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In 2011, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak relinquished his post because of a wave of popular anger calling for the departure of Egypt's deep state system and giving space to freedom, democracy, justice and equality in Egypt. After the revolution's success, Egypt started a new stage in its history that did not witness in the past fair elections for choosing the country's leaders, after the revolution of July 1952 that succeeded it by toppling the monarchy and the rule of the free officers organization of Egypt led by President Mohammad Najib, and after his resignation, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of the Free officers Organization, succeeded him. His deputy Anwar Sadat, followed by Hosni Mubarak, who was chosen by a referendum and served 30 years in power. In the early days of the revolution, the government of Egypt was ruled by no civilian president, but only by the army's officers.
After the revolution, fair elections were paved for the first time to elect a civilian president, the elections witnessed the victory of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, who did not continue in his position much, as he was ousted after mass popular demonstrations on June 30, 2013 to topple him. The Supreme Commander of the Armed forces Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi issued a decision to dismiss Morsi from his position as president and hand over the country's leadership to the President of the Constitutional Court, Chancellor Adli Mansour, to start the preparation of new presidential elections. In the elections of 2014, Al-Sisi succeeded in reaching the presidency of the Republic, so that Egypt can witness the return of the military to rule once again, and Egypt under the rule of Al-Sisi suffers from the suppression of freedoms, the pursuit of political activists and opposition activists and the imprisonment of them under the pretext of terrorism at times and morals. The Egyptian regime controls the various state bodies and completely controls the political, social, economic and other aspects of the life of the Egyptian citizen.
This paper discusses the methods and tools of the Egyptian regime in controlling the state, pursuing the peaceful opposition and the various activists in the opposition, and enabling the regime to impose its authority by force and repression, whether security, ideological, intellectual or ideological. The suppression of freedoms is not only through imprisonment and pursuit, but also by preventing people from thinking and presenting opinions that are contrary to the regime, despite being an authoritarian, authoritarian regime.
Theoretical entry:
Juan Lins defined authoritarian regimes as systems characterized by strong central government, with no place for individual freedoms or constitutional accountability, this definition links authoritarianism and its tools to the governmental centralization that controls various sectors of the state until the state becomes authoritarian, but this does not include governments that give or interfere with economic freedoms. Lebanese researcher Laila Al-Rahbani defines the modern authoritarianism in the Arab world as "a new type of regime that has adapted to the demands of economic liberation and integration into the globalized economy." The authoritarian regimes are linked to the liberal economy of the World Trade Organization and toward privatization, which makes the big democracies overlook the crises of democratic change in the Arab world for their economic interests.
The Arab region lacks the requirements of democratic transformation, as it is characterized by the characteristics of authoritarian states according to Eva Beilin: The region's access to rents, the continued support of international masters, the patriarchal nature of state institutions, and the limited popular mobilization, which the Arab peoples face from their governments, leading to domination, corruption and repression.
The characteristics of the authoritarian regimes have developed to include introducing new economic policies on the state to satisfy the major states by granting them economic investments and facilitation in various sectors, in return for making rights organizations affiliated to it reduce the burden of pursuing the operations of suppressing freedoms, as well as supporting the authoritarian state in cases of attacks on them by these organizations. And making it relax the requirements of democratic transformation in the authoritarian state.
Controlling the state's ideological bodies is the top priority of any repressive political regime, as they are the most important tools for fortifying the regime intellectually, legally and economically, as any regime can, through controlling them, fomer its people and create a feeling that is not aware of the greatness of the regime and the importance of defending it. They make the opposition parties stateless or work for foreign agendas, thus creating a sense among ordinary citizens that there is a conspiracy against his country and that, despite being corrupt, he must abide by the instructions of the regime and defend it, as he defends his country against external attempts to destabilize security and stability. This is what happened with the Muslim Brotherhood after the fall of their rule in Egypt, and the state ideological institutions, as Lowe Al-Tusquir says, do not only stand in the repression apparatus, but include religion, culture, education, media and law. Politics, trade union action).
About System fortify Tools:
"Prison and killing torture prisons.. You protect a stadium with a weapon of intimidation, don't forget we are the ultras... The state of your repression will not help" a clip of the song "Open we are die" of the ultras White nights after the massacre of the air defense stadium committed by the repressive state agencies in 2015, in which 19 people were killed because of their opposition to the Egyptian regime. This is not the only incident to repress opposition groups in Egypt, where the regime stopped the opposition "April 6" Youth Movement and considered it a banned group because of its opposition to the new road map proposed by President Al-Sisi, their coordinator Ahmed Maher was also detained. The fate of "Kefaya Movement", "revolutionary socialists" and opposition figures such as Wael Ghoneim, who were accused of treason, opposition to the regime or labor for foreign countries was also that of. The Interior Ministry, like Mubarak's rule, has once again fabricated charges against any opposition movement, but the difference this time without any fear from human rights institutions because of the economic policies followed by the Sisi government and its economically excessive dependence on foreign countries, creating a state of marriage between politics and economics in Egypt and opening new customer networks for the regime.
The Egyptian regime controlled all the state's ideological institutions since it came to power. In the cultural sector, the regime directed cultural elites in Egypt to beautify the image of the Egyptian army, considering that the military establishment is the one who holds the reins of power under the leadership of General Cissé, so the number of films, songs, poems, articles and serials that respect the army such as: The series "Kalbash and Upper Egypt, the Corridor and the song of hands taking hands" rose and many others. In order to create a certain awareness among the people that will persuade them to stand by the regime despite its corruption, these films show all those who oppose the military rule in Egypt as a terrorist, addicts or agent to foreign countries, and Egyptian cinema is considered to be the most influential cinema in the Arab world in general. Through this means, the regime tries to whitewash its repressive image before the Arab public opinion as well as pushing the Egyptian citizen to think of the necessity of defending the regime because of its exposure to attacks from abroad, in the series of "selection", for example, representatives revere the role of the army in Sinai and defend the people against terrorism. But in fact, the army displaced many of Sinai's peaceful citizens without providing compensation to the displaced, in a setback that befell thousands of families in Al-Arish, Rafah, Egypt, and other areas.
On the media level, Egyptian televisions did not stop praising the regime and attacking all its opponents as traitors or agents of foreign agendas, so there were many political programs supporting the regime such as: (What happens in Egypt, Cairo now, every day, the end of the day) and others, as well as newspapers and websites in Egypt. After the revolution in 2011, Egyptians expected a new era full of democracy and freedoms. However, reality was full of detention, pursuit and terrorism charges that chase opponents in Egypt, and the Egyptian media as a tool in the hands of the regime did not stop attacking the opposition and accusing it of terrorism and covering up the crimes of the Egyptian regime in violating human rights and suppressing freedoms.
Religiously, Al-Sisi has repeatedly called for the importance of renewing religious discourse, as Cairo University President Mohamed Al-Khasht wrote a book "toward the establishment of a new religious age", calling for the establishment of modern religious thought in Egypt. Since the beginning of his rule, Al-Sisi attacked the Islamic parties, threw their cadres and activists in prisons, considering them terrorist organizations threatening the national security in Egypt, and maintained all the clerics supporting him and gave them positions in the state or religious institution. Al-Sisi exploited this important and decisive factor in influencing the Egyptians through a group of pro-and-pro preachers and sheikhs, where religious discourse focused on the necessity of obeying the ruler and prohibiting departure from him. This is why the government of Egypt has been holding a religious obstacle before the Muslim majority in Egypt, considering that opposing the ruling regime is prohibited by law and leads to fire, which has been reinforced in one way or another by influencing the awareness and choices of the Egyptian citizen.
In 2019, the Egyptian parliament introduced new amendments to the constitution, which included extending the presidential term for 6 years instead of 4, allowing the president to run for a third term after only two terms, and in 2017, al-Sisi approved the amendment of the demonstration Law. The right to demonstrate is guaranteed in all international conventions and treaties, and the constitutional amendments also include the President's responsibility to appoint the heads of the judicial bodies and the Attorney-General after they were chosen by the competent bodies themselves. All these changes were for absolute control over the state and even the judiciary, which represents a blow to the fairness Go ahead and transparency of the judiciary in Egypt, and consequently the judiciary has become an opformer to the state, not impartial and independent from it.
Al-Sisi imposed his iron and authoritarian grip on education and followed the student movement in Egypt's universities, where no elections for the student movement were held until 2015 and the results were canceled because of the opposition's victory. In 2020, the student elections returned again, but only one list won by recommendation, which is backed by the security services of Sisi, not to mention the continuous arrests of student movements opposing the Muslim Brotherhood, the April 6 Movement and the powerful Egypt. Moreover, the selection of lecturers and teachers in universities according to their security file and not their scientific competence has not been spent enough for education in Egypt. Despite his continuous talk in the Egyptian media about the importance of education, Egypt came in the penultimate place in the world in terms of the quality of education in 2019, and since Al-Sisi came to power, Egypt has maintained this position. Education is the main building block for building new generations. In the same context, the change is taking place in Egypt from government education (free of charge), but the poor to foreign education, schools and universities, which are of course not more than a market whose main concern is profit, even at the expense of students. The policy of privatization in the education sector deprives thousands or even millions of children in Egypt of access to a real, advanced and strong education, and Egyptian citizens remain dependent on the security of controlled schools and universities.
Despite a new trade union law passed in 2017, which takes the state's hand off trade unions and allows them to operate freely, in their recent elections these unions have maintained their pro-regime leadership, but not at the will of workers but of repression and intimidation. The authoritarian regime rejected a big number of candidates for the elections, some of them were detained on security charges, and completely controlled the labor unions to prevent them from being independent in decision-making, and controlling their movements.
Conclusion:
It is clear from this paper that the Egyptian regime controlled the state by completely removing the opposition and trying to create a false awareness among the masses of the middle and middle classes so that they sympathize with the regime despite its corruption and repression. The authoritarian regime in Egypt has cast a shadow over all the "authoritarian" state institutions, thus depriving the people of freedom of choice, expression and other freedoms, and also allowed the external economy to influence and control the Egyptian economy, in order to pass the crisis of democracy in Egypt at human rights organizations.
The regime controlled the various ideological state bodies, thus controlling the instruments of fortifying the regime, controlling the economic, trade union, political, religious, cultural, media, educational and legal system, as well as the repressive State apparatus, which is represented in police, central security and national security (previously State security). He removed the opposition by murder, imprisonment, mutilation or prosecution, and was able to prevent any movement of opposition parties as prohibited or terrorist groups. He also managed to consolidate a new concept of authoritarian state in Egypt, despite using the tools of his predecessor, yet, he managed to devise new tools that enabled him to impose complete control over all aspects of the state.
Bibliography:
Books and Science articles:
Masashi Sekiguchi, “Government and Politics”, volume 1,page 92, (27/8/2010).
Eva Beilin, "authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance", chap. II, pp. 45-50
Al-Dnan, Rabie, ”Egypt series "between two covenants: Marsa and Al-Sisi: A comparative study", Al-Zaytoonah Center for Studies and consultations.
Louis of the Tuscany, "ideology and the State ideological organs", 1970.
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