Blog post

Hazem Kandil on post-revolutionary Egypt

Ryan Healey27 June 2012

Today in Dissent, Hazem Kandil—author of Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt, forthcoming from Verso in November—writes on the occasion of the Egyptian presidential results, "Whither the Egyptian Revolution?" 

Kandil considers that—in light of the candidate options for Egypt's presidency, between the old guard of Omar Suleiman and Ahmed Shafiq, and the ultimate winner, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, with its ambivalence to the revolution—"Though a year and a half have gone by, the final verdict on the Egyptian Revolution—including whether it actually was one—is still to come."

Kandil’s analysis of post-revolt politics here is grounded in the feeling that “it is clear that the uprising fell short of its declared goal of overthrowing the regime.” The deeply entrenched tripartite alliance between the military, security, and political institutions held a strong preventive grip on revolutionary movements before the revolt, and they remained in place in the post-revolt police state. Kandil then hones in on the various ways Egypt is witnessing a “moment that is neither a relapse to politics as usual nor the emergence of a new regime, but rather the reconstitution of the power balance within the ruling bloc.”

Visit Dissent to read the article in full.

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