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By Marco Fonseca
The Egyptian Revolution is being co-opted. From the moment the international media began
labelling protesters as "pro-democracy" fighters to the moment when liberal politicians like El-
Baradei appointed themselves - and were regarded as such by the "international community" and
not emphatically opposed by the local youth activists of the January 25th movement - as
representatives of the "people" and from the moment that the United States began to articulate its
fall-back policy towards Egypt - and the whole Middle East, except Israel - as a policy of "co-ordinated
transition to democracy", the revolution was lost.
Let's be clear about this. The model of "co-ordinated transition to democracy", the idea that what
Egypt needs is a system of "fair and free elections" at regular intervals and with a real chance for the
"opposition" to access power in the political institutions of the status quo, is in fact the regulation
and co-optation of radical grassroots dissent for the preservetion of imperial rule in the Middle East,
for the preservation of the balance of power with Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, and for
the preservation of certain ruling elites within Egypt to the exclusion of the spectres that these
elites, and the United States/Israel fear the most: the radical left and Muslim fundamentalism.
But Egyptian dissent as expressed in the January uprising is informed only to some extent by the
sentiments of oppressed and radicalized Muslims or by those of "pro-democracy" activists. Although
not altogether absent - how could it be? - Muslim fundamentalism does not appear to be the
decisive force behind the process. Likewise, although some Egyptians do speak the language of
liberal democracy as a solution to some of their problems, few see this model of poliical community
as the route to real emancipation from the shackles of imperial domination, vernacular military
hegemony, and traditional party elites and machineries. The language of western democracy is here
as suspect as the language of Al-Qaida. The force that appears to be driving the process more
directly is the force of hunger, unemployment, exclusion, marginalization, repression, and fear. The
language that one hears coming from the streets of Egypt is the language of liberation. Thus, the
struggle to break free from the shackles of marginalization, impoverishment, exclusion, repression,
and hopelessness by young Egyptians, some groups of women, and certain segments of the middle
class, this is the driving force behind the process.