Perhaps the most difficult, most nagging question that haunts us at the brink of an uprising, is the question of the alternative. We yearn for an alternative world, yet in the fear of not having prepared a comprehensive vision that unifies, we shy away from pushing for change. As a movement spreads and grows, we become surer, stronger, as to that which we cannot accept, which we will no longer tolerate; but separated as to that which we want. How can we bring a system apart, if we’re not ready with that which replaces it?

Revolutions thusfar however, teach us that the alternative, we make up as we go along.

The 25th of January is a national Egyptian holiday in celebration of the Egyptian police’s resistance to British troops on the 25th of January, 1952. The call for a protest on that day was one in light of the ironic state of affairs of an oppressive police state, a day when the police should be brought down in memory of resistances of past and present. The call for protests became much more prominent in light of the Tunisian revolution, but no one knew what to expect.

The morning started like any other, until the pre-announced marches erupted from several populous areas in Cairo, starting with handfuls of protestors, growing in number as they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, until some reached Tahrir, an unanticipated thousands strong. Protestors chanted ‘selmeyya’ ‘peaceful’ as they approached the square; and the state security lines, taken aback by the numbers, parted and let them through. Although everyone hoped that we would take the square, no one can claim to have expected it.

By evening we stood in the square, ten thousand strong astounded at our feat. People gathered in groups and asked ‘what next?’. Some started collecting money for food and blankets, others bought garbage bags and cleaned the area we inhabited, and yet others sang songs to encourage people to spend the night. Meanwhile, the first list of demands, was drafted, prioritizing the toppling of the government.

Throughout the night, people congratulated each other, marveling at the prospects of having occupied the square. One man, standing next to me eyeing the crowd as i did, turned and said ‘It turns out there really are alot of us’ – and that was the discovery of the day. That we had surprised ourselves, that we were large in numbers, from the student to the shoe-shiner, the professor to the garbage collector and the actor to the mechanic; that there was infact, a ‘we’. Activists do not an uprising make, they may call for it, and they may catalyze it, but a revolution is an affair of the people.

By nightfall, the police raided the square heavily with tear-gas and protestors were dispersed all over the city; the battle continued till the break of day, and onwards, until the end of Thursday the 27th of January. The plan was for another big protest on the 28th of January, but the street battles continued, as people tried to keep the streets open, accessible until the big day.

The 28th of January was a fierce and powerful battle in Suez, Alexandria, Cairo, Portsaid and other cities all over Egypt. State security fired with rubber bullets at close range, tear gas, and in some cases, lives ammunition; they killed thousands. However, as the sun set over Alexandria, black smoke bellowed from the city’s burning police stations and unto the sea. Almost every police station was alight, and the streets were strewn with state security trucks, some inverted and others ablaze, all empty. Protestors all over the city had triumphed in the first battle with state security by their sheer numbers, their stones, and the power of their slogans. State security police, and every other uniformed member of the ministry of Interior evacuated the city. The atmosphere was rich with a sense of triumph and an equal if not overpowering sense of dread.

But Alexandria mobilized immediately. By nightfall the corniche was lined with young men, each bearing a patch on his shoulder that read ‘Lagna Shaabeyya’ (popular committee). Their responsibilities, up to that point, were to protect the library of Alexandria and other public institutions from thugs, help anyone left on the street get home and regulate traffic.

Come morning, a flier was distributed. The popular committee announced headquarters in one of the city’s squares, and stated that theirs was the responsibility of every Alexandrian to keep order in a city that was being threatened by thugs who strived to discredit their revolution.

By night time subcommittees were formed to provide medical and economic services in neighborhoods, as well as help the army that had now mobilized into the streets of Egypt, find their way around. Unable to deal with the questions and anxieties of the masses, army personnel distributed the Popular committee’s fliers and numbers.

Born to a moment of fear and chaos, the popular committees became proof of our ability to ‘govern’ as a people. As the months wore on Popular committees developed in communities all over Egypt, their work shifting from short-term security needs to long-term policy needs, as did their organization.  In the absence of a government we maintained order. Operating spontaneously at first, a few organizations (an NGO, and the Centre for socialist studies in Cairo) eventually offered venues to host networking meetings for a number of the committees, so they may exchange experiences. These were as diverse as the communities they represented.

During the constitutional referendum in March for instance, neighborhood committees organized campaigns to raise awareness about the articles in question, and some even monitored the voting process in an attempt to pre-empt and report fraud.

In another instance, when the police force slowly returned to its stations, the popular committees in Boulac, a working-class district in Cairo, monitored their progress. When a woman was harassed in the marketplace by an officer, committee members reported the incident to one of his superiors demanding an apology – which was ignored. Within minutes, 1,000 local residents sat quietly outside the station, promising another few thousand of their people would show up if their request was not fulfilled. The officer acquiesced on the spot.

In Al-Qanater, a rural community just north of Cairo, a committee worked to involve youth, whose lives remain a world apart from their urban counterparts, in electoral politics. In Hadayeq El Qubba, another committee launched a campaign to help people understand the difference between liberal, socialist and Islamist approaches to economic issues because, as one member told me, the community was “tired of being swayed by this or that intellectual without knowing what’s in it for the people.” In El Saf a rural area on the borders of Helwan south of Cairo, popular conferences addressed how governorate boundaries have been redrawn over the last few years without community input, debating which situation benefits them the most, and asserting that urban planning should happen with the participation of the community. In Dokki, a neighborhood in Cairo, a new campaign ‘monitoring prevents corruption’ has been launched to monitor parliamentary candidates and name and shame the corrupt using graffiti.

It’s in the work of these groups that the revolution continues; from representing community demands to engaging local residents to hold their government accountable, these committees make politics relevant to people’s everyday lives.

Also, in a city as gated as Cairo, and a country as stratified as Egypt, the committees became our means of communicating. The inter-committee networking meetings are where i met Marwa, an activist from an upper Egyptian village of Suhag, who clad in black niqab explained the different means her committee used to raise awareness about values of liberalism. It is also where i met Peter, who spoke of his campaign in Shubra to encourage activism outside of churches and religious institutions. These meetings became where we networked, exchanged ideas, and where we learned about each other as a people.

One network of 30 popular committees from all over Egypt recently launched a campaign called ‘Know your rights’. Underneath it, a number of mini campaigns have been launched in different communities translating ideas of social justice and ‘rights’ into everyday matters. In Imbaba, one of Cairo’s most populous neighborhoods, and Alexandria for instance, this was a campaign to pressure the municipalities to collect garbage more systematically. The committees spent a month raising awareness about the municipality’s role in the collection of garbage. Meanwhile, a letter was addressed to the municipality, signed by at least a thousand of the neighborhood’s inhabitants, warning of dumping garbage before the municipalities’ main office if their demands were not met. In Imbaba, the governor called for a meeting to negotiate with the committee; whereas in Alexandria they proceeded with dumping the garbage at the municipalities office, until action was taken.

The committees take the revolution beyond the squares. If the squares are the places where we met for the first time, the committees become where we take our new-found power, and our collectivity into action. They are where we flex our muscles and continue to pressure the government in all its forms in every aspect of our lives. They are where we practice governance ourselves, imparting justice where possible, and monitoring government apparatus to make sure it is imparted in other cases. If we have learned anything from the revolution and the events that have ensued since, it is that we cannot make demands of a faulty government, but also, that we cannot necessarily dream up a full and comprehensive alternative to our state of affairs. What we can do however is work our way up, from the very specific details of our lives, into the general larger structures that govern us. We start by liberating our imaginations.

We make it up as we go along. We experiment with our relationships with each other as communities, and that of our larger societal structures, we experiment with forms of representation that seem to operate best amongst us. We try, we fail and we keep trying;  practicing the alternative, as we break down the existing government structure and attempt to rebuild it.

Revolution in Egypt: Beyond the ‘alternative’

Perhaps the most difficult, most nagging question that haunts us at the brink of an uprising, is the question of the alternative. We yearn for an alternative world, yet in the fear of not having prepared a comprehensive vision that unifies, we shy away from pushing for change. As a movement spreads and grows, we become surer, stronger, as to that which we cannot accept, which we will no longer tolerate; but separated as to that which we want. How can we bring a system apart, if we’re not ready with that which replaces it?

Revolutions thusfar however, teach us that the alternative, we make up as we go along.

The 25th of January is a national Egyptian holiday in celebration of the Egyptian police’s resistance to British troops on the 25th of January, 1952. The call for a protest on that day was one in light of the ironic state of affairs of an oppressive police state, a day when the police should be brought down in memory of resistances of past and present. The call for protests became much more prominent in light of the Tunisian revolution, but no one knew what to expect.

The morning started like any other, until the pre-announced marches erupted from several populous areas in Cairo, starting with handfuls of protestors, growing in number as they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, until some reached Tahrir, an unanticipated thousands strong. Protestors chanted ‘selmeyya’ ‘peaceful’ as they approached the square; and the state security lines, taken aback by the numbers, parted and let them through. Although everyone hoped that we would take the square, no one can claim to have expected it.

By evening we stood in the square, ten thousand strong astounded at our feat. People gathered in groups and asked ‘what next?’. Some started collecting money for food and blankets, others bought garbage bags and cleaned the area we inhabited, and yet others sang songs to encourage people to spend the night. Meanwhile, the first list of demands, was drafted, prioritizing the toppling of the government.

Throughout the night, people congratulated each other, marveling at the prospects of having occupied the square. One man, standing next to me eyeing the crowd as i did, turned and said ‘It turns out there really are alot of us’ – and that was the discovery of the day. That we had surprised ourselves, that we were large in numbers, from the student to the shoe-shiner, the professor to the garbage collector and the actor to the mechanic; that there was infact, a ‘we’. Activists do not an uprising make, they may call for it, and they may catalyze it, but a revolution is an affair of the people.

By nightfall, the police raided the square heavily with tear-gas and protestors were dispersed all over the city; the battle continued till the break of day, and onwards, until the end of Thursday the 27th of January. The plan was for another big protest on the 28th of January, but the street battles continued, as people tried to keep the streets open, accessible until the big day.

The 28th of January was a fierce and powerful battle in Suez, Alexandria, Cairo, Portsaid and other cities all over Egypt. State security fired with rubber bullets at close range, tear gas, and in some cases, lives ammunition; they killed thousands. However, as the sun set over Alexandria, black smoke bellowed from the city’s burning police stations and unto the sea. Almost every police station was alight, and the streets were strewn with state security trucks, some inverted and others ablaze, all empty. Protestors all over the city had triumphed in the first battle with state security by their sheer numbers, their stones, and the power of their slogans. State security police, and every other uniformed member of the ministry of Interior evacuated the city. The atmosphere was rich with a sense of triumph and an equal if not overpowering sense of dread.

But Alexandria mobilized immediately. By nightfall the corniche was lined with young men, each bearing a patch on his shoulder that read ‘Lagna Shaabeyya’ (popular committee). Their responsibilities, up to that point, were to protect the library of Alexandria and other public institutions from thugs, help anyone left on the street get home and regulate traffic.

Come morning, a flier was distributed. The popular committee announced headquarters in one of the city’s squares, and stated that theirs was the responsibility of every Alexandrian to keep order in a city that was being threatened by thugs who strived to discredit their revolution.

By night time subcommittees were formed to provide medical and economic services in neighborhoods, as well as help the army that had now mobilized into the streets of Egypt, find their way around. Unable to deal with the questions and anxieties of the masses, army personnel distributed the Popular committee’s fliers and numbers.

Born to a moment of fear and chaos, the popular committees became proof of our ability to ‘govern’ as a people. As the months wore on Popular committees developed in communities all over Egypt, their work shifting from short-term security needs to long-term policy needs, as did their organization.  In the absence of a government we maintained order. Operating spontaneously at first, a few organizations (an NGO, and the Centre for socialist studies in Cairo) eventually offered venues to host networking meetings for a number of the committees, so they may exchange experiences. These were as diverse as the communities they represented.

During the constitutional referendum in March for instance, neighborhood committees organized campaigns to raise awareness about the articles in question, and some even monitored the voting process in an attempt to pre-empt and report fraud.

In another instance, when the police force slowly returned to its stations, the popular committees in Boulac, a working-class district in Cairo, monitored their progress. When a woman was harassed in the marketplace by an officer, committee members reported the incident to one of his superiors demanding an apology – which was ignored. Within minutes, 1,000 local residents sat quietly outside the station, promising another few thousand of their people would show up if their request was not fulfilled. The officer acquiesced on the spot.

In Al-Qanater, a rural community just north of Cairo, a committee worked to involve youth, whose lives remain a world apart from their urban counterparts, in electoral politics. In Hadayeq El Qubba, another committee launched a campaign to help people understand the difference between liberal, socialist and Islamist approaches to economic issues because, as one member told me, the community was “tired of being swayed by this or that intellectual without knowing what’s in it for the people.” In El Saf a rural area on the borders of Helwan south of Cairo, popular conferences addressed how governorate boundaries have been redrawn over the last few years without community input, debating which situation benefits them the most, and asserting that urban planning should happen with the participation of the community. In Dokki, a neighborhood in Cairo, a new campaign ‘monitoring prevents corruption’ has been launched to monitor parliamentary candidates and name and shame the corrupt using graffiti.

It’s in the work of these groups that the revolution continues; from representing community demands to engaging local residents to hold their government accountable, these committees make politics relevant to people’s everyday lives.

Also, in a city as gated as Cairo, and a country as stratified as Egypt, the committees became our means of communicating. The inter-committee networking meetings are where i met Marwa, an activist from an upper Egyptian village of Suhag, who clad in black niqab explained the different means her committee used to raise awareness about values of liberalism. It is also where i met Peter, who spoke of his campaign in Shubra to encourage activism outside of churches and religious institutions. These meetings became where we networked, exchanged ideas, and where we learned about each other as a people.

One network of 30 popular committees from all over Egypt recently launched a campaign called ‘Know your rights’. Underneath it, a number of mini campaigns have been launched in different communities translating ideas of social justice and ‘rights’ into everyday matters. In Imbaba, one of Cairo’s most populous neighborhoods, and Alexandria for instance, this was a campaign to pressure the municipalities to collect garbage more systematically. The committees spent a month raising awareness about the municipality’s role in the collection of garbage. Meanwhile, a letter was addressed to the municipality, signed by at least a thousand of the neighborhood’s inhabitants, warning of dumping garbage before the municipalities’ main office if their demands were not met. In Imbaba, the governor called for a meeting to negotiate with the committee; whereas in Alexandria they proceeded with dumping the garbage at the municipalities office, until action was taken.

The committees take the revolution beyond the squares. If the squares are the places where we met for the first time, the committees become where we take our new-found power, and our collectivity into action. They are where we flex our muscles and continue to pressure the government in all its forms in every aspect of our lives. They are where we practice governance ourselves, imparting justice where possible, and monitoring government apparatus to make sure it is imparted in other cases. If we have learned anything from the revolution and the events that have ensued since, it is that we cannot make demands of a faulty government, but also, that we cannot necessarily dream up a full and comprehensive alternative to our state of affairs. What we can do however is work our way up, from the very specific details of our lives, into the general larger structures that govern us. We start by liberating our imaginations.

We make it up as we go along. We experiment with our relationships with each other as communities, and that of our larger societal structures, we experiment with forms of representation that seem to operate best amongst us. We try, we fail and we keep trying;  practicing the alternative, as we break down the existing government structure and attempt to rebuild it.

Elections are being delayed by the Egyptian military, but they are inevitable. They will be our first, for we will make sure they will not be rigged, but hopes for a government with complete integrity are still dim. The excitement and possibility however lies elsewhere. It lies in the new forms of politics we practice in our everyday lives; in the work of the popular committees, and the many spaces like them, where people have taken initiative; rolled up their sleeves, and let their imaginations go wild.