Once Upon a Revolution (13 page)

On Thursday, February 10, 2011, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, issued “Communiqué Number One,” which endorsed the “legitimate” demands of the protesters. Supposedly, the military wouldn't be running the country, but there was a uniformed general explaining how the country would be run, with nary a word about Mubarak. The transitional order taking shape was going to wear khakis. No one had heeded the highfalutin proposals from the Revolutionary Youth Coalition for a temporary presidential council that would include four civilian dissidents and Islamists, and one token general. At that moment, no one realized that a quiet coup had transpired; it no longer mattered what Mubarak was going to do. The military had stepped out from the curtain behind which it had been running most of Egypt's affairs since 1952. Uniformed men had openly taken control of the political realm.

Mubarak appeared on television for a final address. The people in Tahrir expected a resignation, but the president spoke from a place of deep denial, as if he would rule for some time to come. The father of the nation did not understand that his children had cast him off. People in Tahrir brandished shoes at the television screen.

“He wants blood!” someone screamed.

“Khawwal!”
chanted others. “Faggot!”

“He thinks he can win people over with his emotions, but it's over,” Basem said.

Moaz was already worried about the military's machinations. He was looking ahead to the next step, after Mubarak's coming departure. “We've had enough of military rule, but people still trust them,” Moaz said. “They know only orders. We should have guarantees the military won't turn into another Mubarak.”

The speech turned out to be the end for Mubarak. The next day, another Friday, more people came to Tahrir than ever before. The press of bodies was so dense that it was nearly impossible to move. The air was crisp and cool. Demonstrators exuded confidence. Some had been there for eighteen days; others had come for the first time. But they were sure that, sooner or later, Mubarak would be gone. I ran into Ayman Abouzaid,
the young cardiologist. He had traded his dirty doctor's coat for a preppy white canvas jacket. He was stepping lightly in his blue suede shoes. He trusted nobody, not the “little Mubaraks” on the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, or any of the elderly politicians suddenly proposing reforms on television. “If Hosni Mubarak disappears,” Ayman said, “the problem will remain: the deformation of a society.”

The young revolutionaries by the green tent were smiling but nervous. They anticipated countless burdens. Zyad smoked continuously, rendering the air inside the tent unbreathable. It wasn't that cold, but Sally wore the fur-lined hood of her trench coat erect over her head. It flew like a banner of concern. Moaz had hardly slept, shuttling between the hospital, the green tent, and Brotherhood offices outside Tahrir. Ayyash worked out of a car in the morning and out of various apartments in the afternoon; one of his tasks was to prepare work-arounds in case authorities cut the internet again. Basem kept his orange scarf knotted tightly around his throat and spent much of the day editing statements and political strategy memos.

Without warning, Egypt's spy chief, Omar Suleiman, appeared on television. In his low, guttural voice, he announced Mubarak's resignation. The president was gone; the SCAF was in charge. A rumbling rose from all of Cairo. Inside the square, it was deafening, enveloping all senses. People seemed struck dumb, shouting whatever came to mind.

“Enough!”

“Good-bye and Godspeed!”

“Fuck his mother!”

Some of the soldiers in the cordon around Tahrir were grinning. Celebrants hugged them, and a few of the soldiers hugged back. Three men wept and thanked God, using newspapers as prayer mats. “This is the beginning of freedom,” a young man said. “Message to the world from Egypt: We can change the world. We hate Israel.”

His friends murmured in assent, “God is great.”

Fireworks were popping. Thousands were singing “Biladi,” the national anthem. The rumor spread that the Israeli Embassy had shut down, prompting more cheers. This was the revolution rolled into one ball in all its contradictions, with its hatred for injustice, powerlessness,
Mubarak, and Israel; and its love of God, dignity, country, and Great Egypt's army. Millions still thronged the square at midnight. Party boats skittered across the Nile, decked in neon and blasting music. Despite the chill, boys had stripped to their underwear and were swimming beneath the Qasr el-Nil bridge.

For the youth leaders, the moment provided a transitory respite from the already stomach-turning anxiety about what would come next. Standing beside the tent, Zyad lifted me off the ground in a bear hug. “Tomorrow belongs to us!” he said. Sally's hood was off. “We won!” she exclaimed, beaming. She embraced Moaz and other Islamists, whom she had considered political enemies a few years earlier. “I've been hugging people who normally wouldn't even touch a woman,” she said.

Moaz was smiling so widely it made my face hurt; I realized that I too was grinning like a fool. “It's our country now,” he said, squeezing me tightly. “People all over the world now are going to respect us because we are Egyptian. I think these days will not be repeated in history.”

Ayyash cried as the news set in, and said the prayer of thanks usually given once a year at the Eid al-Adha. Then he bounced through the crowd like a teenager in a mosh pit. “I don't know what to do with myself,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I am free.”

Mubarak was gone. The military junta was issuing a flurry of decrees. The Revolutionary Youth Coalition was already planning a return protest, but the people in the square seemed ready to celebrate and move on, as if Mubarak's leaving had been the sum goal of the entire uprising. All the lofty words about dignity and fear had been forgotten in the whirl over Egypt's change of CEO. For the first time since the uprising, a soldier I had seen several times before blocked me from entering Tahrir. “Today is for Egyptians, not foreigners,” he said. “Go out.” The January 25 Revolution had most decidedly not vanquished xenophobia. I walked around and entered from a back street.

The coalition wanted to keep momentum on the revolution's side. It would be harder now that the battles would unfold on the less dramatic stage of governance, constitution writing, and elections—areas where
their willingness to die would provide less of an advantage than it had in the street fights. But the revolutionaries hoped to summon a million or more people to the square every Friday until the nation's laws reflected the precepts of the Republic of Tahrir. Sally was drafting a strategy for a meeting between the revolutionary youth and Egypt's new rulers, the still-anonymous generals on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Moaz was plotting a frontal challenge to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of politics. Basem was fantasizing about a new political party.

Heedless of these political machinations, cheerful men and women lined the square from north to south, armed with brooms, dustpans, and plastic bags. Crews of volunteers mopped the street with squeegees. Others tried to fit paving stones back into place where the sidewalks had been torn asunder during the Battle of the Camel, as if the consequences of the eighteen days could be so swiftly assimilated. The youth of Tahrir were saying with this gesture, “We're all good kids, we didn't come to make a mess, and we're going to leave the place neater than we found it.” Their extreme politeness, deference, and timidity were out of sync with their revolutionary aspirations. The youth weren't responsible for the trashing of the square; that was the fault of the police and the thugs who attacked them. It would have been more fitting for the aggressors to be forced back to sweep the square in atonement. The revolutionary cleanup suggested a naïve and premature thirst for closure. It would prove far easier to sweep away the debris in the square, and even Mubarak himself, than to topple just one pillar of the regime's edifice of control.

Mubarak had fled to his villa on the Red Sea, but no one had touched the guts of the regime: its secret police. Every time the Revolutionary Youth Coalition gathered in public, the same old informants and agents appeared, filming and taking notes. At one meeting, several leaders of the group had their phones stolen. One of the coalition members found a bullet hole in his car mirror. Moaz saw his old minder from State Security tailing him. These were unreconstructed regime techniques; surveillance and intimidation rolled into one. The Revolutionary Youth Coalition had made police reform a top priority. “The revolution is not complete,” Moaz said. “The police must be judged.”

Even though the police force still retained its former power and capacity for violence, the revolutionary leaders spoke fearlessly about their plan to gut and rebuild it. All at once, restrictions had been lifted on Egyptian media, so every night the talk shows hosted a raucous, open public debate. Revolutionaries and dissidents who had been banned from television studios were invited on night after night to describe their plans and enumerate the sins of the old regime. Moaz appeared one night in February on a popular program called
Coffee
, where he outlined the revolutionary agenda for police reform. The revolutionaries wanted a civilian placed in charge of the Ministry of the Interior, something that had never happened in Egyptian history. A police general had always controlled the ministry, just as a military general had always held the post of defense minister. In order to restore trust and reform the police, this independent civilian would suspend and investigate every police official
suspected of crimes, from the minister down to the lowliest patrolmen. Those who broke the law or tortured or killed Egyptians would be convicted and imprisoned. A “truth commission” would handle the stories of the rest, who might have dabbled in minor corruption but couldn't be held responsible for the odious regime that had employed them. Other countries had reversed a culture of torture and impunity in their police forces. It wasn't impossible, but to do it required something that Egypt did not yet have: a zealous, powerful government premised on the rule of law, not fear.

Mistrust of the police burned deep in Moaz's heart. As a Muslim Brother, he had suffered from the security state's caprice his entire life, unlike many of the secular revolutionaries, who had grasped only recently the negative side of the state's authority. The police apparatus could strangle everything, Moaz believed, but he also knew that many Egyptians—perhaps most Egyptians—didn't share his inborn skepticism. The Egyptian everyman didn't object in principle to an all-powerful secret police force. They just wanted it to work better. Moaz sensed he was fighting against public opinion at a great disadvantage. On his way home from the studio, a large vehicle suddenly shot out of a dark alley, rammed Moaz's car, and then sped off. It couldn't have been an accident. He took it as a message from State Security.