Tahrir Square style protests still fire up Arabs

Nine years and two days ago, Egyptian opposition activists called for demonstrations at two locations in Cairo. The occasion was National Police Day.

Organisers expected 50 people to turn up at one square, perhaps 150, at iconic Tahrir Square, the site of multiple anti-government demonstrations over the decades.  At least 50,000 occupied Tahrir Square on January 25th. They called for 30-year President Hosni Mubarak to step down. They had been inspired by month-long mass protests in Tunisia and the January 14th flight from Tunis of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali who had been in power for 24 years.

The crowd swelled the next day when I booked my flight to Cairo, arriving on the night of the 27th. On Friday the 28th, my friend Conor, who was visiting his family, and I took up positions on the terrace at the Ramses Hilton where we could see what was going on in the streets leading into Tahrir. There was no way we could reach the square. Police in black armoured riot gear clashed with a torrent of protesters demanding “Bread, Freedom, and Justice.”  Police used live fire, tear gas, birdshot, and rubber bullets against the onrush of civilians.  

Armoured vehicles with water cannon sprayed men, women and children trying to reach Tahrir by crossing the Nile on the October 6th and Qasr al-Nil bridges.

That day saw the highest number of fatalities of the 845 slain during the 18-day uprising which expanded to grip the entire country and was broadcast, episode by episode, on satellite television around the world, becoming the first global revolution and a source of emulation today.

That night the authorities imposed curfew and ordered the police to go home, leaving the populace without protection of the corrupted and compromised law forces. Egyptians rallied, formed neighbourhood watches armed with broomsticks and home-made Molotov cocktails. Internet and mobile phones had been switched off with the aim of preventing activists from connecting and coordinating their campaign. Nothing stopped the people from going to Tahrir and squares across the country. The 29th morning was quiet, Tahrir Square was empty early, but the throng swelled in the afternoon.  By the 31st, the square was packed with 250,000 cheerful Egyptians from all classes and backgrounds.

Mubarak, then 83, was removed on February 11th by the army which used the  protests  to carry out a coup.  The generals had wanted to topple him for some time as they opposed his plan for his son, Gamal, to succeed him. The protesters expected a transition to democracy. Free elections were not fair as there was only one well-organised political party/movement in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood. It secured control of parliament and presidency, amended the constitution, and installed its own members in strategic positions. “Bread, Freedom and Justice” were forgotten. In June 2013, Egyptians again took to the streets and ousted the Brotherhood. It replied with violence, opening the door for the army to take over and suppress all opposition.

While the Tunisian uprising inspired millions of Egyptians to go to the streets, their failed revolution became the template for 2011 revolts in Yemen and Syria which have resulted in war and inspired the 2019-2020 risings in Iraq and Lebanon.

On October 1st, tens of thousands of mainly Shia Iraqis took to Tahrir Square in Baghdad and the squares and streets of southern cities to protest mismanagement, corruption, and the lack of water, electricity, decent schools and health facilities, and unemployment. They have urged Sunnis, Kurds and others to offer support but not to join as the Shias want to be responsible for toppling the sectarian Shia regime.

As in Egypt, the government has unleashed a brutal crackdown that has shot and gassed scores of protesters while pro-Iranian snipers have picked off protesters in the streets and assassins have slain leading figures. Unlike in Egypt, Iraqis — a tough people with a harsh history — responded with violence, attacking and burning government and political party and militia offices.

In late November, they attained their first objective, the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. The cost has been great. Security forces and snipers from Shia militias have killed more than 500.  The Iraqis’ main objective remains unattainable. This is the uprooting of the sectarian power-sharing system imposed by the US occupation regime in 2003 which left pro-Iranian Shia fundamentalists in control. The Iraqi army is too weak to take on the corrupt politicians. Both the US and Iran are determined to maintain the status quo: deadlock is the consequence.

I was in Beirut on October 17th when some 100 civilian activists mounted a protest against a tax on free mobile calls by blocking streets in downtown Beirut. This tax was the latest in a series of exactions that enraged Lebanese who, like Iraqis, suffered from a lack of basic services while funds meant to be invested in infrastructure disappeared into politicians, officials and contractors pockets.

More protesters joined them and mounted demonstrations elsewhere in the capital. On the 18th, the streets were filled with young men and women on mopeds erecting barricades and setting fire to piles of used tyres. On the 19th, thousands filled Riad Solh and Martyrs squares in central Beirut in a replay of Cairo’s Tahrir Square and there they have remained. They call for the fall of not only the government,  headed by Saad Hariri, but, as in Iraq, also the sectarian regime imposed on Lebanon by France at independence in 1943. The atmosphere was peaceful, cheerful, and on good days remains the same as in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. As in Iraq, thuggish elements — this time from Iran-allied Hizbullah and Amal — have attacked demonstrators using fists and sticks with the aim of quelling the revolutionary movement.

From the outset, Lebanese protesters were from all faiths and walks of life, young and old. They eschewed violence and religious identity and insisted they are all “Lebanese.” Roads were blocked between the country’s main cities while crowds turned out in Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre. Hariri resigned on October 29th and was not replaced until December 19th who only managed to form a cabinet chosen by ruling political factions on January 22nd but the line-up is rejected by the street.

The Lebanese army is in no position to take action against the protesters, the corrupt political elite or the sectarian system. So far, deadlock is the result.

It may be coincidental, but on Saturday security forces in Baghdad, Nasiriya and Basra in Iraq and in Beirut, routed protesters and destroyed their tents and other facilities with the aim of ending these two uprisings. Repression will fail because in both Iraq and Lebanon the people have no option but to revolt until their existential demands are met.

The beacon of Cairo’s Tahrir Square continues to burn in the minds and spirits of young Arabs who seek an end to misrule by corrupt sectarians and oligarchs.