Deprioritizing Tahrir: Sectarianism, Fragmentation, and Political Defeat

• In Event: Interpretive Approaches to Poverty, Participation, and Populism

Abstract

In Hosni Mubarak’s final years in power, the manipulation of sectarian strife was one of the regime’s authoritarian tools, which validated its rhetoric as the arbiter of stability and social peace. When the uprising struck in January 2011, intra-protest demonstrations of religious harmony and national unity soon gave way to what appeared to be a surge in sectarian strife. But why? Why would a popular uprising – like its predecessor in 1919 that emphasized national unity – lead to greater societal divisions in the form of sectarianism and political polarization? It is puzzling to see post-Mubarak rulers and political elites, who strived to manage the transition from above, reemploy the same unsustainable authoritarian tactics that perpetuated a vicious cycle of sectarianism and political polarization that ultimately led to the uprising. Political crises are expected to reprioritize reaching a national consensus on the determinants of the public sphere – who and what is to be included or excluded, to which extents, and on what grounds. Authoritarian regimes have long kept this matter an open wound. After a mass uprising, we are left to ask whether discussions and questions of democracy could precede determining the parameters of the public sphere. Post-Mubarak political elites – both persisting and rising – have misrepresented Tahrir by reducing its dynamics to those of a troubled democratic transition. This project entails the employment of evidence from two digital archival sources, which are “University on the Square: Documenting Egypt’s 21st Century Revolution”, and “Tahrir Documents”. These project archive and translate materials collected from protests in Tahrir Square during the 18 days (Jan. 25-Feb.11) of the uprising as well as their aftermath up to May 2012. The two digital archives appear to bear evidence that represents a popular attempt to reclaim “Tahrir” from its misrepresentatives. Tahrir – meaning liberation – not only represented a growing rift between the individual constituents of society and the political elite, but also a highly-resisted attempt to shift power balances towards greater societal agency. The research asks of the evidence why and how a state of cross-religious and cross-political unity that characterized Tahrir in January 2011 rapidly transformed into a state of rising sectarianism and sharp, divisive political polarization.

Author

• Ahmed Khattab, Georgetown University