Egypt: How Five Young Activists started a Revolution
I've been fascinated by events in Egypt, so I did some research. Here is what I learned, cobbled together from the sources at end.
Shows what a few people can accomplish when conditions are right.
Egypt: Popular Uprising not a coup
The Tamarod - or Rebel - Campaign began May 1st with a petition campaign. It was formed by 5 young activists (22 to 30 years old) who had known each other in the previous movement that ousted Mubarak. The leadership is a central group of about 25, connected to a network of coordinators in Egypt's 27 provinces, each with a team of volunteers in towns and villages.
Their goal was to gather enough signatures to oust Morsi, and to call for early election. They called for a public demonstration on June 30th.
By June 29, thousands of volunteers throughout the country had collected over 22 million signatures, and mobilized a population angry at economic problems, and disappointed with the regime.
"Mr. Badr, one of the organizers, said the group was amazed at the response and collected thousands of signatures that day, so many that they ran out of petitions and had to make more copies.
Groups they had never heard of had joined the campaign and were gathering signatures on their own and delivering stacks of signed petitions to the group’s downtown Cairo headquarters."
Organizers recorded and collated the signed petitions and kept them locked up. Every few days they moved them to a new location.
"Collecting signatures in itself is a breakthrough, overcoming Egyptians' engrained resistance to signing onto any paper presented by a stranger, especially political, from the Mubarak days when doing so could get you a visit from state security or even arrested. Volunteers carrying the petitions brought politics into every corner - weddings, slum alleys, buses and subways. Volunteers included strangers to political campaigning, from men selling cigarettes in kiosks to impoverished women selling in vegetable markets."
Through Facebook and Twitter, volunteers would download the form, copy it and distribute them among friends and family members or hit the streets for signatures, then get back in touch with coordinators to return the papers.
"The Tamarod campaign marked a shift in tactics. The mainly liberal and secular opposition parties have made little headway in building on the discontent to form a popular political force able to counter the Islamists’ lock on elected bodies.
Activists hoped the signature campaign would show the strength of anti-Morsi sentiment among the large sectors of the public that have largely given up on politics."
One member said, “It brings politics back to the streets after people became scared of joining protests where people were being killed.”
The organizers say they plan to use the network they have established going ahead, to keep the public involved and to pressure the secular and liberal opposition parties, who the activists say have wasted opportunities through infighting and fragmentation, to get organized.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/middleeast/egypts-young-activists-rouse-protests-but-leave-next-steps-in-hands-of-public.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
2) http://www.timesofisrael.com/signature-campaign-on-egyptian-streets-tests-morsi/
3) http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/jul/03/ml-egypt-new-
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