An Inside Look at the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 Essay

This led to scarce food supplies, forced labor, and mistreatment of the peasantry, so Egypt was ready for a revolt at the end of the war. The Egyptian nationalist elites decided to form a Wafd (meaning ‘delegation’ in Arabic) party under the leader Sa’d Zaghlul that rid the British in 1936 from the Suez Canal. However, they did very little to alleviate the misery of the majority. Rather, Egyptian politicians held office just to increase their own family fortune and had no time for land reforms and public works projects that the peasantry desperately needed. Thus, the Egytian revolution led to backwardness.

The situation was already so poor that the citizens chose to bear with it instead of fixing it. For example, the country’s total imports was greater than the country’s total exports. This proved how weak and unstable the government system was. According to the Washington Post, “You had 10 percent unemployment and 25 percent youth unemployment. Already there was a sense of a lack of opportunity and declining social mobility. So Egypt went into its revolution when it was already in difficult economic

Almost a year ago, Egypt broke into civil unrest when protesters flooded Tahrir Square, demanding the end of Hosnia Mubarak’s regime. Although Mubarak stepped down within two weeks, Egypt is worse off today than it was last January. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which played a vital role in the January revolution, has now become a violent and oppressive force. On the twenty-ninth of December 2011, the SCAF raided seventeen Egyptian, German, and US run NGOs in search of proof of illegal foreign funding.1 In a statement (A/HRC/18/NGO/77) submitted by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), and the Center for Egyptian Women’s

The human rights lawyer Fethi Tarbel, was arrested and sparked the uproar that caused the call of removal for Muammar Gaddafi. In Libya, the government had taken political prisoners and people were especially unhappy about this one. Fethi Tarbel “was the coordinator of one of the few independent organizations in Libya — a group of families of victims of the Abu Salim prison massacre, where more than 1,200 political prisoners were killed by security forces in 1996” (thenational.ae). This set people off because “Mr. Senussi tried to persuade Mr. Tarbel to give up the cause of the Abu Salim victim’s families” (thenational.ae). People were not happy because they had suffered a tragedy like that and were receiving help, but then the government comes and wanted to shut it down. The families then gathered outside to protest the injustice that happened to Mr. Tarbel. The actions the people took would have made Arendt proud because they were justified and meant to make change happen. With this, people saw this as an opportunity and said, “Benghazi wake up, this

Torture and Democracy written by Darius M. Rejali, delves into the complexity of torture that exists and has existed throughout the world. Published in 2007 by Princeton University Press in New Jersey, the book is an excellent resource for not just educators but, students and individuals interested in political science alike. Torture and Democracy, ISBN: 978-0-691-14333-0, is priced at $48.43 on Amazon.com for a paperback edition. The book has 849 pages that include appendixes in the latter section for readers to review references, notes, index, and other pertinent information that may have needed further explanation throughout the text. Darius Rejali is an accredited professor of political science at Reed College located in Oregon (Rejali 2007). Through his exquisite work and evaluation of torture records, Rejali is recognized as an expert on modern torture internationally (Rejali 2007). In Torture and Democracy, Rejali develops his thesis that torture in democratic states are prevalent even though it seems nonexistent. He argues that through techniques that are performed in such a way that leaves no marks on the

It was believed by many people that Morsi done very little to change the country. I do believe Morsi was the president who was going to take the country forward because he strengthened Egypt’s links with other countries. Through the influence of the deep state president Morsi was put across as being a bad president. There is a website – morsimeter.com which recorded the progress of the president through his first 100 days of presidency from the website it is clear that president Morsi was continuously making changes in the country. Morsi was the right president for the country. He wanted to do what was best for the country however the deep state didn’t provide him with the cooperation that he needed. I fully understand why people would protest against Morsi especially when they think he ordered the killing of his own people. In the end the military has ended up killing Egyptian citizens, who is there to stop them now? They arrested Morsi for allegedly doing something they are now doing themselves. Whether Morsi was a good president or not it doesn’t really matter the Military should not involve themselves, the military coup defeated the purpose of democracy and in my mind has put Egypt back to square one.

entered a stage of stability and growth, with the government caring more for the people. Egypt

In the early 1950s Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced out of Iran by leftist and Democratic forces and Mohammed Mossedeq was elected as Iran’s new leader (Bowden, 2006, p. 6). In 1953 with strong influence from the British intelligence the Central Intelligence Agency conducted operations that lead to the return of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the shah of Iran which many and in particular Khomeini and his followers holding the hostages believe was a coupe (BBC, 2009). The Shah created and used the SAVAK, secret police, to keep a strong hand on the people until the revolution in 1979(White, 2014, pp. 209). 16 years prior to the revolution in 1961, the Shah exiled the Ruhollah Khomeini, who was a master of Islam to Iraq (PBS, 2013a).

The government had undergone a shift after Mubarak’s removal from power, and the book illuminates the unthinkable changes

The era of Elizabeth called Sisi was very chaotic. Monarchy and liberalism were combatting, the rule of the old world and new world were combatting. Everything was vain; everything was going to change. And many of those had fate of disappearing.

Under that ‘state of emergency’, the government has the right to imprison individuals for any period of time, and for virtually no reason, thus keeping them in prisons without trials for any period. The political police may use intimidation, arbitrary arrest, torture and execution. It infiltrates other coercive agencies of the state, such as the regular police and the armed forces, to ensure their compliance. ” this state of emergency causing strong dissatisfaction of Egyptian, the citizens live under monitoring and political terror, human rights and political rights could not be gained.

A revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both violent and non-violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab World that began on 18 December 2010, later gained the heading “The Arab spring”. The Arab spring began by a twenty six year old boy named Mohammed Bouazizi was getting ready to sell fruits and vegetables in a rural town of Sidi Bouzid Tunisia. Bouazizi was the primary supporter for his widowed mother and six of his siblings. The entire incident originated when the police officer asked bouazizi to hand over his wooden cart, he refused the police women allegedly slapped him after being publicly humiliated bouazizi marched in front of a government building and set himself on fire. The Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, the shock wave swept across the country which threatened the stability of this oil-rich region with repercussion felt internationally. After the world witnessed what happened in Tunisia, it caused a spilled over into most of the Arab countries. Such as Egypt, Libya Syria and Yemen. Aim of this paper is to show that the current situation corollary of decades of failed policies, exacerbated by an unsolicited foreign intervention. The extensive consequences, I will argue, require cautious attention and careful management from international communities as well as the Arab human rights committee. This paper seeks to explore the profound causes that prompted the so called “Arab awakening” and the covert hidden agenda behind the sudden pro democratic

In late 2010, a Tunisian named Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against the poor economic situation in which he was living (CNN, 2011). Other Tunisians soon took the opportunity to resist their government and possible overthrow the leadership of Ben Ali. They took it as their responsibility to fight for the common good. Simple demonstration against the Tunisian government soon went ahead to an extent that Ben Ali had to leave the country. The events that followed the departures of the Tunisian president were the least expected. The revolts in Tunisia spurred citizens of other Arab nations to revolt against their governments. By the end of the years 2011, the Arab spring had claimed the presidency of three long serving presidents and

“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right” is a quote from Victor Hugo that symbolizes the new age of human rights. Over the years, countries around the world have witnessed terrifying yet life-changing revolutions, but no one in history had expected for such a quick and sudden revolution to begin like the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring has allowed people, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, to speak out for what they believe in today. Many laws have been overturned due to the amount of pressure the people are putting on their government. One revolution started it all, and ever since then, we have realized many of the biggest protests in history, the rise and downfalls of the economy, a different side to the

Egypt had limited crossroads to choose from ever since its been announced a Republic 1952, the most recent was the ERSAP program that was considered by then the chemotherapy for treating the economic diseases (Giugale, 1993). The metaphor did not recognize the recent scientific fact that the painful therapy has to be accompanied by drastic dietary, psychological, and attitude changes for the treatment to be effectual. In chemotherapy, a patient had to limit consumption of carbohydrates and sugar which were proved to hinder effectiveness of the treatment, and exacerbates its side effects. These facts were known by experiments in the R&D in labs of major pharmaceutical companies, in addition to introduction of some alternative medicine like Homeopathy or Riki. But major IFIs did not do their job in investing some R&D in their offices to know why they failed in the 1980s, before imposing the same patterns on new countries in the 1990s. Resistance to reform was due to lack of political will, or political change to suit the introduced reforms (Parfitt, p. 8). Other cases resistance to change was to prevent any social unrest (Salevurakis & Abdel-Halim, 2008), some signs of conflicting interests within governments and with the international partners (Adams & Page, 2003) that caused counter actions against efficient implementation, and finally clear signs of corruption that were ignored in order to proceed with the program, despite the