Dr H.A. Hellyer on Egypt's Revolution [The Kent Ridge Common]
July 8, 2011
An edited version of this article first appeared as an event summary at theMiddle East Institute (NUS) website.
Dr. H. A. Hellyer, a Fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick (UK), gave a talk at the Middle East Institute (NUS) on 7 July 2011.
7 months ago Dr. Hellyer felt he needed a break from work as a Fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick (UK) and decided to take a sabbatical in Cairo. Little did he expect that his original vision of a peaceful holiday would be postponed indefinitely by the revolutionary uprisings that took place in Egypt.
Dr. Hellyer proffered a balanced mix of anecdotes and analysis of the events in Cairo that found its stage in Tahrir Square. During his time there, he actively participated in the protests and was heartened to observe the return of what he called ‘Egyptian values and culture’.
Amongst these were the culture of hospitality and feeling of fraternity that cut across religious differences. Dr. Hellyer’s mother, who is Egyptian, used to tell him that Muslim children would attend Catholic schools alongside Jewish children and that sexual harrassment was unheard of. Unfortunately, this side of Egypt was rarely seen in the past few years.
The Tahrir Square protests resurrected this better side of Egyptian society. Dr. Hellyer noted that during Friday prayers, the Coptic Christians would surround and protect the Muslims from the police. Conversely, during mass, the Muslims would surround and protect the Christians from harm. He also drew an analogy to Moses and the parting of the Red Sea in describing the parting of the crowds to allow ladies to walk through unharrassed during the protests.
Further, committees of men were formed autonomously in various Cairene neighbourhoods to build road blocks in order to protect the residents from the lack of law enforcement in the absence of the police.
Dr. Hellyer recreated the feeling of Tahrir Square in those 18 days by playing a video titledSout al-Hurriya (Voice of Freedom, embedded below) which came to be the anthem of the protest movement. Everything Mubarak did, Dr. Hellyer said, he did 10 days late. He pointed out wryly that the Egyptians had to give due credit to Mubarak, for if not for Mubarak, Tahrir Square and the revival of this forgotten face of Egyptian society could not have happened.
He remembered sitting at a café waiting for Mubarak to give a televised speech that was scheduled at 9pm (on 10 February 2011). The speech was eventually aired at 9.45pm, and those 45 minutes produced excruciating tensions for everyone in the café. Dr. Hellyer recalled people running to the bathrooms as the pressure manifested itself physiologically.
Expectations kept mounting every minute that the speech was delayed, so much so that when Mubarak finally materialized on the TV screen in a pre-recorded clip, there was a huge wave of disappointment as Egyptians listened in horror to Mubarak’s refusal to resign. The concessions he made were 10 days late.
This crash in expectations then turned into confusion, then anger and then finally to resolute determination. Dr. Hellyer described the mentality of Egyptians at that time as –“ Tomorrow, we are ready to die. Not to kill, but to go and die [in order to bring about a regime change]”.
Shortly after, it was announced that the army would make a speech on television. This created a new wave of tension and a lot of people, fatigued by all the drama earlier, just gave up waiting. In the end, however, the army never made its televised speech.
Source: The Kent Ridge Common
Photo: Warwick University