It was an extraordinary sight: young men and women from all walks of life crowding into the heart of the capital and chanting the same thing: "The people want the fall of the regime". They were not from opposition parties or the Muslim Brotherhood, which was then Egypt's most organised Islamist group. Most were regular Egyptians who were bravely taking part in anti-government protests for the first time.
During my life, I had known only Mubarak and his security apparatus. The shouts that I was hearing for democracy and freedom must have seemed to many like an unachievable dream. And yet, the momentum only grew. By Friday, declared a "day of rage", protests had spread across the country.
In total, I was to spend 18 days covering the popular uprising in Cairo and the coastal city of Alexandria. I knew I was witnessing some historic moment. Behind the ups and downs - of dangerous clashes and defiance - for the first time in many people's lives a sense of change was in the air. Each day brought incredible scenes: desperate young men staying put day and night - even daring to sleep on the metal tracks of army tanks - and others distributing free blankets and food to demonstrators, neatly repainting the kerbs and collecting rubbish.
In my interviews with protesters, it was clear they were determined, ready to sacrifice their lives for change. When, finally, on 11 February, Mubarak stepped down, there was an outburst of joy and euphoria. At first, power was handed to a military council, but then seeds of division were sown between former comrades in Tahrir Square: liberals and Islamists.
But in , after just one year in power, he was ousted in popular protests supported by the armed forces. The ugly stand-off that resulted with his supporters camping out for six weeks in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square was to end in a "massacre". Covering the bloody scenes was the lowest point in my career.
It is believed more than people were killed in raids by the security services that described by Human Rights Watch as "crimes against humanity". Later, in , Egypt elected a new president - another military strongman - President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.
Let us assume that such conspiracy theories are indeed accurate in identifying the forces behind the launching of Arab revolts that swept the region in , and led to serious domestic and regional political consequences.
Should scholars of the region dismiss such narratives as irrational emanations of uninformed people, or as ideologically-inspired statements driven by nationalist zeal and even anti-Americanism? Past experiences, and more particularly the recent history of terrorist attacks, however, have shown that citizens do often pay the cost of the negative image other countries hold of their government.
They may not afford to take a retaliatory action against a government depicted in such negative terms in the popular mind but they may punish some of its citizens or their own citizens believing that they serve the unfriendly interests of that government. During the interim rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in , sixteen foreign and seventeen Egyptian citizens, all members of NGOs, were arrested and put on trial in the same year.
They were accused of illegally receiving foreign funding and operating without government approval. The foreigners included five Americans, who were working for democracy-promoting institutions International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute and Freedom House , and Europeans from Germany and Finland—the resident director of the German Konrad Adenuer Stiftung think tank and his assistant.
The list also included Serbians as well as people from other Arab countries. The foreigners were released on bail in and left the country but all were initially sentenced in to one or up to five years in jail.
They were all acquitted by the Cairo Criminal Court in This case strained U. As the region marks the 10 th anniversary of these historical changes , and as a new U.
Can such claims endure in the face of emerging evidence and accounts from U. Fortunately, two of the top officials during the Obama administration during these crucial years—Clinton and Obama himself—have published their memoirs and told the story of their reactions to Arab revolts.
Some relevant U. Unless other credible accounts emerge, we have no other way of substantiating these claims. The White House at the time only suspended the release of certain items and resumed full military assistance once the country presumably got an elected president in and an elected parliament in They will also claim that top U.
Conspiracy theories have a life of their own, despite all evidence to their contrary. They serve functions other than telling the truth about any event. They offer simple and easy narratives for complex events whose causes and intricacies are difficult to fathom.
They relieve political leaders from any responsibility for their failures and setbacks since the conspiracy theories identify powerful forces, over which such actors cannot have any control, as the originators of such events. They also provide political actors with ideological weapons to use against their adversaries, charging them consequently with being agents of foreign powers. Debating conspiracy theory is, however useful, not only for academic purposes but perhaps equally, to limit their chances of gaining a wider public.
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Many believed the square in the heart of the capital was not just a symbol, but a tool; Tahrir Square will be always there, they thought. We all know the way to Tahrir. If we want change, we fill it again and change will come. When Mubarak stepped down, he handed power over to the military.
That wasn't the outcome that many of the protesters envisioned, and thousands remained in the streets, demanding a transition to a new civilian government. Clashes between military forces and the protesters quickly saw the chants in the streets change from, "the army and the people are one hand," to "down with military rule.
A majority of Egyptians grew tired of protests, strikes, unrest, chaos and the dire economic situation — tired of the revolution. But Islamists, who want religion to serve as a frame of reference for government and society, seized on the unrest and their role in the uprising against Mubarak to make their way into power. National elections gave them a majority in parliament and, in , Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood — an organization whose slogan is "Islam is the solution" — won the presidency by a thin margin.
It was taking on the old regime, the military that didn't really have the intention of giving up power, and the Islamists who saw a chance to seize power," Ammar Ali Hassan, a novelist and socio-political researcher, told CBS News. The Islamists' narrative played heavily on the sectarian divisions that plague many Muslim nations.
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