The dictator fell, but many of their former rulers remain in power and the army conducts the transition. In the middle of this process, the demonstrations keep going on and  EL Vice President Marisa Matias and Nelson Peralta, from Left Bloc, went to Cairo in a EP delegation and interviewed April 6 movement activists, a movement based on the popular uprising of Egypt.

At every minute the phone rings. Ahmed Maher, a civil engineer for 30 years, will reject the call during the conversation. This is the portrait of the frenetic pace that we live in Egypt and the importance of new communication technologies have had on the revolution. Ahmed is part of a generation that did not see great prospects for the future in a country which is driven by a strong desire for change.

A general strike that began on the Internet

In 2005, it began to emerge several youth movements seeking for change. Ahmed contacted regularly with the local committees of workers and wrote online about working conditions, strikes and the struggles he encountered. It was one of the activists who called a general strike on Facebook groups. The initiative had an odd success, every day three thousand people had joined. "Before we used Yahoo groups and blogs. The new facebook was popular and, above all, these tools were the only that were immunes to government control. Thus became our tool," he declared. But do not forget the valuable assistance of the Interior Minister who made a statement about the move. This attack became a government initiative vastly more known than the actions the group had achieved itself so far.

The appeal took effect and the general strike was held on April 6, 2008 with a huge success. The struggle that started on the Internet had gone into the real world. Following the protest, several members of the group are arrested and beaten but an activist remained unrest. "It's a youth movement that speaks the same language of youth. Uses facebook, Twitter, SMS. The protest is not traditional, young people will sing to the street, make conferences and street parties. They took members of the Internet to the real world. Everyone wanted to know the face of each other and to organize ourselves in the way that contact was necessary. ", that’s how Ahmed depicts the evolution of the movement. Their activities conduced to his arrestment in July of that year. During those two weeks he felt an intense psychological torture.

From Tunisia to Egypt, it was possible!

Earlier demonstrations gathered one thousand to three thousand people. However something unexpected arises. "Suddenly there was a revolution in Tunisia. This was the start of a perception that after all it was possible. “Since then, participation in the demonstrations grew, just until the revolution.

 

It was an ongoing protest on facebook, organized by several movements against the Interior affairs Minister. But what began as a struggle against political repression, almost inadvertently became a challenge to the entire Mubarak regime.

On Last December, we created the Movement April 6, with a facebook group that gathered more people than the previous group of the general strike. Since January 15, meetings of five hours were daily held and maps of the streets were drawn. The meeting points were published on the internet, five in Cairo and two in Alexandria, from where the march would start until the concentration, Tahrir Square in the case of the capital. However, they did not just wait. Two hours before the start of the protest they went to the poor neighborhoods to invite people to join them. The police were already waiting at the marked locations, but they did not expect that every march would join more than 20 000 people. Seeing the police withdraw before the immensity of people, they realized that the protest would be quite effective. They realized they were facing a revolution when they saw thousands and thousands of Egyptians of all ages gathered in Tahrir Square. On that day, January 25 2011, they occupied the square where they still are today. During the evening the police violently attacked, many members were arrested. Thousands escaped looking for hiding places in poor areas. This was a turning point. "From here all the people started to act alone without the organization. Everyone wanted to participate. “In between the regime has cut off Internet and telephone connections but it was too late, 18 days after Mubarak was falling.

A priority: democracy

For Ahmed Maher the "political, social and economic difficulties are one single demand” and not different things. He bewares of the existing order, "I have no idea what the army wants. The motion asked many measures but the army ignored "he explains, referring that one of the tactics of the military is delaying matters that go from meeting to meeting without any decision. He does not feel represented in the current political forces and demands the creation of "new parties and new organizations."

Mohammed Adel, also an activist of the movement of April 6 and who is about to enter military service, joins the conversation while waiting for an important event that that takes place minutes and miles away. Both have well-defined political priorities for the moment. All are for democratization in Egypt.

At first they want an immediate change of government that continues with many members of the previous government of Mubarak and several technocrats loyal to the regime. They want the end of army’s control in the transition period, asserting that this role should be played by a Presidential Council composed by two judges and one military. The abolition of emergency law and the release of political prisoners is another of its immediate requirements. They still ask for the dissolution of the NDP, the party of the regime, and its mechanisms of domination. Finally, they ask for a reorganization of the Ministry of Interior.

And with after this they’ve departed to Tahrir Square. They had a revolution to finish.

Interview with Ahmed Maher and Mohammed Adel

By Nelson Peralta (Left Bloc) in Cairo, Egypt