Ahdaf Soueif
by Ahdaf Soueif
After the presidential elections there’s a subdued air about Cairo. Flag-sellers wave their leftovers at passing traffic: half-price flags, but nobody stops.
In the Tahrir wilderness, unrecognisable now from the swirling, buzzing, gallant place it was three years ago, a man stands alone at the edge of the central island. He is old and silent, and he carries a banner with a picture of the new president and the legend: “Congratulations Egypt!”
A camera stands on a tripod with nothing much to film. A knot of people is gathered nearby. They are in a kind of rugby scrum, and it’s impossible to make out what they’re doing. Cars honk impatiently and refuse to give way to one other.
Two elderly men yell angrily from the window of a car with posters of the president-elect, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, plastered all over it. Sisi supporters should be happy, yet they seem angry, their shouts scolding the passersby rather than inviting them to share the joy.
Like a sci-fi monster, the blocks of the old regime break and dissolve only to rise again in a new configuration. In the later Mubarak years, the president held the balance and the peace between his family and their capitalist cronies on the one side, and the military on the other. The security establishment served the president and his friends, with no love lost between them and the military.
As the government abandoned its responsibilities in education, health and social services, the Muslim Brotherhood picked up the slack. It built up its own web of patronage, never challenging the government enough to scupper the deals over seats in parliament and opportunities to make money.
Now the building blocks are morphing into a new arrangement. The military have been voted into the presidential palace.
They are trying to build bridges with the security establishment; they need them to quell dissent.
They’ve made themselves the channel through which Gulf money will come into the country, and they’ll use it to establish a network of business cronies.
The Brotherhood is out in the cold, ousted last July and declared a terrorist organisation, but it would probably be allowed back in if it settled for its old, compromised opposition role.
And what of the biggest block of all, the people? Hosni Mubarak, in his later years, thought he could ignore popular protest. He was proved wrong. Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood president, made the same mistake – to his cost.
Field Marshal Sisi courted the people, crooned to them. But the wafer-like thinness of this amour was exposed on the first day of presidential elections, on Monday, when the masses failed to show up. Television anchors and media celebrities became hysterical, berating, lambasting and insulting the Egyptian people for their “apathy”.
By day two – hastily declared a holiday – huge speakers mounted on patrolling vans alternated love songs to the military with rants at people to “leave their air conditioning” and come out and vote. Shopping malls closed early.
The government swore it would fine nonvoters half a month’s minimum wage. Even so, they had to extend voting to a third day to get the numbers. THE GUARDIAN
by Ahdaf Soueif
After the presidential elections there’s a subdued air about Cairo. Flag-sellers wave their leftovers at passing traffic: half-price flags, but nobody stops.
In the Tahrir wilderness, unrecognisable now from the swirling, buzzing, gallant place it was three years ago, a man stands alone at the edge of the central island. He is old and silent, and he carries a banner with a picture of the new president and the legend: “Congratulations Egypt!”
A camera stands on a tripod with nothing much to film. A knot of people is gathered nearby. They are in a kind of rugby scrum, and it’s impossible to make out what they’re doing. Cars honk impatiently and refuse to give way to one other.
Two elderly men yell angrily from the window of a car with posters of the president-elect, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, plastered all over it. Sisi supporters should be happy, yet they seem angry, their shouts scolding the passersby rather than inviting them to share the joy.
Like a sci-fi monster, the blocks of the old regime break and dissolve only to rise again in a new configuration. In the later Mubarak years, the president held the balance and the peace between his family and their capitalist cronies on the one side, and the military on the other. The security establishment served the president and his friends, with no love lost between them and the military.
As the government abandoned its responsibilities in education, health and social services, the Muslim Brotherhood picked up the slack. It built up its own web of patronage, never challenging the government enough to scupper the deals over seats in parliament and opportunities to make money.
Now the building blocks are morphing into a new arrangement. The military have been voted into the presidential palace.
They are trying to build bridges with the security establishment; they need them to quell dissent.
They’ve made themselves the channel through which Gulf money will come into the country, and they’ll use it to establish a network of business cronies.
The Brotherhood is out in the cold, ousted last July and declared a terrorist organisation, but it would probably be allowed back in if it settled for its old, compromised opposition role.
And what of the biggest block of all, the people? Hosni Mubarak, in his later years, thought he could ignore popular protest. He was proved wrong. Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood president, made the same mistake – to his cost.
Field Marshal Sisi courted the people, crooned to them. But the wafer-like thinness of this amour was exposed on the first day of presidential elections, on Monday, when the masses failed to show up. Television anchors and media celebrities became hysterical, berating, lambasting and insulting the Egyptian people for their “apathy”.
By day two – hastily declared a holiday – huge speakers mounted on patrolling vans alternated love songs to the military with rants at people to “leave their air conditioning” and come out and vote. Shopping malls closed early.
The government swore it would fine nonvoters half a month’s minimum wage. Even so, they had to extend voting to a third day to get the numbers. THE GUARDIAN
