Egyptian revolution one year on

The Front Line club in London which bids itself as a media hub looking to champion free expression, hosted this week a talk on Egypt's revolution: one year on. The talk was chaired by The Observer’s foreign affairs editor Paul Beaumont and hosted by Egyptian writer and author Tarek Osman;  political activist Hossam Abdalla; author and political commentator Ahdaf Souei; head of the news at Egyptian Radio and Television Union Adbel Latif El Menawi and writer Tarek Osman. The four speakers put forward different views on the meaning and the reasons that led to last year's revolution. Mr Osman, who has recently published a book ‘Egypt on the brink: from Nassr to Mubarak’, explains that the country has been going through several phases of failures from the 19th century until today. “First we had the ‘European’ period, were Egyptian leaders looked at the western world as the example to follow; then we had the Arab nationalism period; finally, we had Mubarak’s regime,” he said to the audience. “All of them were a failure. However, after this long series of mistakes, I can now see a new trend: a new young generation which is completely rejecting the entire heritage of failures this country has collected during, at least, the last 60 years.” Hossam Abdalla also agreed Egyptians, but also Arabs from the entire region, were tired of these long traditions of failure. “All Arab societies are fed up with the status quo," he said. “And it is not only about the young people; not even it is only about the poor layers of society. Everybody in the Arab world is currently showing clear signs of dissent towards an entire state of things and this goes completely across social classes.” Mr Abdalla said he also took part in student movements in the 1970s and spoke of the influence of both the Muslim Brotherhood and the military in the building of the new country pointing to the revolutionary forces as the only legitimate source of democracy in the country. “There are three pillars in Egypt right now: one is the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces); the second are the Muslim Brotherhood and the third – which is the most important in my opinion – is the square, the people.” According to Mr Abdalla no real new solution can come from the government or from the army. “If you want to keep the army ruling, the media has to keep lying.” Questioned over his statement, Adbel Latif El Menawi, who was the head of the state television at the time of the revolution, said the process towards free media is longer and more complicated than that. “I was in my office when army officials came and told us the building was under their control. I have always had the dream of a free public media in Egypt and that was the darkest day in my career,’ he told the audience. “However, I believe all of us own the country. the Egyptian army is the Egyptian people. I can hardly think of a single family in Egypt that dooesn't have someone in the army. What we need to do now is to think how to get the country in the position it deserves,” he added. However, Ms Ahdaf Soueif argued that Egyptians’ trust in the army has been severely dented by the army's behaviour since Moubarak's ousting. “We were really hoping that SCAF would keep to their promises and take the chance to make history in Egypt,” she said. “Unfortunately, our trust was completely misplaced. From the beginning of the revolution, the army has enrolled 15,000 young people many of whom are now unjustly in jail for protesting against it.” Osman for his part concluded that the revolution has brought a lot so far. "Of course, it will take time to have a fully democratic state. But history does not happen in two weeks,” he said.