Last week, this column suggested that the emergence of a qualitatively new “digital age” was a key factor in explaining the dynamics of the democratic revolution in Egypt. Since then, the determination of the self-mobilized Egyptian masses, who refused to move from their occupied positions in the public squares of central Cairo and other cities, has borne fruit with the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
It would, however, be an “aborted” revolution, if the only achievement of the 18 days of sustained protest was the removal of Mubarak as president. A central demand of the protesters was for the creation of unfettered and genuinely democratic institutions and practices which would signal a definite break with the authoritarianism of the past.
One of the “contradictions” of the revolution, therefore, was that in the midst of the push for democracy, all eyes turned to the army – the least democratic of state institutions – as the saviour of the future.
In a classic revolution, the role of the political parties would have been critical in demanding not only resignations, but in presenting alternative constitutions, structures and practices which would create an alternative democratic future for the revolting Egyptians. This was indeed the one glaring omission in all the hours of televised commentary that accompanied the images of the determined Egyptian uprising.
No one raised this issue. Indeed, there appeared to be a conspiracy of silence in so far as the democratic make-up of the post-Mubarak Egypt was concerned.
One reason for this omission was the obvious fear of the world powers in the possible Egyptian future which could emerge. On one level this fear was openly expressed as a concern over the possible emergence of radical Islam.
This fear was most clearly expressed by Israel’s Foreign Minister Ehud Barak, who showed himself to be well schooled in the Leninist revolutionary tradition. In his words, whilst all revolutions start out as idealist outpourings, all it takes is for the most organized and politically daring group to impose its will on the population and introduce extreme solutions as a way out of the impasse.
This was an outcome which was universally feared by the West.
On the other hand, it is also true that a genuinely new, post-enlightenment, post-representative participatory democracy was an even more worrisome outcome to the global elite. It is only in the articulation of such a new democracy that the events in Egypt could truly deserve the title of “revolution”, and through which a new contribution to global political development could have been made.
Instead, the slogan of the revolt was reduced to “leave, leave, leave”, and the movement was defined largely as an anti-Mubarak protest.
Mubarak’s departure is, however, only the first stage. The mass parties now need to create new democratic institutions which the world has never seen.
Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus specialising in analysis of regional affairs.
