Egypt’s Revolutionary Women: This is what reality looks like

Asmaa Mahfouz, from YouTube

The Egyptian people overthrew a dictator last week in a peaceful revolution that revealed the sheer might and beauty of the people’s will. And, incidentally, they made the U.S. government look like a bumbling band of hypocrites.

As Noam Chomsky said, when it came to ousted president Hosni Mubarak, the United States followed its “usual playbook” for handling those dictators whose power is convenient for U.S. interests in Israel, oil, order and other things.

There’s a kind of a standard routine—Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu, strongly supported by the United States and Britain, Suharto: keep supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes unsustainable—typically, say, if the army shifts sides—switch 180 degrees, claim to have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then make whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new names. That succeeds or fails depending on the circumstances. – Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now! on Feb. 2

While Al Jazeera and other media showcased the beauty of the revolution — strangers kissing in the street, protesters handing out bread to each other, people of all ages and backgrounds uniting around a common sense of urgency — some strains of U.S. media focused on the ways the revolution might backfire, either by falling short of the changes demanded by Egyptians, or by inspiring a tidal wave of “unrest” across the Middle East that could threaten U.S. interests in Israel, oil, order, etc.

There were two prominent stereotypes of the Egyptian protesters that emerged in the U.S. throughout the protests. One was that the protesters were naive, driven by emotion and idealism instead of common sense. The other — perpetuated by television coverage and photo galleries on major news sites — was that most of them were male.

Democracy Now! gleefully debunked the latter myth by showing footage of dozens of women protesting in Tahrir Square, and by interviewing women who were part of the movement, such as feminist Nawal El Saadawi, U.C.-Davis Professor Noha Radwan, columnist Mona Eltahawy, and others. Then, there was the powerful reminder of 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz, who helped ignite the Jan. 25 protest when her Youtube protest appeal went viral.

Here are a few of the brilliantly incendiary things Mahfouz had to say:

I, a girl, am going down to Tahrir Square, and I will stand alone. And I’ll hold up a banner. Perhaps people will show some honor. Don’t think you can be safe anymore. None of us are. Come down with us and demand your rights, my rights, your family’s rights. I am going down on January 25th and will say no to corruption, no to this regime.

If you think yourself a man, come with me on January 25th. Whoever says women shouldn’t go to protests because they will get beaten, let him have some honor and manhood and come with me on January 25th.

That call appeared to work, as hundreds of thousands of people poured into Tahrir Square on Jan. 25.

Then, there was the stereotype of the Egyptian protesters as naive and unrealistic. National security analyst Anthony Cordesman had this to say about the protests on the National Public Radio program On Point on Feb. 11, the same day Mubarak was forced out.

Historically, this is something where you have to be very patient, where it’s going to take a lot of help and encouragement from the outside. And celebrating the fall of an authoritarian is fine for about 48 hours, and then you better start coming to grips with reality.

Mona El-Gobashy, political science professor at Barnard College, had this to say of the protesters in response to Cordesman:

They know very well what they did, they know very well the constraints of the system under which they have toiled for decades, and they are simply demanding that they have a say in how they’re ruled…I don’t think we necessarily ought to paint them as a bunch of idealistic people who don’t know the tasks that lie ahead.

That’s right. The Egyptian people overthrew a dictator. You can’t get any more real than that. And as it turns out, Egyptians understand their own plight and purpose better than any foreign expert. One thing they understand very well is the role the U.S. government has played in their repression. While standing firm for nearly three weeks in Tahrir Square, protesters faced assaults from U.S.-made tear gas canisters and bullets. And while some in the U.S. may choose to ignore it, Egyptians know exactly what $1.3 billion in annual military aid looks like.

The call to action by Asmaa Mahfouz and others is a call not only to support those who protest, but also to hold ourselves accountable for our actions — or inaction. “If you stay at home, then you deserve all that’s being done to you, and you will be guilty before your nation and your people,” Mahfouz said in her video. Her words and her willingness to stand — alone if need be — drew hundreds of thousands to Tahrir Square. That’s real.

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