Back to Tahrir Square – May 27: Second Friday of Anger
Calls are increasing for a new “march of millions” to Tahrir Square next Friday, May 27.
Some are dubbing it the “Second Friday of Anger”, the first such Friday being the horrific 28th of January, during which more protesters were killed or wounded than on any other day in the 18 day-revolution. That’s a very strong name to attach to the protest day, and it’s implications cannot be ignored. The potentiality of an army crackdown on Tahrir Square, on a protest with such a “big name” and with a strong calling for, would have serious negative consequences for all of us. If I feel the revolution is slipping away, a cataclysm like an army crackdown on us would send the revolution down a spiral, and we’d lose the support of much of the Egyptian people, who would readily support the army, stability and a slow pace of reform any day over the alternatives we’re presenting.
Now, I’m not calling for or against the May 27 protests. I’m not here to scare you off and list endless woes into which the nation is being plunged because of ‘your protest actions’, nor am I urging you to go down on that day to ‘save the revolution’. I simply want to rationally examine the protest’s demands, their reasonableness, and possible consequences.
The demands are as follows.
Economic Demands:
■Setting minimum and maximum wage limits
■Conducting a redistribution of wealth to solve Egypt’s economical crisis
■Setting price controls
■Implementing a policy of progressive taxation
■Putting on trial all corrupt businessmen and confiscating their property and finances
Political Demands:
■An extensive return of the security forces
■Putting Hosny Mubarak on trial for the charge of grand treason
■Supervision of the new National Security Agency (جهاز الأمن الوطني) by the judiciary and by civil rights organizations
■Prosecution of all police officers involved in killing protesters
■Dissolving the local (municipal) councils
■Dissolving the Central Security Forces or integrating it into the military establishment
■Ensuring Egyptians living abroad can practice their right to vote
■Relieving Yehya el-Gamal from his position as Vice Prime Minister
■Prosecuting Omar Suleiman
Civil Rights:
■Putting an end to the practice of subjecting civilians to military trials
■Granting all civilians who had been given sentences by military courts re-trials in civilian courts
■Completely banning all use of violence in dispersing protests
■Purging the media
There. I think that just about the whole lot of them. Generally the demands sound reasonable, but there are some issues with them.
Economic Demands
The economic demands for the most look good on paper or in theory, but in modest opinion (I am no economist after all) they seem to involve more than a few problems.
Now, I’m all for a respectable minimum wage (suggestions point to roughly 1200 LE) and for reasonable wage ceilings. I’m also for progressive taxation. But with the economy tumbling, the nation’s financial reserve fading away, the currency depreciating, and inflation skyrocketing, minimum wage only aggravates the negative rates of these indicators. Much of the domestic industry won’t be able support the minimum wage, and foreign investors (who are already in low supply these days) will pack their lot and head to cheaper labor areas. Some damage can be avoided via wage ceilings, although that sounds like a policy to be adopted by a future elected government, not by an interim government. Initiating a policy of progressive tax seems totally feasible at the current stage.
Then there are two demands that ring unpleasant bells; price controls and wealth redistribution. If anything, these two policies, inherited from Gamal Abdel Nasser’s socialist era, are almost as bad if not worse than the highly free market system and vicious privatization programs pursued by Mubarak’s regime. Aside the injustices of simply collecting from the wealthy (assuming they’ve amassed their wealth through legitimate means), isn’t the policy of maintaining the price controls, along with the subsequent billions spent in state subsidies on an endless list of goods, one of the primary reasons Egypt’s economy is in shambles today? For all what we’ve been through, we’re supposed to gradually move AWAY from the incredibly disastrous price control system; not resort to more price controls and inevitably more subsidies, as if the state wasn’t handling enough expenditure already.
As for the concept of prosecuting corrupt businessmen. Well, I’m a law student, and this here is my ball game, so allow me. For all the non-independence of the judiciary, and the corruption that was rife in this country, we still have laws that draw from a unique legacy of over 150 years of law-making in this country. If we plan to move on to a democratic, civil state that is run by institutions, then we must have faith in our judicial process, in the public prosecutor’s office, in our courts, and in institutions such as the Illicit Gains Authority (جهاز الكسب الغير مشروع) headed by Gawdat el-Malt. In that case, we either submit complaints supported with evidence to the public prosecutor’s office, or support investigations being conducted by said judicial bodies with evidence all the same.
But protesting to call upon the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to prosecute ‘corrupt businessmen’ with such generalization, while simultaneously demanding specific sentences involving confiscation of their property regardless of what the law says, is nothing but severely damaging to the judicial institutions and their already meagre independence. In addition to frightening businessmen into leaving the country due to the incredibly diminutive generalization that decreed all their kind to be ‘corrupt’, it also puts extreme pressure on the ability of judges to operate neutrally and deliver justice. What’s more serious is how SCAF is potentially manipulating us by saving some corrupt members of the former regime for future prosecution whenever public anger rises and needs to be stifled. The way they hastily rounded up over a hundred individuals after the sectarian strife in Imbaba (despite not yet finding a single culprit responsible for very similar events in Atfih, Helwan) and quickly handed them over to military courts, supports the idea that SCAF resorts on presenting ‘former members of the regime and thugs’ for prosecution if they think it’ll satisfy public consumption. The civil judiciary feels it has been appointed the role of the ‘people’s butchers’, and that inevitably affects their efforts to serve justice.
Political Demands
All the former holds true for Mubarak, Omar Suleiman, and all the police and intelligence officers involved in torture and in killing protesters. Unless SCAF is sheltering them (and there’s no evidence for that whatsoever), then we have no choice but to follow the judicial process; protesting and calling on SCAF to submit them to prosecution is, as I’ve already said, very detrimental to our civil judicial institutions.
That said, I of course fully support that the police forces should return in force and intensify their presence on the street. I think SCAF and the interim government are already working on that, and I fail to see how calling for a return of the police amidst demonstrations in Tahrir Square will quicken that process.
On the Central Security Forces (CSF), I think both suggestions are over simplistic and not entirely in touch with reality. CSF currently serves the role of the riot police. Owing to our exceptionally autocratic history, our nation’s riot police is particularly huge, enormous in size, and placing them as riot police under the general hierarchy of the police institution was impractical, so CSF was instead designated as an independent body under the Ministry of the Interior. Thus CSF cannot, as a paramilitary riot police force, be redesignated as just another service branch (like the army or the air force) under the military institution. Besides, SCAF doesn’t want its venerable and well-reputed military to be associated with such a dastardly and brutal organization.
I know we all hate the Central Security Forces, with their demonic black uniforms and their extremely violent crackdowns against protesters. But every nation in the world needs a riot police force, and dissolving it is entirely out of question. Of course CSF needs to be reformed and be more compliant with the nature of a democratic state. Concurrent with this it also needs to be reorganized, so that it becomes an ordinary rather than paramilitary riot police force, and part of the police institution, not an independent organization in the Ministry of the Interior.
I’m not all critical of the May 27 demands though. Ensuring that Egyptians living abroad will be able to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming elections is crucial and essential to the determining the future of our democratic state. These people really represent some of the brighter minds our nation has and they number upwards of 5 million; a substantial and influential force in any election. Also, a supervision of the NSA by the judicial institution is very important; supervision by civil rights organizations would raise issues of jeopardizing sensitive or classified information. An independent judiciary won’t raise such concerns, and will be able to ensure NSA’s activities conform to the constitution and do not violate our civil rights.
Oh, btw, local municipal councils seem to be on their way to being dissolved, but I’m not sure why the delay:
Minister of Justice: Municipal Councils to be Dissolved Soon
Yehya el-Gamal: Municipal Councils will be Dissolved Soon
Which brings us to: Yeyha el-Gamal. Now, I realize there’s been much commotion against the man, but to be honest, I’ve never completely grasped why. I personally view him as the driving administrative and bureaucratic force behind the current cabinet.
Civil Rights
The practice of referring civilians to military courts has long been controversial and hated. Ending this practice and granting civilians who had been given sentences in military courts retrials in civilian courts would be the natural and preferred course of action. Certainly however, not now.
In these extreme times, it’s somewhat of a paradox that the hated and draconian Emergency Law is now direly needed to combat an unprecedented lack of security and high rates of crime and thuggery. The government even issued new laws specifically targeting thuggery, assigning the punishment of execution for that crime, and outlawing protests that hamper work at public or private institutions. Yet over and over, SCAF and the interim cabinet have proved extremely hesitant at taking decisive action at anyone other than the pampered protesters and activists of Tahrir Square. The railway link between Cairo and Aswan was blocked by demonstrators at Qena for days on end; an act of thuggery – if it wasn’t to be punished, the railway should’ve at least been reopened by force if necessary, to ensure the hegemony of the state in these difficult times. More than once, demonstrators occupied the area outside the State TV Building at Maspiro, and completely blocked the road adjacent to the Nile River; an outlawed demonstration since it hampered the work of numerous public and private institutions as well as that of individuals. Yet no action was taken, not even a minor effort to convince the protesters not to block the main road on the Nile. When the Coptic protesters at Maspiro were attacked during the night of May 15, sixteen of the thugs were captured by the authorities and this time were handed over to civilian criminal courts. At the first session, the court listened to the prosecutor and to the defense, then adjourned the court to a future session. It did NOT issue any sentences whatsoever. Yet, families present were so angry the court didn’t free their detained relatives, they ended up smashing the courthouse.
Aside the fact that the judiciary is extremely overwhelmed and overburdened processing the endless cases relating to corruption, torture, and the killing of protesters, it is also unable to find adequate protection. This is something that military courts have no problem with; they’re part of the military institution, and an attack on them will incur the wrath of the entire Armed Forces. All this ought to give us cause for consideration regarding whether or not we should call for an end to the prosecution of civilians in military courts.
The call to ban all use of violence against protesters is also unfeasible. Not every protest is righteous, and most protests tend to result in businesses being strangled. Releasing the reins off all forms of protests would be very chaotic for the country and its struggling economy; protests have after all become a fashionable activity.
I totally agree with the continuing the media purge though. In fact, it needs to be pursued even more aggressively. The state media reaches a far greater audience than the private media, it would greatly assist in our revolution’s cause, and it’s a demand I fully support. That said, the administrative State Council seems set on taking a major stride in that direction.
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