Social Movements in Egypt
Amr Amr
12/10/2013
Egypt Burning: How one Egyptian revolutionary movement overthrew a dictator while one another overthrew a democracy.
On the 17th of December, 2011 a vegetable vendor lit himself on fire in response to the corrupt and inefficient bureaucratic system in Tunisia. This small event by an unknown vendor led to the biggest and fastest spread of social movements in the history of the Arab world known as the Arab spring. Yet while the Tunisian example has been seen as relatively successful, in Egypt things seems to be more complicated and difficult especially with two different social movements, the first mobilized on the 25th of January and overthrew the long time autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak, while the second had its beginnings in December of 2012 led to the overthrow of the first democratically elected president on June 30th of the following year was able to rally the biggest protest in modern history. This research paper’s goal will be to analyze the two social movements, their origins, make-up, organizational structure, their image abroad and finally their conclusion. For example why did the January 25th movement, which had clear goals from the onset and an extremely diverse make up ranging from secular liberals to conservative Islamists get sidelined and collapsed after achieving their first goal? And why did the Tamarod movement (rebel in Arabic) which had its origin in a petition form and was able to garner more active support, including the average non politicized Egyptian, was looked upon as undemocratic by the majority of the democratic nations and their overthrow of the Mohammed Morsy as a coup? Three days after the January 25th revolution a remarkable event occurred. The Muslim Brotherhood, a secretive conservative group with the goal of increasing the influence of Islam in public life and government, joined the secular youth groups that made up the initial January 25th
12/10/2013
Egypt Burning: How one Egyptian revolutionary movement overthrew a dictator while one another overthrew a democracy.
On the 17th of December, 2011 a vegetable vendor lit himself on fire in response to the corrupt and inefficient bureaucratic system in Tunisia. This small event by an unknown vendor led to the biggest and fastest spread of social movements in the history of the Arab world known as the Arab spring. Yet while the Tunisian example has been seen as relatively successful, in Egypt things seems to be more complicated and difficult especially with two different social movements, the first mobilized on the 25th of January and overthrew the long time autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak, while the second had its beginnings in December of 2012 led to the overthrow of the first democratically elected president on June 30th of the following year was able to rally the biggest protest in modern history. This research paper’s goal will be to analyze the two social movements, their origins, make-up, organizational structure, their image abroad and finally their conclusion. For example why did the January 25th movement, which had clear goals from the onset and an extremely diverse make up ranging from secular liberals to conservative Islamists get sidelined and collapsed after achieving their first goal? And why did the Tamarod movement (rebel in Arabic) which had its origin in a petition form and was able to garner more active support, including the average non politicized Egyptian, was looked upon as undemocratic by the majority of the democratic nations and their overthrow of the Mohammed Morsy as a coup? Three days after the January 25th revolution a remarkable event occurred. The Muslim Brotherhood, a secretive conservative group with the goal of increasing the influence of Islam in public life and government, joined the secular youth groups that made up the initial January 25th
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