Book by layla dessouki by Freestyle Academy

About the Author

Layla Dessouki is 17 years old and a junior attending Los Altos High School. She is studying film and design at Freestyle Academy. She lives in Los Altos, California with her parents, brother and dog. Layla enjoys reading and spending time with her family. Layla would like to go to college after senior year and pursue international affairs.

The Price of Revolution

Layla Dessouki

The Price of Revolution

Layla Dessouki

DEDICATION

For my parents, Jimmy, and everyone who made sacrifices in the Egyptian Revolution.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Amr Hamzawy and Wael Ghonim for allowing me to interview them. I would also like the thank Mr. Greco for all his help writing this book. I would like to thank my brother Jimmy for always helping whenever I asked him to.

Preface

Chapter 1 Youth: the Catalyst of Change

CONT Introduction Chapter 2 Amr and Wael

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Conclusion

ENTS Works Cited Chapter 3 Was it Worth It?

Preface When the documentary project was first introduced to us, I didn’t have any ideas on what I wanted to do. It being such a big project, I wanted to make sure I would be working on something that I cared about and that I wouldn’t mind working on for so long. I talked to my parents, and they suggested I talk to Amr Hamzawy, a friend of theirs who had a large role in the revolution in Egypt. Because of my interest in my culture, I knew this was a good topic for me to work on and could easily become passionate about. Working on this project was really interesting for me because of my family’s differing political opinions, and debates over the dinner table were relevant to my project. My parents had a lot of background information on this topic, which allowed me to get more informed feedback when writing my paper. I initially had a hard time getting started writing my expository essay, but with the help of Mr. Greco, I was able to get started. I got really stressed out throughout the course of this project because I procrastinated and watched as all the work started piling up. Once I figured out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to organize my book, it became much easier to write it and I was able to get to a place where I wasn’t too behind where I should have been. Before starting this project, I knew I wanted to study international affairs. After doing this project, I was able to narrow this down to international affairs with a concentration in Middle East studies. Despite all the stress I was under throughout this project, I really enjoyed creating it. I learned a lot about myself and how to handle having a lot of work. I also gained a deeper understanding of my culture and the events of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.

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Introduction

There is no simple formula for a successful social movement, but they all share a number of characteristics. They are led by leaders with an overwhelming forbearance for personal sacrifice. Some of historyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest shifts in civil rights, diplomacy, and lawmaking have been the product of individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sacrifice: individuals who exemplified and supported the causes they believed in. An element of sacrifice is required and occurs in the everyday interactions between a leader and his/her group. Leadership is about investing in other people to help them succeed, even if they are sacrificing their own needs or self-interest. Movement leaders must make strategic choices in order to prevail. These leaders do not expect change to happen overnight; they are aware that they are part of a broader movement that requires building alliances and developing trust. Activists draw strength from each other as they collaborate to change public opinion and policy. Each generation of activists faces new challenges. The radical ideas of one generation become the common sense of the next. We stand on the shoulders of entire generations of reformers who challenged the status quo of their day. Every generation retells and reinterprets this story to help shape the present and future. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 created young leaders who made many personal sacrifices.

Chapter 1 Youth: the Catalyst of Change

Youth movements in Egypt played a key role in

technologyâ&#x20AC;? (Ghonim). Social media and the internet were

orchestrating the uprisings that overthrew President Hosni

the leading platforms of the organization and communication

Mubarak on February 11, 2011. Various groups organized

that occurred. On March 23, 2008, a small group of young

movements in which young people were at the forefront,

Egyptian activists launched a Facebook page in support of

leading the charge for social justice and change through

a planned textile workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; strike in the city of Mahalla al-

Facebook pages and other social media platforms such as

Kobra. Starting with 300 followers at its launch, the April 6

Twitter. Of the youth-led revolution, one party noted, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The

Movement, the number rose to over 70,000 within weeks. On

youth are more naive and energetic and a lot of the youth

April 6, thousands of workers rioted with police striking back

in Egypt were like outsiders. They are a generation that

and arresting 400 people. Over the next three years, various

has access to the Internet, so they are much more exposed

protests occurred, igniting hope and building up to January

to the world than the previous generations just because of

2011.

In 2011, Egyptian people flooded the streets to protest the nearly 30-year autocratic rule of Hosni Mubarak. Facebook groups inspired by the April 6 Movement started gaining traction, the most popular being the page “We are all Khaled Said”. Created by Google executive Wael Ghonim as an anonymous activist, this page featured cell phone photos of police brutality victim Khaled Said. Said’s first interaction with the detectives accused of killing him occurred about a month before he was beaten to death. Said lived above an internet cafe where police officers were sharing videos of officers dividing seized narcotics and cash. It is believed that the clip was accidentally delivered to Said via Bluetooth who then shared it with friends, who did the same. The day of Said’s death, two of the officers implicated in the video approached him outside the cafe under his home and began to repeatedly smash his head against a marble table. Even after the trio was ejected from the cafe, Said was dragged to a nearby building and beaten further by the officers. The official police report stated the cause of death was severe cardiovascular asphyxiation from swallowing a bag containing marijuana. Following the police report, photos taken in the morgue were soon released, revealing Khaled’s battered and bloody corpse in detail. Ghonim’s Facebook page exposed the injustice, quickly gaining traction and garnering over 400,000 users. People had found a forum to vent their frustration with the decades of corruption and torture perpetrated by the government. Ghonim speculates, “[The internet] was a way for people to organize that the government did not really pay attention to. The government does not know how, didn’t understand, they didn’t understand how important, how big it is. And they didn’t know how to fight it until then” (Ghonim). As a result, people were able to organize themselves and to plan a protest to set to occur on Police Day in an effort to protest police brutality as well as the regime. National Police Day commemorates 50 police officers killed and more wounded when they refused British demands to hand over weapons and evacuate the Ismaïlia Police Station on January 25, 1952. On this date in 2011 people flooded the streets to fight for democracy, human rights, consequences for police brutality, and a change in the regime. The leaders of these protests were young twenty-somethings who created makeshift offices as the various groups came together and loosely organized activities through the Revolution Youth Coalition. Many of these leaders were killed or arrested, sacrificing their freedom and their lives or their freedom - or both. Youth activists and youth movements played a crucial part in turning Egypt into a revolutionary state. The rise of youth-led movements was largely influential in the emergence of new forms of mobilization that helped to lead the revolution. The willingness of these youth to make personal sacrifices in order to stand up for beliefs held a key role in the revolution.

Amr “I cannot go back. I believe I can’t to go back and easily. It’s nothing against me on paper, but looking at the situation in Egypt, anyone who speaks up ends up being taken from the airport to prison.”

One of these young activists was Egyptian scholar and political activist Amr Hamzawy who mediated communication between the government and protesters during the revolution. Following the ousting of the now former President Hosni Mubarak, Hamzawy was voted into Parliament during Egypt’s first post-uprising democratic election. In 2013, the military, with the support of the people, overthrew the democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi. After this, Egyptians were hesitant to define the event as a coup as not to threaten the new military state. Hamzawy was one of the few people to acknowledge the event as a seizure of power and subsequently, it cost him. Hamzawy tweeted to the public, defaming the lack of transparency in a recent court ruling against three American NGOs that were accused of operating without necessary approvals and receiving funds from abroad illegally. Of this court ruling, he explained, “I believe that some people were sent to prison simply for the Egyptian government to prove that 2011 was a conspiracy. In order to prove that it was a conspiracy, they needed to find some defendants, and the defendants were NGO people from the US, from Germany and from Egypt who were accused of plotting their conspiracy” (Hamzawy). He then was charged with insulting the judiciary and placed under a travel ban, under which he could not leave the country for one year. His wife Egyptian actress Basma Hassan was also prevented from pursuing her career. Despite this, Hamzawy continued to speak out about human rights abuses and other injustices committed by the government. He commented on events such as that in August 2013, where Egyptian security forces and army raided two camps of protesters in Cairo: “I felt that it would have been extremely shameful not to say truth to power as they say and state that it was a massacre” (Hamzawy). He soon left Egypt, and today is living in exile and working as a visiting professor at Stanford University. He is unable to go back to Egypt and is separated from his family. Hamzawy continues to write, staying true to his principles while being careful not to put his family in Egypt in danger.

Wael

Wael Ghonim was living as a Google executive in Dubai when he first saw the leaked photos of Khaled Said. He felt that he had a moral obligation

“I was just trying to help. I was trying to increase the cost of oppression.”

to help those less fortunate than him, “I didn’t have any expectations. I was just

trying to help. I was trying to increase the cost of oppression” (Ghonim). Ghonim’s page, something he had created in the midst of his frustration, became one of the most crucial elements of the revolution, and Western media branded him the face of the Egyptian revolution. The page was originally set up through a proxy group, in order to maintain Ghonim’s anonymity. Before traveling to Egypt for the planned January 25th protest, Ghonim wrote his will. Reflecting on the revolution, he stated, “I was willing to die but it didn’t happen” (Ghonim). Just before the protests started, Egyptian security officials exposed his identity. On January 27, Ghonim was kidnapped after having dinner with some colleagues. Ghonim went the jail for 11 days, where he was subjected to torture and interrogations. After being released, he gave a public interview where he mourned those that had lost their lives during the protests, which proved to many Egyptians that revolutionaries were human and that the government was capable of the brutality it was accused of. Three years later, Ghonim was publically targeted by a pro-regime television channel. In an attempt to discredit him, the channel aired some of his private telephone conversations, claiming that Ghonim’s conversations proved that he used the revolution for his own gain. Today, Ghonim has been exiled from Egypt and is living in Palo Alto, California with his family. Like Hamzawy, Ghonim is also separated from his family in Egypt but is hopeful that he will be able to visit in the future.

Chapter 3 Was it Worth It?

Before the revolution, Mubarak had been in power for 30 years and was grooming his son to inherit power. Half of the population lived on $2 a day or less, while the minority built walled compounds and exclusive private schools in order to advertise their elite lives and exclusive homes, a system that many people blamed Mubarak for creating. Mubarak’s government selectively used civil society restrictions to ensure citizens did not cross the ruling regime’s red lines. Today, seven years after the revolution, Egypt is run by a system arguably more corrupt than the previous regime they had originally rebelled against. Young Egyptian scholars, liberal politicians, and journalists are currently being imprisoned or exiled. Egypt is falling back to a despotic regime, an autocratic environment in which unprecedented human rights violations are happening. There are currently between 40,000 and 50,000 young Egyptians who, as a result of their activism, were ostracized and wrongly imprisoned, creating an unjust environment similar to the Egypt of pre-2011. Exiled scholar Amr Hamzawy states, “The irony is that the democratic uprising of 2011 did not lead to democratization. It actually led to the country backsliding on where it was prior to 2011. So if you compare that by any measure with regard to human rights violations, with regard to freedom of expression, to freedom of association, Egypt is in a worse place than it was prior to 2011” (Hamzawy). Despite having passed a new constitution in 2014 which guaranteed rights such as freedom of expression in the press, the Egyptian government, headed by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, has waged an increasingly arbitrary war to exert control over the media. Where Mubarak’s regime allowed for some media freedoms, Sisi’s government is unwilling to tolerate any criticism. Similarly, where Mubarak recognized political parties that opposed him, Sisi’s Parliament is dominated by his supporters. The Egyptian government establishes complete control in order to assert dominance over threats, media, and Egyptian citizens. The nature of repression shifted from a calculated, subtle approach under Mubarak to an unregulated and systematic campaign under Sisi. Although repression was common during Mubarak’s 30 years, it was used relatively sparingly as a politically expedient resource, and the regime was careful to maintain a liberal facade through democratic groups. In contrast to this, the Sisi regime is unable to control its repression and violent tactics.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The irony is that the democratic uprising of 2011 did not lead to democratization. It actually led to the country backsliding on where it was prior to 2011. So if you compare that by any measure with regard to human rights violations, with regard to freedom of expression, to freedom of association, Egypt is in a worse place than it was prior to 2011â&#x20AC;?

Conclusion

History is shaped by those who take a stand and fight for change. The most significant changes have sprung from humble beginnings stemming from combinations of grassroots progressive movements and reformers. Revolutions see setbacks and in sometimes take decades to reach the reforms they have been fought for and sacrificed to attain. Revolution leaders pay the price by taking on the fight in the name of ordinary people. In the example of Egypt, the country is in the midst of change and is still waiting for the final chapter to be written. People like Ghonim and Hamzawy continue to inspire people because of their sacrifices and their continued efforts to fight for what they believe in. The leaders of the Egyptian revolution knew that there is no success without sacrifice, and became the best leaders they could be by being aware of this and making themselves willing to make these choices.

Works Cited Brechenmacher, Saskia. “Institutionalized Repression in Egypt.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 18 May 2017, carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/18/institutionalized-repression-in-egypt-pub-69959. EL-FAIZY, Monique. “Egypt Launches Unprecedented Crackdown on Media Ahead of Sisi Re-Election Bid.” France 24, France 24, 15 Mar. 2018, www.france24.com/en/20180309-egypt-takes-unprecedented-steps-control-media. Ghonim, Wael. “Egypt’s Revolution, My Life, and My Depression – Wael Ghonim – Medium.”Medium, Augmenting Humanity, 21 Mar. 2018, medium.com/ Ghonim, Wael. Personal interview. 25 April 2018. Hammer, Joshua. “How Egypt’s Activists Became ‘Generation Jail’.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/magazine/how-egypts-activists-became-generation-jail.html. Hamzawy, Amr. Personal interview. 12 March 2018. Kingsley, Patrick. “I’m No Traitor, Says Wael Ghonim as Egypt Regime Targets Secular Activists.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Jan. 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/wael-ghonim-egypt-regime-targets-secular-activists. Londono, Ernesto. “Egyptian Man’s Death Became Symbol of Callous State.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Feb. 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/08/AR2011020806360.html. Marcus, Ben. “Youth Movements in Egypt.” Religious Literacy Project, Harvard Divinity School, rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/youth-movements-egypt.

“Repression in Egypt from Mubarak to Sisi.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, carnegieendowment.org/sada/60985. “Revolution in Cairo.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/interviews/courtney-radsch.html. Saad, Ragab. “All the President’s MPs: The Egyptian Parliament’s Role in Burying Human Rights and Silencing Dissent.” Stratfor, Stratfor, 29 June 2017, worldview.stratfor.com/article/all-presidents-mps-egyptian-parliament-s-role-burying-hu man-rights-and-silencing-dissent. Slackman, Michael. “Reign of Egypt’s Mubarak Marked by Poverty, Corruption, Despair.” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, 29 Jan. 2011, www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/reign-of-egypts-mubarak-marked-by-poverty-corruption-despair/. “Social Media Advances ‘Revolution’ In Egypt.” NPR, NPR, 17 Jan. 2012, www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145326759/revolution-2-0-social-medias-role-in-removing-mubarak-from-power. Tufekci, Zeynep, and David Talbot. “A Leading Voice of the Egyptian Revolution Says Social Media Failed to Sustain the Movement and Talks about What Comes next.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 11 Aug. 2016, www.technologyreview.com/s/601241/remaking-social-media-for-the-next-revolution/. “Wael Ghonim: Creating A ‘Revolution 2.0’ In Egypt.” NPR, NPR, 9 Feb. 2012, www.npr.org/2012/02/09/146636605/wael-ghonim-creating-a-revolution-2-0-in-egypt. WorldPost, The. “Wael Ghonim: We Have A Duty To Use Our Social Media Power To Speak The Truth.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 Oct. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wael-ghonim-social-media_us_580e364ae4b000d0b157b53a.

About the Author

The Price of Revolution

Layla Dessouki