inner logic,” which is based on the group’s ideology and organization and on the cost-benefit analyses of participants. (1987:520; emphasis in original) Thus strategies of authority and resistance depend on each other. Protesters in Egypt have little or no access to political institutions and are confronted by security forces in a repressive manner. This limits tactical choices when costs and benefits are being calculated. Arguably, most protest actions are found on streets or public places. These will be the focus of the case study. New media, such as (satellite) television and more recently mobile phones and social

24 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

networking via the Internet, have not only transformed the communication capacity of social movements, but also expanded their outreach, even in authoritarian regimes, because censorship is harder to impose on globalized media. The Internet has given rise to a virtual platform on which protesters can express discontent and demands, call for marches on Facebook, and tweet protest actions from their mobile devices. For an action to be successful in terms of goal pursuit, many strategic options have to be taken into consideration: cooperation or confrontation with authorities, location of protest, peaceful or violent means, protest methods (sit-in, march, etc.), legal preparations, tools of communication, and so on. Further, the choice of tactics symbolically expresses proximity to previous protest events or movements. Rochon (1988) notes that “the use of standard protest forms also evokes past political movements whose struggles have long since been vindicated as just” (cited in della Porta and Diani 2006:182). This dimension of political learning can be beneficial, but also a constraint. As Tilly rightly points out, “the existing repertoire constrains collective action . . . people tend to act within known limits, to innovate at the margins of the existing forms, and to miss many opportunities available to them in principle” (1986:390). What most forms of protest have in common, however, is that they follow what della Porta and Diani call the “logic of numbers” (2006:171). Quoting political scientist James DeNardo (1985), they state: [The] size of the dissidents’ demonstrations affects the regime both directly and indirectly. Naturally the disruption of daily routines increases with numbers, and the regime’s ability to control crowds inevitably suffers as they grow larger. In addition to the immediate disruption they cause, demonstrations by their size also give the regime an indication of how much support the dissidents enjoy. (cited in della Porta and Diani 2006:171) Expanding protest spaces to a bigger audience and ‘taking over’ streets (and symbols of state power) has proven to be a successful approach to influence policymaking as in, for example, the 1963 antiwar movement in the US and the 1977 bread riots in Egypt; and/or

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

25

to provoke radical change, as in 1789 in France, 1917 in Russia, 1979 in Iran, and arguably 2011 in Egypt. Thus, social movements predominantly use forms of action that can be described as “disruptive, seeking to influence elites through a demonstration of both force of numbers and activists’ determination to succeed” (della Porta and Diani 2006:181). Authorities may respond favorably to the challengers’ demands by changing their policies toward the movement’s goal (reform). As I will show, the Egyptian regime often deals with the labor movement in this way. Authorities may, however, also change policies in the opposite direction or maintain the status quo (threat). In Egypt this has often happened with Islamists and pro-democracy actors. Regarding collective action, authorities may crack down on movements in order to increase the costs of mobilization (repression), or they may ease action by providing resources and support (facilitation). Movements’ tactics and strategies depend on the chances of reform and threat, and the risks of repression and facilitation (della Porta and Diani 2006:181). In an authoritarian regime, repressive policing of protests is commonplace. As noted earlier, a country’s cultural modes, history of contentious politics, and prevailing strategies highly influence regime strategies and tactics toward protesters. Authorities—and this is also true in democratic political systems—have every interest in keeping the number of dissidents small and the protest event as contained as possible. Hence their response is the policing of protest, something protesters often view as repression. Della Porta and Reiter identified three strategic approaches for policing protest events: coercive strategies (use of force, violent means, or agents provocateurs to control or disperse a protest action in a legal or illegal manner), persuasive strategies (attempt to control protest by contacting activists, organizers, and leaders before protest actions take place), and informative strategies (gathering as much information about an event as possible in order to identify law-breakers as a preemptive measure) (1998:33). By combining these strategies, one can form models that are repressive of challengers to a greater or lesser degree. The main goal of policing is territorial control; it will be discussed in detail below. Egyptian security forces far too often resort to coercive strategies. As for its effect on

26 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

mobilization, rough types of protest policing may increase the risk of collective action and make it less attractive for bystanders to join. It is important to note that many forms of repression, particularly when they are considered illegitimate, could create a sense of injustice that increases the perceived risk of inaction. It is not surprising therefore that these two divergent pressures produce contradictory results, and empirical research indicates a radicalization of those groups most exposed to police violence in some cases and renunciation of unconventional forms of action in others. (della Porta and Diani 2006:200) Hence the development of conflicts depends not only on structural premises, but also on perception of conflict parties and patterns.

Perception, Normativity, and the Media in the Political Process Approach

As mentioned earlier, normative structural conditions are not the only things that can create and impair political opportunities; perceptions of certain actors and situations can do the same. A normative set of variables (e.g., structures, actors) may seem to provide very favorable opportunities, but may fail to produce a protest movement or event, because these normative opportunities are not perceived to be ‘real.’ Conversely, protest action or more radical change might emerge when challengers perceive the conditions and timing to be ‘right.’ As Goodwin and Jasper note, “there may be no such thing as objective political opportunities before or beneath interpretation” (1999:33). I mentioned that protests in authoritarian regimes like Egypt are more likely to be targeted against the state. Hence, both the perception of a state’s coercive power and the perception of a challenger’s power are factors to be taken into consideration. Authoritarian rule in Egypt is usually marked by fear and coercive force. As Ghanim notes, “this culture of fear is cultivated, encouraged, and exaggerated . . . as a means to control society” (2009:207). Under Egypt’s authoritarian rule, street protests targeting the state can be perceived to be dangerous: the potential risk of physical injury or even death can be too costly to

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

27

support a decision to protest. The perceived strength of coercive state power can translate into obedience, but also—as mentioned above— into disobedience. The second factor is the perception of the challenger’s power. Charles Kurzman explains this in his article on opportunity structures in the Iranian revolution. What was amiss, I propose, was the Iranian people’s perception of political opportunities. Iranians continued to recognize and fear the state’s coercive powers. However, they felt that these powers were insignificant compared with the strength of the revolutionary movement. . . . these perceptions caused Iranians to become more active. . . . Iranians considered the strength of the protest movement to be a decisive factor in their decisions to participate. (1996:161) When resistance is perceived to be strong enough to pursue a goal and challenge authority and the ‘fear barrier’ drops, regardless of normative conditions, (mass) protests can occur, as happened in the January 25 uprising in Egypt. In sum, there can be a mismatch between the structure of political opportunities and popular perceptions of political opportunities, which can facilitate or constrain the challengers’ possibilities. Media representation can shape and reflect conflict perception and public opinion, and influence the constraints and opportunities affecting movements. Gamson and Wolfsfeld suggest that protesters rely on the media for three reasons: (1) mobilization of (political) support, (2) validation in (mainstream) public discourse, and (3) making a conflict more public (1993:116). Hence, the media could be considered another part of political opportunity structures: “The structure of the media and the way they operate (their norms and practices) affect the opportunities and constraints under which movements operate” (Kriesi 2004:86). The quality and nature of the media coverage that the protesters acquire strongly influence how the public perceives them, to the extent that ‘good’ or ‘bad’ coverage can help “make or break a social movement” (Barker 2008). Perception and representation of conflicts and actors can thus shape the course of conflict.

28 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

The following figure is based on Kriesi’s (2004) framework for the study of political context. While Kriesi’s approach frames structural conditions, premises of agency, and the interaction of actors, it does not offer analytical categories of power relations (between the ones who are protesting [resistance] and the ones who are being protested against [authorities]), or how these power relations play out in the struggle over protest spaces. I will try to close this research gap by suggesting a modification of the interaction context of his framework in order to include those analytical categories that are key to answering this investigation’s research question: the relationship among political learning, production and negotiation of protest spaces, and dynamic relations of power. This will help to clarify how the protest space in which protesters and security forces interact with their sets of tactical repertoires is constituted, expanded, or contracted. Although the PPA offers useful analytical categories for the study of structures, configuration of actors, and the context of interaction, it does not provide an approach to space and power relations. In the following sections, I will elaborate on the spatial components of this investigation that materialize in the interaction context. First I will focus on suitable theoretical approaches to the production of space that will lead to an operational understanding of ‘protest space.’ I will then delve into the role of power relations for the production and contestation of such spaces, before examining the importance of choosing ‘the right place’ for protesting and the implications of this choice for territorial control.

Construction of Protest Spaces for Representation

While there are multiple approaches to the construction of space, few scholars have attempted to constitute a theory of it. Lefebvre was one of the first; he suggested analyzing space in its social relation to production, rather than its materiality. If space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of production. The “object” of interest must be expected to shift from things in space to the actual production of space. (cited in Unwin 2000:23) In his Marxist understanding, the production of space is the appropriation of space. Lefebvre tries to overcome the classical distinction

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

29

PPA space framework

Figure 

STRUCTURES $MFBWBHF
4USVDUVSF Cultural Modes / Streitkultur 1PMJUJDBM
*OTUJUVUJPOT International Context

CONFIGURATION OF ACTORS t
"MMJBODF
TUSVDUVSF t
$POøJDU
TUSVDUVSF

INTERACTION CONTEXT /FHPUJBUJPO
PG
QSPUFTU
TQBDFT

Institutional opportunities t
3FQSFTTJPOGBDJMJUBUJPO t
5ISFBUSFGPSN

REGIME STRATEGIES .BJOUBJOJOH
iQVCMJD
PSEFSw
BOE
DPOUBJOJOH
QSPUFTU
TQBDFT
UISPVHI
UBDUJDBM


Discursive opportunities t
3FTPOBODFEJTTPOBODF
XJUI
QVCMJD
PQJOJPO

repertoires

RESISTANCE STRATEGIES 1SPEVDJOH
BOE
expanding protest TQBDFT
UISPVHI
UBDUJDBM
SFQFSUPJSFT

Po

lit iDa l lea rn

Media representation and QFSDFQUJPO
PG
PQQPSUVOJUJFT t
'BDJMJUBUJOHDPOTUSBJOJOH
FòFDUT

lea r

ng ni

OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES

PolitiDal

ing

between production and consumption and argues that space gains its practical value from both its production and its usage. Capitalism, he argues, only managed to survive by turning space into goods and services (Holm 2004:37, 40). Lefebvre distinguishes between what he calls “representational spaces” (appropriated, lived space; space in use) and “representations of space” (planned, controlled, ordered space)

30 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

(2009:38–39). Public space often originates as a representation of space, as for example the parliament or Midan al-Tahrir in Cairo. But when people use these spaces, for example to protest, “they also become representational spaces, appropriated in use” (Mitchell 2003:129). In Egypt’s case, the Parliament represents a site of order and state power, though when contested by protesters, it is representational for their demands and grievances. Although there have been other attempts to define the production of space (e.g., Harvey 2001), and other writers (such as Foucault) have developed spatial considerations further (Elden and Crampton 2007), I will focus on Löw’s relational model for the case study. Her approach seems the most appropriate for this investigation, because its core is the analysis of the social production of space through the actors involved. As I will show in this section, her approach can be applied to the ‘battle’ over protest space between protesters and security forces—the actors who constitute this very space. According to Löw, space is constituted through two processes that can be understood as discursive practices in a Foucauldian sense. The first is the placement of social goods and human beings, and of symbolic markings (e.g., police cordons at protests, street signs). This process she calls ‘spacing,’ and she describes its positioning and constructing (2001:158). An example would be the positioning of individuals in relation to others (such as at a demonstration or a battle), as well as the positioning of objects in relation to individuals (positioning of protesters in relation to police barricades or surrounding buildings, setting up of stages). Hence, spacing describes the relational positioning of one object or individual to another. The second process she calls ‘synthesis.’ Through processes of imagination, cognition, and reminiscence, goods and human beings are confined to spaces. Löw (2008) elaborates further: I stress the aspect of perception for the constitution of spaces because this alone accounts for the circumstance that people not only see but also smell, hear, and feel the social goods they connect or situate. Noises contribute to the formation of spaces . . . . What is peculiar to perceptual processes is not only that the external effects of social goods and other people are discerned but that they can exert influence even if the objects

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

31

themselves are not visible. The smell of plants, of freshly painted walls, or car exhaust gases affects perception and hence the constitution of space without the social goods having to be seen. Since all senses are affected, what is heard or smelt can also influence space constitution without being in view. (2008:40–41) This applies to protests as well: chants can be heard, tear gas can be smelled, and hence protests can be perceived without actually being seen.

This scene, 3 at the Egyptian ministerial cabinet building (at right) in Cairo in May 2010, is easily recognized as a protest site and not as a typical street scene. In order for a street to become a protest space, protesters have to inhabit (or, in other words, position themselves on) the street and give it a politicized meaning. This refers to Löw’s concept of spacing. They have to perceive and imagine the street as a site of protest with certain imagined or real symbolic meanings and demarcations, just as the photograph can be recognized as a protest 3 Photograph taken by Merrit Kennedy on May 2, 2010.

32 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

site because of the ‘borderlines’ of the police cordon. The demonstrators probably perceive the ministerial cabinet as a symbol of state power, a space of representation, and hence chose to protest there—turning it into a representational space of dissent and resistance in a Lefebvrian sense. These processes are what Löw calls ‘synthesis.’ Activists give the street a politicized meaning of contestation and protest by acting and moving—thus positioning themselves on it. They further give the street a politicized meaning by chanting slogans, which will be recognized as protest. This also enhances the perception of that space as a site of contestation and dissent. Police forces surrounding the protesters, thus positioning themselves and ‘interacting’ with them (as discussed below), represent authority over this space, aiming at keeping the street space orderly. Löw clarifies this relationship. Positioning involves the negotiation of power relations. Power in this context is to be understood as a relational category immanent in every relationship. The extent to which action opportunities can be realized depends on the means of power available in a relationship and situation. (2008:38) When protesters try to appropriate particular places in order to produce protest spaces, they position themselves against authority, which is represented by security forces. In order to successfully produce these spaces and extend/contest them against security forces, protesters need particular “action opportunities” (Löw 2008:38), which brings us back to political opportunity structures. The benefit of a spatial component in social-movement studies and vice-versa becomes evident here. I will turn to power relations and space later. First we must examine the differences between ‘place’ and ‘space.’

Place and Space

Just as spaces are socially constructed, places are as well, yet they have specific features that ‘pre-shape’ processes of imagination. Hyde Park in London is considered a venue of relaxation due to its constitution as such (trees, grass, its name); Qasr al-‘Aini Street in Cairo is primarily considered a means of transportation. Spaces do not necessarily have these particular material features; they are more of an abstract category

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

33

of territorially described environments or positional relations (Holm 2004:25). Salwa Ismail explains, “Place is the order of things without movement or action” (2006:xxxvi). Gieryn (2000) lays out some ground rules as to what places are. They have (1) a geographic location that is a “unique spot in the universe,” (2) a material, physical form, and (3) meaning and value given to them by people (2000:464–465). Place here is understood as the physical and geographical prerequisite for spaces that can be specifically named and located. But what does a place do? [It] stabilizes and gives durability to social structural categories, differences and hierarchies; arranges patterns of face-to-face interaction that constitute network-formation and collective action; embodies and secures otherwise intangible cultural norms, identities, memories and values. (Gieryn 2000:473) It is at a particular place that social interactions occur and spaces come into existence. For this investigation, I will show that places with particular symbolic characteristics—“memories and values”—are the arena for the “face-to-face” interaction between security forces (authorities, who are on top of state hierarchies) and protesters (who often contest existing hierarchic relations) in which protest spaces are being fought over. Our thesis is that security forces want to maintain the status quo and keep streets ‘orderly,’ while protesters want to gain control over them and turn them into spaces of dissent. Salwa Ismail acknowledges that “physical and symbolic characteristics of a given space symbolize social relations that are ultimately relations of power” (2006:xxxvi). In the next section I will elaborate on these power relations between security forces (authority) and protesters (resistance).

Power Relations

As there has been a multitude of scholarly work on power, it was not easy to find the appropriate theory for this investigation. Lila Abu-Lughod notes that “one of the central problematics in the human sciences in recent years has been the relationship of resistance to power” (1990:41). There is little literature that explicitly deals with both power and resistance. Michel Foucault once asserted “where there is power, there is

34 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (1980:95). What Foucault suggests is that power and resistance function as a relational system. In his rather spatial formulation he implies that the inside (power) relies on the outside (resistance) for its coherence and for the cognition of its limits. For this reason, his work will provide the theoretical framework for power relations in this research, because it includes forms of resistance and describes power as relational, which is in accordance with Löw’s understanding of space. It needs to be mentioned that Foucault’s work on power relations has evolved over 30 years and some aspects have changed as his thoughts evolved, which complicates Foucault’s concept. This becomes evident in his use of terms. Pickett (1996) notes: In the 1960s, he employs “contestation” and “transgression” and uses them interchangeably. In the early 1970s, Foucault moved to “struggle” and “resistance,” which again are synonymous. Foucault stayed with the same terminology throughout his most influential works of the 1970s and early 1980s, though he also used “agonism” on occasion. (1996:447) Exploring the entirety of his relevant work, from Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish to his multivolume work The History of Sexuality, would go beyond the scope of this study. Instead I will frame key concepts that are relevant for my analysis by following Foucault’s own systematization of the concepts of knowledge and power. Knowledge. The relationship between power and knowledge is one of Foucault’s key concerns, because a will to knowledge is a will to power. Hence knowledge and science are means of enforcing, maintaining, or dissolving power relations (Foucault 1995). Applied to street protests, this notion is similar to the notion of ‘political learning.’ As mentioned above, protesters and security forces will make use of tactics that, through individual and collective experiences, have proven to be most efficient for achieving objectives. Protesters try to dissolve power relations through (tactical) knowledge, and security forces try to maintain them with their learned set. Foucault’s (1980) approach to knowledge is through analyses of discourses.

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

35

It is the interest I have in modes of discourse, that is to say . . . that we live in a world in which things have been said. These spoken words in reality are not, as people tend to think, a wind that passes without leaving a trace, but in fact, diverse as are the traces, they do remain. We live in a world completely marked by, all laced with, discourse, that is to say, utterances which have been spoken, of things said, of affirmations, interrogations, of discourses which have already occurred. To that extent, the historical world in which we live cannot be dissociated from all the elements of discourse which have inhabited this world and continue to live in it. (cited in Hannabus 1996:98) Foucault’s ideas of discourses can be summed up as institutionalized and managed modes and practices of speaking/communicating that construct reality and hence knowledge. Knowledge is that of which one can speak in a discursive practice, and which is specified by that fact: the domain constituted by the different objects that will or will not acquire a scientific status . . . . Knowledge is also the field of coordination and subordination of statements in which concepts appear, and are defined, applied and transformed . . . but there is no knowledge without a particular discursive practice; and any discursive practice may be defined by the knowledge that it forms. (Foucault 2005:201) While I will not explicitly delve into oral and written discourses within particular Egyptian social protest movements or between them and authorities, it is important to note that the communication of ideas in a social movement is a crucial domain in terms of cultural modes, constructing shared meanings, demands, goals, and group cohesion. Chants, posters, and other tactical features come into existence through knowledge production/discursive practices. This also happens between protesters and authorities. They listen to and learn from each other’s demands, arguments, and statements, and act accordingly. This again underlines the feature of political learning. Furthermore, it is certainly

36 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

true that police agencies employ a “number of knowledge bases and technologically sophisticated techniques to locate, monitor, and control the citizenry” (Herbert 1997:17). Foucault’s goal is to link particular discursive formations, produced knowledge, and power to the ways in which power is deployed (Stüver 2009:65). Power. Foucault’s notion of power is to be understood as an analysis of how power is deployed, rather than as a theory of power per se. He goes beyond the categories of suppressor and suppressed, perpetrator and victim, master and slave, and argues that power is not necessarily negative, but can also be positive and productive. Foucault (1980) characterizes power as relational, as the “multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they constitute their own organization” (cited in McLaren 2004:218). Because it is relational, it is omnipresent: power is constantly (re)produced among and between individuals, groups, and institutions. Power is intentional and not possessed, but rather directed, and should be understood as a process. Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything but because it comes from everywhere . . . . Power comes from the below; that is, there is no binary and all-encompassing opposition between ruler and ruled at the root of power relations . . . . One must suppose rather that the manifold relations of force that take shape and come into play in the machinery of production, in families, limited groups and institutions, are the basis for wide-ranging effects of cleavage that run through the social body as a whole. (Foucault 1980:93) The relationship he describes is applicable to space. As previously stated, spatial positioning involves the negotiation of power relations. The relations of force that concern us here are the ones between authority (Egyptian ruling elites and their representation through security forces) and resistance (protesters). Understanding relations of power requires an analysis of forms of resistance that alter or dissolve them. Foucault sees resistance as the strange element within power relations. Resistance is what circumvents power and what power targets as an antagonist. Resistance is what threatens power, as it stands against

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

37

existing power relations as a challenger; it always takes place from within power relations, although at the same time it shifts those relations. Despite the fact that resistance is also a potential resource for power, the elements or materials that power works upon are never rendered fully obedient (Pickett 1996:458). As Foucault (1980) notes, points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network. Hence there is no single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary. Instead, there is a plurality of resistances, each of them a special case. (cited in Kelly 2002:240) In the case study, I will focus on the locus of the politicized street as the level on which resistance is deployed. Each actor enforces a plurality of modes of resistance expressed in protest forms of tactical repertoires, in order to change, maintain, or dissolve existing power relations in Egypt. Whether the announced goal is higher wages or regime change, resistance in the form of protest tries to renegotiate existing power structures and authority tries to ensure its survival. The involved actors want to negotiate the constitution of protest spaces. In order to do that, opportunity structures in terms of PPA must be beneficial to collective action and a set of tactical possibilities must be available. While the street has not been the sole level of resistance, it is an integral part. Perhaps Foucault is wrong in this particular case and the street truly is the “soul of revolt” in Egypt. Disciplinary power. An important aspect in the study of power relations in a society is the analysis of what Foucault (1995) calls “disciplinary power.” His studies on prisons and mental institutions showed him how institutionalized power is deployed through various disciplinary techniques. The goal of this activity is to shape useful, productive, and docile individuals (Stüver 2008:72). In this sense, Foucault sees processes of inclusion and exclusion expressed in ‘either/or’ categories, such as legal/illegal, legitimate/illegitimate, norm/exception, friend/foe of the constitution. The central place upon which disciplinary techniques are applied is the human body (Foucault 1995). In street protests in Egypt, security

38 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

forces usually target protesters’ bodies with violent force. Under the Emergency Law of 1981, which remained in effect until May 2012, demonstrations were formally illegal. Security personnel were therefore able to deploy disciplinary techniques such as the so-called ‘legitimate use of force’ upon the ‘outlawed’ protesters to maintain ‘order’ and make them docile.

Power in Space

These are Foucault’s basic ideas on power relations and deployment of power. We will examine the way in which these theories materialize in space and see that space has a very societal character. Social, economic, and political relational conditions can determine changes in the constitution of space, but also offer opportunities of control. As David Harvey notes: Spatial practices in any society abound in subtleties and complexities. Since they are not innocent with respect to the accumulation of capital and the reproduction of class relations under capitalism, they are a permanent arena for social conflict and struggle. Those who have the power to command and produce space possess a vital instrumentality for the reproduction and enhancement of their own power. (1987:265) Harvey implies that individuals or groups can dominate the organization and production of space, in order to control the use, appropriation, or demarcation of a given space. I will examine this notion with regard to police–protester relations in street protests in the next section.

Space, Power Relations, and the Study of Protest in Egypt

After suggesting analytical categories of the political process approach in the first sections, we now have a core of theoretical and conceptual basics about power, protest, and space. In this section, I will combine these elements in order to frame the ‘battle’ over protest spaces between security forces and protesters in Egypt. It would be erroneous to argue that literature on contentious politics has completely overlooked spatial questions. Starting in the 1990s, there has been a raft of articles in journals, written by geographers and

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

39

historians, that directly deal with space and contentious politics ( Jansen 2001; Leitner, Sheppard, and Sziarto 2008; Sewell 2001). However, as Sewell points out, “most studies bring in spatial considerations only episodically, when they seem important either for adequate description of contentious political events or for explaining why particular events occurred or unfolded as they did” (2001:51). The focus has typically been on the ways in which geography facilitates or constrains social mobilization. Only recently, a few studies have examined the places in which public protest and protest spaces come into existence, and how such space is utilized, controlled, and contested between protesters and security forces (e.g., Martin 2011; Wahlström 2011; Zalko and Béland 2008). More often, the literature deals with space implicitly; this is particularly the case in scholarly work on policing of protests (della Porta and Fillieule 2004; della Porta and Reiter 2006). Such approaches generally focus on one actor only, usually either the police or a social movement, and fail to analyze the interaction of the two. Matthias Wahlström mentions the need for further theoretical elaboration based on empirical investigation (2010:812). This study will try to help close this research gap. In the upcoming sections, the reasons for protesters’ choice of protest sites (over others), and the issues of territoriality and (police) control, will show how power relations are being negotiated in protest space. Choice of place. Under an authoritarian regime like Egypt’s, there is no transparent, legitimate set of state institutions through which the citizenry can express political and economic demands and discontent. When people are deprived of electoral power to change the status quo, they “are likely to bring collective pressure to bear on authorities to undertake change” (Bayat 2009:11). Thus they take their discontent to public places. Why are certain places chosen over others as sites of acts and expression of public discontent? Massive demonstrations in Egypt mostly take place in Cairo and Alexandria, the two largest cities. In addition to the urban inhabitants, rural Egyptians go to the cities to articulate their collective discontent. Asef Bayat explains this using the “idea of cities as centers of discontent . . . the seat of concentrated wealth, power, people, and needs” (2009:165). Large cities are sites of aggregated contradictions and social conflicts, where cleavages are most visible. Hence ‘the street,’ particularly in the city, “is the

40 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

chief locus of politics for the ordinary people . . . who are structurally absent from the centers of institutional power” (167). The places protesters choose are usually related to their demands. In Egypt, protesters choose to protest either at those institutions, which they hold responsible for particular grievances, or at places where protesters have some sort of ‘home advantage’. A political activist with the Popular Democratic Movement for Change (HASHD) noted in an interview: “There are spots that we know that are kind of very high-risk, red-line . . . and there are safe [places] . . . we usually protest there and it’s fine” (personal communication, December 6, 2010). Before the January 25th Revolution in 2011, what might be called ‘allowed’ places4 of discontent were usually the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

outside the People’s Assembly outside the Supreme Court/prosecutor’s office outside the ministerial cabinet on the steps of the doctors’ syndicate on the steps of the journalists’ and lawyers’ syndicate or the judges’ club 6. campuses of universities, predominantly al-Azhar University and Cairo University 7. major mosques, such as al-Azhar mosque The first three sites are symbolic sites of authority—what Lefebvre would call ‘spaces of representation,’ which represent authoritarian rule and state power. The fact that these sites are chosen for protest shows the protesters’ intention to acquire and inhabit sites that are directly ‘owned’ by the regime. Sites 4 and 5 are places adjacent to professional associations and thus are mainly inhabited by the middle class. These sites can be seen as already ‘owned’ by the protesters, even though these syndicates are infiltrated by regime representatives. Nonetheless, pro-democracy activists in Egypt, who are mostly members of the middle class, probably choose these sites as ‘safe spaces’ in which they have a type of householder’s rights. Sites 6 and 7 can also be considered as ‘owned’ 4 At ‘allowed’ protest places, protesters are usually relatively free to constitute protest spaces, which are heavily policed, but where they can enjoy some freedom of political expression and discontent.

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

41

spaces—predominantly by students, sometimes by faculty and ordinary citizens—and were being utilized as protest spaces long before 2000. 6th

Octo

ber

Su

lim

Brid

ge

an

al-

Ha

lab

i

Midan ‘Urabi

Midan al-Is‘af

Ministry of Information

al-Bab al-Bahari

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2

High Court

sis m Ra

5K

al-

ha

liq

Sa

rw at

arb

Midan ‘Abd al-Mini‘m Riyad

Muhammad Farid

26th July ‘Ab d

Mah

mud

NDP HQ

Basy

uni Midan Tal‘at Harb

Ministry of Religious Endowments

stan

Tahrir Square

Midan al-Falaki

al-Tahrir

Midan al-Tahrir

Muham

Corn

mad

ud

ikh Ri

Ministry of Interior

Ministry of International Cooperation

Parliament

Mag

lis al-S

United Kingdom

Cabinet Office

Parliament

ha‘b

Ministry of Interior

Ministry of Justice Midan Lazughli

Nubar

Qasr

al-‘A ini

3

han

r

1

Abdin Palace

Mahm

‘Abdin Palace

al-She

Mansu

US Embassy

ich

ea

l-N

il

American University in Cairo (AUC)

Muhammad Farid

Arab League

al-Gumhuriya

Tal‘ at H

a Qasr

arb

l-Nil

al-Bu

Qasr al-Nil bridge

Qasr al-Nil

Sharif

Tal‘ at H

Midan Mustafa Kamil

7 Al-Azhar

Bu

rS

a‘i

d

4 6 Cairo University

Figure  Map of Downtown Cairo Midan al-Sayyida Zeinab

In all of these sites there has been an agreement between regime and protesters (authority and resistance), in which protesters can “say

42 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

what [they] please . . . turn protests into sit-ins . . . be in the thousands” (Carr 2010). This refers again to the argument that spatial rules are socially constructed (through discourse or social behavior) and subject to negotiation. These places have not always been ‘allowed,’ but had to be appropriated by protesters (and hence negotiated) over many years. The most important round of negotiation up until now has been the events of January 25—and negotiations are still ongoing. Before January 25, these places were the geographical prerequisite for the production of ‘allowed spaces’ of protest and contestation. Protesters using these sites agreed to play by the rules and therefore the regime would leave them alone. When protesters tried to expand and appropriate new, ‘nonallowed spaces’—and thus tried to renegotiate spatial rules—security forces reacted immediately, usually with violent force. This use of force by the police and the notions of ‘allowed’ and ‘non-allowed’ spaces can be partially explained by the notion of territoriality. Territorial control. Starting with Löw’s (2001) assertion that several actors take part in the production of protest spaces, any analysis of interactions in a struggle over space must center on the notion of territory (Wahlström 2010:812). I have elaborated on protest policing in previous sections, and will now explore the spatial component of policing in more detail. A premise of the modern nation-state is its control (or attempt at control) over territory, conducted by security forces. As Herbert notes: Territorial control is an inherent outcome of the social organization of the police. . . . modern policing has meant the development of a capacity to intrude into and control space. . . . officers can, when necessary, secure control of the flow of action in space. The police . . . are expected to be effective agents of territoriality, to be able to control social action by controlling area. (1997:6–10) Thus an important concern of my study is an ethnographic investigation of motivations that structure police territorial practices and their enforcement. Many police strategies involve enacting boundaries, restricting access, and using force for creating and maintaining

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

43

‘public order.’5 As Sack notes, “social power cannot exist without these territorial rules. Territorial and social rules are mutually constitutive” (1993:327). Police control of protest is usually circumscribed by law and hence is held to be legitimate. This capacity to use force is core to the role of the police and brings us back to Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power and techniques—the source of police tactics. The nation-state needs the capacity to exercise systematic control over its population in order to maintain itself. This is where police power becomes crucial, particularly in Egypt, where the Emergency Law allowed the regime to arrest people without charge, limited freedom of assembly and expression, and virtually criminalized protest. Police may remove individuals from one place and release them at another; spatially divide individuals, goods, and buildings from each other; erect barricades; or use violent force to disperse crowds of people. To sum it up, the state’s authority and very existence depends to a large extent on “the capacity of the police to mark and enact meaningful boundaries, to restrict people’s capacity to act by regulating their movements in space” (Herbert 1997:13). Because state power is embedded in a concrete territory and particular spatial routines, contention over space is a direct challenge to state control and authority (Zajko and Béland 2008:721). While state practices usually aim at territorializing places, protesters’ objectives may be both territorialization (occupying or claiming space or blocking access to it) and deterritorialization (disturbing a dominant order or challenging certain territorial boundaries without proposing a clear alternative) (Wahlström 2010:813). Another important question is whether the main point of struggle between protesters and police is a border or the type of order in a particular area (Wahlström 2011:40). Location then becomes a key variable. The context of the protest—the issue and the place—shape the way in which the police choose to act. 5 This term, of course, is utterly problematic, and exploring it in its full depth falls beyond the scope of this research. For this investigation I will define public order on the street as a condition characterized by the “absence of widespread criminal and political violence, such as riots and intimidation against targeted groups or individuals” (United States Institute for Peace 2009:73). One needs to keep in mind the problematic nature of the constitution of the term: The police are usually the agents of enforcing public order. In some cases, however, it is the same police who exert massive amounts of violent force and thus jeopardize or even destroy public order.

44 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Protesters are aware of what they might be confronted with. Tactical repertoires are thus also highly influenced by the protest location. As an effective way to challenge state authority, protest can also “reshape the symbolic meaning of the spaces where it takes place” (Zajko and Béland 2008:721). The symbolic meaning of Midan al-Tahrir (Liberation Square), makes it a suitable spot for challenging state power. Zajko and Béland (2008) suggest that protest takes place in a negotiated space, which is not always the case in authoritarian regimes. While the negotiated ‘allowed’ spaces in Egypt usually assure that protests can take place, they also expose protesters to police and can often lead to violence. In Egypt, flash mobs were one form of protest action, particularly in residential areas far away from the ‘allowed’ spaces. People could show up, and leave before the police arrived, and were thus able to express their anger and dissatisfaction freely.

Summary

This chapter has highlighted key paradigms in social-movement research, the sociology of space, and the study of power relations. I have been able to construct an operative framework for the study of protest evolution in Egypt, with particular emphasis on the negotiation of protest space within the context of interaction. Structural and perceptional premises can provide opportunities and constraints for social movements and protest action. Actors, their agendas, and their alignments can be indicators of conflict configurations. Structural settings and actor configuration are prerequisites for interaction between actors—in this case, authorities (the Egyptian regime) and their challengers (resistance actors). It is within the interaction context that the strategies and tactical repertoires of the actors involved are deployed in order to pursue their particular interests and goals. The argument of this research is that protesters intend to appropriate protest spaces, gain control over them, and expand them; security forces, on the other hand, attempt to maintain control over spaces, to keep them contained and ‘orderly.’ As resistance (protesters taking to the streets) and authority (political elites and their representative security forces) interact, modifications in the larger political context will appear over time. What needs to be pointed out is that collective action events are not independent.

The Political Process Approach and the Egyptian Case

45

They are neither understandable in their own, unique terms, nor are they merely interchangeable instances of general classes of events. The most fundamental fact about collective action is its connectedness, both historically and spatially, and both with other instances of collective action of a similar kind, and with the actions of different claim-makers such as authorities and countermovements. (Koopmans 2004:19) This idea is of particular importance for the case study. I believe that the 2011 Egyptian uprising was the culminating episode in a series of cycles of accumulated mobilization and protests. In order to understand how this happened, the buildup to this event needs to be considered. As Kriesi rightly acknowledges, episodes, or cycles of “contentious interaction, are likely to modify the relevant configuration of actors and, thus, the specific opportunities for future options for collective action” (2004:79). If the buildup of a political conflict systematically increases the opportunity for mobilization, this phenomenon will account for the unfolding of the subsequent contentious episodes in the case study. Regarding spatial considerations, I have been able to operationalize the role of space within the interaction context of the suggested conceptual framework for this investigation. According to Löw’s (2001) ideas on the sociology of space, protest spaces are constituted through modes of spacing (positioning, building, constructing) and synthesis (through processes of imagination, cognition, and reminiscence, goods and human beings are confined to spaces). Moreover, I have been able to explore the relationship between power and resistance in space and place. Applied to the street, the process of spatial contention through forms of street protest is intended as a means of challenging state power, which is territorial in nature. There exists a dynamic interaction between the tactics of protesters and those of state and police officials. As I will show in chapter 4, policing tactics are aimed at maintaining a level of disciplinary control over certain spaces, although the ways in which control is defined varies. Control may be enforced physically or achieved by other (preemptive) means (Zajko and Béland 2008:724). Protesters try to challenge that control and expand protest spaces, which allows them to expand their discontent.

46 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Contention and the interaction between protesters and police can take many forms. So far I have been able to examine a variety of factors that are crucial to the constitution of protest (space) and police– protester relations on site. In brief, the key categories of analysis for this research are structural conditions that facilitate or constrain protest action; the actors’ agency and configuration; the relationship between authority and resistance in interaction; space; place; and tactical repertoires that are the tools in the ‘battle’ over Egypt’s streets. The background I have built up in this chapter lays the groundwork for the case study, in order to find out how ‘the street’ as a space of contestation in Egypt has evolved in the last decade and how it led to the extraordinary events known as the January 25 Revolution.

CHAPTER 3

Setting the Stage "VUIPSJUBSJBO
4USVDUVSF
BOE
UIF
"DUPST
*OWPMWFE As the PPA suggests, the capability of protest actors to pursue their goals is highly influenced by the structure that frames their action possibilities. While this research moves beyond the predominant political science strand of overly state-centric literature with its bias on elite politics and structural conditions, the frame in which protesters can act needs to be understood, which means examining the nature of Egypt’s authoritarianism. This is the goal of the first section in this chapter. The second part will deal with the role of the actors involved in the struggle over power structures, their goals and organization—that is, resistance actors, who intend to change the status quo and appropriate protest spaces, and authority, which wants to maintain existing power relations and keep protest spaces under control.

Hybrid Authoritarianism

Classifying Egypt as a ‘genuine’ authoritarian regime would be nearsighted; it has a certain set of features that distinguish it from ‘solid’ regimes, such as North Korea. Egypt is an archetypal case of a centralist “Arab authoritarianism [which] has reproduced itself not by relying solely on brute force, but also by relying on elements of negotiation and accommodation” (Sadiki 2000:79). Egypt’s civil society is fairly lively, considering the authoritarian context in which it exists. This ‘hybrid’ 47

48 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

form of authoritarianism contains liberal as well as authoritarian features (Diamond 2002). Hybrid regimes may contain civil-society organizations, independent judiciaries, and legislatures, but do not allow the transfer of power (e.g., through elections). Springborg describes hybrid regimes as follows: Less oppressive than the pure authoritarian model, this mixed polity draws a sharp line between political expression and political action. It permits much of the former, but either prohibits the latter or so hobbles it with unfair rules and procedures or by altogether illegal and disruptive interventions that political opposition is rendered incapable of mounting an effective challenge to incumbent government. (2009:7) Until 2011, institutional accessibility in Egypt remained very low. The electoral arena as the central stage of political competition is corrupt and was monopolized by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Actors who intended to challenge that monopoly (pro-democracy movement) or change certain policies (workers’ movement) had to find another arena where their voices could be heard: the street, which particularly since 2000 has been the most important platform for resistance. Dissidents were not always dealt with through coercive means (hard power) as long as they did not cross ‘red lines’ that could endanger the regime. There was a tolerated space for political expression and negotiation on issues that did not directly jeopardize the regime’s survival. However, when the red lines were crossed, the regime would react with confrontational and brutally repressive means. It must be stressed that appropriating non-allowed protest spaces is also considered overstepping ‘red lines,’ inevitably leading to repression of protest actors. As I will show in chapter 4, spaces of toleration were also influenced by international settings. They would open up, at least short-term, when international actors such as the US would call for reform. Hence international structures also influence the consistency of national structures. Egypt’s strong history of corporatization and co-optation (soft power) led various actors to believe there were more rewards in dealing separately with the regime instead of joining forces (el-Mahdi 2009b:1029). The regime strengthened this separation through strategies

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

49

of ‘divide and rule.’ These often included such policies as government subventions to political opposition groups and newspapers, manipulation of election results to provide or deny certain actors access to parliament, and bolstering secular forces to undermine Islamists. For a long time, a unified resistance against the regime could hardly come into existence, let alone sustain itself. As long as ‘divide and rule’ worked, spaces of tolerance remained under regime control, and the informally negotiated social pact—which guaranteed Egypt’s citizenry economic and social security in exchange for regime loyalty—was not violated, resistance against existing power structures remained low and ineffective. Incentives for remaining silent, politically apathetic, and loyal to the regime and the state existed for many years. The public sector in Egypt employs millions of people (including state bureaucracy, the army, and security forces, as well as schoolteachers and university faculty) whose well-being depended and still depends directly on the state. Yet, as I will show in this study, the Mubarak regime’s violation of the social pact—to the extent that some political freedoms had to be allowed as concessions and catalysts, inevitably opening up space for potential dissent—is one factor that explains the January 25 uprising. Once people are permitted to mobilize around one issue (such as the Palestinian cause in 2000), they will soon mobilize around others (such as the explicit anti-Mubarak protests starting in 2004). In the following chapter, I will elaborate on structural settings in more detail. For now, this brief review of Egyptian authoritarianism shows the stage on which actors can operate. In the next sections I will take a closer look at key actors in protest events.

Why Actors Matter

A major concern of social sciences has been the relationship between agency and structure (e.g., Berger and Luckmann 1967; Bourdieu 1977) and the study of social action (e.g., Weber 1972; Parson and Shils 2001). Actors can be understood as individuals or groups who have agency and can intentionally perform social action. This social action is always performed in “social institutions,” or venues in which actors orient themselves and choose between various possible actions (Schimank 2000:44–45). Actors do not have absolute freedom of choice when it comes to action. Their actions are embedded in particular social

50 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

situations, which are marked by social structures, such as the structures of Egyptian authoritarianism. Thus their actions are highly influenced, yet not totally determined, by structural conditions. It is important to recall that social structure is constituted through social action. As shown in chapter 2, social actors produce space (as a type of social structure) through agency within the frame of social structures. For purposes of protest, social actors try to appropriate and control spaces. In order to do so, they have to choose and enforce those sets of tactics (i.e., social action) that they consider efficient for pursuing their goal. Protesters will choose their set of tactics in order to gain control over spaces and expand them. Security forces will try to maintain control over spaces and reduce dissent to a minimum with their available tactical repertoire. In terms of the PPA, the configuration of both these actors equals a conflict structure. Their capacity to act is influenced by structural conditions, such as the setup of a particular site, orders given to them, knowledge of available tactics, and each others’ agency. In the following sections I will elaborate on those actors who have been the most active and visible in street protests since 2000: resistance actors—notably the pro-democracy movement, workers, and Islamists—and agents of authority, such as riot police and secret police. While no group is homogenous, as it is constituted of individuals with varying opinions, goals, demands, and grievances, they do have common points upon which they can agree. Resistance actors, as different as their approaches are, intend to change existing power relations, whether this takes the form of higher wages, religious law, or regime change. Within resistance groups this works as well: even though pro-democracy movement actors have different opinions on how exactly they want Egypt to look, they know what they do not want: the existing authoritarian rule. As I will show in this chapter, there is a common ground that causes these actors to group themselves in this particular way. I will explore the (political) agenda of each actor, because it strongly influences the knowledge and choice of tactics. The actors to be discussed in the next section are not static entities, but rather dynamic processes that constantly develop. The description of them might seem static, as it only briefly reviews key events and facts. However, in chapter 4 the processes that make a movement will become more visible, as I explore the evolution of the Egyptian street as a whole.

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

51

Resistance

Resistance is clearly not only to be found on the politicized street. Millions of people contest existing power structures “backstage” (Bayat 2009:164)—that is, workers in factories, students in universities, employees in offices, and others. Yet it is particularly the street where “collective action against invincible power holders is galvanized, where the destiny of political movements is often decided” (165). The term ‘resistance’ so far has often been used as something that is opposed to power structures favoring existing ‘authority.’ Political scientist Holger Albrecht suggests three analytical categories: dissent, opposition, and resistance. ‘Dissent’ describes human relations in general, and may appear between father and son, husband and wife, and other such pairs. ‘Opposition’ in politics often assumes competitive interaction in political systems between incumbents of government positions (government regime) and their counterparts, in mutual recognition and acceptance. ‘Resistance’ signifies dissent between political opponents culminating in political action outside the formal political system, where mutual acceptance between the regime and their opponents does not exist (Albrecht 2005:379–380). Before January 25, real competitive interaction in formal political institutions was nonexistent in Egypt; the institutions themselves did not function in terms of balance of power but rather centralization of power, and access to them was very restricted. This is true to an extent even today. Thus opposition as defined here has long been marginal in Egypt. ‘Resistance’ arguably is the most appropriate term, because it covers the element of political action, which in Egypt plays out on the streets. In the following, I will briefly explore the development of actors who have been involved in the contestation of protest spaces. I will also examine their political agenda, as it can tell us a lot about their habitus.1 Their agenda can explain why actors perceive political opportunities differently, and chose particular tactics and places over others. 1 Habitus in a Bourdieuan sense comprises a set of dispositions, which generates practices and perceptions. Habitus is acquired through one’s inculcation into a social milieu and is strongly influenced by one’s experience growing up. For further reading see Jenkins 2006.

52 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Islamists. Without any doubt, the rise of political Islam, often referred to as ‘Islamism,’ has been one of the defining features of Egyptian society in the past 30 years. During the 1970s, secular nationalists and leftists were the driving force of Egyptian resistance and dissent, while religious groups were of little importance. Cooperation seldom occurred; there has always been a cleavage between Islamists and secularists (Shehata 2010). At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, a dramatic shift occurred, leading to the growth of political Islam as a dominant force of resistance. Sameh Naguib notes that “among students and in professional syndicates and poor urban neighborhoods, Islamist organizations had become practically hegemonic” (2009a:103). The largest Islamist group in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Established in 1928 by Hassan alBanna, the Brotherhood started as a religious anti-colonial project against British occupation and today broadly emphasizes an agenda at the center of which stands an Islamization of Egyptian society and the application of Islamic principles in law and politics (Albrecht 2005:385). The Brotherhood was banned in 1954 and their members have been severely repressed by the regime ever since, particularly under Gamal Abdel Nasser. Ever since its establishment, the MB has been in a ‘gray area’—illegal, but tolerated. Its members have always been subject to regular observation and harassment by security forces; waves of arrests of several hundreds or thousands of Brotherhood activists were commonplace in Egypt. In June 2011, as an indirect consequence of the January 25 uprising, the Brotherhood was granted legal status. The growing influence of the MB over the last decades has been part of a broader growth of Islamism in Egypt and the region. Egypt has witnessed the emergence of militant Islamic groups, notably Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami (the Islamic Jihad Organization) and al-Gama‘a alIslamiya (the Islamic Group). Although this represents only a small spectrum of Islamist factions and it must be stressed that there is no single Islamism, but various interpretations and groups, I will focus on the Muslim Brotherhood as the dominant and most influential Islamist group for my investigation. The Brotherhood is perhaps the only actor that can be considered as ‘opposition’ in Albrecht’s (2005) sense, as they have regularly participated in parliamentary elections since 1984. However, due to electoral

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

53

law 114/1983, their candidates were only allowed to run as independents and have never been able to compete as a party in the legislative process. The criterion of ‘mutual recognition’ was not met, as there was no Muslim Brotherhood party because the MB organization remained illegal. It is difficult to draw a line between opposition and resistance when it comes to the Brotherhood. As I will show later, their role would alter depending on their position of power. Observers in media and academia often note the high potential for organization in the group, which enables the MB to pursue their goals through “organizational discipline and a painstaking educational program” (Leiken and Brooke 2007:113). Their discipline and organizational strength was of the utmost importance during the January 25 uprising. The Brotherhood’s ties to professional syndicates—particularly the lawyers’ and doctors’ syndicates—as well as their strong engagement in university student unions contributes to this organizational strength and educational measures, and ensures a strong entrenchment with civil society. As Wickham observed: After graduating from the university, Islamist student leaders confronted the question of how to sustain their activism. Some chose not to affiliate with Islamist political groups but rather channeled their energies into the parallel sector of Islamic health clinics, hospitals, schools, community centers, charitable foundations, newspapers, and publishing houses. (2004:217) The Brotherhood is deeply involved in charitable work and has created a much-needed social infrastructure, often filling in the gaps left by the Egyptian state. In a country where more than 40 percent of the overall population lives below the poverty line or just above it (Beinin 2011a), social charity is of great use to the poor. Furthermore, the MB takes a strong pro-Palestinian stance, which resonates with public opinion. This contributes to the Brotherhood’s high potential for mobilization, which is of the utmost importance in street protests. Naguib notes: Whereas, for example, the secular opposition was able at best to mobilize 2000 people in its pro-democracy demonstrations starting in December 2004, the Muslim Brotherhood . . .

54 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

mobilized tens of thousands of its supporters throughout the country in the following months. (2009b:155) The protesters are largely believed to be MB youth and the new guard (reformers) (Sasnal 2011). The old guard (the conservatives) rarely calls for or participates in protests. As an Islamic organization, the Brotherhood’s political goals since its inception have been grounded in education, faith, and morality. Al-Banna early defined the goal of “moral immunity” through “the education and molding of the souls of the nation” (cited in Brynjar 2006:67). This strong ideological reference and the spiritual community it invokes have proved to be appealing enough to mobilize crowds of people. However, the movement’s political ideology remained rather vague for a long time, as the Brothers have only recently had the opportunity to articulate their ideals in the formal political arena. For a long time, this led people to consider them incorruptible, because they are perceived not to have exploited Egyptians, unlike the ruling elites. On the other hand, this lack of specifics also makes some observers doubt the truth and value of their positions and statements. Despite their radical social and political agenda, the Brotherhood’s means of political action are relatively moderate and peaceful. After the government’s anti-Islamist actions in the 1990s due to bombings against tourists conducted by Islamist groups, the Brotherhood has been very careful not to provoke the regime and tried to avoid incurring harsh repression (Albrecht 2005:386). After the MB won an astonishing 88 seats out of the total of 454 in the 2005 parliamentary elections, they were surprisingly quiet on the streets until the 2011 mass protests. In this case they behaved more like an opposition party than a resistance group. There is reason to believe that the Brotherhood did not want to jeopardize its powerful position in the formal political arena. Just as it had good reasons to keep a low profile with respect to the ruling elite, the Egyptian regime had good reason to take it seriously. This was not because of its political agenda of Islamization,2 but “simply because it constitutes an autonomous political force. In this case perhaps what is remarkable is that the regime allows it any political space 2 However, this agenda has often been instrumentalized by the regime in order to characterize the Brotherhood as religious ‘lunatics’ (see al-Awadi 2004).

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

55

at all” (Albrecht 2005:386). As the largest opposition force, with a wide network of institutions, the MB has a great deal to lose from a direct confrontation with the regime. Especially since the parliamentary elections in 2005, its members appear to have decided to back off and “continue the mutually beneficial cat-and-mouse game that constrains their activity but ensures their survival” (Beinin 2009a:41). Overall, the Muslim Brotherhood can build on a broad support base that is vital for mass mobilization. Their organizational strength and history of confrontation with the regime—particularly with security forces—taught them how to find ways of opposing authorities (especially in terms of tactical repertoires) and pursuing their goals while ensuring their own survival. Finally, the ‘new guard’ of the Brotherhood have at times cooperated with secular groups. Michaelle Browers notes that Islamist activists “acquired their first political skills during the 1970s while working with other student activists at Egyptian universities. As such, many are contemporaries of some of the most active members of secular groups” (2007:76). Secular resistance and the pro-democracy movement. I have briefly explained the importance of secular forces—particularly nationalists and leftists—as the dominant challengers of the regime in the 1970s. It took more than 30 years for secular groups to see a revival. In 2004, activists began to oppose then-President Hosni Mubarak and his regime. The Egyptian Movement for Change, known by its catchy slogan Kefaya (Enough!), and its sister groups (e.g., Youth for Change, Women for Change, Journalists for Change), together known as harakat al-taghyeer (movements for change), came into existence as loose networks, attracting much attention among the Egyptian public (elMahdi 2009a:87). These groups were founded by individuals (such as ‘Abd al-Halim Qandil, George Ishaq, and ‘Abu al-Ela Madi) who were active in student politics at major Egyptian universities in the 1970s and then had further opportunities to meet each other at political forums or protests that have occurred since 2000 (al-Sayyid 2009:50). Although dominated by leftists and nationalists, the pro-democracy movement has “incorporated an ideologically broad spectrum of political activists since its formation” (Browers 2007:72). It emerged as a response to Mubarak’s attempt to seek a fifth term in office in the 2005 presidential

56 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

elections, and his dynastic project of grooming his son Gamal to succeed him. These groups all declared their willingness to promote change in Egypt and thus openly contested power relations in the country. This stage of resistance marked a novelty, because for the first time under Mubarak, the taboo of openly criticizing the ruling regime and the presidential family was broken and an attempt was made to renegotiate the social pact. On December 12, 2004, pro-democracy activists went to the Supreme Court, staged a silent protest in which their mouths were covered with Kefaya stickers, and took the daring step of expressing their dissent by “organizing this public gathering with no permission from the government and in such a dramatic way that impressed public opinion in Egypt” (al-Sayyid 2009:48). An interesting element in the pro-democracy movement is the existence of some political ties between secular forces and Islamists. This is somewhat surprising, considering that the two streams have differences not only with each other, but also within themselves. According to Abdelrahman, “the Left in Egypt today is as divided as it has ever been throughout its history” (2009:38). In Islamist factions, for example in the MB, reformers and conservatives find themselves in a constant power struggle. When it comes to cooperation between the left and Islamists, both camps often do not see the advantage of working with each other, as their ideologies and final goals are so different (52). Despite these differences, with the birth of the pro-democracy movement, both groups saw the political regime as their biggest antagonist, which allowed for some, though very little, cooperation. The first big breakthrough in which Islamists and the left loosely cooperated were the events of the first and second Palestinian Intifadas and the subsequent solidarity protests in Egypt. These protests were staged in coordination, and joint statements were even released on the subject. With the establishment of Kefaya, key Islamist figures (such as ‘Abu al-Ela Madi, chairman of the moderate Islamic Wasat Party) started cooperating with secular forces (such as George Ishaq) on common issues, particularly regime change. The peak before 2011 was probably the “judges’ protest” in June 2006, where more than 700 activists protested against the ongoing detention of activists and in support of those judges who were fighting for the independence of the judiciary. This event drew together activists from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Revolutionary

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

57

Socialists, the Nasserist-leaning Karama Party, the Islamist Labor Party, the liberal Ghad Party, and Kefaya (Browers 2007:69–70). Although the process of reconciliation had not been linear, was often interrupted, and came to a standstill with the election of Muhammad Morsi as the Egyptian president, the different factions were at least communicating with each other during that time. Kefaya’s big appeal for some groups was its simple, catchy, anti-authoritarian language, which has reflected many ideological streams. Some argue, however, that this has also been its biggest problem. Kefaya has often been criticized for merely opposing the regime on many issues without having a clear agenda of solutions. The International Crisis Group (ICG) stated in their 2005 report: “[Kefaya] has remained essentially a protest movement, targeting Mubarak personally and articulating a bitter rejection of the status quo rather than a constructive vision of how it might be transformed” (2005:i). However, the existing problems, especially problems in power structures, had to be explicitly named first. It is legitimate to articulate problems without offering ultimate solutions. This is a constructive act in itself. Politics, whether in institutions or on the street, is a learning process. It should be pointed out that an outline of demands was incorporated into Kefaya’s founding statement. These demands included, among others: (1) ending the monopoly of state power by the ruling NDP; (2) ending the state of emergency and all exceptional laws restricting freedoms; and (3) immediate constitutional amendments establishing the length of presidential terms, electoral procedures, and separation of powers (al-Sayyid 2009:50). It is clear that Kefaya had some fundamental demands. Though they have offered no explicit solutions for achieving their goals, it can be argued that the process of street protests and spatial appropriation is a bottom-up approach to regime change. Yet, as Rabab el-Mahdi, political scientist and pro-democracy activist, states, the movement’s main problem until 2011 was that it “failed to reach both its tactical and strategic goals of organizing a 100,000-participant demonstration and ousting president Mubarak” (2009b:1013–1014). At no point did the number of protesters exceed 2,500. Typically around 300 to 400 activists would participate in demonstrations, consisting of the “usual faces” (journalist, al-Masry al-Youm, personal communication, May 18, 2010). Bellin stated at that time: “No matter what the explanation is, low

58 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

levels of popular mobilization for democratic reform are a reality in the region” (2004:151). This reflects Kefaya’s problems and its decline around 2006–2007 due to government repression, internal divisions, and its incapacity to engage people beyond the educated, urban middle class. Regarding the regime’s position toward the pro-democracy movement, it needs to be mentioned that the regime repressed the movement and its protest actions because they directly endangered its survival. Moreover, it has often tried to delegitimize the movement by claiming that it consists of “foreign agents” with a foreign agenda. In a 2005 interview, President Mubarak asserted that Kefaya activists are paid: “I am capable of organizing similar paid demonstrations carrying the slogan ‘not enough’” (cited in Shorbagy 2007:192). This statement was made in order to make the pro-democracy movement less appealing to the general public. Needless to say, coercive means against activists have been a major tool in the regime’s repertoire. However, as Shorbagy notes: With an experience in direct action and dealing with the Egyptian authorities since the 1970s, Kefaya’s leaders, in their maturity, have developed a sophisticated sense of the politics of brinkmanship: “The worst thing they can do is to throw us into jail. Well, so be it,” says Ahmed Bahaa Din Shaaban. Being ready for the worst-case scenario, Kefaya’s activists have been able to adopt a tough tone that escalates the crisis to the breaking point without fearing the consequences. (2007:193) Labor movement. In the first quarter of 2009, the total formal-sector labor force in Egypt was 25 million (19 million male and 6 million female), out of an overall population of 75 million (Alexander 2010:246). Hence the labor sector offers considerable potential for mobilization. Contrary to the presumption in scholarly work claiming the decline or even death of social class as an analytical category (see, for example, Pakulski and Waters 1996), at least 3,500 factory occupations, strikes, demonstrations, or other collective actions have been carried out by over two million workers in Egypt since 1998 (Beinin 2011a). Beinin goes so far as to proclaim that the labor force is “the largest social movement in Egypt in over half a century” (2009a:37).

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

59

The movement has largely proven to be a result of the neoliberal rupture of the post-1952 labor–state pact (Clément 2009; Beinin 2009c; el-Mahdi 2009c). In recent times, this rupture has been expressed in strikes and protests as means of achieving goals that have surfaced in the workforce since 2003 with the approval of the unified labor law 12/2003. The new ‘flexible’ labor policies resulting from the law severely compromised workers’ rights and the job guarantees they had long enjoyed, while giving a free hand to employers to fire their employees by issuing indefinite fixed-term contracts (ranging from days, to weeks, to months), liquidating their businesses, and so on. The law was part of a larger neoliberal structural adjustment program that included the privatization of key public-sector companies, which led to massive job cuts and deteriorating working conditions and salaries (Abdel Fattah 2010:6). The Egyptian regime had once again broken the social pact with its citizens (in this case the workers), and workers would try to renegotiate their terms of livelihood through contentious politics. The number of strikes is all the more remarkable because the workers’ movement has generally not been supported by the state-controlled official trade union structure, the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which until 2011 was composed of 23 national general unions organized by industrial sectors (Beinin 2009b:449). The movement is not limited to one particular factory or industrial sector, but extends to workers as a whole. As Beinin (2009b) notes: The textile industry is the center of gravity of the movement. But it has broadened to include public and private sector workers in virtually every industrial sector, public services, civil servants, and even professionals such as pharmacists, doctors, and university professors. Although not strictly speaking ‘workers,’ the militancy of civil servants like tax collectors, school administrative personnel, and teachers is a new and significant phenomenon, since they occupy strategic locations in the government apparatus. (2009b:450) Economic distress caused by neoliberal structural adjustment (rapidly rising food prices, job cuts, low wages and bonuses, unacceptable working conditions) is the principal grievance of the movement:

60 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Even with two wage earners, the typical monthly wage of a textile worker (LE250–600, or about US$45–107) is below the World Bank’s poverty line of $2 a day for the average Egyptian family of 3.7 people. Annual bonuses or dividends on profits, if and when they are paid, may add enough to lift a family above the poverty line. Working conditions in the neo-liberal era have, with some exceptions, deteriorated substantially. (Beinin 2009b:451) With state-controlled unions and virtually no access to formal political institutions, workers express themselves politically by striking in their factories, and more recently in downtown Cairo at places that symbolize state authority. A large percentage of these collective actions did not even demand higher wages, but rather back wages and bonuses. The Egyptian Land Center for Human Rights calculated that 25 percent of workers’ protests in 2007 were based on these demands (Abdel Fattah 2010:12). Workers stayed on strike until their claims were resolved and the regime fulfilled their demands. The interesting difference between the labor movement and other social-movement actors is that their collective actions are motivated by perceived threats, rather than by opportunities. As will be seen in the next chapter, actions can run to days, or even weeks, of continuous sit-ins, highlighting the importance of the element of sustainability in tactical repertoires. The ruling elites have usually fulfilled the demands of the striking workers, when they could afford to do so, because they “have bet that it would be cheaper and less disruptive to foreign investment to buy off workers by granting their economic demands” (Beinin 2009b:454). The risk of violent confrontation in factories and on the streets could scare foreign investors away. No structural changes in the neoliberal agenda have occurred, which led the workers to keep protesting—but often only around the previously mentioned socioeconomic demands. As these are not a direct threat to the regime’s survival, workers have often been able to voice their demands without being exposed to massive crackdowns. Despite the large numbers of participants the workers’ movement has been able to mobilize, it has often been left alone by other social movements or political groups. Workers have been supported by a handful of NGOs, such as the Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS),

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

61

and received a great deal of sympathy—particularly from Nasserist political parties and ‘illegal’ leftist groups. Yet no widespread coordination has been achieved. The left has played no public role in “organizing or leading strikes or other collective actions” (Beinin 2009b:451). The pro-democracy movement has also never managed to strengthen its weak links to workers to allow for new coordinated political action, which long impeded a unified front against the Egyptian regime.

Authority

The terms ‘authority’ and ‘power’ have often been used interchangeably. It is more accurate, however, to distinguish between them. I will define ‘power’ in a Foucauldian sense as a force that is directed to influence certain actors or structures. ‘Authority’ refers to a claim of legitimacy and the justification and legal right to exercise power. In Egypt, as in every other context, power relations are hierarchical. The political regime, which can be described as ‘hybrid authoritarianism,’ claims to be the single highest authority in the state. It is the regime which—because it rules by law—perceives itself to hold the legal right to exercise forms of power over the citizens in its territory. The form of power most relevant to this investigation is Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power. As shown in the preceding chapter, institutionalized power is deployed through various disciplinary techniques. The goal of such activity is to shape useful, productive, and docile individuals, who sustain the status quo. While the police are neither a political group nor the direct counterpart to the resistance groups presented above, they are their most important antagonist, as they hold the sole legal right of legitimate use of force against the citizenry. It is the police who represent authority in daily life and who are equipped with a set of legal rights and coercive tools that allow them to employ disciplinary techniques against disobedient citizens—that is, individuals who commit unlawful acts. The nation-state—and therefore also the regime—needs the capacity to exercise systematic control over its population in order to maintain itself. It is here that police power becomes crucial. The police, in other words, are expected to be effective agents of territoriality, to be able to control social action by controlling area. For these reasons, I will examine the police organization and the most prominent police actors in street protests. While they receive

62 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

orders from higher-ranking officers and state officials, police agents are the sole agents accountable for “situational repression” (see Koopmans 1997), and empirically have been the main antagonists of protesters in direct interactions. I will also explore the role of baltagiya (thugs hired by the regime—sing. baltagi), who do not have any legitimate jurisdiction to ‘discipline’ (or rather harm) protesting citizens, but are often found at protest events and interact with protesters. Police. Egyptian domestic security agencies are under the control of the MOI. Until the dissolution of Egypt’s security apparatus on March 15, 2011, these agencies included the General Directorate for State Security Investigations (also termed SSI, or Mabaheth Amn al-Dawla), which had a special counterterrorism mandate including interrogations; the police; and the Central Security Forces (CSF, or al-Amn al-Markazi) (Sullivan and Jones 2008:33). The CSF is a paramilitary organization consisting of approximately 325,000 officers that supplements the police and has a variety of tasks, including the policing of public demonstrations. According to Springborg, “no other regime in the Middle East has such a comprehensively elaborated hard power capacity to deter and contain voiced behavior” (2009:11). The human-rights record of Egypt’s security forces is certainly no secret. Yet the abuse of protesters is legally framed and often legitimized; legislative acts and judicial mechanisms put vulnerable populations (especially Islamists and pro-democracy activists) at the mercy of the state. The umbrella under which state abuses took place is the Emergency Law and to a lesser extent the Anti-terrorism Law. The Emergency Law was set forth in Article 148 of the pre-2011 constitution, authorizing the president to proclaim a state of emergency for up to three years, which could be extended by approval of the People’s Assembly. The Emergency Law was continuously extended from the time of President Sadat’s assassination in 1981. Although it expired on May 31, 2012, it was put back in place on August 14, 2013, for three months. The law allows the regime to arrest people without charge, limit freedom of assembly and expression, detain prisoners indefinitely, and maintain a special security court. Demonstrations in Egypt have de facto been illegal, which again emphasizes the value of Foucault’s notion of processes of inclusion and exclusion expressed in Manichean

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

63

‘either/or’ categories, such as legal/illegal, friend/foe, and so on. In 1993, the government of Egypt submitted a justification of the law to the United Nations, claiming When a state of emergency has been legally proclaimed, the President of the Republic is empowered to take appropriate measures to avert the danger threatening the country and maintain security and order. He may impose restrictions on freedom of assembly, movement and residence, order the arrest and search of suspicious persons who pose a threat to security, censor correspondence and the press, determine the working hours at public institutions, issue any work assignments, seize movable and immovable property (without prejudice to the provisions of the Mobilization Act concerning complaints and compensation), withdraw licenses for firearms and explosives and evacuate or isolate any areas. (cited in Sullivan and Jones 2008:34) The Anti-terror Law 97/1992 also gave the government the prerogative of determining who is considered a ‘terrorist,’ and declared that membership in any group that the government considered a ‘terrorist organization’ was a capital crime (Sullivan and Jones 2008:35). Virtually any individual could be considered ‘suspicious’ or a ‘terrorist.’ The Egyptian regime managed to engineer a legal framework that could legitimize any detention and abuse as appropriate means of neutralizing potential threats. Law created facts in an Agambian sense,3 and the police agencies attained a set of legal parameters that would give them a free hand in policing protests. Riot police officers who are placed at protest events in order to police demonstrations are usually young, low-ranking security forces. They are the largest police unit at protests and often build police cordons, spatially 3 In accordance with Agamben, the authorities no longer limit themselves, as they did in the spirit of the Weimar constitution, to identifying an exception on the basis of the facts of a situation. Instead, they produce the situation to fit their definition of an exception. This is why—regarding the Emergency Law in Egypt—the quaestio iuris (question of the law) is hard to distinguish from the quaestio facti (question of the fact), and in this sense every question concerning the legality or illegality of suppressive means legitimized through law “simply makes no sense” (Agamben 1998:97).

64 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

dividing individuals and objects, trying to contain the protesters’ claims of territoriality. In most cases riot policemen are poorly-educated conscripts from rural areas. The more educated, especially college graduates, usually end up in the different branches of the regular obligatory military service, while the less educated receive only a basic six-month military training and then serve for three years for the CSF (various personal communications). According to a journalist who was able to conduct interviews with some officers, their average income is le 300–500 (€35–60) a month. They usually work 10- to 12-hour shifts a day and rarely get a day off. In extraordinary (protest) events they have to work 16 to 18 hours a day (journalist, CNN, personal communication, May 21, 2011). Since officially recognized police unions do not exist in Egypt, employment terms have not been negotiated in an institutional way. Before 2011, the force only rioted once, in 1986, when rumors spread of an extension of obligatory service to four years. “Security troops set Cairo tourist hotels and nightclubs afire, leaving hundreds dead or wounded and producing enormous property damage” (Alexander and Pector 2004:43). Yet despite the low wages and terrible working conditions, the regime has managed to create some degree of dependency for the mass of policemen and the level of disobedience was marginal. Since most riot policemen have little education, a fairly secure job with the government is probably the most they think they can ask for. Only recently, after the fall of Mubarak, have low-ranking police officers begun protesting for higher wages and independent unions in front of the MOI. The SSI maintains a system of nationwide surveillance, using both its own secret plainclothes agents and a network of informers, some of whom appear to be recruited while in custody (Sherry 1993). Plainclothes agents have obtained proper police academy training and engage in major violations of the right to privacy: correspondence is screened, particularly mail from abroad; homes are searched without warrants; and personal property is confiscated. These agents do the ‘dirty work’ and carry out most of the physical abuse in protests, because they are not wearing uniforms and are hence not explicitly recognizable as security agents (Vairel 2011:41), although protesters often know. Alongside plainclothes police forces, “Haitian-style plainclothes goon squads” (Springborg 2009:11)—in other words, baltagiya—have been added as auxiliaries to state security since the 1990s. They have

Setting the Stage: Authoritarian Structure and the Actors Involved

65

become a standard feature of preemptively intimidating protesters, targeting males and females alike for physical abuse. Because they are hired and not affiliated with the security apparatus, the regime has no accountability with respect to them and any violence can ultimately be blamed on them. Springborg notes, “deploying security personnel without uniforms effectively places them above the law and renders their actions difficult for the media to detect and record, hence all the more threatening to those tempted to demonstrate” (2009:11). These hired baltagiya are among the poorest Egyptians, willing to sell their services for little money. In an interview conducted in the poor Cairo neighborhood of the City of the Dead, residents explained that most of the thugs in the 2011 uprising were recruited there. The regime exploits the living conditions of the poor, creates dependency, and turns them into brutal thugs.

Summary

In sum, resistance groups in Egypt contrast with their counterparts in democracies with respect to their capabilities and their role within the political system. Repression and co-optation have long prevented them from being serious challengers to existing power relations. The Egyptian regime sets limits for them, ranging from toleration to blunt repression. Resistance groups received the carrot and could dodge the stick as long as they did not endanger the regime’s survival. The more that resistance groups stepped over the ‘red lines’ (pro-democracy movement) or constituted an autonomous political force (Muslim Brotherhood), the more they would be dealt with through coercive means. The Egyptian security forces, equipped with a set of legal and coercive tools, enforce repressive strategies against challengers. Controlled political spaces of tolerance allowed the regime to utilize resistance players in order to give the impression of a democratic system, which “exists only in formal terms, to obscure the reality of a dominantparty regime” (Albrecht 2005:384). However, as I will show in the next chapter, these tolerated spaces have proven to be a hole in the wall of authoritarianism: Once it is there, the wall slowly begins to erode.

CHAPTER 4

Taking to the Streets Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

I do not believe in change just for the sake of change. I do not even believe in change every now and then or occasionally. (Hosni Mubarak, president of the Arab Republic of Egypt 1981–2011, cited in el-Ghobashy 2003:30) Political participation in modern Egyptian society has arguably always been marginal due to the authoritarian context in which it was framed. Beinin notes that electoral politics in Egypt “cannot be considered a form of political mobilization; rather, it is a form of demobilization. Parliamentary political life has been in decline since the first post-monarchy election in 1956” (2009a:25). Until the late 1970s, the level of dissent remained low, as the social pact between the state and the masses was still in place. The ‘bread riots’ of 1977 were an early expression of popular discontent against the breach of the social pact and aspects of Sadat’s neoliberal policies introduced with the infitah (open-door economic policy). Sadat’s attempt to reduce Egypt’s deficits through austerity measures and cuts in consumer subsidies led to spontaneous uprisings by hundreds of thousands of lower-class people protesting the termination of state subsidies for basic foodstuffs mandated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1986, 66

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

67

low-ranking army officers took to the streets to protest the Mubarak regime’s decision to cut public spending by extending military service.1 Bayat rightly observes, “When traditional social contracts are violated, Arab populations have reacted swiftly” (2009:213). The first few cracks in the wall of Egyptian authoritarianism appeared, and the regime had more and more difficulty in dealing with various forms of dissent, as will be discussed in this chapter. Close observers have argued that the normative structural conditions of Egyptian society have been favorable for mass mobilization and regime change ever since the late 1970s (Beinin 2011a). The question of “Why now?” remains. What was different in January 2011 as opposed to before? It is tempting to say that Tunisia started a domino effect that spilled over to Egypt; many observers have made this argument. But then we still do not know what was different in Tunisia in January 2011 as opposed to before. The fundamental answer is that revolutionary upsurges in history are not predictable; social science cannot foresee such large-scale events with any kind of accuracy. A normative structural-contextual environment favorable to mass mobilization can only lead to a popular uprising when people perceive it as favorable. What social science can do, though, is find out in retrospect what led to the uprising and—in this particular case—diachronically explore how street politics evolved. This is the goal of this chapter. I will show how the 2011 mass protests resulting in the ousting of Hosni Mubarak were the culminating episode of five contentious protest cycles starting in 2000, in each of which particular actors staged and dominated protest actions. I will show how resistance against power structures in Egypt has been expressed predominantly in the fight over protest spaces on the street, and how existing power relations have slowly, though not linearly, been negotiated between the regime and the protesters, ultimately leading to Mubarak’s downfall.

1 In the mid 1960s, Nasser introduced a policy that guaranteed employment for secondary-school graduates (and higher) in the public sector, though the policy has been slowed with the introduction of structural adjustment policies in the 1990s. As salaries for military conscripts are considerably lower than those in the public sector, an extension of military service would have cut public spending.

68 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

2000–2002: Reclaiming the Streets Structure. The neoliberal structural adjustment programs (SAPs) announced by Sadat were only launched under Mubarak in 1991, after a massive external debt-relief program resulting from Egypt’s participation in the Gulf War placed the regime in an economic situation that enabled it to sign SAPs with the IMF and the World Bank. The consequence of these agreements was Law 2003 of 1991, which produced a list of 314 public-sector firms that were to be privatized. The year 2000 marked a rupture of long-established trends in Egyptian society in many ways. After a short economic boom in the late 1990s, economic growth slowed down and Egypt was about to face bankruptcy. Official figures from the Egyptian foreign trade ministry show that the GDP growth rate dropped from 5.9 percent in 1999–2000 to 3.2 percent in 2001–2002 (Abdel Fattah 2010). In response the regime adopted aggressive structural adjustment measures, “floating the Egyptian pound against the US dollar and speeding up privatization” (el-Mahdi and Marfleet 2009:9). In fact, by 2002, 190 public sector firms out of the 314 originally targeted had been privatized (Beinin 2011a). These policies had an impact on a majority of Egyptians with regard to the price and availability of basic commodities. Access to water, availability of bread, and costs of housing are socioeconomic demands that became a potential mobilizing structure. While the 1980s were marked by massive repression of dissidents, the 1990s were characterized by hesitancy and passivity—probably due to the challengers’ experiences in the 1980s, but also because of expectations from the short-term economic boom in the 1990s. The turning point, however, came in September of 2000 when a new, unprecedented series of protests began to spread in Egypt. Solidarity protests, 2000. Frustrations deriving from socioeconomic misfortunes need some sort of catalyst, an arena in which dissatisfaction can be expressed. The outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000 gave rise to a very strong reaction in the Egyptian street, which for a long time had been pronounced ‘apathetic’ or ‘dead’ by Western observers (Bayat 2003:11). The ‘Palestinian cause’ has proven to be a discursive opportunity for mobilization, as it resonates with public

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

69

opinion. The Intifada created and catalyzed a general sense of anger among large segments of Egyptian society, particularly the youth, most of whom had never participated in organized politics before but were ready to take part in collective action (Abdelrahman 2009:42). These sentiments were expressed in spontaneous demonstrations in universities and even schools. Although the exact reasons are unknown, the government of Egypt, for the first time since 1952, began to allow street demonstrations that the state did not organize. One contributing factor may be the Bush administration’s democracy-promotion agenda. The solidarity protests might have been allowed because they embodied a low-profile issue that did not directly jeopardize the regime’s survival. Further, tolerating protests about external issues allows the regime to present itself as democratic to the international community and serves as a good outlet for people’s dissatisfaction with domestic issues without threatening the regime directly. Schools and university campuses were transformed into protest spaces in which protesters were free to express themselves with few or no restrictions set by security forces. Clashes occurred only when students left their allowed protest spaces and tried to expand them into other places. As Paul Schemm (2002) notes, “Students at Cairo University and other schools demonstrated daily and even clashed with security forces during attempts to march to the Israeli embassy to show their solidarity with the Palestinians.” Only when protesters tried to renegotiate protest space, by attempting to expand it, did security forces make use of coercive means to control territory and demarcate the areas where protest is permitted (university campuses) and where it is not (the Israeli embassy). Many interview respondents explained that the fall of 2000 marked a turning point for contentious politics in Egypt. Protesters learned mobilization possibilities, confronted the regime for the first time in years, and were able to find out how far they could go. As Sadiki acknowledges: The Intifada assumed a spiritual importance in the eyes of millions of Arabs, epitomizing hope that people-power resistance might one day enable disaffected Arabs to achieve their objectives of justice, equality, and emancipation. Like the youth

70 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

of the Intifada, the new generation of Arabs stage their own intifada in defiance of the status quo. Unlike their parents and grandparents, they have known only the post-independence order, an order where the gap between their rising expectations and the ability of their regimes to meet them increasingly widens. They have little reason to feel grateful or beholden to their regimes. No amount of rhetoric about a glorious past or a brighter future, couched in the language of nationalism, PanArabism, or development, is good enough. (2000:83) For decades, allowed protest spaces have been clearly demarcated. In 1979, the regime clipped the students’ wings by passing a new law that banned student political activity, effectively confining student demonstrations to the campuses. Battles between students and police no longer occurred in the main streets of downtown Cairo, but at the university gates—usually far away from residential areas (Schemm 2002). Students could stage sit-ins and demonstrations bound by the gates of their university. An activist with the el-Nadeem Center for Human Rights noted: “Pro-Intifada protests . . . were allowed—they were closely monitored— but the gates of the university . . . had to be firmly shut. Anything like that should not be taken outside at any cost” (personal communication, December 2, 2010). Crossing these ‘red lines’ and taking to the streets in the tens of thousands was “not imaginable” for decades and had not occurred since the 1977 bread riots (el-Hamalawy 2010). This negotiation process between protesters and the regime about what is allowed to be said and where protests are allowed to take place began in 2000, which fits right into the time frame of this investigation. Activist Hossam elHamalawy (2011) notes that, although the 2000 protests were in solidarity with the Palestinians, “they soon gained an anti-regime dimension, and police showed up to quell the peaceful protests. The president, however, remained a taboo subject, and I rarely heard anti-Mubarak chants.” The security forces allowed protests in confined areas such as schools and campuses when they explicitly dealt with the Palestinian cause. As soon as anti-regime rhetoric emerged, the security forces implemented coercive policing strategies as a form of disciplinary power. Protesters did not break the taboo of criticizing the president (and his family) publicly at that time. They had to learn how far they could go and which of

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

71

their tactical moves would trigger police repression. The security forces, for their part, learned that external issues addressed in protest events can easily shift to domestic demands and regime criticism. Taking it further: 2001–2002. The protests of 2000 sparked socioeconomic demands, beginning with Copts demonstrating against oppression and followed by protests by the unemployed that took place in 16 different governorates and ended in the 2001 protests in Port Said that lasted several days (Abdel Fattah 2010). Thereafter, the stage for all forms of political activism at the beginning of the century became the Egyptian Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada (EPCSPI), also known as al-Ligna al-Sha‘biya (Popular Committee). Abdelrahman notes: Although the Popular Committee was the initiative of Leftist civil society organizations and Leftist activists, it soon attracted Islamist activists who joined as representatives of unions and professional syndicates, which are overwhelmingly dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Nasserists also followed suit and participated in the various activities of the Popular Committee but again as individuals rather than representatives of their political party. (2009:42) Traditional cleavages between individual secularists and Islamists were largely overcome for the sake of the cause. During that time, Islamists, leftists, and students dominated the protests. A first public demonstration organized by the committee on September 10, 2001 to commemorate the anniversary of the Intifada was staged in Midan al-Tahrir, drawing hundreds of protesters to the heart of the city. For the first time in 24 years, protesters were able to appropriate the square and occupied it for a short while, followed by a series of protests that were held in squares of downtown Cairo, in major mosques, and in almost every Egyptian university (Abdelrahman 2009:42). Although many of the committee’s members were arrested—particularly Muslim Brothers—the Tahrir demonstration was highly important for the further development of street protests in Egypt: protesters learned that it is possible to demonstrate in ‘non-allowed’ places. Although older

72 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

generations knew the possibility of appropriating Tahrir because of their experiences in the 1970s, the Egyptian youth, which constitutes the largest share of population in the country,2 had to find out on their own what was possible and what was not. A long-standing taboo had been broken. Despite the fact that security forces have usually brutally cracked down on any kind of protest event at Midan al-Tahrir (with the possible exception of the 2001 solidarity protest with the Palestinians and the 2003 anti-Iraq war protest), protesters have since then tried to appropriate Tahrir and other major squares in downtown Cairo. They have (re-)learned that “streets of discontent” (Bayat 2009) need to be large squares and streets in the heart of the capital for a variety of reasons: (1) they are places where mobile crowds can rapidly assemble and then easily flee, before security forces disperse them forcefully; (2) downtown Cairo has a historical and political significance, as most political institutions are located there (symbolizing state power) and major historical uprisings occurred in proximity to the symbolic Tahrir Square (the 1881 ‘Urabi revolt in ‘Abdin Square, the 1977 bread riots in Midan al-Tahrir); (3) downtown Cairo is the locus for mass transportation networks, facilitating access and getaway for potential protesters; (4) the flexibility of large places and streets allows protesters to appropriate a maneuverable space where they can easily flee from police through numerous back streets and alleyways, shops and mosques, that can offer sanctuary or respite for protesters; and (5) they are in the center of media attention, which allows protesters to extend their discontent beyond their immediate environment (Bayat 2009:167–169). In 2002, minor protests occurred throughout March, prior to the Arab League summit in Beirut, but when Israel began its military incursion into the city of Ramallah on March 29, large demonstrations unfolded. Students, intellectuals, opposition politicians, and ordinary citizens took to the streets in throngs to protest what they saw as Israeli atrocities. Protesters from different political streams—moderate and radical Islamists, communists, socialists, and liberals—were calling on the regime to cut ties with Israel (el-Amrani 2002). The regime tolerated these protests, probably because it had to walk a fine line between appeasing public opinion and satisfying US pressure to keep communication channels 2 In 2011, 32.7 percent of the Egyptian population was under the age of 14 and the median age was 24.3 years (CIA 2011).

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

73

with Israel open. El-Amrani even suggests that the regime encouraged demonstrations: “From last Friday, when Israel began its offensive against Arafat’s headquarters, Egyptian TV’s normally tame programming—a tepid diet of soap operas, soccer matches and epic historical dramas—was replaced by virtually nonstop coverage of the Palestinians’ plight” (2002). This implies the potential of the media as a POS. While the protesters’ slogans in Cairo started out condemning Israel, they shifted toward criticizing their own government. Schemm notes: The usual chants reviling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or lamenting the absence of Arab armies from the Israeli–Palestinian battlefield are now regularly supplemented with: “Mubarak, you coward, you are the client of the Americans” or “We want a new government because we’ve hit rock bottom.” (2002) The taboo of publicly criticizing the president had been lifted. Thus, protests that had started without domestic political demands or chants that directly addressed the regime succeeded in securing protest space and allowing individuals to assemble for protest actions. This can be seen as a socially constructed rule, negotiated between the regime and protesters. Through a process of political learning that (re-)started in 2000, the protesters have become aware of this rule, and use this discursive opportunity to be ‘allowed’ to protest. Protesters then shift the protest theme to political demands in order to articulate their discontent with the regime. The most violent protests at that time occurred at Alexandria University, which is considered a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood. On April 9, 2002, 9,000 demonstrators marched outside the gates of the campus, trying to expand their protest space to Alexandria’s streets. Security forces broke up the march with rubber bullets and buckshot, wounding 260 protesters and killing at least one. In an interview with an activist from Alexandria (personal communication, March 7, 2011), I learned that the Brotherhood there usually strikes deals with the regime and coordinates demonstrations ahead of time to avoid clashes and not jeopardize their survival, as the MB was illegal but tolerated. This indicates that the protest was probably not led by the

74 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Brotherhood. Journalist Paul Schemm suggests that “a demonstration originally organized by the Brotherhood was taken over by socialist (or independent) students who accurately read the crowd’s temperament and led them out to the streets” (2002). Security forces usually oversee protests with large numbers of riot policemen and cordon the gates of universities in multiple layers, which is an attempt to restrict the movement of protesters and subvert the potential of extending the protest to passers-by. Thus the police spatially divide the protest from potential attendees and let demonstrators chant until they exhaust themselves. In Alexandria, however, the police were unable to control the protesters’ space with their conventional tactics of cordoning and throwing tear gas because of the large number of protesters; as a result, they resorted to opening fire on the crowd (Schemm 2002). This confirms the thesis that violence usually occurs when protesters try to expand their protest space without the security forces’ approval. It is important to note that the lawyers’ syndicate re-emerged as an allowed protest space and a center of political activism during that time. Schemm notes that “once this body was considered the political bellwether of the nation.” (2002). But when the Muslim Brotherhood won the syndicate elections in 1992, the government suspended the board and appointed regime loyalists in their place. It was only in 2002 that the syndicate was reappropriated by resistance actors, turning it once again into an allowed space for protests and political activism, as universities slowly became infiltrated with regime informants and besieged by a heightened police presence. While the coercive policing strategies of the security forces proved to be successful in controlling space, the solidarity protests did affect government policy. The regime announced it would downgrade diplomatic relations with Israel and also halted Egypt Air flights to Tel Aviv. Protesters learned in 2002—even more than in 2000 and 2001— that anti-regime rhetoric and the expansion of protests beyond allowed spaces will lead to a brutal police response. What they also learned, however, is that the politicized street is an arena that can influence government policies. While the regime’s concessions in this particular case were purely symbolic with little consequence, they unintentionally showed protesters that street presence and mass demonstrations are opportunities to influence the ruling elites’ decision-making. Protesters

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

75

learned how to mobilize around the Palestinian cause, and they would soon learn how to mobilize around others.

2003: Protesting War, Outnumbering the Police

On February 15, 2003, millions of people in more than 600 cities around the world protested against the imminent US-led invasion of Iraq. These massive demonstrations were the apex of a sustained protest cycle against the Iraqi war that started in late 2002 and lasted for several months. During that time, the UK and the US were preparing for war with Iraq, but it still seemed that war could be avoided, because the UN Security Council was debating a potential resolution (Walgrave and Rucht 2010:xiii). This international context also spurred opportunities for mobilization in Egypt. On February 15, thousands of Egyptian riot police squeezed some 500 antiwar protesters in downtown Cairo into street corners, separating them from the public in order to make joining the demonstration less appealing. Riot police outnumbered protesters and could easily contain the dissidents. The imminent war on Iraq, however, was “uniformly disliked” (Beinin 2011a) throughout the Egyptian population and created a discursive opportunity for collective action. With the outbreak of the war in March 2003, “the anger was to explode on an even larger scale” (el-Hamalawy 2011). The EPSCI organized a public demonstration on March 20, 2003 to condemn the invasion of Iraq and US support for Israel. Demonstrations erupted on university campuses all over Cairo, and around noon, thousands of protesters converged in Midan al-Tahrir, occupying it for 12 hours (Hassan 2003). At times, security forces were overwhelmed; at other times, they reacted savagely, beating protesters with their batons. Yet the protesters were able to besiege the square for the longest time in decades because of their large numbers, ‘liberating’ it from the regime and giving it a new, anti-authoritarian meaning of popular dissent. The tactic of besieging squares and streets sustains protest action and keeps public attention on the protesters. Apart from the cause itself, with which potential protesters readily sympathized, media representation proved to be an opportunity structure for mobilization as well. El-Hamalawy observed that “the scenes aired by Al Jazeera and other satellite networks of the Palestinian revolt or the US-led onslaught on Iraq inspired activists across Egypt to pull

76 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

down the wall of fear brick by brick” (2011). Al Jazeera also reported that an estimated 55,000 people were demonstrating at al-Azhar mosque (Hassan 2003) and outnumbered the police for the first time in decades. The protesters’ perception of the cause’s importance outweighed the fear of coercive police strategies. Further, the reported numbers of protesters may have reduced the fear of physical harm. In 2003 again, just like during the Intifada protests, the anger shifted toward the regime itself. Slogans included “Mubarak! Leave! Leave!” and “Alaa [Mubarak’s son], tell your dad that millions hate him” (Schemm 2003). Apart from the invasion, the social conditions that frustrated large portions of Egyptian society inspired the anti-regime chants. The country had witnessed a drastic increase in prices in 2003, following the government’s announcement of a floating exchange rate in February, causing a 40 percent loss in value of the Egyptian pound against the dollar (Abdel Fattah 2010). Consequently, commodity prices soared and many Egyptians were no longer able to afford basic necessities. The Commercial Chambers’ Union reported a 40 percent price increase in some sectors, widening the gap between rich and poor. The antiwar protests in 2003 thus also served as an outlet for economic frustration. The violence of the protests peaked when protesters tried to appropriate non-allowed spaces and when they publicly criticized the regime. Protesters were reportedly beaten and attacked with water canons, and plainclothes agents threatened women with rape (Sullivan and Jones 2008:40). Becker notes that these “demonstrations were the most militant in recent times” (2003). The coercive policing measures started only when the protesters tried to expand their confined protest spaces away from mosques and university campuses (Black 2003). Due to the sheer number of protesters, however, the security forces were unable to thwart the occupation of Midan al-Tahrir. Most clashes erupted when the protesters tried to extend their protest space to the nearby US embassy. The embassy was regarded as the symbolic space of representation for those responsible for starting the war in Iraq, which explains why the protesters chose to take their discontent there. The protesters attempted to reach the embassy by tearing up pieces of pavement and throwing rocks at riot police, while the latter responded with water hoses, driving the protesters back into the square (Hassan 2003).

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

77

Once the security forces realized they could not keep the protesters out of Midan al-Tahrir, they let them assemble there, and interfered only when groups tried to expand their space beyond the square. In effect, the square temporarily changed ownership in favor of the protesters under the implicitly negotiated condition that they would not expand their protest space to nearby institutions symbolizing power. Whenever they attempted to do this, the security forces would intervene to prevent it. The policing strategy was “to collect them [protesters] in one place and control them” (State Security officer, cited in Schemm 2003). However, the square was not permitted to remain a protest space. The security forces waited until nightfall, when many of the protesters left, and then launched a huge crackdown. Some 1,500 people were arrested, including two members of parliament despite their official immunity (Schemm 2003). One respondent noted that the security forces switched off the streetlights just before invading the square as a means of tactical advantage (politician, al-Ghad Party, personal communication, April 4, 2010). As for the composition of the protesters, Browers (2007) notes that many Muslim Brothers were to be found in the square. The anti-war protest emboldened activists and spawned further smaller-scale rallies in the months that followed, during which the old Muslim Brother slogan of “the road to Jerusalem goes through Cairo” was revived and put to use by activists, including leftists, who added a new slogan along the same lines: “the road to Baghdad goes through Cairo.” Individual Muslim Brothers had already begun to join in the demonstrations, but the Brotherhood’s leadership still remained concerned about overstepping boundaries that might threaten their fragile relationship with the regime. The organization did not yet appear in protests en masse. (2007:80) An alliance configuration between Islamists and leftists occurred, while the Brotherhood—just like the years before—tried not to provoke the regime to an extent that would jeopardize its own survival. It is important to see how leftist groups have adopted chants of the Brotherhood—a part of their tactical repertoire—and modified them

78 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

for the current cause. This underlines how social movements learn tactics from each other and choose the ones that are considered most successful: in this case, those chants are chosen that resonate most with the public, while reminding them of previous protests over similar struggles. After the events of March 20–21, antiwar demonstrations in 2003 returned to the allowed confines of university campuses, where protesters enjoy householder’s rights, or else were carefully orchestrated with the regime’s blessing. The protest cycle died down after that spring for more than a year. Yet, as Beinin notes, the protests contributed to “a consciousness of citizenship and rights in a far more profound manner than anything that has happened in the arenas of party politics or nongovernmental organization work” (2009b:454), which emphasizes the importance of the street as a political arena to be contested. A ‘culture’ of protest slowly emerged in the country, and the tactics and experience acquired by both police and protesters would be of great use in future demonstrations.

2004–2006: Enough! The Call for Democracy Structure. The erosion of the social pact between the Mubarak regime and the populace was most evident in the early 2000s. In protests, dissatisfaction with the government’s poor economic performance and with the ruling elites had been expressed only episodically from 2000 to 2003. One government response to worsening economic conditions was a cabinet reshuffle in July 2004, which added a majority of technocrats and businessmen well known for their neoliberal agenda. El-Mahdi (2009b) notes: The heightened economic burden on the majority of Egyptians was matched by an unprecedented fleeing of businessmen during 2000–2001, declaring that the country was neither Nasser’s haven of social rights for the popular classes nor Sadat’s haven for investors and the economic prosperity they promised. (2009b:1022) This indicated an end to the democratic bargain of the social pact and one of many changes in political opportunity structures. For parts of

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

79

the middle class, at least, there was no good reason why political participation should be further postponed, as socioeconomic grievances intensified. Social protests, initiated mainly by workers after the cabinet reshuffle, numbered 250 in 2004 alone. This was a 200 percent increase over 2003 (Ottaway and Hamzawy 2011:2). The POS further changed as the majority of Egyptians were dissatisfied with the regime’s reluctance to take a strong pro-Arab position during the second Intifada and the invasion of Iraq. Another contentious issue centered on the question of who would be the successor of the aging President Mubarak. Despite denials of any plans for a Syrian-style father-to-son inheritance, Gamal was widely expected to continue the rule of the family. As one respondent noted, “at this point . . . there was no reason . . . to give Mubarak’s clique another shot” (HASHD activist, personal communication, December 8, 2010). This approach was supported by a changing international context that further improved the POS for protests: the so-called Broader Middle East initiative, adopted by the G8 in June 2004, claimed that the US and Europe were in agreement on the need for political and economic change in the Arab region, assuming that democratization in the region was good for American and European security (al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies 2005). Arguably, the fear of becoming the next target—after Iraq—of the democratization agenda of the US led the Egyptian regime to short-term political reforms in 2003–2004. This opened up space for social movements to express their demands and discontent, while many activists criticized Western involvement in the region. One result of the reforms was the establishment of some two dozen newspapers and magazines independent of the regime, including the largest independent daily, al-Masry al-Youm. Along with Arab satellite stations and the Internet, these new media offered access to information that was undreamed of a decade earlier. Bloggers started writing subversive criticism of the regime in Arabic and English, even though some of them were arrested and tortured, while others “posted videos on YouTube that instantly demonstrate that the regime’s account of contested events is false” (Beinin 2009b:454). This greater access to and distribution of information also facilitated political opportunities and mobilization frames for social movements.

80 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Kefaya emerging. All of these structural conditions led to, or at least highly influenced, the emergence of Kefaya (Enough!) in July 2004. Kefaya’s “Declaration to the Nation” in 2004 reflected the changes in the POS. We believe there are two grave dangers which beset our nation today. They are two sides of the same coin, each nourishing the other, and neither curable alone: First, the odious assault on Arab native soil. . . . Second, the repressive despotism that pervades all aspects of the Egyptian political system and the lack of democratic governance. Political activists seized the opportunity to organize themselves into a movement and to resist the existing power structures. Egypt’s ruling elites found themselves in a situation of internal and external pressure. While suppressing any sort of resistance would have been in their interest, the international community was closely following domestic developments and encouraging pro-reform groups. The government’s response was flexible. Protesters were able to gather in allowed protest sites and rarely had to face police crackdowns there. However, if they attempted to protest in non-allowed sites or tried to expand their protest space without the authorities’ approval, the security forces would make use of repressive policing strategies. 2004: First contact. On December 12, 2004 a few hundred predominantly leftist, but also nationalist, Islamist, and liberal activists peacefully gathered in front of the prosecutor’s office at the Supreme Court in downtown Cairo for the very first purely anti-Mubarak demonstration since he came to power (Abou el-Magd 2004; el-Amrani 2006). The place protesters chose as the physical site for their protest would become Kefaya’s annual locus for contesting the Egyptian regime. The small plaza in front of the building became a regularly allowed protest space. While the first Kefaya protest was not exorbitant in size and reach, it represented the final breakthrough for lifting the taboo of publicly denouncing the regime and criticizing Mubarak and his family. Protesters had learned, since 2000, how to slowly negotiate a space for anti-regime discourse and freedom of expression that had long

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

81

been out of bounds. Slogans that day included “No to inheritance, no to extension” and “This silent protest is against inheriting the ruling regime by Gamal Mubarak and against Mubarak’s fifth term [as president]” (Abou el-Magd 2004), issues any Egyptian could understand (Oweidat et al. 2008:18). Furthermore, this protest marked the first contact between security forces and explicit pro-democracy protests that would spread henceforth in downtown Cairo. In conversations with many interview respondents and through a variety of pictures and videos, I learned that the policing of the December 12, 2004 protest was very similar to the one I observed on December 12, 2010: “the state security has an . . . automatic program to counter protests” (activist, “No to Military Trials of Civilians,” personal communication, March 23, 2011). The policing of pro-democracy protests at that site from 2004 on followed a particular routine. The December 2004 case remained peaceful, as security forces probably wanted to figure out the dimensions and potential of this very first explicitly pro-democracy protest, and the demonstrators did not attempt to physically expand their protest space. The ratio of riot police to protesters was (and since then has usually been) 3:1. Protesters were able to gather on the steps in front of the Supreme Court, the mini-plaza right by it, and a strip of the sidewalk next to it. Riot police then cordoned off this confined protest space and separated the protesters from the public. The police closed the Nasser metro station right in front of the court for the time of the event, impeding access to and exit from the protest. Street traffic flow was normal and security forces would not allow any interruption, as it would disturb public order and attract attention to the protesters. Plainclothes police and higher-ranking uniformed officers were to be found on the sidewalk across the street. When I attended the 2010 Kefaya protest, plainclothes forces told me and others to keep moving and even pushed people as an act of intimidation. Passers-by were not allowed to stand on the sidewalk across the street to watch the protest because they might turn into active protesters or sympathizers. The protest site could be reached only through one entrance/exit, which was basically a tight gateway formed by security personnel. Although the number of protesters was low, security cordons were very tight, making the protest look even smaller and hence less appealing for passers-by to join. Riot police enforcement was in close proximity to the protest, ready

82 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

to intervene if protesters attempted to expand their protest space. The protesters were careful, however, and did not look for confrontation, as they did not want to lose this first opportunity of public pro-democracy protest. Their goal was not a physical appropriation of protest space, but rather an ‘audio-visual’ one: chanting slogans and holding up posters, the goal of the Kefaya protesters was to extend their message and attract the general public, on which the movement would have to rely. Figure 3 Residential buildings and shops Metro (open) X

X

X

X

X

X Police trucks (with reinforcements)

Police trucks (with reinforcements)

Street (traffic flowing)

Entrance/exit Metro (closed)

X

X

X

X

X

Supreme Court building and prosecutor’s office

Plainclothes police taking videos and pictures Protestor

X

Plainclothes agent Riot police cordon

This protest was a learning experience for both police and protesters. The security forces found out that the small number of protesters in the mostly non-residential area of the Supreme Court could easily be contained and, if necessary, repressed. Bystanders rarely joined such protest events, and the regime allowed them to continue, because they served as an outlet for frustration and because, by allowing them, the regime could present itself as democratic. The protesters learned that they could stage protests at sites of state power, and that protest spaces are negotiable 3 This figure and the figures below are not exact models of protest sites. They are intended to give the reader an idea of the spatial arrangements at a particular site.

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

83

even for high-profile causes such as regime criticism. The regime would bend a bit if the protesters ‘played by the rules.’ The protesters were able to study policing strategies and the positioning of security personnel, which would frame the tactical choices in later protest events. 2005: Refurbishing structure, sustaining the movement. Presidential and parliamentary elections were scheduled in 2005. The structural openings for expression and discontent described above allowed for some ground for political mobilization. On February 21, several hundred protesters gathered in a public square in front of Cairo University in the largest anti-Mubarak street protest up to that time. Many of them carried Kefaya stickers and chanted “Down, down [with] Hosni Mubarak” (Yasqut, yasqut Hosni Mubarak)—a slogan that would echo through the streets of Egypt in 2011. The protesters opposed Mubarak’s seeking a fifth term in office. Thousands of riot police armed with batons and shields surrounded the protesters, while plainclothes officers prevented more people from joining the crowd (Wright 2005). Yet even though the protest was ‘out of bounds,’ as it took place outside of the allowed protest space confined by the university gates, the police did not attempt to disperse it. The protesters were able to expand their protest space that day without opposition, slowly gaining more ground for future protest events. This would appear to contradict my thesis that violence occurs when protesters try to appropriate non-allowed protest spaces. However, there are two possible interpretations for the peacefulness of the protest. First, international media—such as the BBC and Al Jazeera—were covering the protest that day, which respondents identify as a factor constraining police violence at demonstrations. As one journalist noted: “When foreign journalists were there and filming, they [police] did not want clashes, because they knew this would be all over the news. So many times I would see a lot of restraint by the police” (journalist, CNN, personal communication, March 21, 2011). Media coverage of such events can be seen as an opportunity structure, as it helps to transport the protest and its message beyond the immediate surroundings. It can also be understood as an element protesters use in a tactical manner in order to keep violent confrontations with security forces at a minimum. An activist explained: “In Cairo you were protected by the media” (activist, April 6 Youth Movement, personal

84 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

communication, March 7, 2011). While this is no guarantee of not being exposed to disciplinary power by the police, many respondents agreed upon the protective role played by international media coverage. Second, this particular protest has to be seen within the context of what would happen a few days later. On February 26, Mubarak surprised observers with his announcement asking the parliament to allow multiple candidates to run for president. This push represented the most essential political reform measure since he took office (Fürtig 2007:2) and could explain why the February 21 protest remained so peaceful. Instead of crushing opponents’ calls for reform, Mubarak—at least on the surface—introduced his own, presenting his regime as the driving force for democratic reform. International observers hailed the beginning of the ‘Cairo Spring,’ yet this was a clear misperception. As Demmelhuber rightly notes, “all we have been witnessing is an ongoing, major power shift from the ‘old guard’ to young actors, plus a major shift in sources of legitimization on the Egyptian stage; or what some referred to as the ‘theater of democratization’” (2009:123). The new ruling was limited by the requirement that candidates must have the support of 65 members of the People’s Assembly (lower house), 25 members of the Shura Council (upper house), and 10 members of local councils in 14 out of the 28 governorates (Fürtig 2007:2). Legal parties that had been in existence for at least five years and held a minimum of 5 percent of seats in the two houses “would be free to nominate candidates from among their own leaders whether or not they had the support of members of the two houses of the national parliament and local councils” (ICG 2005:1). These measures set the bar too high for competitive presidential candidates to emerge, and resistance actors were quick to reveal this farce. These structural modifications changed the opportunity structures and positively influenced mobilization frames for social movements. The year 2005 probably marked the high point of Egypt’s pro-democracy movement (until 2011). Kefaya held multiple demonstrations during that time and benefited from a “measure of tacit indulgence” (ICG 2005:3) on the regime’s part. They figured the regime would not crush them with full force at such a delicate time and attempted to hold simultaneous demonstrations in 14 governorates on April 27, 2005. This

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

85

tactic spread their criticism of the sham reform in multiple places all over the country, expanding their protest space to a national dimension. However, Kefaya only succeeded in four governorates, as the demonstrations in the other ten were prevented by authorities and some 150 demonstrators were arrested, 50 of them in Cairo (journalist, al-Masry al-Youm, personal communication, May 18, 2010). The security forces’ surveillance and intelligence apparatus had prior knowledge of the protest locations, and rather than engaging in a conflict with protesters on site, they physically prevented potential protesters from turning particular places into protest spaces. One activist noted, “It’s a matter of being in a place without the police being prepared. That’s the way to gain more ground” (activist, el-Nadeem Center, personal communication, December 2, 2010). Once the pro-democracy protesters had learned this, they thereafter tried to be one step ahead of security forces. The same activist further explained: One time [in a 2006 Kefaya protest] where we could say that the police weren’t in charge for a few minutes, let’s say half an hour, the people marched from Share‘ Sherif [Sherif Street] to Tahrir. They were moving freely. They were in charge of the streets at that time. They were telling other people [bystanders, perhaps] what’s going on . . . and then the police attacked. And in the Imbaba [a rather poor Cairene residential neighborhood] flashmob [in 2010] we didn’t break through the police cordon. We were there before the police. The protesters learned that tactics such as flashmobs and spontaneous marches would allow them to freely appropriate protest space, as the security forces were unaware of such events and could not police them. However, these appropriations only have a limited timeframe until the police show up and disperse the crowds. This makes it harder for protesters to mobilize people in sufficient numbers to confront security forces, but allows for politicizing the streets for a limited period of time and hence ‘leaving a trace’ of anti-authoritarian sentiment. Not to be outdone, the Muslim Brotherhood organized a protest on March 27 in which Kefaya and other groups joined in to call for real political reforms, using the newly changed POS with regard to multiple

86 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

presidential candidates, as a means of conveying their message. The demonstration was the Brotherhood’s first one on domestic issues since Mubarak came to power and broke a long-established, informal truce between the MB and the regime—“a truce that allowed the movement to practice its missionary activities, as long as it refrained from challenging the regime in the political arena” (Browers 2007:74). Many took the demonstration to indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood was rethinking its traditional strategy of avoiding outright confrontation with the state. Mahdi Akef, then Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, stated: “We have become fearless” (cited in Abdel-Latif 2005), indicating a change in perception regarding the regime’s coercive power. The group announced that the rally would be held in front of the People’s Assembly and left the security apparatus on full alert. On that day, security arrangements turned downtown Cairo into “an almost citizen-free fortress” (Abdel-Latif 2005). Riot police used barricades on the large Qasr al-‘Aini Street and other side streets surrounding the compound, effectively blocking all traffic. SSI arrested 50 leading members of the MB before the demonstration, in order to intimidate and scare off others. Nonetheless, protesters showed up, but with no physical access to the parliament. Instead, three groups were scattered in the immediate neighborhood. In Ramses Square, close to the journalists’ and lawyers’ syndicates as well as the Supreme Court, an estimated 3,000 protesters gathered. A second crowd assembled in Bab al-Luq, near Midan al-Tahrir, while a third congregated in al-Sayeda Zeinab, a residential area not far from the People’s Assembly. As protesters were prevented from converging on their target destination, they had no option but to stage their demonstrations where they were. The masses of riot police attempting to cordon Cairo’s downtown were left at a complete loss, as they were unable to control multiple protest spaces simultaneously in such proximity to each other. Here I suggest it was not the protesters’ tactics that made protesting in such close proximity to symbols of state power so successful, but rather poor policing by security forces. The police made the same tactical miscalculations in 2005 that they made in the 2003 antiwar protests, suggesting that political learning processes are not linear and can stagnate. Rather than letting thousands of people gather at one site, where it would be easier to contain and cordon, security forces blocked

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

87

access to the parliament, forcing the protesters to congregate at nonallowed places scattered in downtown Cairo. It is important to stress that successful appropriation of protest space is dependent not only on smart tactical considerations on the part of the protesters, but also on bad tactical decisions by opposing actors, illustrating the relational dynamism of power relations within the frame of the interaction context. Angry citizens who were stuck at security checkpoints blocking access to many governmental offices and ministries complained about the heavy-handed security measures and the lack of public order, which could have potentially turned them from passers-by to active protesters. The security forces use particular strategies when policing protests led by Islamists. Albrecht observed that “whenever Islamists took to the streets, the streets were closed by a massive security presence and turned into civil-war-like zones” (2007:70). While the regime responded to the Brotherhood’s growing street presence in hindsight by detaining some 900 members (Halawy 2005), the weaknesses of the security forces’ policing became very apparent that day, as blocking access to protest sites does not prevent protesters from constituting protest spaces elsewhere. Most demonstrations in 2005 remained fairly peaceful. International expectations for democratic reform were high and the Mubarak regime did not want to jeopardize its credibility at a time when Egypt was in the international spotlight. The regime suppressed dissidents in hindsight with arrests, rather than aggressive protest policing. In the run-up to the parliamentary and presidential elections, Kefaya and other pro-democracy groups called for an anti-Mubarak protest at Midan al-Tahrir on August 1, 2005, probably expecting the protest to be peaceful. An activist explained that peaceful protests at that time were a “result of American pressure from which the pro-democracy movement benefited” (activist, April 6 Youth Movement, personal communication, May 17, 2010). One can argue about the validity of this assertion, but nonetheless we were able to observe a certain space of action through which pro-democracy actors were able to act in a way they could not before. Yet the August 1 demonstration was choked off before it began. Riot police cordoned the streets leading to the square, while hundreds of plainclothes officers were standing in formation in front of shops and restaurants on Midan al-Tahrir, ordering passers-by to keep moving (Stack 2005). Protesters who attempted to appropriate the square were

88 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

confronted by plainclothes officers and thugs and beaten with clubs; women were stripped of their clothes and sexually molested by plainclothes officers (Stack 2005). Consequently, the demonstrators retreated and attempted to flee while security forces were chasing them. They did so in many smaller groups, rather than one big block, and were thus able to disperse into the many small side streets coming off of Midan al-Tahrir. After these clashes, about 100 protesters gathered on the steps of the journalists’ syndicate, about 100 meters away from the square, and stayed there for several hours, chanting anti-Mubarak slogans. The protesters that day read the structural settings and POS carefully, and thought the regime would allow them to appropriate Midan alTahrir. The security forces, however, probably wanted to set an example through violent policing, showing the protesters that Tahrir was offlimits and non-negotiable. Interestingly enough, the protesters who went to the journalists’ syndicate were allowed to express their frustration without police violence. An activist explained: Many of the Kefaya protests and against succession and inheritance of power from Mubarak to his son, against emergency laws, against the constitutional amendments . . . happened at the journalists’ syndicate, because it’s basically a safer place with less violent confrontation with the police. And when a protest turns violent, protesters at the end of the day . . . go to protest the violence at the journalists’ syndicate. It’s very common. (activist, el-Nadeem Center, personal communication, December 2, 2010) 2005–2006: The elections and Egypt’s fall of disillusionment. When Mubarak won what was said to be the first contested presidential election in Egypt’s history, on September 7, 2005, which once again had been overshadowed by fraudulent irregularities, the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 out of a total of 454 seats in the parliamentary elections in November and December 2005, because of the changed electoral law that allowed members of the group to run as independents (Wolff 2008:97). None of the handful of Kefaya candidates who ran in the elections won seats, while the ruling NDP maintained its

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

89

overwhelming majority of almost 70 percent. Disputes over the independence of the judiciary following the elections reenergized protests. Weekly solidarity protests with the two judges (Mahmoud Mekki and Hisham Bastawisi) who had pressed for an inquiry into alleged electoral fraud during the 2005 general election, and who were indicted by the government, were held in Cairo in April and May 2006. The Brotherhood solidly backed the judges in parliament and in the streets, along with leftist, nationalist, and liberal groups (Browers 2007:84). Of the 8,000 judges in Egypt, all but 2,000 stood in solidarity with their prosecuted colleagues. Since few opposition parties got into parliament, “the street remained the most vital locus for the audible expression of collective identities” (Fahmi 2009:97) as well as resistance against existing power structures. As the pro-reform protests would not die down, the regime responded with a series of arrests in May. On May 7, 11 activists from Kefaya, Youth for Change, and al-Karama Party were arrested, making a total of 55 activists in detention (Sami 2006). Among the detainees were such prominent figures as social activists Kamal Khalil and Wael Khalil, both with long-standing reputations for anti-regime activities. One respondent explained these arrests as tactics of intimidation and fear. They [security forces] are making examples of [us] . . . It is an indirect message to anybody doing the same thing. If you keep doing what you’re doing and remain active and tell the truth, you end up in jail. (activist, HASHD, personal communication, December 6, 2010) Accordingly, security forces strategically arrested leading resistance figures in an attempt to intimidate others from organizing and executing anti-regime events such as protests. In this case, repressive tactics did not silence dissent, but rather fueled it. Some forms of repression, particularly when they are considered illegitimate, can create a sense of injustice that increases the perceived risk of inaction (della Porta and Diani 2006: 200). On May 11, there was a hearing for the two judges in the Supreme Court, and protesters, including Muslim Brothers, leftists, and Kefaya members, called for a rally in front of it and at the nearby judges’ club

90 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

in an attempt to strengthen their support. Carrying shields and batons, riot police and plainclothes security officers flooded the streets of downtown Cairo in the early morning, sealing off roads, closing subway stations, and waiting for protests to start (el-Hamalawy and Stack 2006). Several hundred protesters were able to approach the square in front of the court, where they faced an overwhelming number of riot police surrounding the building. Protesters at the judges’ club painted graffiti on the street in front of it (Abdelkhaliq Tharwat Street), and believed— even though police surrounded them—that some sort of democratic reform would come out of it. As an activist noted: “We thought it could bring change . . . [it was a] full battle with all the slogans [against the regime]” (activist, April 6 Youth Movement, personal communication, May 17, 2010). As chanting groups of protesters attempted to coalesce into a street march—and hence tried to expand their protest space—riot police swarmed; men and women were dragged over asphalt, kicked, and beaten bloody. Multiple newspaper accounts described the attempted march as the reason for the violence (e.g., el-Hamalawy and Stack 2006; Slackman and el-Naggar 2006). Many were forced into police vehicles and taken away. A Kefaya activist noted, “The march was forced to move away from the courthouse, and then plainclothes police began to take protesters out from the crowd and beat them” (cited in Black 2006). Picking protesters out of the crowds like grapes has proven to be a successful tactic for dispersing protests and intimidating participants. One HASHD activist observed: “They [security forces] were picking people, literally. They would open up that protest and bring in thugs—not police. They come in; beat them [protesters] up . . . pull them away and put them in these blue [police] trucks” (personal communication, December 6, 2010). Many respondents explained that the police would take the phones and wallets of detained protesters, and then either put them in jail or drive them to the desert roads on the periphery of Cairo and drop them off there. The two activists quoted above disagree over who exactly was beating the protesters. Because they were in plain clothes, it was not easy to identify who was a hired thug and who was a plainclothes officer, which made it easier for security forces to disguise their repressive measures. Journalists attempting to cover the protest were also attacked. The regime’s usually careful behavior in front of the international media was absent that day. An estimated 200 people were

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

91

arrested on charges of insulting the president and obstructing traffic (el-Nahhas 2006). The regime reacted with full force, and I believe that this was not random. The protests were tolerated—although the issues the demonstrators raised were delicate—because the international media were on site and the US and the EU in particular were closely following domestic developments in Egypt. Only when the protesters attempted to march in order to expand their protest space did the security personnel, including paid thugs, brutally crack down. The repressive policing was arguably a regime response to the persistent protest cycle that had started in 2004. The regime showed protesters the ‘red lines’ and made it clear that no democratic reform measures could be negotiated, in full view of the international community. The US State Department issued a statement saying that “reports of Egyptian police tactics against demonstrators and journalists covering the event that left many injured” were “particularly troubling” (cited in Slackman and el-Naggar 2006). However, no US actions followed, and what had at first appeared to be the Cairo Spring soon turned into the Cairo Fall. Repressive police measures against pro-democracy protests reduced mobilization opportunities, as the fear of physical abuse remained high. Further, as an activist noted, the pro-democracy movements failed to create a mass base that would assemble in high numbers in street protests. Kefaya and other movements raised purely political demands and failed to incorporate socioeconomic demands and to reflect this in their slogans. Thereby, they lost access to the popular masses, which would have been able to change the path of the movement. (Aida Seif el-Dawla, quoted in el-Mahdi 2009b:1031) After the political momentum generated by the 2005 electoral events and alleged reforms had passed, political opportunities for protest mobilization remained low, and Kefaya and its sister movements faded away from the political scene. However, a series of strikes and protests by another actor arose: after a decade of hibernation, the workers’ movement was reignited with a series of strikes involving tens of thousands of workers, starting in December 2006.

92 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

2006–2010: Labor Strikes and the Art of Continuity

Before exploring structural conditions in terms of SMT for the revival of the labor movement around 2006–2007, I would like to recall the following key issues regarding workers: (1) the importance of perceived threats4 rather than opportunities as a motivation for mobilization; (2) collective action possibilities and movement-building in a resourcepoor, (hybrid) authoritarian context; (3) the continuing importance of class as an analytical category; (4) the agency of workers in expanding their tactical repertoire. The labor movement in Egypt in the last decade can be understood as a response to neoliberal economic restructuring, which expanded particularly in 2003–2004. The movement’s hibernation during the 1990s has not yet been properly analyzed, but Clément claims it resulted from “the huge deterioration in workers’ standards of living and the retreat of their legal trade union and the leftist organization from their respective traditional roles: paternalist protection and mobilization” (2009:105). When the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) slowly abandoned its opposition to a neoliberal agenda, legal leftist parties (such as Tagammu‘) decided to not oppose the regime-dominated leadership of the ETUF and instead negotiated their participation in it from above. The leftists’ retreat from bottom-up approaches to support workers’ demands made them less of a political threat for the regime. This, Clément adds, explains why SSI became less violent toward workers’ protests after the mid 1990s (2009:107). The class-based approach to workers distinguishes them from other actors and is important for understanding their modes of networking: factories and workers’ neighborhoods—often organized in housing projects going back to the Nasser era—are the “locus of identity and sociability” (Beinin 2011b:182). The children of work colleagues commonly go to the same school and often marry each other. Workers’ families organize mutual financial assistance, as they have known each other for generations. These social (family) relations sustain the labor movement and make it particularly hard for the regime to eliminate it through coercive means. By their nature, however, these networks are local and hardly 4 ‘Threats’ are defined here as “the cost a social group will incur from protest, or that it expects to suffer if it does not take action” (Goldstone and Tilly 2001:183; emphasis added by author).

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

93

expandable to the national level. Workers’ demands are predominantly socioeconomic, often calling for back wages rather than higher ones. Although often criticized by scholars, there is truth to the idea that this ‘moral economy’5 influences workers’ protests: at least in the beginning of the last protest cycle, starting in 2006, workers would protest when they saw the status quo and their relative well-being threatened. Structure. After the introduction of SAPs through the implementation of Law 203/1991 which specified 314 public-sector firms eligible for privatization, and the 2004 government reshuffle that initiated a second wave of privatization, Egypt’s GDP grew impressively, as more neoliberal measures were taken.6 The gap between poor and rich widened, however, and the perceived (and quite real) threat of job loss, lower wages, and nonpayment of bonuses as a result of privatization grew. While from 2005 to 2008 food prices rose from at least 33 percent for meat, up to 146 percent for chicken, workers’ real wages were on average lower in 2006 than in 1988 (Beinin 2011b:187), which made living conditions unbearable. With no independent labor union and low institutional access for resisting deteriorating living standards, workers had to resort to contentious politics to make their grievances heard. Regarding the labor movement, the most important structural changes in the POS in this decade before the 2011 uprising were the 2004 government reshuffle and the unified labor law of 2003. Under Law 12/2003, strikes were legalized in principle, if not in fact. This differentiation is important, because in order for a strike to be legal it had to be approved by two-thirds of the executive board of the relevant national general union and two-thirds of the executive board of the ETUF. Most of the 23 members of the ETUF executives were members of the NDP. As a result, there have been only two legal strikes in Egypt over the last decade (Beinin 2011a). Although the new code was intended to impede protests, the law 5 The moral-economy approach describes collective action as a response to violations of the (national-populist) social pact reinstated under Nasser, to which the working class has “become accustomed and which it expects the dominant elites to maintain. Rather than reflecting some emerging new consciousness, then, protests under a moral economy aim at resurrecting the status quo ante. The goal is not to negotiate and redefine the terms of exploitation but to reinstate them after they have been abandoned” (Posusney 1993:85). 6 For a more detailed account, see Beinin 2011b.

94 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

became a new motive for demonstrations, and the number of participants in workers’ collective actions (gatherings, sit-ins, demonstrations, strikes) rose from 141,175 in 2005 to 541,423 in 2008 (Beinin 2011b:189). These actions were not always described as ‘strikes.’ Clément (2009) notes: As the labor law previously banned the right to strike but not the occupation of premises, and the law of 2003 strongly restricts the right to strike, workers used to occupy their factories without declaring themselves “on strike.” (2009:101) This serves as the basic tactical consideration for protests. Workers’ strikes attempted to operate within the rule of (or rather by) law, in order to avoid provoking repressive police actions against them. 2006–2007: We Want What We Deserve! One year after the parliamentary and presidential elections, the trade union elections in 2006 were marked by undemocratic procedures. NGOs claimed that the ETUF leadership, in coordination with the Ministry of Labor and SSI, chose most of the candidates. Clément adds that proper competitive elections took place in fewer than 100 enterprises (2009:109). These structural changes influenced the political opportunity structure—or rather, in a workers’ context, political threat structure. What followed was a wave of unprecedented strikes involving more than 500,000 workers within months that swept across the country. Many scholars, opposition figures, and activists claim that Kefaya’s protests inspired the workers’ uprising during that time (personal communication with several respondents), which would fit perfectly into the PPA framework. However, the workers’ struggle did not begin in 2006, but rather was revived after a long period of apathy. Despite its importance, the December 2006 strike in Mahalla al-Kubra cannot be regarded as the beginning of the workers’ movement; it should instead be understood as a reawakening. The media contributed in framing this misconception. However, the prodemocracy period of 2004–2006 must have influenced workers in one way or another. It may have changed the perception of threat versus opportunity for collective action for workers: when they realized that not every collective action was suppressed by security forces, they perceived it to be a useful mode of contestation.

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

95

On March 3, 2006, Prime Minister Nazif decreed an increase in the annual bonus given to all public-sector manufacturing workers, from a constant le 100 (€12) to a two-month salary bonus. The last time annual bonuses had been raised—from le 75 to le 100—was in 1984 (el-Hamalawy and Beinin 2007). When ministers and the new ETUF management, among other officials, denied the bonuses, hundreds of workers in factories all over Egypt went on strike. On December 7, 24,000 employees at the Misr Spinning and Weaving complex in Mahalla al-Kubra7 joined for several days, occupying the factory until the regime authorized the headquarters to pay 21 days’ worth of the bonuses immediately and the remaining 39 days in 2007 (Clément 2009:110). On December 7, production halted in Mahalla when 3,000 female garment workers marched over to the spinning and weaving sections and stormed in, chanting to their still-working male colleagues: “Here are the women, where are the men?” The male workers were rather embarrassed and quickly joined the strike (el-Hamalawy 2010). In this case it was the female working force that started a massive mobilization. During the occupation, riot police and plainclothes agents with the CSF quickly deployed around the factory and throughout the city—but they did not intervene. As security forces had dealt with workers before, they had learned that paying workers off (by fulfilling their demands) would keep them off the streets, often making repressive force unnecessary. Further, policing 24,000 angry workers would be very challenging and could create an environment that might scare international investors off. On the fourth day of the factory occupation, the regime relented, realizing the workers would not leave until all of their demands were met. Government officials offered a forty-five-day bonus, assurances that the company would not be privatized, and a promise that if the company earned more than 60 million EGP in profit in the current fiscal year, 10 percent of the profit would be distributed to the workers. (Beinin 2011b:193) 7 Mahalla al-Kubra is a large agricultural and industrial city (442,000 inhabitants) located in the middle of the Nile Delta. It is known for its textile sector, which is its dominant industry, and is home to the largest public-sector Egyptian textile factory, the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company.

96 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

What started as mobilization against a threat soon turned into an opportunity to call for more socioeconomic changes. This particular strike motivated more than 30,000 workers in at least ten textile mills in the Delta region to strike, slow down production, or threaten such actions in order to receive what the Mahalla workers had gained. “In virtually all cases the government succumbed” (Beinin 2011b:193). On January 30, 2007, 4,500 workers at the privatized Shibin al-Kom Spinning and Weaving Company went on strike in order to obtain their back bonuses as well as the same 45 days’ worth of bonuses the Mahalla workers had won (Clément 2009:111). On February 3, 2007, 11,000 workers at the Kafr al-Dawwar Fine Spinning and Weaving Company went on strike when they received only 15 days’ worth of bonus instead of 45 like Mahalla alKubra (Clément 2009:111). They even ‘detained’ their union officials to force them to stay in the occupation (el-Hamalawy 2008). Mahalla is important for several reasons. First, protesters learned, after a long period of political apathy, that they were able to stage protest events without facing brutal police force and that their demands would be heard and even fulfilled. They learned that the tactics of factory occupation and production stoppage are too costly for the regime to be ignored, but at the same time too risky to be violently suppressed. As one Kafr al-Dawwar worker notes: “We expressed solidarity with El-Mahalla through a one hour work stoppage . . . their strike was very inspiring and reminded us of ways to get our rights” (cited in El-Mahdi 2009c). Although the regime was caught off guard, it could afford to pay off discontent because it had been selling off public assets. Second, although workers’ networks are local, media coverage is (inter)national. When workers in other factories learned the news from Mahalla, they saw opportunities for socioeconomic gain through protests. Because the factory occupation was effective in Mahalla, workers in other factories learned to use it. Beinin rightly notes: “As striking proved effective in achieving economic gains and entailed lower risks than before, every successful action encouraged others” (2011b:193). The media proved to be a POS in terms of information distribution, which motivated workers in other factories to strike. In this sense, the protest space was expanded to multiple other factories through both media representation of workers’ struggles and word of mouth. It must be noted that workers’ protests usually do not attempt to expand their space, as their protests have a distinct nature: while pro-democracy

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

97

actors ‘need’ the streets to attract masses and extend their message beyond their immediate circle in order to undertake change, workers in one factory all have identical grievances, already number in the thousands, and are willing to go back to work after the reinstating of the status quo ante. As one worker notes, “If we get our rights, we will leave” (quoted in Slackman 2010). What happens instead is that workers occupy factories to remind the authorities of who owns what. As we saw in chapter 1, those who have the power to command and produce space possess a vital instrumentality for the reproduction and enhancement of their own power. Workers occupy spaces they consider to be their own. As one worker on strike at the ESCO Spinning and Weaving Company in Qalyub, north of Cairo, commented in 2005 when the company was sold by a state manager: “With what right was the sale conducted? . . . Was the company his property or the property of the people?” (quoted in Beinin 2011b:192). Workers believe that they and the public own firms, not state managers. Hence it is ‘their’ space they are occupying, and this can explain why workers rarely take to the streets (as will be discussed below) in order to expand their protest space. Until December 2007, in fact, they did not seem to want to expand their protest space; they wanted instead to remind the authorities of who owned the workplace. Space expansion and contested spaces here function in terms of spreading motivation to other factories in which workers could stage actions. The tactic of occupation spread to other sectors as well and engendered another tactic that would mobilize workers and facilitate and strengthen the occupation of spaces: class consciousness (solidarity). On December 19, 2006, 1,300 workers at Cement Helwan (an industrial area of Cairo) occupied the factory after the ‘guaranteed bonus’ equal to 67 percent of a monthly wage was changed to ‘non-guaranteed’ by the factory owners. The next day, 1,000 workers of Cement Tura—a factory that belongs to the same group as Cement Helwan—started to occupy their factory in order to support their fellows (Clément 2009:110). After ten days of occupation and one hunger strike, the company’s leadership relented. Class solidarity had succeeded in expanding protest space to other places and sectors and forced the authorities to meet the protesters’ demands. The second half of 2007 marked a new era of worker protests in many ways. Although not strictly workers, 55,000 property-tax collectors went on a national strike starting in the fall that lasted for three

98 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

months. They demanded better working conditions and wages. Tax collection in Egypt during that time dropped by 90 percent (el-Hamalawy 2008). After more than 3,000 male and female civil servants camped out together with their children for 11 days in December in front of the ministerial cabinet in downtown Cairo, the finance ministry conceded to their demands, raising their salaries by 325 percent (Beinin 2010). Many were chanting against the regime. The success of the sit-in tactic was established during that time and, as we will see, would be a tactic of utmost importance for the 2011 revolutionary upsurge. Although the protesters’ demands were met, their struggle continued. As Kamal Abu ‘Eita, the elected chair of the strike committee, said: We started holding meetings in all Egyptian governorates, to discuss the idea of an independent union. In each governorate an elected local committee shadowed the official union and started to collect signatures for the independent union. Even though people had gotten their financial demands that we initially went on strike for, we wanted more. We wanted our freedom. (quoted in el-Mahdi 2009c) On December 20, 2008, the Independent General Union of Real Estate Tax Authority Workers was established at the allowed protest space of the journalists’ syndicate. Beinin states: “Tax collectors and supporters filled the building beyond capacity, foiling the security authorities’ efforts to thwart the meeting by shutting off the air-conditioning” (2011b:198). The regime recognized the independent union in April 2009. The tax collectors’ strike marked a major shift in workers’ contentious politics for multiple reasons: (1) workers would take to the streets of downtown Cairo—the center of state power and media attention; (2) they would sustain the occupation of protest space through continuous sit-ins; (3) their socioeconomic demands would shift to political ones even if the former were met by regime authorities. It seems that when demands are socioeconomic in nature and the status quo is not questioned but will be restored, workers confine their protests to their workplace premises. When the demands have a political nature or shift from socioeconomic to political issues, workers take to the streets in order to expand their message beyond their

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

99

immediate circle, because they need support and attention in terms of PPA from beyond the working class (pro-democracy actors and legal parties, media, passers-by, etc.). Political demands follow the logic of space expansion, regardless of the actors involved. We can also see how the issue around which protesters choose to mobilize can impede or facilitate the construction of protest spaces. As we have seen before, the security forces tend to violently suppress protests that could jeopardize the regime’s survival (pro-democracy protests), but show restraint in protests that do not directly threaten it (2000–2001 Intifada solidarity protests, 2003 antiwar protests, factory occupations). Protesters can produce protest spaces for socioeconomic issues and then also use them to criticize the regime and shift to political demands. The possibility of shifting the theme was learned from the 2000–2003 solidarity protests. The places and issues involved in December 2007 were a novelty, and security forces did not suppress the sit-ins, because they were probably caught offguard. The protesters further learned that continuous sit-ins in front of government buildings, such as the People’s Assembly or the ministerial cabinet, are successful tactics for attaining goals. During my first stay in Egypt in 2009–2010, I witnessed dozens of workers with their families from different workplaces staging continuous sit-ins in front of these places. Collectively, they constituted protest spaces, and thus a permanent presence of working-class dissent in downtown Cairo. 2008: The general strike that never happened. After the workers in Mahalla al-Kubra suffered a setback following an unsuccessful campaign to increase the national minimum monthly wage to le 1,200, in January 2008 their strike committee called for a national general strike on April 6 in support of the demand. Kefaya and some small opposition parties and movements supported the move, and the Muslim Brotherhood gave it tacit approval but said it would not participate (Nouri 2008). On April 2, security forces occupied the city and the spinning and weaving factory, and exerted massive pressure on the strike committee to cancel the strike. The day before the planned strike, plainclothes policemen entered the factory premises (Carr 2008) and prevented workers from gathering at the end of their shifts (BBC 2008). The tactics of massive police deployment, preemptive intimidation, and

100 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

spatial division were only partially successful. While no strike occurred in Mahalla, a crowd of young men and women gathered in al-Showan Square in the center of the town and started chanting against the high price of unsubsidized bread (Beinin 2011b:199). The announcement of a general strike created a political opportunity for taking to the streets, and after a while some 15,000 residents and workers (who could not occupy the factory, as security forces had occupied it) congregated in the square, effectively expanding their protest space beyond the factory. The police tactic of blocking access to certain places failed in this case as well: as in 2003 and 2005, the protesters simply took their discontent elsewhere, in this case to Mahalla’s central square. Protesters refused orders by security forces—who numbered some 50,000—directing them to return to their homes. Clashes between security forces and protesters occurred around 4:30 pm: “According to the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, security bodies used batons and tear gas to break up the protest when protesters began chanting anti-government slogans” (Carr 2008). Plainclothes security agents and thugs started throwing rocks and fired tear gas at protesters, while riot police shot rubber bullets. Police trucks fired water cannons to disperse the crowd (Nouri 2008). In response, the protesters threw stones at the police and attacked their vehicles. The next day, April 7, an even larger crowd defaced a large poster of Hosni Mubarak—an image that was circulated widely in the media, blogs, and social network websites. It seems that the security forces had learned from the tax collectors’ strike and crushed protesting workers as soon as their demands turned into political ones denouncing the regime. The level of repression toward workers was exceptional. Beinin believes the massive violence occurred because of the regime’s fear that workers might successfully organize a national protest, an action deemed intolerable (2011b:199). Although only a handful of other factories went on strike, there was a larger than average demonstration in downtown Cairo and at a few universities. According to Reuters, more than 200 people were arrested across the country (Nouri 2008), hundreds were injured, and a 15-yearold was shot dead by security forces. On April 8, a delegation of high government officials led by Prime Minister Nazif rushed to Mahalla to restore calm by announcing bonuses, better transportation facilities, new medical equipment, and subsidized foodstuffs.

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

101

Beinin (2011a) estimates that around 3,000 people altogether went on strike on April 6, far too few to be considered a national general strike. Yet this date marked the establishment of the April 6 Youth Movement, which is credited by the media with sparking the revolutionary upsurge in 2011.8 Although the general strike on April 6 never happened, the general public, activists, and opposition figures perceived this date to be an opportunity for mobilization. The ‘mystification’ of April 6 led to anti-regime protests on that date in each following year, marked by violent clashes between police and protesters and many detentions. 2009–2010: When anger spreads and authoritarian regimes make mistakes. Despite the fact that security forces suppressed and detained many protesters on April 6, 2008, they did not manage to effectively divide and rule workers and pro-democracy forces. As Hossam Baghat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, notes, “The government realizes the most important thing is to ensure these protests are kept at a wide distance from the political opposition elite, because then it will not gain momentum” (quoted in Slackman 2010). Spatially dividing workers from pro-democracy actors has been a key tactic of keeping dissent low. Following the crackdown in 2008, however, more and more workers took their demands to the streets of downtown Cairo. As Slackman says, Workers say they have learned that if they stage job actions in their factories, as they used to do, they will be dealt with harshly by the police. But if they make noise on the streets of Cairo, the government will relent. (2010) Martin (2004) argues that media coverage of workers’ issues is often very critical and infrequent, to the extent that they are often forgotten or portrayed negatively. While I found coverage on Egyptian workers rather positive, it is true that the amount of coverage in factory areas (which are often in the periphery of media attention) has been fairly low and often conducted by the same clique of journalists. If workers stage their sit-ins in downtown Cairo, the center of media attention, 8 In the conclusion, I will review whether this presumption can be sustained.

102 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

they are more likely to be heard and less likely to be suppressed by the police in front of running cameras. In 2009–2010, postal workers defied new working conditions and staged a large protest outside the national postal service headquarters in Cairo. Political scientist Anne Alexander states, “Even experts employed by the Ministry of Justice have adopted the tactics of sit-ins and strikes. Earlier this month 1,500 of them rallied outside ministry buildings demanding job security” (2009). This again underlines the process of learning tactics from other actors. Security forces rarely dispersed worker protests staged in downtown Cairo. On May 2 (delayed May Day), 2010, a couple of hundred workers gathered in front of the ministerial cabinet and the People’s Assembly, demanding that the government implement the minimum wage ruled by a court. This was the first protest I actively observed in Egypt. Prodemocracy activists attended in support and the event was met by a massive deployment of security forces attempting to intimidate the crowd, but no large clashes occurred. Protesters were cordoned into a small square. Within this small space, they could chant against the regime, move ‘freely,’ and give interviews to the press. Only when protesters attempted to break through the cordon would riot police push them back. Protesters were prevented from giving interviews to the press outside the cordoned space. After a while, no more protesters were allowed to join and the protest slowly and peacefully dispersed. This was one of the rare events in which I encountered workers and pro-democracy activists protesting together. Presumably, workers who now were protesting on the pro-democracy movement’s ‘ground’ (downtown Cairo) would be in closer proximity and contact with each other—something the regime intended to avoid. When worker dissent broadened and expanded to downtown Cairo, security forces were unable or unwilling to push it back to the factories. However, the democratization potential carried by the workers’ actions had been counterbalanced by the malaise of Egyptian political and civil society, which had not recovered since 2006. The absence of strong allies was a challenge that the labor movement struggled with, making it impossible for it to realize its potential as an agent of macro-political change (el-Mahdi 2009c). Nonetheless, the labor movement has staged the most persistent and continuous protest events of all resistance actors in Egypt. It showed, first, that it was possible to win something concrete

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

103

by engaging in a struggle, and second, that the repressive capacity of the regime was limited when faced with large-scale collective actions. Workers would continue to pressure the regime and play a crucial role in the 2011 popular mass uprising that was soon to come.

2010–2011: Thawra—The Streets Conquered Structure. So far I have analyzed four consecutive protest cycles since 2000. As chapter 1 showed, the buildup of a conflict systematically increases opportunities for mobilization. In order to understand the insurgence of the current protest cycle, the January 25 uprising, I will take a close look at the immediate buildup of this event and hence (structural) conditions in terms of the PPA. Five major factors influenced the POS for January 25 in varying degrees: (1) the arrival of former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, and the subsequent formation of the National Association for Change (NAC); (2) the death of Khalid Said in June 2010; (3) the fraudulent parliamentary elections in November and December 2010; (4) the Alexandria church bombings on January 1, 2011; and (5) the revolutionary uprising in Tunisia starting in December 2010. I will look into all five of these events and their effect on contentious politics in Egypt, before delving into the 18 days of mass protests that led to Hosni Mubarak’s resignation. When Mohamed ElBaradei retired from the IAEA and returned to Egypt in February 2010, many people hoped that he would challenge Hosni (or Gamal) Mubarak in the presidential elections scheduled for September of that year, as he was considered a “clean” candidate who was not part of the regime clique. Soon after his arrival, ElBaradei took on the leadership of the newly established National Association for Change (al-Gama‘iya al-Wataniya li-l-Tagheer),9 hoping to “create a 9 The National Association for Change is a loose network consisting of a variety of actors, including representatives of opposition groups, civil society organizations, and youth. Almost all opposition groups and movements were represented at the meeting (and the subsequent establishment of the NAC), except the Wafd, Nasserite, and al-Tagammu‘ parties. The NAC’s goal broadly emphasized an agenda of democratization of political institutions through constitutional reform. For further information, see http://egyptelections.carnegieendowment.org/2010/09/22/ national-assocation-for-change.

104 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

peaceful public movement pressing for electoral reforms” (Haaretz 2010). At a time when pro-democracy activity was at a low point, the NAC became the most visible movement directly challenging the regime. It received much attention with its nationwide campaign to gather at least one million signatures in order to ensure free, equal, and fair elections. Among others, its demands included ending the state of emergency, giving Egyptians in the diaspora the right to vote at Egyptian consulates and embassies, and allowing international civil-society organizations to monitor the upcoming electoral process. The Mubarak regime was hesitant to denounce ElBaradei, as he was widely respected for his accomplishments in the IAEA and enjoyed national and international credibility. Hence, crackdowns on NAC events remained low. However, as Beinin and Vairel point out, ElBaradei “was not an effective political organizer,” and by the end of 2010 “many were frustrated rather than inspired by him” (2011:244). This sentiment was fueled even further in 2011 when ElBaradei did not personally endorse the “Day of Wrath” on January 25 and remained in his home in Vienna when it took place. Not until January 28 did he return to Egypt to participate in protests. Nonetheless, at least for a short time, ElBaradei and the NAC created a political momentum that suggested the possibility of change through political reform. The fact that crackdowns on NAC events rarely occurred, especially when ElBaradei was present, no doubt influenced the perception of the limits of state power in Kurzman’s sense. Though ElBaradei certainly was not immune to repression, harshly cracking down on him would have been very costly for the regime, as the international community was closely following his activity in the Egyptian political arena. On June 6, 2010, a young Egyptian man, Khaled Said, was sitting in an Internet café in the Sidi Gabr neighborhood of Alexandria when two policemen entered the premises, arrested him, and subsequently beat him to death in front of multiple eyewitnesses. It is widely suspected that Said’s murder was retribution for his uploading of a video showing police officers sharing drugs seized in a bust (Beinin and Vairel 2011:243). Anti-torture and pro-democracy activists were quick to denounce the police violence and staged several protests. On June 13, more than 100 people gathered near Egypt’s Ministry of Interior complex at Lazughli Square in Cairo to protest Said’s death. Although they had planned to stage the protest on Sheikh Rehan Street in front of the

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

105

main entrance of the ministry, the overwhelming riot-police presence forced them to protest a bit further away. One activist reports, “The protesters got there [Midan Lazughli] before the police realized that now the protest is there. Once they realized, they closed off the streets” (activist, HASHD movement, personal communication, December 2, 2010). The area around the MOI is a non-allowed protest space. Once the riot police arrived at Lazughli Square, they started surrounding protesters and kept them confined for about four hours. [Police] kept on tightening and tightening the belt—we were squashed. We were squashed for four hours. Every few minutes they would just arrest someone. Someone [police] would go inside this cordon and take one activist . . . and then run away with him. . . . There were lots of troops around us, lots of plainclothes and central security here and there, cameras on top of the building, filming us and so on. (activist, el-Nadeem Center, personal communication, December 12, 2010) Figure  X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

Lazughli Square roundabout

X X Plainclothes police taking videos and pictures Protestor

X

Plainclothes agent Riot police cordon Pushing

106 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

The overwhelming security presence was meant to intimidate protesters and bystanders. Various accounts of respondents confirmed the very tight cordoning. One even twisted his ankle as other protesters stepped on his foot in the tight space. Yet the protesters had a countertactic in their repertoire. Some of our stronger people [protesters] started to stand there [in front of the police cordon] and prevented them from pushing it in [by building a human chain]. They were literally closing the circle on us. So we were trying to push back, because we want our space! (activist, HASHD movement, personal communication, December 2, 2010) Meanwhile, another group of protesters assembled outside the cordon, but were not allowed to join. After a while, they were surrounded as well, making two cordoned-off and spatially divided groups on the square. They were both chanting, but not synchronized, which made the protest seem chaotic and unappealing to others who might have considered joining it. Because of this spatial division, the protesters’ communication and coordination were poor. We could only communicate through Twitter and SMS. But we couldn’t see each other . . . . But imagine, this is a few meters. We couldn’t communicate . . . we couldn’t join them even in that protest. In the end of the day, police opened just this small opening and then they let each one go outside and they took a photo of each person in this protest. (activist, el-Nadeem Center, personal communication, December 12, 2010) The policing that day proved to be very efficient. The small number of protesters allowed the security forces to separate protesting groups, effectively cutting off communication and interaction. Before allowing the protest to disperse, plainclothes agents filmed and photographed every single protester as an act of intimidation to discourage them from participating in such high-profile protests again. Nonetheless, protest actions commemorating the death of Khaled Said continued, and even spread to places like New York and London. In Said’s

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

107

hometown, Alexandria, a new protest tactic came into existence a couple of weeks after his death: silent stands. In order to subvert the Emergency Law’s criminalization of demonstrations and mass assemblies, protesters in Alexandria would stand in long chains along the coastline, spaced five meters apart from each other. Anonymous activists said on their blog: We expected, we will not be breaking the emergency law that bans assemblies (of 5 people or more!), bans demonstrations, slogans, etc., etc. We will just stand silent upset wearing black clothes. Black because we are sad for what happened to our country, and to what is happening daily to our people. (elshaheeed.co.uk, 2010) This approach allowed the protesters to appropriate protest spaces through subversive tactics, leaving security forces initially completely unaware. In Alexandria in particular, what started as hundreds standing silently for one hour in front of San Stefano hotel Corniche ended with a march of 3,000 protesters moving from San Stefano to Stanley bridge and from Stanley bridge to Cleopatra where Khaled Said used to live. (Egyptian Chronicles 2010) Through the tactic of silent stands, protesters were able to express their frustration at the death of Khaled Said. It also allowed for an expansion of protest space in a subsequent march, as it took the security forces quite some time to understand this new tactic. Once they figured it out, the police would force the participants to leave their places, and in some cases attacked them violently (elshaheeed.co.uk, 2010). While the death of Khaled Said provided a POS for political activists and ordinary citizens to take to the streets and make use of innovative tactics, the majority of Egyptians did not take part in such actions, as the perceived risk of repressive policing was high. Yet Khaled Said is exactly the stereotype of a young, unemployed, high-tech-savvy, educated Egyptian whose aspirations are frustrated and who had to face criminal police violence. The police in Egypt routinely torture people

108 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

and the general public could relate to this. As the streets were too dangerous, the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said” became a virtual locus of dissent and discussion, which numbered some 400,000 members by January 2011. Said’s death became a symbol to which large segments of the Egyptian populace could relate. In late October 2010, the regime finally announced that the two rounds of the national parliamentary elections would be held on November 28 and December 5, 2010. In September, pro-democracy actors took the political opportunity to contest the event and hundreds gathered for an anti-regime protest (against the Emergency Law and the assumed succession by Gamal Mubarak) at ‘non-allowed’ ‘Abdin square in downtown Cairo, the symbolic place where the ‘Urabi revolt contested monarchical and colonial British rule. The police beat protesters and journalists bloody, and 30 people were detained (Shenker 2010). A few weeks later, clashes between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and security forces broke out, leading to the detention of at least 250 without charges (Al Jazeera 2010). The Brotherhood had been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the regime, as they became the target of increased police repression following their success in the 2005 elections. Both rounds of the elections were marked by transparent fraud. On November 28, I observed multiple polling stations with an April 6 activist and a journalist from the Guardian. The latter was theoretically allowed to enter the stations, as he was considered an independent monitor. That day I observed a mob of angry voters at a polling station in the poor Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba lamenting the low bribes they were receiving for their votes. One man complained to a police officer that he was promised le 500, not the le 300 he received. The journalist was frequently denied access to polling stations under bizarre justifications. In the first round, the NDP took 97 percent of the seats and the MB and the Wafd announced that they would boycott the run-off ballot (Shenker 2010), but some Wafd candidates ran anyway. During the second round, various Twitter accounts claimed that NDP supporters paid voters to vote for the Wafd in order to make the election look less fraudulent. In the end, the NDP won 81 percent of the seats, while only one independent candidate for the MB got into parliament. A professor in the Middle East studies department of the American University in Cairo described the election farce as the “privatization of fraud,” in

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

109

which the culture of corruption in Egypt is so widespread that even the ruling elites have lost some control of top-down decision-making processes. Everybody wanted a piece of the pie: election workers, parliamentary candidates, security forces. The authoritarian apparatus was so corrupt that it corrupted itself and kept on slowly eroding. When I decided to return to Egypt for fieldwork in November 2010, I did so assuming that protests would occur after the rigged elections. I was surprised at how little dissent there was. A couple hundred angry protesters gathered at the Faculty of Engineering in Shubra, where ballots were counted, and got into scuffles with riot police. The frustration deriving from having no political say and little or no socioeconomic security (breach of the social pact) for most parts of Egyptian society was quietly growing. The year 2010 was marked by deteriorating living conditions for large segments of the Egyptian population, a continuing workers’ struggle in factories and downtown Cairo, assault on ordinary citizens by policemen, epitomized by the murder of Khaled Said, an electoral farce, and the violent suppression of any kind of democratic reform actions in non-allowed protest spaces. The year 2011 began with an attack on Copts in front of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day, in which 23 were killed and some 97 people were injured (Reuters 2011). Thousands of Copts protested against discrimination, particularly in Alexandria and Cairo, in the following days. Protesters in Cairo’s northern Shubra neighborhood threw rocks at police who tried to block a march by thousands of Copts. The crowd consisted predominantly of young men holding crosses and posters bearing Christian images. One sign called for the resignation of the then interior minister Habib al-‘Adly, the governor of Alexandria, and the city’s head of security. Carr notes: “All the chants were directed against the government and MOI or expressed religious sentiments” (2011). Anger raged in early January and the protesters knew whom to hold responsible for the attacks. As this study has shown, the issues in different protests staged by various actors have shifted more and more often, over time, to regime criticism. A young, unemployed man, Muhammad Bouazizi, started selling vegetables in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid to make a living until police seized his cart. In protest, Bouazizi set himself on fire on December 18, 2010, and later died. Bouazizi too symbolized the frustrated youth in

110 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

the region with little opportunity to escape unemployment and poverty. After his death, hundreds of youth in Sidi Bouzid started rioting. As one resident stated, “People are angry at the case of Mohamed and the deterioration of unemployment in the region” (quoted in Reuters 2010). Protesters clashed with security forces all over Tunisia in a mass uprising that lasted for almost four weeks and resulted in President Ben Ali’s flight from the country on January 14, 2011. An authoritarian ruler in the MENA region was forced to flee his country by the mounting pressure of people’s power. This was a massive change in the international structure in terms of the PPA. Orientalist labels, such as ‘Arab’ or ‘Muslim exceptionalism,’ referring to the robustness of authoritarian regimes in the region, would no longer apply. Due to comprehensive news coverage of the Tunisian uprising on television and new social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, millions were able to follow the events closely, perceiving that regime change in the MENA was possible through massive street protests. The normative PPA conditions long favorable to regime change in Egypt—increasing street protests, decreasing social and economic security, corrupt ruling elites and institutions, police brutality, and a general sense of dissatisfaction and anger—were now supplemented by the perception that the survival of authoritarian regimes in the region, as Tunisia had shown, depends on the complacency of its people. The suggestion that the Tunisian uprising has served as a (perceived) POS for the Egyptian insurgence is implied by the fact that six Egyptians selfimmolated shortly after Bouazizi died. January 25: To new beginnings. The call to demonstrate was spread on various blogs and Facebook pages, the biggest of which were “We Are All Khaled Said,” the site of the April 6 Youth Movement (“April 6”), and the January 25 movement. Widely labeled as the “Day of Wrath,” the demonstration was scheduled to coincide with National Police Day to protest routine brutality and torture by the security apparatus. Beinin and Vairel summarized the demands by April 6 before January 25 as follows: (1) raising the minimum monthly wage to le 1,200 (€140); (2) unemployment assistance; (3) an end to the Emergency Law; (4) dismissal of the generally despised minister of interior and commander of the SSI, Habib al-‘Adly; (5) release of all

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

111

those detained without charges; (6) dissolving the fraudulently elected 2010 parliament and holding new, free, fair, and equal elections; and (7) establishing a limit of two presidential terms (2011:242). It is obvious that these demands reflect (1) the events that occurred shortly before January 25; (2) long-term struggles (minimum wage demanded by the labor movement, democratic reform by pro-democracy actors) in the previous cycles; and (3) the concerns of the ordinary Egyptian and the demands of the major actors analyzed throughout this research (workers, Islamists, leftists, pro-democracy activists). However, most of the established opposition forces did not endorse the protest on January 25 out of fear of suppression. Nonetheless, the normative POS, as well as the perceived opportunity deriving from the events in Tunisia, were favorable to mass mobilization. On January 24, I received a 25-page Arabic pamphlet via email called “Revolution 2011: How to Revolt Wisely.” The document is a tactical guide of how to act when confronted by the police. It clearly states that distribution of the pamphlet is appreciated, but goes on to say, “Facebook and Twitter are monitored. Beware of this information falling into the hands of the police or state security” (“How to Protest Intelligently” 2011:1). Resistance activists had learned the knowledgebased surveillance techniques used by the regime. The pamphlet suggested three tactical goals: (1) to seize all important government buildings, such as the television and radio building (Maspero), the Presidential Palace in Cairo, and governorate headquarters in the rest of Egypt; (2) to attempt to unite the military and the police with the Egyptian people; and (3) to protect “our revolutionary brothers and sisters” (“How to Protest Intelligently” 2011:3). Ways to attain these goals are described in detail, ranging from meeting spots (predominantly in residential areas to mass-mobilize and avoid security presence), chants (positive ones honoring Egypt, as opposed to negative ones denouncing the regime), and routes, to defense techniques (in case of physical confrontation with police), protest gear (vinegar against tear gas, first-aid kit, deodorant spray as a weapon in case of confrontation), and group tactics (fighting and defense tactics in a large group, individual and group tasks when confronted by police) (“How to Protest Intelligently” 2011:4–20). Interestingly, the pamphlet also suggested indirect participation (hanging Egyptian flags out windows, chanting from balconies,

112 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

“tweeting” the positions of security forces) for people afraid to take to the streets. While it is difficult to determine whether and to what extent these suggestions were followed, the tools, banners, and chants that it suggested were found in some protests. I can say personally that the protest gear was very useful, making the all-encompassing clouds of tear gas more tolerable. Activist friends of mine also used vinegar, scarves, and the like, showing how tactical knowledge can spread on a micro-level. Many tactical tips also spread to Egypt from Tunisians who shared their experiences via Twitter. Although Facebook pages, blogs, and the pamphlet announced protests, a protest location was rarely named. Before the uprising, I called a friend who is with April 6 to find out where the protest would be located, and he told me there was no specific location. Protests were intended to be all over the country, predominantly in residential areas. This was a major tactical change in pro-democracy protests. Whereas previous protests had usually taken place in allowed protest spaces symbolizing state power, the January 25 protest was intended to mobilize the masses in residential neighborhoods. On the morning of January 25, downtown Cairo was practically deserted. A massive security presence in front of the MOI and on Midan al-Tahrir was intended to intimidate protesters. Plainclothes agents urged passers-by to keep moving and not stand in the square in order to avoid an assemblage of people. Around noon a group of some 40 protesters approached the Midan from Qasr al-‘Aini bridge, but was crushed immediately by riot police. While it was difficult to determine to which group the protesters belonged, one chant10 had been heard at previous Kefaya demonstrations. The individuals fled toward Corniche al-Nil (a wide street along the Nile), reassembled, and marched away from Midan al-Tahrir toward the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Within minutes they joined up with another group of around 300 people who were already marching on Corniche al-Nil. Behind the marching crowd, a large group of riot police was keeping a constant distance. They did not crack down on the protesters. Only when the protesters attempted to approach Midan al-Tahrir did the riot police violently interfere. That day the protests were largely peaceful. By the time protesters arrived at Maspero—about a kilometer away from Midan al-Tahrir—the 10 “Our government has sold us cheap; take your hands off of us, please.”

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

113

group numbered in the thousands. As Maspero symbolizes state power, the demonstrators stopped there and chanted against the regime. They then attempted to march to the Shubra neighborhood to merge with another protest. The security forces blocked off certain streets on the way, but the crowd would always avoid confrontations and keep on walking into other streets. As one respondent noted: If you imagine the protesters were like a body of water, the police would not necessarily try to stop the water, because the water would break through. So what the police would do is channel the protesters. When I was in Shubra . . . I would see the police block roads, but always keep one road open, so protesters would keep flowing. Instead of trying to block them all . . . the police would block the important routes. They would not want them to go to certain areas, but then they would open insignificant routes and try to keep them encircled. (journalist, CNN, personal communication, March 21, 2011) The security forces were still following the crowd but did not crack down. Passers-by joined in, the protesters physically expanded their space as they marched, and soon the demonstrators outnumbered the surrounding security forces. This amounted to a process of informal negotiation that allowed the protesters to massively expand their protest spaces that day. A couple of hours later, the demonstrators arrived in Shubra and were confronted by a massive police cordon on Shubra Street. This time they confronted the blockade and some scuffles erupted between police and protesters. The blockade opened due to the sheer number of protesters, and they were allowed to keep marching. This situation represented a novelty: protesters were able to expand their protest space because of the influx of a massive number of participants. The security forces were unable to contain the masses with their usual cordoning tactics. In a process of informal negotiation between protesters and security forces, the latter had to allow the space appropriation. That day, thousands gathered in front of the Supreme Court, the NDP headquarters, Maspero, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and protests were also reported in Alexandria, Tanta, Mansoura, Aswan, and Asyut (Al Jazeera 2011b, February 14).

114 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

While neither of the ‘organizing’ movements explicitly and publicly called for it, at around 5 pm, tens of thousands marched into Midan alTahrir. One respondent reported: Everybody knows: “When in doubt, go to Tahrir.” . . . I don’t know if protesters organized it together to go to Tahrir or if they knew instinctively—because in 2003 [antiwar protest] that was where everyone met up in the end. (independent activist, personal communication, March 17, 2011) Figure  January 25 6:50 p.m.

Midan al-Tahrir roundabout

U.S. Embassy

Qasr al-‘Aini street

XXX XXX

Protester

X

Plainclothes agent Riot police cordon Pushing

This underlines again the political learning process. In this case, the protesters recalled the success of the 2003 antiwar protest in terms of range and attendance, and chose to assemble in Tahrir again for January 25. Protesters approached the square from different directions, which made it impossible to contain them. The security forces eventually allowed the protesters to converge in the square. The only street off Midan al-Tahrir with an overwhelming security presence was Qasr al-‘Aini—the street

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

115

near which many ministries, as well as the parliament, are found. Qasr al-‘Aini was off limits. When the protesters attempted to appropriate the street in order to contest spaces of state power, riot police responded with water hoses, massive amounts of tear gas, and rocks thrown by thugs. Protesters would break the street pavement open and throw rocks at the police. Whenever the protesters retreated, the battle would stop. This process of negotiating space lasted several hours. By about 6 pm, SMS services and Twitter were not working any more. The regime applied this tactic to cut off communication between protesters. As it got later, more and more riot policemen positioned themselves on every street leading to the square. Yet protesters were free to enter and exit. One protester on January 25 asked me to spread the word to stay at the square because the crackdown might occur at midnight, when the number of protesters had decreased, as had happened in the 2003 antiwar protests (protester, personal communication, January 25, 2011). This protester had learned from his experiences in 2003 that the police might try to violently disperse the demonstration at night, after many of the protesters had left. Another respondent reported: Around 10:30 pm, I met a correspondent for Al Jazeera and he told us they [police] are going to sweep it [Midan al-Tahrir] around midnight. It was pretty known, even to media. We knew that they would attack us at 1 am and the objective was not to keep the Midan—because of the amount of riot police we saw getting prepared outside. The objective was to get them on camera, beating . . . us and firing at us. That was the actual objective. And an organizer [of the protest] . . . came and told me: “Stay strong at 1 am. Make sure that you uphold it to the point they [police] get very violent, so we can get it on camera.” (independent activist, personal communication, March 17, 2011) The security forces did in fact storm the square around 3 am with massive force, arresting hundreds, including the activist quoted above. The protesters had learned the police tactic from previous confrontations, such as the 2003 antiwar protest, and applied the counter-tactics they believed to be most suited for expanding their protest. As a matter

116 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

of fact, many journalists on the ground that day covered the violent crackdown. Activists used the media as a platform for spreading their dissent beyond Midan al-Tahrir, in order to attract other Egyptians to join and raise international awareness. The MOI issued a statement blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for initiating the protests, a claim the Brotherhood denied. This move was intended to delegitimize the protests and legitimize repressive policing by suggesting the regime was only fighting the ‘Islamist threat.’ Major networks such as Fox News sustained this claim in their coverage of the January 25 uprising. The people in the square were mainly young males not affiliated with political groups, but also Kefaya and al-Ghad activists. January 25 marked the beginning of a popular uprising which had not been led by a particular person or group. Many of the chants that day were soccer slogans (“Masr, Masr” [Egypt, Egypt]), as a large portion of the protesters were al-Ahly and Zamalek soccer Ultras.11 Although theirs is the biggest rivalry in Egyptian soccer, they collectively supported the demands raised that day. Various other groups from different social backgrounds similarly put their differences aside for the sake of the cause. January 26: New situation, old tactics. The security forces’ policing on January 25 was hesitant and careful. This may have been because they wanted to find out the dimension and potential of protests after the events in Tunisia. Late on January 25, interior minister al-‘Adly issued orders to “arrest any persons expressing their views illegally” (Al Jazeera 2011a, January 25). Therefore, on January 26, known coercive policing strategies were applied. However, the protesters’ perception of fear had dropped because they were able to break through police cordons and assemble in Midan al-Tahrir. That day, with mobile telephone communication cut off, I went to the journalists’ syndicate, assuming protests would be staged there. The protest was in fact staged on the steps in front of the syndicate and was contained by a massive police cordon surrounding it. Some 80 pro-democracy protesters chanted “Go, go [Mubarak]” and “Down, down, Hosni Mubarak.” The protests appeared to be more critical of the regime than the day before. The security presence was tremendous. Thousands of riot policemen were on standby, 11 Ultras are sports fans that are known for their fanatical team support and their elaborate display.

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

117

spanning the entire distance from the Supreme Court’s main entrance to the lawyers’ and the journalists’ syndicates, as hundreds of protesters approached the area and attempted to join the scattered protests close by. The protesters seemed angrier, confronting police and attempting to break through the cordon. When they did, the riot police would hit them with batons and the plainclothes agents would drag some of them behind the cordon and beat them severely, despite the presence of CNN reporters. The repressive policing that day was intended to reestablish the ‘red lines’ (as a process of negotiating protest space), which had been blurred the day before. About 20 meters away from the journalists’ syndicate, passers-by were stopping to watch the violence. In less than half an hour, some 80 bystanders gathered and started chanting against police brutality. In response, the police opened traffic on the street to disperse the bystanders and protesters. This worked to an extent and the crowd scattered, but soon they collectively started marching away from the police presence and farther into downtown Cairo. The police tactics were the same coercive and brutal ones the protesters were demonstrating against. In terms of PPA, the protesters appeared to have decided that the risk of inaction outweighed the risk of physical harm. The police could not contain the many small protests, nor could they continue to order passers-by to keep moving as they had done in the past. This policing mistake allowed the protesters to expand their protest space to the passers-by. When they saw the coercive police tactics, passers-by soon became active protesters and further expanded the protest space by marching to downtown. As protests and marches were taking place all over town, the standard police tactic of cordoning became impossible. Instead they were chasing protesters and beating them up. Yet the protesters would reassemble and keep marching. On January 26, the protesters continued to recognize and fear the state’s coercive powers but to a lesser extent than before. They already felt that these powers were insignificant compared with the strength of the protest movement. These perceptions caused Egyptians to become more active, as the perceived strength of the protest movement became a decisive factor in their decisions to participate. The facilitation of mobilization was an important change in the perception of POS.

118 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

January 28: The limits of protest policing. After protests continued on January 27 across several cities, including Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and Ismailia, hundreds were arrested. Yet the protesters made it clear that they would not give up until their demands were met. On January 28, Internet and mobile-telephone services were entirely cut off. This tactic was intended to weaken demonstrations, and it left tens of thousands of protesters scattered all over the country, unable to communicate and coordinate protest locations. The Muslim Brotherhood for the first time announced it would participate in the protests as individual members, but not as an organization. One respondent recalled, “On the 28th, when we started from the mosque it was extremely apparent there were people of the Brotherhood that made a huge impact on the number of people [protesting]” (independent activist, personal communication, March 17, 2011). After Friday prayer, tens of thousands of protesters took to the Egyptian streets. The main places of contention in Cairo that day were the Sixth of October Bridge, Qasr al-Nil Bridge, al-Azhar Mosque, the Presidential Palace, and Midan al-Tahrir. That day protesters set fire to the NDP headquarters, which they identified as a symbol for the corrupt authoritarian rule responsible for their grievances. Setting the building on fire contributed to the protesters’ perception that power structures are negotiable, as the regime was metaphorically slowly ‘burning down.’ Downtown Cairo was filled with tear gas, and protesters shared water, paper towels, and vinegar; downtown residents who chose not to actively participate would throw supplies from their balconies as an act of solidarity and sympathy for the protests. Some would even throw water on police forces as a means of attacking them. These measures helped the protesters sustain themselves in the battle over protest spaces and were regularly applied throughout the uprising. As Cairo’s streets were filled with masses of protesters, the security forces retreated from most places in order to defend key ministries and government buildings. As a result, the bridges leading to downtown Cairo were marked by a huge security presence. Qasr al-Nil Bridge, which leads to Midan al-Tahrir, was a center of contention on January 28. Thousands of protesters attempted to cross the bridge, while masses of riot policemen, supplemented with water trucks and armored vehicles, tried to stop this space appropriation.

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

119

Protesters marched towards the police with their arms up in the air, chanting “Peaceful, peaceful.” They really tried not to make it violent. These were peaceful protesters marching toward security services who were responding with violence; who were beating them, shooting with tear gas [and] rubber bullets at them. In the face of such provocation, the restraint on the side of the protesters was incredible. (journalist, Reuters, personal communication, March 21, 2011) The protesters chanting “peaceful” were negotiating the terms of their space expansion through discursive practices in a Foucauldian sense in order to prevent violence; most communication with security forces would take place through chants that reflected the protesters’ intentions and goals. Some chants even asked for the police to join them. Yet the police that day replied by using massive force, making January 28 the bloodiest day since the protests started. The riot police threw loads of tear gas and water at the protesters. The protesters used trash cans and police outposts as shields and barricades, and some threw the tear-gas grenades back at the police. Policemen seemed unable to cope with the situation, as their trucks ran over other policemen, tear gas was thrown into the Nile, and some riot policemen threw tear-gas grenades at protesters without considering the wind direction, effectively gassing themselves. After several hours of battle and inefficient policing, the security forces retreated, and thousands of protesters were able to march into Midan al-Tahrir and start an occupation that would last for weeks. One respondent notes: I think that what January 28th really demonstrated . . . was how completely rotted the core of the police state had become. . . . Honestly, how hard should it be for a police state to hold a bridge? That should be one of the easiest tasks for a police state that is able to deploy hundreds of thousands of security personnel. Instead what you saw was the incompetence of their security forces, lack of coordination between them, and their total unpreparedness for an outpouring of political discontent. (journalist, CBS, personal communication, March 20, 2011)

120 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Even in trying to perform the usual functions of a police state (such as territorialization and deterritorialization as a means of policing areas) through massive security deployment and violent crackdowns, it became apparent that the police forces were not able to do their job properly. The training most riot policemen had been given was simply not enough to cope with such massive protests, and the coercive policing strategies that they used utterly failed to suppress the dissent. As mentioned in chapter 3, riot policemen were ordered to work 16 to 18 hours a day beginning on January 25, which negatively affected their performance. Additionally, the number and the determination of the protesters overwhelmed the security forces, and consequently the police was forced to surrender certain places and congregate at more crucial ones for the sake of the regime’s survival. After the bridges leading to downtown Cairo, Midan al-Tahrir, university campuses, and virtually all mosques that served as starting locations for protests had been ‘lost,’ the police shifted their forces to the fortress-like MOI and Maspero. The regime would by no means allow these two buildings to ‘fall,’ as this could have severe implications for the protesters’ (perceived) POS and the regime’s organizational performance: the MOI represents domestic state power and the Egyptian police, while Maspero houses propagandistic state broadcasting that reaches almost every Egyptian household and represents the interface of communication and information distribution. It became apparent that the protesters’ appropriation of spaces put the regime’s survival at stake as the streets slowly changed ownership. A curfew starting at 6 pm was announced that day ( January 28) to intimidate protesters and keep them off the streets. Yet thousands defied it and some attempted to approach the parliamentary assembly and the MOI, turning adjoining Qasr al-‘Aini Street into a battlefield. After hours of fighting, hundreds wounded, and some killed, the protesters were able to appropriate the area around the parliamentary assembly and Qasr al-‘Aini Street, and forced the police to retreat to the MOI. Although it was heavily contested, the protesters did not manage to appropriate the premises of the MOI, as policemen were prepared to use lethal means in order to defend their ‘last frontier.’ In a long-lasting battle on January 29, many protesters were killed by snipers and plainclothes agents who shot live ammunition. Platoons of riot police would swarm out and beat protesters

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

121

bloody. Higher-ranking officers would force young riot policemen to keep fighting at the front line by punching them and threatening them with jail and torture (author’s observation; journalist, CNN, personal communication, March 21, 2011). In the early morning of January 30, the police retreated from the MOI after military forces took over. Riot gear and many police uniforms were to be found in the streets surrounding the ministry, as policemen changed into plainclothes and fled the scene. Some news reports claim they later joined the protests (CBS News 2011). Since the police had been unable to control territory, contain protesters, or even keep its own men in line, military forces took over late on January 28, after which the police virtually disappeared from the streets. While the military’s role was not clear in the first days of the uprising, it soon became apparent that they would not intervene in confrontations between protesters and regime ‘supporters’ (mainly thugs) or “use force to silence ‘legitimate’ demands” throughout these 18 days (Black, Shenker, and McGreal 2011). The police’s withdrawal led to the ‘liberation’ of Tahrir, and some protesters nicknamed the square “the People’s Republic of Tahrir.” The name implies the protesters’ perception of opportunities for regime change, their intention of giving new meanings to and redefining symbolisms of particular sites which were once considered to ‘belong’ to the regime, as well as the deliberate act of appropriating protest spaces as a means of resisting and negotiating existing power relations. The protesters occupied the square on January 28—a tactic, I believe, that was learned from the earlier protests of the labor movement. As shown in chapter 1, the choice of tactics symbolically expresses proximity to previous protest events or movements. Since the labor movements’ tactic of occupying places and turning them into protest spaces had proven to be a successful means of getting their demands fulfilled, the protesters on January 28 made use of this same tactic in order to force Mubarak out of office and, just as in the labor protests, they would not leave until their demands were met. After the regime had remained silent for four days of continuous protests, Hosni Mubarak announced on state television that he was sacking his cabinet. In his address he accused the protesters of abusing the freedoms he had given them. The mix of concession and threat in Mubarak’s statement was intended to lower dissent, but arguably it did

122 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

the exact opposite. The cabinet reshuffle was Mubarak’s first concession since the protests started. It contributed to the protesters’ perception that their continuous street protests and space appropriations might affect the regime’s policies and decision-making. By accusing the protesters of abusing freedoms he granted them, Mubarak signaled that no radical systemic change could occur through regime reform, and that the only option was for Mubarak to go. As the regime’s response to the protesters’ demands was nothing but violence and a delayed, sham reform, the protesters narrowed their demands down to two which would echo through the streets of Egypt: “Down, down with Hosni Mubarak” and “The people want the fall of the regime.” February 2: “Battles like in the Middle Ages.” As the occupation of Midan al-Tahrir continued and protesters camped out in front of the parliament, the regime realized that the measures it had taken had not reduced dissent. Police brutality; the cutting off of mobile and Internet communications; the disabling of major satellite channels such as Al Jazeera Arabic and Mubasher; reshuffling the cabinet; appointing Omar Suleiman as vice president; and intimidating protesters by flying fighter jets low over Midan al-Tahrir did not decrease protest actions. On January 30, the regime tried to bribe public-sector employees with a 15 percent salary increase. Many collected their wages, went to work, discussed the country’s situation with colleagues, and later joined the protests (Beinin and Vairel 2011:245). On February 1, Mubarak announced he would not run for a sixth presidential term, but would stay in power until the next elections: “In the few months remaining in my current term I will work towards ensuring a peaceful transition of power” (Mubarak, quoted in Shenker, Beaumont, Black, and McGreal 2011). As the demonstrators had already established that they would continue to protest until he left office, Mubarak’s second speech had very little effect. Yet it revealed the regime’s broader strategy for delegitimizing the popular uprising. In his speech, Mubarak repeatedly used words like “chaos,” “anarchy,” “looting,” “destruction,” and “violence” (Singerman 2011). The withdrawal of the police on January 28 created a security vacuum from which the regime hoped it would regain popular legitimacy. The mass escape of prisoners on January 30—who immediately started looting and

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

123

robbing—contributed to the fear of chaos. Credible reports suggest that the regime ordered the release of these prisoners (e.g., Abouzeid 2011). Further, the regime depicted the protests as a result of a foreign conspiracy trying to undermine the Egyptian nation (Amanpour 2011). This insidious narrative of chaos and anarchy intended to depict the protesters as angry, destructive, mob-like people, whose repression was legitimate and even crucial for returning to security and stability. After January 30, this massive propaganda had some effect on the overall populace, as foreign journalists were harassed and beaten and people on the streets seemed much more hostile to my presence. Meanwhile, Midan al-Tahrir turned into a fully functioning encampment with a pharmacy, medical tents, press tents, Hyde Park–like speakers’ corners, and even child care. Protesters established at least three levels of security checkpoints at each entrance to the square, checking IDs and bags to make sure no thugs or SSI agents entered. They were “policing Tahrir in the absence of police” (journalist, Reuters, personal communication, March 21, 2011), which is an interesting notion of protesters’ territoriality. They appropriated and occupied Midan al-Tahrir and turned it into a space contesting authoritarian rule in Egypt. Makeshift barricades were set up to ward off potential attacks. Hundreds of sympathizers who did not camp out on the square brought in supplies such as blankets, bread, and water in order to sustain the occupation. Tanks and military troop wagons surrounded the square, but would not interfere with protesters. Midan al-Tahrir turned into the organizational epicenter for anti-regime resistance. The occupation had no clear leader or group; the protests throughout the entire 18 days can be considered a public uprising dominated by youth with no prior political affiliation or participation in public activity. Yet the entire spectrum of the political oppositional landscape—Islamists, leftists, liberals—raised banners, distributed leaflets, and got into heated discussions with each other, but supported the mass uprising without trying to hijack it in the interest of their particular group. After January 28, the most visible distinguishable group on the streets was the Muslim Brotherhood. On the morning of February 2, hundreds of people describing themselves as “Mubarak supporters” clashed with anti-regime protesters in Alexandria. The military fired live ammunition into the air in order to disperse the fighters. In Cairo, Mubarak supporters had been gathering

124 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

for several hours in front of the television and radio building about a kilometer away from Midan al-Tahrir, after numbered buses unloaded them there (Bowen 2011). Reports suggest that these “supporters” consisted of hired thugs, plainclothes policemen, and government workers who had been ordered to protest, but also of some protesters who argued that Mubarak had made enough concessions and the protesting should stop (e.g., CNN 2011; Beaumont, Shenker, and Khalili 2011). Just before 2 pm, these supporters charged the square from the Egyptian Museum, using bats, rocks, clubs, knives, and even swords and homemade spears. While many respondents had anticipated a move by the security forces to clear Tahrir, the use of mob violence orchestrated by the regime had not been foreseen. Horseback and camel riders wielding whips attacked protesters in the square about 30 minutes later. The military did not interfere during the hours of battle and only separated the groups the next morning. Before the Mubarak supporters arrived, protesters stationed at the barricades would strike the railings and the large sheet-metal barricades to make a bell sound to alert people that an attack had been launched. Although the amount of movement in the square made it difficult to tell, it appeared that most of the women and elderly moved for shelter to the center of the square, where most of the tents were pitched, while platoons of young males shifted to the front lines in order to defend the occupation with rocks that had been dug out of the pavement beforehand and piled up next to the barricades (journalist, CNN, personal communication, March 21, 2011). Different protesters had different tasks: some were physically fighting the Mubarak supporters, some were breaking pavement into rocks to use as projectiles, and some were transporting the rocks to the front line. Meanwhile, doctors helped the injured and others drove them to the hospital (journalist, The Daily News Egypt, personal communication, April 5, 2011). Every respondent who was at the square that day recognized the crucial role of the Muslim Brotherhood: The [Muslim] Brothers were the ones that really could provide a lot of the logistics that this uprising needed: they are well organized, provide security—a lot of people who were helping with security were Muslim Brotherhood members. They

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

125

brought blankets, food, basic essentials. (journalist, al-Ahram, personal communication, March 26, 2011) This notion of their organizational potential corresponds to our analysis in chapter 2: the Brotherhood’s ideological concepts of piety and discipline proved to be useful assets in the protesters’ tactical repertoire in sustaining and defending the occupation of Midan al-Tahrir. They were the ones that made the big metal . . . overhead sheets that protect. They were the ones that were hitting the railings to make a bell sound to alarm people that there was somebody attacking. They were the ones who were organizing the stones. They had a very organized offensive tactic and defensive tactic. (independent activist, personal communication, March 17, 2011) When I asked respondents how they knew these protesters were from the Muslim Brotherhood, they mostly answered they could tell by their looks and by their “religious choice of words” (same respondent as above). While the credibility of these accounts could be questioned, I would argue that 13 respondents crediting the Brotherhood with organizational potential that day is reason enough to believe them. The battle lasted for several hours. Molotov cocktails were thrown from the surrounding buildings down onto the protesters. Some respondents witnessed snipers on some buildings as well (journalist, Reuters, personal communication, March 21, 2011). Yet the anti-government protesters were able to push their attackers back, finally holding them behind a front line created behind the Egyptian Museum. The occupation was sustained, the Mubarak supporters withdrew, and the plot was soon identified as another attempt by the regime to spread chaos. Some Mubarak supporters were detained by protesters and held in the metro station, which had been turned into a prison. While protesters occupying the square were highly organized and managed to establish and sustain a supply chain ranging from weapons to medical treatment, the Mubarak supporters appeared not to have worked in such a united and dedicated manner. Perception played an important role: The protesters occupying the square did so mainly

126 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

out of conviction. They perceived the cause to be important enough to expose themselves to physical harm. One respondent notes: These people in Tahrir were very dedicated to the cause of bringing down Mubarak and of creating democracy. The people who were attacking were paid and their motives were perhaps less strong. So that onslaught did not last . . . people on the square were willing to stay there and get injured. I think the fear also was that if they [protesters] let Tahrir become overrun by Mubarak supporters, then they would have lost the symbolic focal point of the revolution . . . they might have lost the impetus and the momentum. At that point—if Mubarak had managed to regroup his forces and impose himself again . . . they would be the first people to get detained, tortured, and killed. (journalist, Reuters, personal communication, March 21, 2011) Protesters perceived that losing Tahrir as a protest space could jeopardize their POS in sustaining anti-Mubarak protests and hence the political momentum of the entire January 25 uprising. The Mubarak regime recognized the symbolic and perceived importance of Midan al-Tahrir as a space of anti-authoritarian sentiment and intended to suppress it violently, but its supporters’ motives were weaker than those of the anti-regime protesters, as most of them probably fought for money, not for an idea. Here we can see the important role of perception in social movements and the resistance–authority relationship. The protesters maintained Midan al-Tahrir as a protest space until their demands were met, until power structures were negotiated in their favor by ousting Mubarak. The regime attempted to take control over this protest space through violent means in order to maintain existing power relations. Although the attack left some 800 injured and seven dead (Chick 2011), it failed, and the protesters seemed even more encouraged to maintain the occupation and thus keep negotiating power relations. As one protester whose friend died that day said: “Ever since my friend died, I am not scared any more. I will keep going to the streets until Mubarak leaves” (protester, personal communication, February 10, 2011). As suggested by della Porta and Diani (2006:200) and discussed in chapter 1,

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

127

this protester shows how the regime’s repressive approach toward the protesters created a strong sentiment of injustice that increased the perceived risk of inaction. Tahrir would stay occupied. February 9: The workers’ force. After the attack on Tahrir failed, the following Friday’s “Day of Departure” protest demanded Mubarak’s immediate resignation and was the largest Tahrir demonstration, with hundreds of thousands participating. Leading opposition groups in Egypt ranging from April 6 to the Muslim Brotherhood rejected Omar Suleiman’s “invitation for dialogue” (Jadaliyya 2011) and made it clear that there would be no political agreement until Hosni Mubarak resigned (McGreal and MacAskill 2011). The international community’s reaction to the events in Egypt was described as “weak” by several respondents. In the first days of the uprising, the Egyptian regime was called “stable” by Hillary Clinton, and UK prime minister David Cameron called Mubarak “a friend of Britain” (Willis 2011). As the violence intensified, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Egyptian authorities should listen to their people, deal with their problems, and respect their right to demonstrate, and US president Barack Obama urged peaceful democratic transition. However, the half-hearted international reactions barely influenced the regime’s coercive actions. Once the regime realized that its strategy of fear and chaos did not keep people from protesting, it attempted to wait it out, hoping people would get tired and want normality back. Protests after February 2 were largely peaceful, with no visible security forces and almost no thugs repressing demonstrators. Marches rarely occurred, and the focal points of Egypt’s uprising became the occupation of Midan al-Tahrir and the sit-in at the parliament. It appeared the regime’s strategy of inaction might work, as more and more people started complaining about the country’s economic situation and their own socioeconomic misfortunes deriving from weeks of protests, and called on the protesters to comply with the regime’s offer of dialogue. On February 5, downtown businesses reopened for the first time since January 28. The regime intended to go back to normality and leave Midan al-Tahrir to the protesters. It did seem that the pro-democracy protests would lose popular support, which could have jeopardized their cause. Yet workers soon added

128 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

momentum to the demonstrations and led Egypt to a tipping point. On January 30, two newly formed independent unions (which at that time were still illegal) and 12 representatives from 12 industrial areas formed a new independent trade-union federation (Beinin 2011a). This can be considered a revolutionary act, because it was the first time that a popular upsurge set up a new institution that became a basis of a new legality. The trade-union federation called for a nationwide strike, and on February 9, around 20,000 factory workers stopped working (Al Jazeera 2011c, February 10). They were calling for better salaries and an end to pay disparities, but some also called for Hosni Mubarak to step down. The mass protests offered workers an opportunity to present socioeconomic demands. On February 9 and 10 the crowds in Tahrir were changing in composition. There were striking bus workers handing out leaflets demanding the overthrow of the regime. Hundreds of striking doctors from Qasr al-‘Aini Hospital marched along Qasr al-‘Aini Street toward Midan alTahrir, followed by delegations of postal workers. Thousands of Cairo University staff joined the protests. Outside of Cairo, workers together with pro-democracy protesters set fire to a government building and occupied Port Said’s central square (Fahim 2011). Suez Canal workers had launched an all-out strike, and production in the Mahalla textile mills was grinding to a halt “while striking workforces occupied nine of the generals’ own military factories” (Alexander 2011). Protests were no longer confined to the streets, but had reached the workplaces: protesters expanded their protest spaces and allied with the workers. With the security forces gone, the regime had no agent for implementing ‘public order’, territoriality, and spatial control. The streets changed ownership. February 11: The beginning of the end? When Hosni Mubarak announced on February 11 that he would hand over powers to his deputy, Omar Suleiman, but refused to step down, protesters in the streets of Cairo were raging. Around 2 pm, about a thousand protesters left Midan al-Tahrir in many smaller groups and started marching toward the distant Presidential Palace in Heliopolis. The streets seemed deserted, with no police and little army presence. When I followed one of the marching groups, I observed protesters walking up to bystanders telling them to join; one woman yelled at male bystanders: “The

Taking to the Streets: Contentious Cycles in Egypt, 2000–2011

129

women are here; where are the men?” In most cases they joined, and the group would grow and then merge with other groups joining the march. Within hours, thousands of protesters were moving closer and closer to the palace while chanting “The people want the president to be tried.” According to Al Jazeera, the protesters said they were targeting regime buildings to express their anger and force Mubarak out of office. These buildings included the parliament, the Presidential Palace, and the radio and television station. Thousands of protesters directed their discontent against these buildings, which they viewed as the representation of state power. Military troops locked all entrances, but the protesters did not appear to try to break into these buildings. With no security forces to police them, the protesters were able to take and maintain control over these protest spaces, effectively giving them a new meaning of regime change. Throughout the uprising, protest spaces had been negotiated to the extent that the regime was no longer able to assign them to protesters as it did before the uprising. Around six that evening, as a consequence of a large wave of street protests that had spread through the country for more than two weeks and a massive change in power structures, Omar Suleiman announced that Hosni Mubarak had stepped down and passed all authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

CHAPTER 5

Conclusion This case study has shown that the main locus of negotiating power relations in Egypt is the politicized street. I have analyzed the evolution of Egyptian street protests since 2000, which progressed to a mass uprising in January–February 2011. I have further been able to distinguish five consecutive protest cycles in which the major actors (Islamists, secularists and pro-democracy actors, workers) staged protest events as a means of resisting power relations. The buildup of the first four cycles increased opportunities for mobilization in subsequent cycles and led to the fifth cycle—the January 25 mass uprising—which represents the culminating episode in a series of cycles of accumulated mobilization and protest events. Through the study of agency and structural premises in terms of PPA, as well as the study of the negotiation of protest spaces, I have been able to show why the ‘Egyptian street’ evolved the way it did and reduce the importance of frequently cited factors like the Tunisian example, social media, or the crediting of one particular movement such as April 6.

Conclusion 1

Revolutionary upsurges often have a long historical buildup of conflict that goes beyond the popular short-term explanations. A diachronic analysis of previous mobilizations in contentious cycles— including structural premises, actor configurations, and interaction in protest events—can retrospectively make revolutionary processes seem less surprising. 130

Conclusions

131

In contentious cycles, protesters in Egypt tried to appropriate protest spaces, gain control over them, and expand them; security forces, on the other hand, attempt to maintain control over spaces, keeping them contained and ‘orderly.’ In the January 25 uprising, the ability of the police to mark and force meaningful boundaries, to restrict people’s capacity to act by regulating their movements in space, proved to be insufficient and jeopardized the existing power relations.

Conclusion 2

The struggle over protest spaces represents the negotiation of existing power structures between the resistance actors and the authority actors. Protest space is socially constructed through the actors present at a protest. The battle over space through resistance and authority expresses the motive of territoriality. A premise of the modern nation-state is its control (or attempt to maintain control) over territory. The police are given a set of legal and coercive powers to implement this control in terms of Foucauldian disciplinary power. This is an inherent outcome of the social organization of the police, as modern policing has meant the development of a capacity to intrude into and control space. The police are expected to be effective agents of territoriality, to be able to control social action by controlling area. Social power hence does not exist without territorial rules. An attempt by protesters to constitute protest spaces is an act of resisting dictated modes of territoriality, and hence renegotiating existing power structures by ‘liberating’ places, redefining symbols and meanings, and expressing demands, grievances, and desires. Places with particular symbolic characteristics, memories, and values are the arena for the face-to-face interaction between security forces (authorities, who are on top of state hierarchies) and protesters (who often contest existing hierarchic relations) in which protest spaces are being fought over. Over the last decade, the actors involved in the battle over protest spaces have expanded and optimized their tactical repertoires. Their tactical choices and skills are greatly influenced by their political agenda and backgrounds: the Islamists’ organizational strength and discipline in protests derives from their ideological premises of piety, education, and discipline; the workers’ sustained campaigns of mass-participant occupations derive from their constitution as a class and because their

132 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

livelihood is at stake; the pro-democracy movement’s constant pushing of boundaries and explicit anti-regime tactics derive from their agenda calling for regime change; the coercive tactics of the security forces derive from their role as the sole official agent of disciplinary power. As I have shown, political learning progresses through an actor’s own protest experiences, but also through experiences other (opposing) actors have made.

Conclusion 3

The tactical repertoires of both resistance actors and authority actors are highly influenced by their political agendas and backgrounds. Through a process of political learning, all of the actors have been able to expand and optimize their tactical repertoire over the last decade: the available tactics that have proven to be successful in achieving a goal are the most likely to be applied. As I have shown, political learning progresses through an actor’s own protest experiences, but also through experiences other (opposing) actors have made. Protesters will choose their set of tactics in order to gain control over spaces and expand them. Security forces will try to maintain control over spaces and reduce dissent to a minimum with their available tactical repertoire. Both groups’ capacity to act is influenced by structural conditions, such as political context, the setup of a particular site, orders given to them, knowledge of available tactics, and each other’s agency. Through the process of political learning, protesters not only optimized tactical considerations, but also found out that street presence influences authorities’ decision-making. As explained in chapter 3, the government’s response to the Intifada protests in 2001 included the halt of Egypt Air flights to Tel Aviv and the downgrading of diplomatic relations with Israel. Similarly, the revival of workers’ strikes and the fulfillment of their demands showed protesters from other movements that it was possible to win something concrete by engaging in a struggle. The popular movement in the January 25 uprising learned from these experiences as well, made use of those learned tactics that had proved to be efficient in terms of goal pursuit (e.g., occupation tactics by workers), and maintained street presence until their demands were finally met.

Conclusions

133

Conclusion 4

Once resistance and authority interact, modifications in the larger political context appear over time. Heightened mobilization and contentious politics influence authorities’ decision-making. Resistance actors can learn this through a process of political learning and get their demands met. In many instances throughout the research I have been able to demonstrate the relationship between normativity and perception and their relevance for POS. Scholars such as Beinin (2011a) claim that the normative structural conditions in terms of PPA have long been favorable toward regime change in Egypt. But it was not until January 2011 that a massive uprising managed to change power structures to the extent that an authoritarian ruler had to step down after 30 years of rule. I have been able to show that long-standing normative conditions were supplemented by a perceived opportunity deriving from the Tunisian example that regime change in Egypt was possible. Throughout the 18 days of mass protest in 2011, the perception of the popular movement’s strength grew further as symbolic places such as Midan al-Tahrir were occupied.

Conclusion 5

The perception of the regime’s coercive power and the perception of a challenger’s power are factors that make or break a movement. When resistance is perceived to be strong enough to pursue a goal and challenge authority and the fear barrier drops, regardless of normative conditions, (mass) protests can occur. In sum, there can be a mismatch between the structure of political opportunities and popular perceptions of political opportunities, which can facilitate or constrain the challengers’ possibilities. Further, perceptions of symbolic markings and places may also have impeding or facilitating effects on opportunities and mobilization structures.

Outlook

In terms of theory-building, there is still a great deal to be done, and the academic community is far from reaching comprehensive accounts of spatial dimensions in social-movement research. I hope the patterns I found in the Egyptian case, from which I derive the general conclusions explained above, can contribute to closing this research gap. I

134 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

believe the study of authority–resistance interactions in the battle over protest spaces can help to indicate conditions in the larger political context of a country, and may be useful as a variable in framing political and social change. The methods used have provided an academically acceptable sample of analytically motivated variation. However, the problem of perception in such constructivist endeavors as space in protests needs to be stressed. My methodology frames my particular narrative, interpretation, and perception, which might differ when applied by a different scholar. Although I believe my methods adequately raised and framed the questions that needed to be addressed, the problem of ‘objectivity’ in constructivism remains. I hope this reflection will stimulate further discussions on the topic. This research has underlined the need for the political science discipline to look beyond elite politics and state-centric analysis when studying authoritarian regimes. The usual top-down approaches to the study of Egypt’s authoritarianism lack explanatory power for what happened in Egypt on January 25. It has become clear that street mobilization (agency) is just as important a variable for the study of authoritarian regimes as structural conditions and elite politics, and it should be a substantial part of scholars’ equations. As for the further development of the case of the Egyptian street, the current protest cycle is far from over and we can see a clear shift in institutional settings, intra-regime conflicts, alliance structures among different resistance groups, and continuing political conflict. Regarding the battle over protest spaces, territoriality, and the configuration of actors, two developments ever since the 2011 mass protests started stand out particularly: The battles of Muhammad Mahmoud, and the development of three protest squares following the fall of President Muhammad Morsi.1 In Muhammad Mahmoud, a street just off Midan al-Tahrir and close to the MOI, protesters and police clashed fiercely for six continuous days in November 2011, after security forces dispersed a sit-in organized by the families of those killed or injured during the January 25 uprising. Meanwhile, authorities erected walls at various strategic locations in downtown Cairo, demonstrating the continuing importance of social control through modes of territoriality. 1 For an extraordinary analysis and tactical insights of these events, see Ryzova 2011.

Conclusions

135

While security forces claimed that the use of excessive force was necessary to protect their headquarters, the MOI, the protesters not only attempted to reverse the dispersion of the sit-in with their rather violent tactical repertoire, but were also standing their ground and protecting the square. The Muhammad Mahmoud battles highlight the continuing importance of territoriality, tactical repertoires, and space appropriation, and therefore the value of the conceptual framework for the analysis of protest space suggested throughout this study. Regarding the configuration of actors and Egypt’s transformation process, religious, social, and political cleavages among resistance actors that were put aside in the popular uprising have emerged and indicate clear divisions. Ever since the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) took over in February 2011, military courts have tried thousands of civilians (S. el-Din 2011), and allegations of torture and abuse continue (Stack 2011). Street protests since the January 25 uprising have explicitly called for an end to military rule and the implementation of the timeline set forth by the constitutional referendum of March 19, 2011.2 With the success of Islamist parties in the 2011–2012 parliamentary elections and the subsequent election of Muhammad Morsi as president, explicit military rule came to an end. Popular voices and activists lament the replacement of Mubarak’s regime by yet another authoritarian regime dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and it is clear to many observers that the Morsi government struck a deal with the military. Cleavages between Islamists and secular forces have been revived, and both actors remain deeply divided about the country’s future. With the fall of President Muhammad Morsi in July 2013, and the unmasking of military rule, the growing conflict between supporters of the military, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and revolutionary youth who opposed both, found its spatial representation: Midan alTahrir, which had for long been the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution, has become the focal point for military supporters since the armed forces organized protests there. In opposition to this, Morsi supporters set up their own protest spaces at Rab‘a al-‘Adawiya Mosque in Nasr city, and at Nahda Square in Giza. Revolutionary youth who could not associate with either of these established the “Third Square” Movement and 2 For more information on the referendum, see http://carnegieendowment. org/2011/03/16/overview-of-egypt-s-constitutional-referendum/1t6

136 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

have been protesting predominantly in Sphinx Square in Mohandiseen. In line with our arguments, the set-up of these sites and the new modes of territoriality are indicative of the overall power relations in contemporary Egypt. When Egyptian security forces stormed the pro-Morsi sites, more than 280 people were killed in Rab‘a alone and the mosque was destroyed (Ahram Online 2013). These violent interactions show that the logic and pattern of negotiating space remains similar despite new actor configurations. The streets of Egypt remain in turmoil and continue to be the main locus of negotiating power relations. Although actor configurations are short-lived, remain fragile, and have changed considerably since the fall of Mubarak, the amount of protest presence and critical awareness of anti-regime protesters in the past two and a half years indicate that the battle over protest spaces is far from over.

Bibliography

Abdel-Fattah, Magdy. 2010. “Future of the Workers’ Movement in Egypt.” Land Center for Human Rights. http://212.12.226.70/ indexe.htm Abdel-Latif, Omayma. 2005. “The Shape of Things to Come.” Al-Ahram Weekly. March 31. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/736/eg4.htm Abdelrahman, Maha. 2009. “‘With the Islamists?—Sometimes. With the State?—Never!’ Cooperation between the Left and Islamists in Egypt,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 36(1): 37–54. Abou El-Magd, Nadia. 2004. “In Egypt, a Rare Public Protest against Mubarak.” The Boston Globe. December 13. http:// www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2004/12/13/ in_egypt_a_rare_public_protest_against_mubarak/ Abouzeid, Rania. 2011. “Did Prison Breakout Reveal a Plan to Sow Chaos in Egypt?” Time Magazine. March 16. http://www.time. com/time/world/ article/0,8599,2059301,00.html Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1990. “The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power through Bedouin Women,” American Ethnologist, 17(1): 41–55. Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (Originally published 1995). Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. 2005. Arab Strategic Report. Reform Demands: Internal and External Pressures. http://acpss.ahram.org.eg/eng/ahram/2004/7/5/ARAB39.HTM Ahram Online. 2013. “Death Toll from Egypt Violence Rises to 638: Health Ministry.” Ahram Online. August 15. http://english.ahram. 137

138 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/79160/Egypt/Politics-/Death-tollfrom-Egypt-violence-rises-to--Health-mi.aspx Albrecht, Holger. 2007. “Authoritarian Opposition and the Politics of Challenge in Egypt.” In Oliver Schlumberger, ed. Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, 59–74. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2005. “How Can Opposition Support Authoritarianism? Lessons from Egypt,” Democratization, 12(3): 378–397. Alexander, Anne. 2011. “Egypt’s Revolution Must Deepen as Generals Fight Back.” Socialist Worker. August 16. http://www.socialistworker. co.uk/art.php?id=25698 ———. 2010. “Leadership and Collective Action in the Egyptian Trade Unions,” Work, Employment and Society, 24(2): 241–259. ———. 2009. “The New Strike Wave Shaking Egypt.” Socialist Worker. August 22. http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=18783 Alexander, Jon, and Camy Pector. 2004. “Crime, Justice, and Social Control in Egypt.” In Anita Kalunta-Crumpton and Biko Agozino, eds. Pan-African Issues in Crime and Justice, 39–55. Burlington: Ashgate. Amanpour, Christiane. 2011. “Suleiman: ‘Egypt Will Not Be Anything Like Tunisia.’” ABC News. February 3. http://abcnews.go.com/ International/egypt-abc-news-christiane-amanpour-exclusiveinterview-vice/story?id=12836594 El-Amrani, Issandr. 2006. “Kifaya and the Politics of the Impossible.” Left Turn. March 1. http://www.leftturn.org/ kifaya-and-politics-impossible ———. 2002. “The Monster in Egypt’s Box.” Salon. April 4. http:// www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/04/04/egypt Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. (Originally published 1983). Armato, Michael, and Neal Caren. 2002. “Mobilizing the Single-Case Study: Doug McAdam’s Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1979,” Qualitative Sociology, 25(1): 93–103. Al-Awadi, Hesham. 2004. In Pursuit of Legitimacy: The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak, 1982–2000. London: Tauris Academic Studies. Barker,Michael.2008.“Mass Media and Social Movements.”Global Research. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8761

Bibliography

139

Barnes, Samuel H., and Max Kaase. 1979. Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Bayat, Asef. 2009. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. ———. 2003. “‘The Street’ and the Politics of Dissent in the Arab World,” Middle East Report, 226: 10–17. ———. 1997. Street Politics: Poor People’s Movements in Iran. New York: Columbia University Press. Beaumont, Peter, Jack Shenker, and Mustafa Khalili. 2011. “Mubarak Supporters Stage Brutal Bid to Crush Cairo Uprising.” The Guardian. February 2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ feb/02/hosni-mubarak-supporters-violence-cairo Becker, Richard. 2003. “Protest Grows in Arab World.” Workers World. April 10. http://www.workers.org/ww/2003/arabanger0410.php Beinin, Joel. 2011a. The Egyptian Intifada in Historical Perspective. http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/podcasts-from-ucla-center/ id434137228 ———. 2011b. “A Workers’ Social Movement on the Margin of the Global Neoliberal Order: Egypt 2004–2009.” In Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel, eds. Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, 181–201. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2010. “Egyptian Workers Demand a Living Wage.” Foreign Policy. May 12. http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/12/ egyptian_workers_demand_a_living_wage ———. 2009a. “Neo-Liberal Structural Adjustment, Political Demobilization, and Neo-Authoritarianism in Egypt.” In Laura Guazzone and Daniela Pioppi, eds. The Arab State and Neo-Liberal Globalization: The Restructuring of State Power in the Middle East, 19–46. Reading: Ithaca Press. ———. 2009b. “Workers’ Protest in Egypt: Neo-Liberalism and Class Struggle in the 21st Century,” Social Movement Studies, 8(4): 449–454. ———. 2009c. “Workers’ Struggles under ‘Socialism’ and Neoliberalism.” In Rabab el-Mahdi and Philip Marfleet, eds. Egypt: The Moment of Change, 68–86. London: Zed Books.

140 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Beinin, Joel, and Frédéric Vairel. 2011. “Afterword: Popular Uprisings, Tunisia and Egypt.” In Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel, eds. Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, 237–254. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bellin, Eva. 2004. “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective,” Comparative Politics, 36(2): 139–157. Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckman. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. (Originally published 1966). Black, Ian. 2003. “Egypt Accused over Crackdown on Protests.” The Guardian. March 25. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/ mar/25/ iraq.ianblack Black, Ian, Jack Shenker, and Chris McGreal. 2011. “Egypt Set for Mass Protest as Army Rules Out Force.”The Guardian.January 31.http://www. guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/31/egyptian-army-pledges-no-force Black, Jeffrey. 2006. “Egyptian Trial of Pro-Reform Judges Halted after Protests.” The Independent. May 12. http://www.independent.co.uk/ news/world/africa/egyptian-trial-of-proreform-judges-haltedafter-protests-477847.html Bourdieu, Pierre. 1999. Sozialer Raum und “Klassen” (Leçon sur la leçon). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. (Originally published 1982). ———. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published 1972). Bowen, Jeremy. 2011. “Egypt Unrest: Pro-Mubarak Supporters ‘WellOrganized.’” British Broadcasting Cooperation. February 2. http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12350643 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 2008. “Clashes in Egypt Strike Stand-off.” April 6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_ east/7332929.stm Browers, Michaelle. 2007. “The Egyptian Movement for Change: Intellectual Antecedents and Generational Conflicts,” Contemporary Islam, 1(1): 69–88. Brownlee, Jason. 2002. “Explaining Survival and Transition in Neopatrimonial Regimes,” Studies in Comparative International Development, 37(3): 35–63.

Bibliography

141

Brynjar, Lia. 2006. The Society of the Muslim Brothers: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement, 1928–1945. Reading: Ithaca Press. Carr, Sarah. 2011. “Street Fighting.” Weblog post. January 4. http:// inanities.org/2011/01/street-fighting/ ———. 2010. “I Fought the Law and (for Now) the Law Won.” Weblog post. April 10. http://allthegoodnameshadgone.blogspot. com/2010/04/i-fought-law-and-for-now-law-won.html ———. 2008. “Two Allegedly Killed during Violent Clashes in Mahalla.” The Daily News Egypt. April 6. http://www.dailystaregypt. com/ article.aspx?ArticleID=12933 CBS News. 2011. “Mubarak Asks Cabinet to Resign amid Protests.” January 29. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/28/world/main 7293753.shtml Chick, Kristen. 2011. “Egypt Street Battles: How Cairo’s Tahrir Square Turned into a War Zone Overnight.” The Christian Science Monitor. February 3. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/MiddleEast/2011/0203/Egypt-street-battles-How-Cairo-s-TahrirSquare-turned-into-a-war-zone-overnight CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). 2011. World Factbook: Egypt. https:// www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html Clément, Françoise. 2009. “Workers Protest under Economic Liberalization in Egypt.” In Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed. Political and Social Protest in Egypt, 100–116. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. CNN. 2011. “Who Are the Pro-Mubarak Demonstrators?” February 2. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-02/world/egypt.pro.mubarak_1_ pro-mubarak-egypt-s-president-hosni-mubarak-anti-governmentprotests?_s=PM:WORLD Davies, Philip H. J. 2001. “Spies as Informants: Triangulation and the Interpretation of Elite Interview Data in the Study of Intelligence and Security Services,” Politics, 21(1): 73–80. della Porta, Donnatella, and Mario Diani. 2006. Social Movements: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. (Originally published 1998). della Porta, Donnatella, and Olivier Fillieule. 2004. “Policing Social Protest.” In David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 217–241. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

142 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

della Porta, Donnatella, and Herbert Reiter. 1998. “The Policing of Global Protest: The G8 at Genoa and Its Aftermath.” In Donatella della Porta, Abby Peterson, and Herbert Reiter, eds. The Policing of Transnational Protest, 13–42. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Demmelhuber, Thomas. 2009. “Egypt’s Moment of Reform and Its Reform Actors: The Variety-Capability Gap,” Democratization, 16(1): 119–136. Diamond, Larry. 2002. “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,” Journal of Democracy, 13(2): 22–35. Egyptian Chronicles. 2010. “Follow-up: 23rd of July Khaled Said’s Silent Revolution.” July 24. http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot. com/2010/07/follow-up-23rd-of-july-khaled-said.html Eisinger, Peter. 1973. “The Conditions of Protest Behavior in American Cities,” The American Political Science Review, 67(1): 11–28. Elden, Stuart, and Jeremy W. Crampton, eds. 2007. Space, Knowledge, Power: Foucault on Geography. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing. Ennis, James G. 1987. “Fields of Action: Structure in Movements’ Tactical Repertoires,” Sociological Forum, 2(3): 520–533. Fahim, Kareem. 2011. “Labor Strikes Bolster Protesters’ Cause in Egypt.” The New York Times. February 10. http://articles.boston. com/2011-02-10/news/29338139_1_protesters-pro-mubarak-cairo Fahmi, Wael S. 2009. “Bloggers’ Street Movement and the Right to the City: (Re)claiming Cairo’s Real and Virtual ‘Spaces of Freedom,’” Environment and Urbanization, 21(1): 89–107. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge. (Originally published 1969). ———. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House. (Originally published 1979). ———. 1980. History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Random House. ———. 1967. “Of Other Spaces.” http://foucault.info/documents/ heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html Fürtig, Henner. 2007. “Verfassungsreferendum in Ägypten: Meilenstein oder Mogelpackung?” GIGA Focus Nahost, 3: 1–8. Gamson, William A., and Gadi Wolfsfeld. 1993. “Movements and Media as Interacting Systems,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 528: 114–125.

Bibliography

143

Gerring, John. 2001. Social Science Methodology: A Critical Framework. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ghanim, David. 2009. Gender and Violence in the Middle East. Westport: Praeger Publishers. El-Ghobashy, Mona. 2003. “Unsettling the Authorities: Constitutional Reform in Egypt,” Middle East Report, 226: 28–34. Gieryn, Thomas F. 2000. “A Space for Place in Sociology,” Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 463–496. Goldstein, Kenneth. 2002. “Getting in the Door: Sampling and Completing Elite Interviews,” Political Science and Politics, 35(4): 669–672. Goldstone, Jack A., and Charles Tilly. 2001. “Threat (and Opportunity): Popular Action and State Response in the Dynamics of Contentious Action.” In Ronald R. Aminzade, Jack A. Goldstone, Doug McAdam, Elizabeth J. Perry, William H. Sewell, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, eds. Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, 179–194. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, Jeff, and James F. Jasper. 1999. “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory,” Sociological Forum, 14(1): 27–54. Haaretz English. 2010. “Baradei: The People Are Ready, Egypt Is Hungry for Change.” February 27. http://www.haaretz.com/news/baradeithe-people-are-ready-egypt-is-hungry-for-change-1.266315 Halawy, Jailan. 2005. “A New Dynamic.” Al-Ahram Weekly. May 26. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/744/eg4.htm El-Hamalawy, Hossam. 2011. “How Palestine’s Uprising Inspired Egypt’s.” Electronic Intifada. March 2. http://electronicintifada.net/ content/how-palestines-uprising-inspired-egypts/9253 ———. 2010. “The Egyptian Labor Movement.” Lecture at the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, March 14. ———. 2008. “Egypt’s Tax Collectors and the Fight for Independent Trade Unions.” Socialist Review. December. http://www. socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10654 El-Hamalawy, Hossam, and Joel Beinin. 2007. “Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order.” Middle East Report Press Information Note. March 30. http://www.merip.org/mero/ mero032507.html

144 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

El-Hamalawy,Hossam,and Megan K.Stack.2006.“Police,Demonstrators Clash at Rally for Egyptian Judges.” The Boston Globe. May 12. http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/05/12/ police_demonstrators_clash_at_rally_for_egyptian_judges/ Hannabus, Stuart. 1996. “Foucault’s View of Knowledge,” Aslib Proceedings, 48(4): 87–102. Harvey, David.2001. Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography. New York: Routledge. ———. 1995. “Evaluation: Geographical Knowledge in the Eye of Power: Reflections on Derek Gregory’s Geographical Imaginations,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 85(1): 160–164. ———. 1987. “Flexible Accumulation through Urbanization: Reflections on ‘Post-Modernism’ in the American City,” Antipode, 19(3): 260–286. Hassan, Abdalla F. 2003. “As War Continues, Tensions Rise in Egypt.” Worldpress. March 31. http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1029.cfm Herbert, Steve. 1997. Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Holm, Andrej. 2004. “Sozialwissenschaftliche Theorien zu Raum und Fläche.” Helmholtz Zentrum für Umweltforschung: Bericht 26. www.ufz.de/data/ufz-bericht_26_042156.pdf Honda, Hiroshi. 1997. “Political Process Approach: A Brief Review of a New Perspective on Social Movement Research,” Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers, 48(3): 250–226. “How to Protest Intelligently: Important Information and Tactics.” 2011. Pamphlet. International Crisis Group (ICG). 2005. “Reforming Egypt: In Search of a Strategy,” Middle East/North Africa Report, 46(4): 1–33. Ismail, Salwa. 2006. Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Israel, Mark, and Iain Hay. 2006. Research Ethics for Social Scientists. London: Sage Publications. Jadaliyya. 2011. “Statement of the April 6 Movement Regarding the Demands of the Youth and the Refusal to Negotiate with Any Side.” February 8. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/579/ statement-of-the-april-6-movement-regarding-the-de

Bibliography

145

Jansen, Stef. 2001. “The Streets of Beograd: Urban Space and Protest Identities in Serbia,” Political Geography, 20: 35–55. Al Jazeera. 2011a. “Egypt Warns Protesters of Arrest.” Al Jazeera English. January 25.http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/2011124 233659875688.html ———.2011b.“Timeline: Egypt’s Revolution.”Al Jazeera English. February 14. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/20111251 5334871490.html ———. 2011c. “Workers Boost Egypt Protests.” Al Jazeera English. February 10. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/ 20112913546831171.html ———. 2010. “Hundreds Held after Egypt Rallies.” Al Jazeera English. November 22. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/11/ 20101119212833744148.html Jenkins, Richard. 2006. Pierre Bourdieu. London: Routledge. Kann, Christoph. 2005.“Locus Continet Virtualiter Totum Argumentum: Zur Lehre der dialektischen Örter im Mittelalter.” In Elisabeth Vavra, ed. Virtuelle Räume: Raumvorstellung und Raumwahrnehmung im Mittelalter, 373–392. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Kefaya. 2004. “Declaration to the Nation.” http://www.harakamasria. org/node/2944 Kelly, Oliver. 2002. “‘One Nail Takes Out Another’: Power, Gender, and Revolution in Julia Alvarez’s Novels.” In Benigno Trigo, ed. Foucault and Latin America, 235–246. London: Routledge. Kendall, Diana. 2005. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. Belmont: Wadsworth. Kitschelt, Herbert P. 1986. “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies,” British Journal of Political Science, 16(1): 57–85. Koopmans, Ruud. 2004. “Protest in Time and Space: The Evolution of Waves of Contention.” In David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 19–46. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ———. 1997. “Dynamics of Repression and Mobilization: The German Extreme Right in the 1990s,” Mobilization, 2(2): 149–164. Koopmans, Ruud, and Paul Statham. 1999. “Ethnic and Civic Conceptions of Nationhood and the Differential Success in the

146 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Extreme Right in Germany and Italy.” In Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds. How Social Movements Matter, 225–252. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kornhauser, William. 1959. The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe: Free Press. Kriesi, Hanspeter. 2004. “Political Context and Opportunity.” In David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 67–90. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Kriesi, Hanspeter, and Ruud Koopmans. 1995. “Institutional Structures and Prevailing Strategies.” In Hanspeter Kriesi, Ruud Koopmans, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Marco G. Giugni, eds. New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis, 26–52. London: Routledge. Kuran, Timur. 1989. “Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution,” Public Choice, 61(1): 41–74. Kurzman, Charles. 1996. “Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in Social-Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979,” American Sociological Review, 61(1): 153–170. Landman, Todd. 2008. Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics: An Introduction. New York: Routledge. (Originally published 2000). Lefebvre, Henri. 2009. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. (Originally published 1974). Leiken, Robert S., and Steven Brooke. 2007. “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood,” Foreign Affairs, 86(2): 107–121. Leitner, Helga, Eric Sheppard, and Kristin M. Sziarto. 2008. “The Spatialities of Contentious Politics,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33(2): 157–172. Lipset, Seymor M., and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: The Free Press. Lipsky, Michael. 1970. Law and Order: Police Encounters. Chicago: Aldine. Löw, Martina. 2008. “The Constitution of Space: The Structuration of Spaces through the Simultaneity of Effect and Perception,” European Journal of Social Theory, 11(1): 25–49. ———. 2001. Raumsoziologie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2005. Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents and Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

147

El-Mahdi, Rabab. 2009a. “The Democracy Movement: Cycles of Protest.” In Rabab El-Mahdi and Philip Marfleet, eds. Egypt: The Moment of Change, 87–102. London: Zed Books. ———. 2009b. “Enough! Egypt’s Quest for Democracy,” Comparative Political Studies, 42(8): 1011–1039. ———. 2009c. “Labor as a Pro-democracy Actor in Egypt and Brazil.” Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Meeting, Toronto, ON, Canada, September. Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=1452272 el-Mahdi, Rabab, and Philip Marfleet. 2009. “Introduction.” In Rabab el-Mahdi and Philip Marfleet, eds. Egypt: The Moment of Change, 1–13. London: Zed Books. Martin, Christopher M. 2004. Framed! Labor and the Corporate Media. New York: Cornell University Press. Martin, Greg. 2011. “Showcasing Security: The Politics of Policing Space at the 2007 Sydney APEC Meeting,” Policing and Society, 21(1): 27–48. McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGreal, Chris, and Evan MacAskill. 2011. “Egyptian Opposition Says No Deal until Hosni Mubarak Steps Down.” The Guardian. February 7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/07/egyptopposition-no-deal-mubarak?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 McLaren, Margaret A. 2004. “Foucault and Feminism: Power, Resistance, Freedom.” In Dianna Taylor and Karen Vintges, eds. Feminism and the Final Foucault. 214-234. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Meyer, David S. 2004. “Protest and Political Opportunities,” Annual Review of Sociology, 30(1): 125–145. Meyer, David S., and Lindsey Lupo. 2007. “Assessing the Politics of Protest: Political Science and the Study of Social Movements.” In Bert Klandermans and Connie Roggeband, eds. Handbook of Social Movements across Disciplines, 111–156. New York: Springer Science.

148 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Meyer, David S., and Debra C. Minkoff. 2004. “Conceptualizing Political Opportunity,” Social Forces, 82(4): 1457–1492. Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: The Guilford Press. Mogalakwe, Monageng. 2006. “The Use of Documentary Research Methods in Social Research,”African Sociological Review, 10(1): 221–230. Naguib, Sameh. 2009a. “Islamism(s) Old and New.” In Rabab el-Mahdi and Philip Marfleet, eds. Egypt: The Moment of Change, 103–119. London: Zed Books. ———. 2009b. “The Muslim Brotherhood: Contradictions and Transformations.” In Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed. Political and Social Protest in Egypt, 155–174. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. El-Nahhas, Mona. 2006. “Unending Conflict.” Al-Ahram Weekly. May 18. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/795/fr3.htm Nouri, Nasser. 2008. “Clashes in Nile Delta after Strike Aborted.” Reuters. April 7.http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/07/us-egypt-strikeidUSL0648812520080407 Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ottaway, Marina, and Amr Hamzawy. 2011. “Policy Outlook: Protest Movements and Political Change in the Arab World.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. http://carnegie-mec.org/ publications/?fa=42394 Oweidat, Nadia, Cheryl Benard, Dale Stahl, Walid Kildani, Edward O’Connel, and Audra K. Grant. 2008. The Kefaya Movement: A Case Study of a Grassroots Reform Initiative. Santa Monica: Rand Cooperation. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_ MG778.pdf Pakulski, Jan, and Malcolm Waters. 1996. The Death of Class. London: Sage Publications. Parsons, Talcott, and Edward Shils. 2001. Toward a General Theory of Action: Theoretical Foundations for the Social Sciences. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers. (Originally published 1951). Pickett, Brent L. 1996. “Foucault and the Politics of Resistance,” Polity, 28(4): 445–466. Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. 1977. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon Books.

Bibliography

149

Posusney, Marsha P. 1993. “Irrational Workers: The Moral Economy of Labor Protest in Egypt,” World Politics, 46: 83–120. Reuters. 2011. “Egypt Church Blast Death Toll Rises to 23.” January 4. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/04/us-egypt-churchidUSTRE7010M020110104 ———. 2010. “Witnesses Report Rioting in Tunisian Town.” December 19. http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6BI06U20101219 Rueschemeyer, Dietrich. 1982. “On Durkheim’s Explanation of Division of Labor,” American Journal of Sociology, 88(3): 579–589. Rutherford, Bruce K. 2008. Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ryzova, Lucie. 2011. “The Battle of Muhammad Mahmud Street: Teargas, Hair Gel, and Tramadol.” http://www.jadaliyya.com/ pages/ index/3312/ the-battle-of-muhammad-mahmud-street_teargas-hairSack, Robert D. 1993. “The Power of Place and Space,” Geographical Review, 83(3): 326–329. Sadiki, Larbi. 2000. “Popular Uprisings and Arab Democratization,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 32(1): 71–95. Sami, Salonaz. 2006. “Stamp of Authority.” Al-Ahram Weekly. May 11. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/794/eg5.htm Sasnal, Patrycja. 2011. “Current Alignment of Political Forces in Egypt,” Bulletin of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, 15(232): 1-4. Sayer, Andrew. 1992. Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach. London: Routledge. (Originally published 1984). Al-Sayyid, Mustapha K. 2009. “Kefaya at a Turning Point.” In Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed. Political and Social Protest in Egypt, 45–59. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. Schemm, Paul. 2003. “Egypt Struggles to Control Anti-war Protests.” Middle East Report Press Information Note. March 31. http://www. merip.org/ mero/mero033103 ———. 2002. “Sparks of Activist Spirit in Egypt.” Middle East Report Press Information Note 90. April 13. http://www.mafhoum.com/ press3/94P1.htm Schimank, Uwe. 2000. Handeln und Strukturen: Einführung in die akteurtheoretische Soziologie. Munich: Juventa Verlag. Schroer, Markus. 2008. “‘Bringing Space Back In’: Zur Relevanz des Raums als soziologische Kategorie.” In Jörg Döring and Tristan

150 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

Thielmann, eds. Spatial Turn: Das Raumparadigma in den Kulturund Sozialwissenschaften, 125–148. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Scott, John. 2006. Documentary Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Sewell, William H. 2001. “Space in Contentious Politics.” In Ronald R. Aminzade, Jack A. Goldstone, Doug McAdam, Elizabeth J. Perry, William H. Sewell, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, eds. Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, 51–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shams el-Din, Mai. 2011. “5,000 Civilians Tried in Military Courts, Say Human Rights Watch.” The Daily News Egypt. April 29. http:// www.dailynewsegypt.com/2011/04/29/5000-civilians-tried-inmilitary-courts-says-human-rights-watch/ Shehata, Dina. 2010. Islamists and Secularists in Egypt: Opposition, Conflict, and Cooperation. London: Routledge. Shenker, Jack. 2010.“Protest in Egypt against Gamal Mubarak Succession Plans.” The Guardian. September 21. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2010/sep/21/protests-egypt-gamal-mubarak-succession Shenker, Jack, Peter Beaumont, Ian Black, and Chris McGreal. 2011. “Hosni Mubarak Vows to Stand Down at Next Election—But Not Now.” The Guardian. February 2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2011/feb/01/hosni-mubarak-egypt-president Sherry, Virginia N. 1993. “Security Forces’ Practices in Egypt,” Criminal Justice Ethics, 12(2): 42–44. Shigetomi, Shinichi. 2009. “Rethinking Theories on Social Movements and Development.” In Shinichi Shigetomi and Kumiko Makino, eds. Protests and Social Movements in the Developing World, 1–18. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Shigetomi, Shinichi, and Kumiko Makino, eds. 2009. Protests and Social Movements in the Developing World. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Shorbagy, Manar. 2007. “The Egyptian Movement for Change— Kefaya: Redefining Politics in Egypt,” Public Culture, 19(1): 175–196. “Silent Stands.” 2010. http://www.elshaheeed.co.uk/silent-stands/ Singerman, Diane. 2011. “Unmasking Mubarak’s ‘Chaos.’” Foreign Policy. January 30. http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/30/ unmasking_mubarak_s_chaos

Bibliography

151

Slackman, Michael. 2010. “Labor Protests Test Egypt’s Government.” The New York Times. April 28. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/ world/ middleeast/29egypt.html Slackman, Michael, and Mona El-Naggar. 2006. “Police Beat Crowds Backing Egypt’s Judges.” The New York Times. May 12. http://www. nytimes.com/ 2006/05/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html Springborg, Robert. 2009. “Protest against a Hybrid State: Words without Meaning?” In Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed. Political and Social Protest in Egypt, 6–18. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. Stack, Liam. 2011. “Complaints of Abuse in Army Custody.” The New York Times. March 17. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/ middleeast/ 18cairo.html?pagewanted=all Stack, Megan. 2005. “Police Break Up Anti-Mubarak Protest.” The Age. August 1. http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/police-breakup-antimubarak-protest/2005/07/31/1122748527373.html Stüver, Anke. 2009.“Grundlagen und zentrale Begriffe der Foucault’schen Diskurstheorie.” In Georg Glasze and Annika Mattisek, eds. Handbuch Diskurs und Raum, 61–82. Bielefeld: Transcript. Sullivan, Denis J., and Kimberly Jones. 2008. Global Security Watch— Egypt: A Reference Handbook. Westport: Praeger. Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2004. On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tansey, Oisín. 2009. “Process Tracing and Elite Interviews: A Case for Non-probability Sampling.” In Susanne Pickel, Gert Pickel, et al., eds. Methoden der vergleichenden Politik- und Sozialwissenschaft: Neue Entwicklungen und Anwendungen, 481–496. Wiesbaden: VS. Tarrow, Sidney. 2011. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published 1994). Taylor, Verta, and Nella Van Dyke. 2004. “‘Get Up, Stand Up’: Tactical Repertoires of Social Movements.” In David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 262–293. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Tilly, Charles. 2006. Regimes and Repertoires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1986. The Contentious French: Four Centuries of Popular Struggle. Cambridge: Belknap Press.

152 Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011

United States Institute for Peace. 2009. Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute for Peace Press. Unwin, Tim. 2000. “A Waste of Space? Towards a Critique of the Social Production of Space,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 25(1): 11–29. Vairel, Frédéric. 2011. “Protesting in Authoritarian Situations: Egypt and Morocco in Comparative Perspective.” In Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel, eds. Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, 27–42. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Veltmeyer, Henry. 1997. “New Social Movements in Latin America: The Dynamics of Class and Identity,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 25(1): 139–169. Wahlström, Matthias. 2011. “The Making of Protest and Protest Policing: Negotiation, Space, and Narrative,” Göteborg Studies in Sociology, 47: 1–83. ———. 2010. “Producing Spaces for Representation: Racist Marches, Counterdemonstrations, and Public-order Policing,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28: 811–827. Walgrave, Stefaan, and Dieter Rucht. 2010. “Introduction.” In Stefaan Walgrave and Dieter Rucht, eds., The World Says No to War: Demonstrations against the War on Iraq, xiii–xxvi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Warf, Barney, and Santa Arias. 2009. “Introduction: The Reinsertion of Space into the Social Sciences and Humanities.” In Barney Warf and Santa Arias, eds. The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 1–10. London: Routledge. Weber, Max. 1972. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Wickham, Carrie R. 2004. “The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party,” Comparative Politics, 36(2): 205–228. ———. 2002. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York: Columbia University Press. Wiktorowicz, Quintan, ed. 2004. Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Bibliography

153

Willis, Bob. 2011. “U.K.’s Cameron Urges Peaceful Democratic Reforms in Egypt in CNN Interview.” Bloomberg. January 30. http://www. bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-30/u-k-s-cameron-urges-peacefuldemocratic-reforms-in-egypt-in-cnn-interview.html Wolff, Christian. 2008. Die ägyptische Muslimbruderschaft: Von der Utopie zur Realpolitik. Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag. Wright, Jonathan. 2005. “Egyptians Hold Largest Anti-Mubarak Protest Yet.” Free Republic. February 21. http://www.freerepublic. com/focus/f-news/1347886/posts Zajko, Mike, and Daniel Béland. 2008. “Space and Protest Policing at International Summits,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26: 719–735.

About the Author Dimitris Soudias is an independent researcher who has worked for the Free University of Berlin’s Center of Middle Eastern and North African Politics as well as the Yemen Polling Center, Sana‘a. He holds a graduate diploma in Middle East studies from the American University in Cairo and an MA in political science from Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity Erlangen-Nuremberg. This monograph is based on his MA thesis.

154

CAIRO PAPERS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

Volume One, 1977–1978

1 2 3 4 5

Women, Health and Development, Cynthia Nelson, ed. Democracy in Egypt, Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, ed. Mass Communications and the October War, Olfat Hassan Agha Rural Resettlement in Egypt, Helmy Tadros Saudi Arabian Bedouin, Saad E. Ibrahim and Donald P. Cole

Volume Two, 1978–1979 1 2 3 4 5

Coping With Poverty in a Cairo Community, Andrea B. Rugh Modernization of Labor in the Arab Gulf, Enid Hill Studies in Egyptian Political Economy, Herbert M. Thompson Law and Social Change in Contemporary Egypt, Cynthia Nelson and Klaus Friedrich Koch, eds. The Brain Drain in Egypt, Saneya Saleh

Volume Three, 1979–1980 1 2 3 4 5

Party and Peasant in Syria, Raymond Hinnebusch Child Development in Egypt, Nicholas V. Ciaccio Living Without Water, Asaad Nadim et al. Export of Egyptian School Teachers, Suzanne A. Messiha Population and Urbanization in Morocco, Saad E. Ibrahim

Volume Four, 1980–1981

1 Cairo’s Nubian Families, Peter Geiser 2, 3 Symposium on Social Research for Development: Proceedings, Social Research Center 4 Women and Work in the Arab World, Earl L. Sullivan and Karima Korayem

Volume Five, 1982 1 2 3

Ghagar of Sett Guiranha: A Study of a Gypsy Community in Egypt, Nabil Sobhi Hanna Distribution of Disposal Income and the Impact of Eliminating Food Subsidies in Egypt, Karima Korayem Income Distribution and Basic Needs in Urban Egypt, Amr Mohie el-Din

155

156 Volume Six, 1983 1 2 3 4

The Political Economy of Revolutionary Iran, Mihssen Kadhim Urban Research Strategies in Egypt, Richard A. Lobban, ed. Non-alignment in a Changing World, Mohammed el-Sayed Selim, ed. The Nationalization of Arabic and Islamic Education in Egypt: Dar al-Alum and al-Azhar, Lois A. Arioan

Volume Seven, 1984 1 2 3 4

Social Security and the Family in Egypt, Helmi Tadros Basic Needs, Inflation and the Poor of Egypt, Myrette el-Sokkary The Impact of Development Assistance On Egypt, Earl L. Sullivan, ed. Irrigation and Society in Rural Egypt, Sohair Mehanna, Richard Huntington, and Rachad Antonius

Volume Eight, 1985

1, 2 Analytic Index of Survey Research in Egypt, Madiha el-Safty, Monte Palmer, and Mark Kennedy

Volume Nine, 1986 1 2 3 4

Philosophy, Ethics and Virtuous Rule, Charles E. Butterworth The ‘Jihad’: An Islamic Alternative in Egypt, Nemat Guenena The Institutionalization of Palestinian Identity in Egypt, Maha A. Dajani Social Identity and Class in a Cairo Neighborhood, Nadia A. Taher

Volume Ten, 1987

1 2 3 4

Al-Sanhuri and Islamic Law, Enid Hill Gone For Good, Ralph Sell The Changing Image of Women in Rural Egypt, Mona Abaza Informal Communities in Cairo: the Basis of a Typology, Linda Oldham, Haguer el Hadidi, and Hussein Tamaa

Volume Eleven, 1988 1 2 3 4

Participation and Community in Egyptian New Lands: The Case of South Tahrir, Nicholas Hopkins et al. Palestinian Universities Under Occupation, Antony T. Sullivan Legislating Infitah: Investment, Foreign Trade and Currency Laws, Khaled M. Fahmy Social History of An Agrarian Reform Community in Egypt, Reem Saad

157 Volume Twelve, 1989 1

2 3 4

Cairo’s Leap Forward: People, Households, and Dwelling Space, Fredric Shorter Women, Water, and Sanitation: Household Water Use in Two Egyptian Villages, Samiha el-Katsha et al. Palestinian Labor in a Dependent Economy: Women Workers in the West Bank Clothing Industry, Randa Siniora The Oil Question in Egyptian-Israeli Relations, 1967–1979: A Study in International Law and Resource Politics, Karim Wissa

Volume Thirteen, 1990 1 2 3 4

Squatter Markets in Cairo, Helmi R. Tadros, Mohamed Feteeha, and Allen Hibbard The Sub-culture of Hashish Users in Egypt: A Descriptive Analytic Study, Nashaat Hassan Hussein Social Background and Bureaucratic Behavior in Egypt, Earl L. Sullivan, el Sayed Yassin, Ali Leila, and Monte Palmer Privatization: the Egyptian Debate, Mostafa Kamel el-Sayyid

Volume Fourteen, 1991 1 2 3 4

Perspectives on the Gulf Crisis, Dan Tschirgi and Bassam Tibi Experience and Expression: Life Among Bedouin Women in South Sinai, Deborah Wickering Impact of Temporary International Migration on Rural Egypt, Atef Hanna Nada Informal Sector in Egypt, Nicholas S. Hopkins ed.

Volume Fifteen, 1992 1 2 3

4

Scenes of Schooling: Inside a Girls’ School in Cairo, Linda Herrera Urban Refugees: Ethiopians and Eritreans in Cairo, Dereck Cooper Investors and Workers in the Western Desert of Egypt: An Exploratory Survey, Naeim Sherbiny, Donald Cole, and Nadia Makary Environmental Challenges in Egypt and the World, Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed.

158 Volume Sixteen, 1993 1 2 3 4

The Socialist Labor Party: A Case Study of a Contemporary Egyptian Opposition Party, Hanaa Fikry Singer The Empowerment of Women: Water and Sanitation Initiatives in Rural Egypt, Samiha el Katsha and Susan Watts The Economics and Politics of Structural Adjustment in Egypt: Third Annual Symposium Experiments in Community Development in a Zabbaleen Settlement, Marie Assaad and Nadra Garas

Volume Seventeen, 1994 1

2 3 4

Democratization in Rural Egypt: A Study of the Village Local Popular Council, Hanan Hamdy Radwan Farmers and Merchants: Background for Structural Adjustment in Egypt, Sohair Mehanna, Nicholas S. Hopkins, and Bahgat Abdelmaksoud Human Rights: Egypt and the Arab World, Fourth Annual Symposium Environmental Threats in Egypt: Perceptions and Actions, Salwa S. Gomaa, ed.

Volume Eighteen, 1995

1 2 3 4

Social Policy in the Arab World, Jacqueline Ismael and Tareq Y. Ismael Workers, Trade Union and the State in Egypt: 1984–1989, Omar el-Shafie The Development of Social Science in Egypt: Economics, History and Sociology; Fifth Annual Symposium Structural Adjustment, Stabilization Policies and the Poor in Egypt, Karima Korayem

Volume Nineteen, 1996 1 2 3 4

Nilopolitics: A Hydrological Regime, 1870–1990, Mohamed Hatem elAtawy Images of the Other: Europe and the Muslim World Before 1700, David R. Blanks et al. Grass Roots Participation in the Development of Egypt, Saad Eddin Ibrahim et al. The Zabbalin Community of Muqattam, Elena Volpi and Doaa Abdel Motaal

159 Volume Twenty, 1997 1 2 3 4

Class, Family, and Power in an Egyptian Village, Samer el-Karanshawy The Middle East and Development in a Changing World, Donald Heisel, ed. Arab Regional Women’s Studies Workshop, Cynthia Nelson and Soraya Altorki, eds. “Just a Gaze”: Female Clientele of Diet Clinics in Cairo: An Ethnomedical Study, Iman Farid Bassyouny

Volume Twenty-one, 1998 1 2 3 4

Turkish Foreign Policy During the Gulf War of 1990–1991, Mostafa Aydin State and Industrial Capitalism in Egypt, Samer Soliman Twenty Years of Development in Egypt (1977–1997): Part I, Mark C. Kennedy Twenty Years of Development in Egypt (1977–1997): Part II, Mark C. Kennedy

Volume Twenty-two, 1999 1 2 3 4

Poverty and Poverty Alleviation Strategies in Egypt, Ragui Assaad and Malak Rouchdy Between Field and Text: Emerging Voices in Egyptian Social Science, Seteney Shami and Linda Hererra, eds. Masters of the Trade: Crafts and Craftspeople in Cairo, 1750–1850, Pascale Ghazaleh Discourses in Contemporary Egypt: Politics and Social Issues, Enid Hill, ed.

Volume Twenty-three, 2000 1 2 3 4

Fiscal Policy Measures in Egypt: Public Debt and Food Subsidy, Gouda Abdel-Khalek and Karima Korayem New Frontiers in the Social History of the Middle East, Enid Hill, ed. Egyptian Encounters, Jason Thompson, ed. Women’s Perception of Environmental Change in Egypt, Eman el Ramly

Volume Twenty-four, 2001

1, 2 The New Arab Family, Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed. 3 An Investigation of the Phenomenon of Polygyny in Rural Egypt, Laila S. Shahd 4 The Terms of Empowerment: Islamic Women Activists in Egypt, Sherine Hafez

160 Volume Twenty-five, 2002

1, 2 Elections in the Middle East: What do they Mean? Iman A. Hamdy, ed. 3 Employment Crisis of Female Graduates in Egypt: An Ethnographic Account, Ghada F. Barsoum 4 Palestinian and Israeli Nationalism: Identity Politics and Education in Jerusalem, Evan S. Weiss

Volume Twenty-six, 2003 1 2 3 4

Culture and Natural Environment: Ancient and Modern Middle Eastern Texts, Sharif S. Elmusa, ed. Street Children in Egypt: Group Dynamics and Subcultural Constituents, Nashaat Hussein IMF–Egyptian Debt Negotiations, Bessma Momani Forced Migrants and Host Societies in Egypt and Sudan, Fabienne Le Houérou

Volume Twenty-seven, 2004

1, 2 Cultural Dynamics in Contemporary Egypt, Maha Abdelrahman, Iman A. Hamdy, Malak Rouchdy, and Reem Saad (eds.) 3 The Role of Local Councils in Empowerment and Poverty Reduction, Solava Ibrahim 4 Beach Politics: Gender and Sexuality in Dahab, Mutafa Abdalla

Volume Twenty-eight, 2005 1

Creating Families Across Boundaries: A Case Study of Romanian/Egyptian Mixed Marriages, Ana Vinea 2, 3 Pioneering Feminist Anthropology in Egypt: Selected Writings from Cynthia Nelson, Martina Rieker, ed. 4 Roses in Salty Soil: Women and Depression in Egypt Today. Dalia A. Mostafa

Volume Twenty-nine, 2006 1

Crossing Borders, Shifting Boundaries: Palestinian Dilemmas, Sari Hanafi, ed. 2, 3 Political and Social Protest in Egypt, Nicholas S. Hopkins, ed. 4 The Experience of Protest: Masculinity and Agency among Sudanese Refugees in Cairo, Martin T. Rowe

161 Volume Thirty, 2007 1

2 3 4

Child Protection Policies in Egypt: A Rights-Based Approach, Adel Azer, Sohair Mehanna, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Essam Ali “The Farthest Place”: Social Boundaries in an Egyptian Desert Community, Joseph Viscomi The New York Egyptians: Voyages and Dreams, Yasmine M. Ahmed The Burden of Resources: Oil and Water in the Gulf and the Nile Basin, Sharif S. Elmusa, ed.

Volume Thirty-one, 2008 1

Humanist Perspectives on Sacred Space, David Blanks, Bradley S. Clough, eds. 2 Law as a Tool for Empowering Women within Marital Relations: A Case Study of Paternity Lawsuits in Egypt, Hind Ahmed Zaki 3,4 Visual Productions of Knowledge: Toward a Different Middle East, Hanan Sabea, Mark R. Westmoreland, eds.

Volume Thirty-two, 2009 1 2 3 4

Planning Egypt’s New Settlements: The Politics of Spatial Inequities, Dalia Wahdan Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad Femininity and Dance in Egypt: Embodiment and Meaning in al-Raqs alBaladi, Noha Roushdy Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Street, 2000–2011, Dimitris Soudias