ARGUMENT

Sisi Learned the Wrong

Lessons From Mubarak’s
Fall
Wanton repression is building up more pressure for the next
uprising.
BY FRANCISCO SERRANO | FEBRUARY 9, 2021, 10:16 AM

E
gyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi—who has ruled the country
since 2013, when he led a military coup against elected President
Mohamed Morsi—appears at first to be a close student of another
Egyptian ruler. Hosni Mubarak became president following the
assassination of Anwar Sadat during a military parade in 1981.
After decades of political paralysis, economic discontent, and
increasing repression, Mubarak’s 30-year rule ended swiftly in an
18-day popular uprising in 2011. Judging by the violence Sisi’s
regime has unleashed on Egyptians in the past few years, it seems
that his biggest fear is that the crowds will fill the streets again.

Mubarak and Sisi were both products of the army. For the brass,
the events of 2011—and the short and tumultuous democratic
experience that followed—may well seem a mere interruption in
the military’s long-term patriarchal command over Egypt and its
citizens.

And during Mubarak’s rule, the military got very good at

sustaining that role. Despite his regime’s autocratic nature,
Mubarak left some avenues for controlled forms of discord. He
didn’t welcome any opposition that could endanger his control,
and under emergency laws his security forces routinely tortured
suspects and harassed citizens. But the Mubarak regime, in all its
self-serving lack of political vision, understood the importance of
pressure valves. Criticism about common, day-to-day difficulties