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Told by Iman Bibars: A woman
from Egypt
The Story : Revolt on the Nile
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The Story Outline
Why and how it started (Theeconomic, social and politicalsituation- and the trigger)
Who led, who are those youngpeople
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The Story Outline
Who led and who participated
The reaction of the regime
The entrepreneurial spirit of therevolutionaries
What is the future and what
are the roles of the differentpartners
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Why and how it started
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The political and legal framework
1. A 30 year regime that became a
dictatorship , that was disconnected,
arrogant and disrespectful
2. A regime and system that was
controlled by a MAFIA where thebusiness and political leadership
became incestuous
3. A cabinet of relatives
who wereselected from the business world as
saviors and turned blatantly corrupt,dismissive and disrespectful of its
people; namely Egyptians
4. An elite old boy club that ruled
people that they did not know , norliked, nor respected
5. A shamjoke of a democratic
system of elected parliament,
political partities etc
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The Rule of Law ?1. 30 years of Emergency law
2. A constitution amended to protect
the royal family and its protgs
3. The Scandal of the 2010
Parliament4. Blatant and insolent use of power
in elections,
5. Restrictive laws for associationwhether for the civil society
organization or the political party6. Complete control over the
political system without shame or
remorse
7. Disconnected and dismissive ofthe youth , the NGOS, the peopleat large
8. Disrespect and attack on the
judiciary = penetrating and firing
dissent
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NGOs in Egypt
1. Restrictive law limiting the
formation, the funding , the ability
for mobility
2. A regular campaign to discredit
and attack NGOs in the statemedia, semi state media creating
suspicion
3. Promoting the political private
sector to take over and redirect
philanthropy to either charity or
political upward mobility
Several efforts to change
the law by human rights
groups
The Development coalition
of NGOs lobbying for a
different more grass roots
law (ICNL , ADEW and
more than 150 CDAS, and
NGOS from all over Egypt)Conspiracy by federation
and MSS to create a more
restrictive law (how)
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The Economic
infrastructure
1. Limited number of elitists and
regime related businessmen
given a free hand and in control of
all resources
2. Marginalized and disfranchisedmedium and small business
sector
3. Corrupted and fishy deals to sell
public sector and the national
industry in a questionable and not
transparent manner4. Coincidently sold public industry
to the controlling political elite
and the close circle to the
Mubarak family
5. Deterioration of the
economic standards of
the people, lack of job
opportunities
6. Rising unemploymentand a government that
blamed people and
youth for that
7. Dysfunctional social
fund and or programs to
support SMEs8. No transfer of know how
mechanism
9. Spread of poverty in all
its forms
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The Trigger : What
happened? Why now?
Blatancy of a corrupt and
arragont regime and NDP in
2010 parliament
Independent media which
showed the abuse of power andcorrupt business deals to sell
the country
The arragonce and dismissive
insolent police apparatus
The rising unemployment,
prices, exclusion of people andblaming the people for it
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The Trigger what happened , why now
Face book Group
Khalid Saeed
Training ground for youth (kefaya
6thApril we are Khalid saeed)
The wave of arrests, beating,
torture and the reporting on it
The satellite channels,independent media and exposing
the people to what could have
been
The covert or unfelt creation of
the silent majority party of the
face book
Tunisia
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Who participated ?
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Who led ?
The weighting
generation
The youth who weredismissed, ignored , and
discredited
The youth whom we
thought were
disfranchised
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Who led and Who
participated ?A united front, a new
party created by the
social media and incyber life
A brave and exposed
youth that united
around one goalA genderless,
classless and
religious less group
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YOUNG WOMEN
PROTESTERS
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YOUNG AND FEARLESS WOMEN
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United : We are all Egyptians
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United : We are all Egyptians
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Demonstrating : women of
every age, education and
class
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Women of every age : familiar
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The lucky generation Children from all
walks and social and
economic
backgrounds joinedin the revolution
They came with their
mothers, fathers or
older siblings They were called the
lucky generation
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Slogans in every language
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Slogans in every language
Emulating the
lyrics of a
famous song :
didnt it occur
to you once to
leave ; you
Mubarak whocaused my
hunger
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Leave : Go in every language
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Signs in every form saying: Go Mubarak..
In funny ways too
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Signs in every form saying: Go Mubarak..
In funny ways too
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The reaction of the regime
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The reaction of the regime
Denial , arrogance,
disconnect
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Brutality by thugs and police
It was common
knowledge that the
old regime used
plain clothed thugswho belonged to the
security apparatus
to terrify and
terrorize the peopleand the protesters
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Brutality by thugs and police
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Brutality : Blinding tear gas
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Their courage:Will not give up
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The failure of the regime : killing itsown defenseless peaceful youth
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MARTYRS BRUTALLY BEATEN AND
KILLED BY RIOT POLICE
We Won: Their blood has not
been wasted
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The Egyptian entrepreneurial spirit
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THE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
The square was divided into
corners;
press wall, kindergarten, hospitals,
fun areas, garbage collectioncommittees and much more
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The Egyptian entrepreneurial spirit The hospital where
doctors volunteered
to provide medicine
and checkups
Fellow Hany and hisfriends contributed
medicine
Fellow Tandiar
provided medicalinformation to some
volunteers
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Medical care by the volunteers
L f T h S
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Life in Tahrir Square
The Egyptian entrepreneurial spirit
The people built
the bathroom
They called it the
headquarters of
the National
Democratic Party
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The Egyptian entrepreneurial spirit :
Clean and Green
Rubbish Bins
under the
direction of thecleanliness
committee
which was
created by theyouth
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The wall of Martyrs Many of the young
revolutionaries did
not know what
was happeningoutside so corners
for news and
newspapers were
established
This was the
martyrs corner
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The news corner Many of theyoungrevolutionaries
did not knowwhat washappeningoutside so
corners fornews andnewspaperswere
established
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The bloggers corner Bloggers in
the Midan al
Tahrir
They followedup what was
being written
and were also
addressing
rumors spread
by the regime
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Kindergarten Kindergarten for
the children of
the revolution
Children were
playing but also
helping indrawing and
writing slogans
for the
protesters Mothers were
busy protesting
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Business Entrepreneurs
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Street Vendors Aly on a wheel
chair coming
from a distance
to sell drinks to
the protesters
Street vendors
were usually
harassed by
police before
and he wantedto join the
revolution.
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Kentucky of the poor Carts with
revolutionary
slogans came inwith the street
vendors
A man selling
Kushari (theKentucky of the
poor as he called it)
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Donuts of the poor Egyptian donuts Sold by young
vendors
Men and womenbought quantities
and distributed it
among protesters
regardless of who
they were
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The Business Center Mobile phone charger
business center
Whether the prepaid
cards or charging the
phone both weresold with actual cost
While some
merchants outside
the midan increasedtheir prices no
exploitation took
place in the midan
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Revolutionary hairstylists !!! The barber.. The most
interesting and
entrepreneurial man I
have ever met
Saw many people nearlyliving there and so he got
his tools and came
He gave discounts to
rural protesters and ingeneral very good prices
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What did I do? 3
rd
11 visits to hospitals andmonitoring medical care
3rd 11th helping the
awareness committee with
their flyers and connectingthem to leaders
Transporting their flyers to
square with Peter- story?
Created the page supportersto revolutionaries with Vibha
(Gandhi Mandela)
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Our Fellows : Alexandria
Fellow Sani from Alexandria ensured that thereis a list of telephone numbers of doctors and
pharmacies
He and Aly Hussein and Samy as all our men,
joined the community based committees in theirareas protecting their neighborhood
It was a strange and terrifying feeling to carry a
knife with potential of spilling blood that I try
hard to protect and save said Aly Hussein, who
works for promoting and institutionalizing blood
donations. He organized blood donations
campaigns in spite of curfew and looters
Aly and Samy joined the demonstrations
O r Fello s Upper Eg pt
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Our Fellows : Upper Egypt
and Suez Fellow Maher Bushra worked with his local
community based represenatatives around minia
and in four other governorates to form the local
committees that protected their areas from
looters
He provided them with the know how and the
process to ensure that they are inclusive and
also aware of where to go and how to handle
crisis.
He organized blood donation campaigns, and
also raised 300 thousand pounds for assisting
the victims and those who lost jobs in Suez
where violence was spread
Th Aft th l i th
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The Aftermath: cleaning another mess
after cleaning the Mubarak Mess
We love Egypt:
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We love Egypt:
for the first time we see people that make a revolution
)(CNNand then go back to clean
W l E t
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We love Egypt:
an inspiration to the world they deserve the
Nobel prizeEgyptians changed
their country and in
doing so changed the
world Obama
To live with dignity or die as
Martyrs the heroes of 25
January
What is now and what about
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What is now and what about
the future ?First revolutionaries and activists:
The young revolutionaries are not political
parties, not CSOs and not human right
groups They are the weighting generation
They are now organizing themselves and
negotiating with the army on future action
They are using the same media tools and
channels to create the groups around their
different plans/programs
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What is now and what about the future :
revolutionaries, activists and other people
In Egypt the people (not
civil society) are now
using the social media to
organize and promote
the leaders they want inthe coming government
There is a group for Amr
Moussa as next
President For WaelGhoneim and for
others in other positions.
There are groups that are
working on improving
tourism
Groups for cleaning Egypt
and keeping the Greenspirit and they have
organized cleaning of TS
and restoring burned
police stationsGroups for lobbying for
Egypt to be secular and
remove article 2 from
constitution
What is now and what about
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What is now and what about
the future ?Second the Army and current government:
The council of armed forces took over in
order to prepare the country for a civilian
regime This is a transitional period, with the cabinet
same as before Mubarak leaves
They met all the demands of the
revolutionaries: dissolved both houses,
suspended the constitution, formed a new
high committee to amend the constitution.
What is now and what about
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What is now and what about
the future : Ashoka fellows A meeting was held on the 13th February
We are documenting by video and other means their
experiences and how they contributed to the
revolutionaries
We are working with them to create on our face book a
list of their expertise and know how that they are
offering to the revolutionaries
ADEW began a competition for a design by youth for a
memorial monument in the square
ADEW and myself are still monitoring the hospitals
and have cases of success (Nasser hospital
demerdash hospital)
What is now and what about
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What is now and what about
the future : Ashoka fellows
With womens CSOs , ADEW and a number of
female fellows we are campaigning to include
women in the committee for drafting the
constitution
We are writing about women's contribution to the
revolution and lobbying for their inclusion (articles,
letters to the high council of armed forces,
interviews on the different medias and groups onface book and the other new social media)
So to sum up; where are we?
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So to sum up; where are we?
Good steps
After Mubarak stepped down the army took over, they dissolved the two
houses, suspended the constitution, formed a committee to amend the
constitution
They announced that they are there for 6 months until a democratic andtransparent elections of the two houses and the president occur
They reshuffled the last cabinet of Mubarak to represent different
parties.
They began discussion with the representatives of the revolutionary
group
They asked the General Prosecutor to prosecute the ministers and other
business people and public figures who are incriminated with the old
regime in corruption
Worrisome steps and challengesThe new committee to review and amend constitution is not what theyouth asked for and does not include women
There is now a witch hunt and a sense of vindictiveness that does not
reflect the spirit of the revolutionaries
An economic crisis --
Police lost credibility and there is no police now in the country
So to sum up: role of Civil society
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So to sum up: role of Civil society
1. Should encourage and support the young leaders to create
their own CSOs and provide the know how
2. Lobby for the change of the law now and not later and create
a favorable public opinion of NGOs
3. Lobby for womens active and equal participation in the new
Egypt in all spheres for more economic empowerment
programs to all -
4. Work to have a social and economic agenda of Egypt withevery group or organization focusing on its expertise but
within an overall framework
5. Try to mend the recent backlash before the revolution wherepeople were encouraged to move towards charity and not
sustainable development6. To lobby with the international donors to listen to all voices not
only the highest and to inclusive and not exclusive.. To
address development efforts equal to human rights
Change i I it bl Th f ll f th
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Change is Inevitable : The fall of theWALL OF FEAR