Flagging protest

The opposition's gamble on civil disobedience has not paid off yet, reports Mohamed El-Sayed

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"Stay home," the campaign launched by a group of opposition forces which called on people to remain indoors on 23 July and hang the Egyptian flag from their balconies to protest "deteriorating conditions" across Egypt, was originally the brainchild of a group of young activists working mainly in cyberspace. It was then picked up by opposition forces, including Al-Karama Party, the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kifaya) and a group of independent MPs before gaining momentum -- albeit limited -- in the independent media.

Yet 23 July came and went without ado. Flags might have been draped from the balconies of a handful of party headquarters, and from those belonging to the organisers of the campaign, but they were in evidence in few other places. And if the streets were emptier than usual on 23 July, it may well have been a result of the current public health campaign warning Egyptians to stay out of strong sun for fear of the harmful effects of UV rays.

The handful of people who knew about the campaign had mixed reactions, expressed mainly in chat rooms on the Internet. "People remained in their houses because it was a national holiday. I didn't take part because state security personnel might then have detained and tortured me," wrote one blogger.

"If we cannot take to the streets to launch protests, then at least we can sit at home to express our anger at current conditions," wrote another.

One member of the National Democratic Party's Policies Committee dubbed the campaign, "a childish initiative driven by over enthusiastic youths". But the people behind the campaign were not overly disappointed at the response, which they had expected to be low key.

"Even if we succeeded in convincing just one thousand citizens to hang flags from their balconies this time it is a start. On the next holiday maybe there will be 10,000," Hamdin Sabahi, president of the yet unlicenced Al-Karama Party, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Eventually, we might be able to convince a million citizens to join in. These things take time."

The Tagammu Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, both of which supported the campaign, blamed its "failure" on a lack of coordination. But George Ishaq, coordinator of Kifaya, told the Weekly that "people are not used to this kind of protest".

"They are not keen to take part in any political activity given the difficulties they face simply getting through one day to the next. Still people in Giza, Mansoura, Port Said and Suez [governorates] participated by hanging out flags."

Ordinary citizens, says Ishaq, were unlikely to be interested in the campaign in its opening round and it will take a massive media campaign from the opposition press to convince people to join in.

"The campaign aimed at creating the nucleus for wide-scale civil disobedience," says Sabahi. "After all other ways of introducing change have failed, with parliamentary elections rigged and the ballot box discredited, we opted for this initiative." And one day, Sabahi believes, "we will be able to call upon people to stay at home on a working day and it will pay off."

Mass civil disobedience, say Sabahi and Ishaq, is the easiest way to convey the message that millions of Egyptians are unhappy with the way their country is being run. When disobedience takes the form of staying at home, it also means protesters do not face the perils involved in clashing with the security police. "It's an attempt to accustom people to new types of protest," adds Ishaq.

Political commentator Salama Ahmed Salama is not sure whether such campaigns will be successful in a country in which the public has learned to fear the security forces.

"Let's try this type of protest [again] and see the extent of participation," says Salama. "The problem with the Egyptian public is that it is not used to taking the initiative. Over the years, given the heavy-handed approach adopted by the police, people have become afraid of taking part in such campaigns."