“We’ve agreed on a plan,” says a young man, as if carrying tablets down from the mountain. He shows us photos of his once-beaten face on his mobile phone. “We have a new initiative. Yes, we argued a lot amongst ourselves but now we’re going places.” But he won’t say where.
In the square, stories abound of sexual abuse. A woman is reported to have been raped last month in one of the tents, another was groped after she’d spoken at the podium and had to punch her way through a crowd of jeering men, none of whom lifted a finger to help her.
So even the moral high ground seems to have packed up and gone elsewhere. And with it one of the better-known presidential hopefuls — Mohamed Elbaradei, erstwhile champion of many revolutionaries — who didn’t want to play the game anymore because he didn’t like the rules. Or lack of them.
The military, he said, had assumed control of Egypt “as if no revolution had taken place and no regime had fallen.” And he may be right.
In December the generals did something that in almost any other country would have been outrageous and unimaginable. They offered the central bank a billion–dollar loan to help it through hard times.
Let’s be clear about this: The military high command was offering to loan the Egyptian people money that rightfully belongs to the country anyway — money that is exempt from public scrutiny and on which, as far as anyone can tell, not a penny in tax has ever been paid.
Of course the military has been allowed to run its own finances for decades. But consider this: In these days of political turmoil it takes a supremely confident and powerful group of men to offer the country back its own money and dress it up as largesse.
The move provoked not a single squeak of indignation from a new Parliament that has attached far greater importance to discussing when it should talk and when it should pray. Apparently, no one from this assembly is about to ask any awkward questions about this billion, or any other billion in military accounts. So the army can relax after all — the good times are here to stay.
Parliament’s unwillingness to confront the generals is understandable. After all, they still have higher than 80 percent approval ratings across the country — and they’re still making the key decisions. But it does mean that the new politicians’ first days at school risk being defined by what they won’t do, rather than what they will.
A recent survey of the assembly’s political parties, conducted by Amnesty International, found, for instance, a depressingly patchy response to the question of women’s rights and very little appetite to campaign for female equality.
More alarming, though, is the re-emergence of fear. Once again, I was told, Egyptians are starting to look over their shoulder to see who might be listening, to be careful what they say on the phone, to begin considering all over again who they can and cannot trust.
“The intelligence services are extremely active,” says a well-known commentator.
Fear has been a major by-product of the crisis over American NGOs, now facing prosecution in Egyptian courts and accusations that they were operating illegally in the country. Other foreign-funded organizations report a new hesitation from their Egyptian partners, a “let’s-put-this-on-hold” attitude, a sense that foreigners may become toxic.
That is serious. If the old curtain of fear descends again over Egypt then the climate could be right for a return to full-strength dictatorship. Fear would give it the power.
Of course “it” is chaotic. Of course “it” will take time. But few can agree what “it” is and large swathes of the public no longer seem interested.
Big Egypt, which creaked and trundled about its business for decades, is crying out for some certainty, some normality. The poor want to eat; the business community wants and needs to earn money; one in seven people, employed by the tourist industry, are desperate for the holiday makers to come back. And no one can understand why the dying goes on incessantly in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere.
I don’t hear too many predictions about Egypt’s future. But let me cite a couple of strong impressions: Egyptians have tasted revolution and will likely want to do so again. And no leader here can ever again count on a compliant, docile population.
For now, though, the share-out of spoils from last year’s revolt is more or less complete. Real power has gone back to the military; a Parliament of new faces gets to do the talking; a president is due to be elected later this year.
The only people who don’t seem to know that this uprising is over still argue and dream and make speeches in Tahrir Square.
___________________________________________________________
Tim Sebastian is a television journalist and chairman of The New Arab Debates. The International Herald Tribune
