Who Stands behind the Egyptian Revolution?

Many questions can be posed by the observer. The first and most pressing of them is: Who stands behind the Egyptian revolution? Who sponsors it, develops its ideology and supplies it with all this force, which has enabled it to remove the fourth pyramid in Egypt?

I personally was seeking something that could help me answer these questions, and, in order to do so, one has to analyze the character of Egyptian society, in which some people perhaps believe that Islamists played a major role in fueling this revolution. However, the data from the streets of Egypt confirm that these Islamists have no impact among young people by virtue of that the young do not trend toward the Islamist movement, and many of them did not allow the slogan “Islam is the solution” to be raised in Tahrir Square. This slogan was actually lifted once, but those responsible were sharply reprimanded.

Maybe some people think that the slogan ‘’Islam is the solution’’ is capable of aborting the Egyptian revolution, and the observer will figure out that the West was struck by suspicion on the day the Supreme Leader of the Iranian revolution announced that the Middle East had become Islamic. There was a strong response — not by demonstrators, who certainly did not hear this statement and reflect on it — by senior Egyptian leaders like Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who responded forcefully to this statement. This response was a clear message to the West that Egypt will shift to the hard-line Islamic path and will generate another Iran in the region in an attempt to push the West toward reducing support for the rebels, at least as far as the media coverage is concerned, and which the Egyptian regime has been unable to materialize.

The other thing that did not convince the West that Iran was involved in Egypt’s proceedings — or that it expected them — is the lack of a foothold for Iran in this country even through the Muslim Brotherhood, which certainly disagrees intellectually on the principle of clerical rule in Iran and have nothing in common with it, either closely or from afar, although the ruling party put forth on the election day the fact that Tehran was proceeding to provide $800 million for the Muslim Brotherhood to support their propaganda campaign at the time. However, the Muslim Brotherhood denied that; besides, that fact did not find any resonance within the Egyptian streets, which cannot be qualified as religious because its intellectuals trend toward secularism and liberalism. As for the masses, they are led by the political and business elite, some of whom may be standing behind some of the young people and support them, especially small businessmen who have found themselves losing a lot of their business for the benefit of those close to the authority of the ruling party.

We thus find that there really is a great support on the part of businessmen to the sustainability of the revolution in order to get rid of the ruling party’s tight hold on many economic activities. This is not a hypothesis as much as it is a reality.

The present reality does not actually intersect with the Revolution of the Youth; rather, the two meet on several themes, with businessmen’s interests in the forefront. These interests were damaged partially or totally due to dominance, nepotism and corruption on a large scale.

But what can be diagnosed accurately is that no foreign agendas stand behind these proceedings, for the nature of foreign regimes does not conflict with that of the Egypt’s. Yet, on the one hand, it is possible to say that America has contributed significantly to Hosni Mubarak’s willingness to step down in favor of the army, that the Egyptian army leaders are linked by a strong relationship with Washington and that Washington does not really want a new Iran because it cannot confirm the status of the streets of Egypt before the next elections, initially set for September 2011. On the other hand, we cannot say that there are two major supporters of revolution of the Egyptian youth: first, businessmen who have been affected by the domination of the potentials of Egypt by Ahmed Ezz and his family; second, the understanding of America and the West of the controlled change and the rise of the army, which is well appreciated by the people. This is what will guarantee a genuine issue from the standpoint of all partners. The regime stepped down, and the revolution had achieved its objectives. Then let the remainder be organized in such a way that it does not contradict the importance of Egypt and its pivotal role in the region.