https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250127-a-revolution-forgotten-by-its-owners/
A revolution forgotten by its owners
Fourteen years have passed since the greatest revolution in Egypt’s modern history, the 25 January Revolution. However, its anniversary passed without notice, both on the official and popular level. It is understandable why the regime’s media did not celebrate it, as the regime hates and opposes the January Revolution, throwing all its icons and symbols behind bars and putting them on trial. How could it celebrate a revolution it considers a conspiracy and a plot?
The large crowds that bravely protested that day against injustice, tyranny and corruption overcame generations of inherited fear from fascist regimes. Though they demanded freedom, human dignity and social justice, the regime has pulled them back into the fold of fear and oppression once again.
Under this fascist regime, conditions have deteriorated beyond even President Hosni Mubarak’s era. The government’s suppression of freedoms and removal of subsidies on essential goods has pushed citizens into constant deprivation and poverty, making their suffering worse than before. However, people cannot scream because these screams cost them dearly. At the very least, they would be thrown into the depths of the prisons. So instead, they prefer safety and sitting between the cold walls of their homes, holding their small smart devices in their hands, venting about their lost freedom and usurped revolution. Social media pages were filled with memories of the January Revolution as a true documentation of it, and the pages were adorned with pictures of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the short-lived freedom. Perhaps they sacrificed their lives for a nation that does not deserve this freedom so that the free died and the cowards lived. The people celebrated their revolution only on social media.
Indeed, the 25 January Revolution was a wonderful human act of heroism in which all members of society, across their various political spectrums and all their intellectual and ideological sects, united under their affiliation to Egypt, chanting: “The people want to bring down the regime”, “Raise your head high, you are Egyptian” and “Bread, freedom, social justice, human dignity”. It was these slogans that shook Egypt in 2011, and their repercussions extended to other Arab countries, such as Libya, Syria and Yemen.
OPINION: The Rabaa Al-Adawiya massacre is forever in our memory
Fourteen years have passed since the Egyptian revolution that astonished the world with its civilised behaviour, considering it Egypt’s second crossing after the October War. The Egyptians’ long-held dream had finally become reality. They brought down a dictatorial president and a corrupt government, but they did not bring down the regime. This was the greatest sin committed by the revolution. This acted as an outlet or door through which the regime returned after conspiring with the imperialist and regional powers that feared that the winds of the revolutions would spread to their countries and topple their thrones. I am referring to Saudi Arabia and the Israeli conspiracy state, i.e. the United Arab Emirates. They are the Israeli state’s watchguards in the region and the stronghold of the counter-revolutions, where the counter-revolutions against the Arab peoples and the Islamic nation as a whole are managed. These two countries were able to turn the dream of the Egyptians into a terrifying nightmare, as they did with the other Arab revolutions, even though they took a different form in Egypt. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent to overthrow a democratically elected president in free elections that took place for the first time, not only in the history of Egypt but in the history of the entire Arab region, whose integrity was witnessed by the entire world. The military coup took place, which certainly received the green light from the US.
The Egyptian revolution did not please the Zionist leaders, just as it didn’t please the Arab rulers. Although they wanted the Zionist entity to remain the only oasis of democracy in the region, they also feared the awakening of the Arab people and their revolt against their rulers, who act as the entity’s agents in the region and the guardians of their usurping entity.
However, we cannot exempt the elites, especially those who participated in the 25 January Revolution and were its icons, from conspiring against the revolution and joining hands with the enemies of the revolution just because their political opponent came to power. They betrayed the very democracy they claimed to champion, allowing themselves to be the back on which the military would ride in on the evening of 30 June so that the coup would wear a civilian guise in front of the entire world.
The corrupt elites only began speaking out against the fascist regime after losing their promised positions of power in the government they helped instal. Though they had been key players in the June 30th spectacle, they remained silent until the regime’s oppression eventually reached them, too, with some ending up in prison themselves. However, they are still too stubborn and too proud to admit their sin or, rather, their crime. They are corrupt opportunistic elites who were the reason for the revolution’s setback and the reason we are where we are now.
OPINION: Egypt faces a tough test
It has been 14 years since the revolution. During these years, the revolutionaries were distributed into factions and parties, each going their own way and directing accusations at the other party. The Egyptian people became deeply divided, with rifts forming even within families. After the coup, when they released the song, “You are a people and we are a people”, we realised it was true, even though we had condemned it at the time. It expressed a reality that they planned well with great malice, as they divided the people of Egypt into factions, each with their own martyrs and detainees whom they defended, without having concern for the other sides’ martyrs and detainees. Instead, they gloat in the face of others’ misfortune, with those who share their land and religion sadly becoming the “others”. This is the language the Egyptians have come to speak.
This plan was actually put in place by the regime since the success of the revolution and the overthrow of Mubarak, but it was postponed until they could pounce on the revolution and abort it, and carry out their coup, which was also planned since that day. In the two years that preceded the coup, they were fanning the flames of strife and planting the seeds of hatred and malice among the people of the same nation.
Immediately after the overthrow of Mubarak, they divided the youth in the squares into dozens of coalitions and parties and trained them to confront the Muslim Brotherhood.
The question remains: is it possible, in light of this severe polarisation, exclusion and the planting of the seeds of hatred in Egyptian soil, for harmony to return among the Egyptian people and for the unity between them to return once again as it was in 2011? Or will we continue a vicious cycle of endless accusations and counter-accusations from both sides? In the end, we continue to cry over spilt milk and turn the anniversary of the 25 January Revolution into an occasion for weeping and grief.
Everyone contributed in one way or another to Egypt’s current situation. Everyone lacked vision, and they still lack it now. The absence of a revolution leader contributed to this and was one of the revolution’s weak points. Everyone wants to be the sole father of the revolution. Thus, the revolution became lost between its legitimate and illegitimate fathers who suddenly appeared after its success—woe to the illegitimate fathers with white collars, who wasted the blood of the martyrs in vain.
The 25 January Revolution was truly a revolution of a nation that rose against injustice and tyranny, and a gift from God, but unfortunately, we did not preserve it, protect it or care for it properly, so we deserve what we have now reached.
OPINION: Gaza has triumphed
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.