In a monthly meeting, organised by All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM), Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan, Editor, Milli Gazette and President AIMMM, spoke about as to how the political situation in Egypt changed since the inception of Arab Spring, starting from Tunisia and then spilling over to all across the Arab world. “The revolution that we have witnessed in the last one year and a half is the most drastic change in the history of the country,” he said.
Egypt has always remained a link between the east and the west and it has enjoyed the central position among all the Arab countries, from Morocco to Oman. Right from 1882, when it became a colony of the British and till the Arab spring, Egyptians remained under tremendous oppression and suppression. The transfer of power from British to the Egyptian army did not change anything except the face of the ruler. The revolution or military coup of July 26, 1952 led by Gamal Abdel Nasser was something significant, yet the ground reality remained the same.
The oppression was so entrenched and the condition so horrible that even after three months of the revolution, the intelligence reports of the country were used to be handed over to the British officials. It is also said that the revolution of 1952 was backed by CIA as USA, at that point of time, was supporting the independence movement in countries for its own covert reasons.
However, within two years, Nasser turned hostile from the USA as they stopped the supply of arms which was necessary for Egypt to fight with Israel. This attitude of the USA made it make alliance with Russia, which in turn readily supplied it arms. Then came the 1967 war in which Israel captured large areas including Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, Gaza, West Bank, etc. It was Anwar Sadat who later signed the Camp David Accords and became the first Arab country to recognise Israel and accepted the proposal of peace. He cut himself from the rest of the Arab world and accepted the American aid in return worth Rs. $ 2500 million annually.
The suppression of the masses began once again, but this time it reached new heights. Every Egyptian’s details were there in the intelligence so as to make sure that they do not rise against the regime. Anyone, whom they doubted, was illegally picked up and no one would hear of him again. Since 1957, Egypt has remained in a state of emergency and hence all the rights of citizens remained curtailed. Eighty million (total population of the country) files were opened by the intelligence and anyone, on whom they had the slightest of doubt, would be persecuted severely or killed. No one could form any party nor can anyone raise its voice, even for the basic rights.
Corruption was rampant and government coffers were overflowing with money of the people. It was at this time that the revolution in Tunisia erupted which resulted in regime change in the country. This gave boost to the morale of Egyptians and they came on to streets with the demand of ouster of Mubarak. One can understand the situation of corruption in Egypt from the fact that Ahmad Shafiq, whom Mubarak handed over some powers while leaving, left Egypt with a whopping 7110 suitcases. One can easily imagine what could have been in those suitcases.
Tahrir Square became the centre for people to gather to demand their rights. A girl’s Facebook status helped in mobilising the masses. On January 25, 2011, the girl wrote, “Whether anyone comes or not, I am leaving for Tahrir Square.” The next day an unprecedented crowd reached the Tahrir Square. Initially the government thought that they would be able to handle the situation by using whip and batons, however even the use of force turned out to be a futile activity. It, in fact, aggravated the situation more and made Egyptians as a one cohesive unit. They even released 30,000 criminals from jails and gave them orders to thrash and thwart the crowd but soon they also realised that the crowd cannot be quelled.
Seeing the situation, Mubarak left and handed over the powers. During the initial days of revolution, Muslim Brotherhood had no idea as to how to respond to the situation. They had no clue at all and were boggled by the developments. This is the reason why in the initial days they gave statements saying they would not file nominations for the PM candidature, etc. However later they entered the political arena and successfully managed to secure 222 seats in Parliament, whereas the Salafist secured 122 seats. Together the pro-Islam parties managed to get around 70 per cent of the seats and the situation began to change in a positive direction.
“At this point I must say that if the same elections would have taken place some 30 years ago, the result would have been the same, that is the pro-Islam parties would have won the elections,” he added.
The west did try to influence the elections and political developments in Egypt as they are only interested in those democracies in the countries where it can continue to serve its vested interests, instead of the democracies in which people get benefit. Before the elections there was a virulent propaganda against Mohamed Morsi, not even by private media, but by the government-run media as well, but Morsi managed to sweep clear through the things and the recent scrapping of the Constitutional Order, after which he suspended many army personnel, is a significant step. The situation is going to be better in the near future, he added.