Kifaya death watch?
It's been noticeable to anyone who has been going to the protests that the Kifaya movement is losing steam. But the way this article puts it, it seems that it's struggeling to survive.
posted by The Sandmonkey @ 12/13/2005 12:52:00 AM
5 Comments:
I am afraid I agree
the story of kefaya and co which has been going on since 2001 or 2003 or 2004 depending on how you look at it has always been like that, predictions of doom the movement looking like it is stagnating and going to die then all of a sudden it rises up from the deathbed does something different and wins a small victory that ends up being significant later.
tab3an they never fix the fundemental shortcomings of the movement, so you never know they might rebound, specially if they get input from everyone.
there are a couple of good ideas being discussed now inside kefaya and al hamla, many don't wont to admit defeat, many don't want to work with the brotherhood but you never know.
Alaa,
the thing with Kifaya that I think kept it going was the presidential election and the parlaimentary election. Now both are over, and Mubarak is in for another 6 years. This is why Kifaya is in trouble. Let me elaborate..
Kifaya has always lacked an actual coherent structure, which was good at first because the group was so diverse that in order to get all parties in you needed to agree on the headlines instead of the specifics. That's great, but what's the plan? Is it to get people to speak up? To educate voters? to monitor votes? To form a new party? to encourage people to get involved in new parties? That's what I always wanted to know about them, and whenever I ask someone they tell me that the movement is new, and that it's good enough for now that we are getting people involved. Ok, fine, but that's now. What about the future? You got the person, how do you retain him? Silence was the answer I usually got.
Hany Bushra once told me that he believed that the reason why the movement was losing steam was because the police wasn;t cracking down on them anymore. People go, they yell, they get their frustration out of their system and without having the police as their enemy the excitment of going and protesting fades away. Cause al you end up doing is walking and shouting. Great, now what?
I dunno if I agree with him, but I am noticing something else: there is almost no left in the egyptian parliament. There is the MB , which is religious right, and there is the NDP and that's whatever that is. Maybe the main reason why Kifaya failed had to do with egyptians rejecting the leftist ideology. Maybe the whole socialist= communist= kafir equation has been implanted in the egyptian psyche for far too long and the new movement or parties have failed to change that image or get more believers in that ideology. You know?
Don;t think I am gloating. God knows I think socialism is evil. But having an egyptian parliament without a left present, for me at least, is dangerous. Cause the left in egypt used to fend off/balance out the islamist influence of the MB. Without it, what will happen will be something similar to this: The MB will uniter with the NDP over issues relating to businesses, moneymaking and investment, and in return the NDP will look the otehr way when the MB censors a couple of books or issues some religious laws that don't affect their businesses. Everyone wins in a way, especially without a left that will cause a stink over secularism or social liberties. you know?
It's weird that the left isn't stronger in Egypt though. It used to be. God knows this is the kind of country where such an ideology would gain popularity, especially with the current economic coditions and with a popuation that still expects the government to do everything for them. Hmm......
got your point but still, all I'm saying the movement can still reinvent itself.
in my experience if one is dedicated enough one can greatly influence the movement (assuming you have a good idea), a bunch of bloggers had a great effect on the way things get done, youth for change had an even greater impact, the competition from al hamla etc.
the thing about police crackdown might be partly true, but you see this happened before, it just reflects the fact that we are not pushing the cieling, they used to attack all demonstrations, when they let us be in certain places downtown it was time to move the protests and gain more ground, they fought back, then they let us be, so it was time to start marching, they fought back then let us be, now it is the time to take it to the next level, whatever that is. (leave downtown for good I suppose).
but the movement also switched from just doing protests to elections monitoring, and to supporting candidates, maybe they/we will switch to something else now.
as I said there are at least two good ideas under discussion.
whether the left as an ideology failed or not remains to be seen IMO since we've had no grass roots work from the left for ages, the current liberal and left opposition failed that is true but is it the death of an ideology? or the death of a group of people? or the death of an approach to political work? only the future will tell.
as for no more elections not true, we still got shura and local elections both are more important now after the constitutional ammendment, so kefaya and has one more year to go, if it manages to reinvent itself it might last even longer.
the thing is they need to change the leadership and to structure things in a more democratic and transparent way, the current ad hoc approach to organization is annoying everyone.
with all due respect to what you are both saying, Kefaya sucked from day one!!
what sort of a credible respectable organization or group calls themself kefaya?? I visited their website & its absolute rubbish! same fancy decorative talk that any old bugger on the street can recite or dictate even.
Its all fancy words but in ithe core, its hollow & pretty dull to say the least.
Either they are forming a political party, which then they should rename their movement as kefaya is outrageously silly, & publish a decent manifesto.
Sooner or later that movement is going to fade away, as the sandmonkey did, they only gained steam at the time of elections but other than that, i dont think they will reinvent anything, let alone themselves.
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