This post was written by Hatchet reporter Kelly Quinn.
Eight months after tens of thousands of Egyptians flooded into Tahrir Square in Cairo to protest the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak, three political scientists offered their predictions for the future of the ongoing uprising in a panel discussion at the Elliott School of International Affairs Wednesday.
Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies Marc Lynch hosted political science professors Rabab El Mahdi, Mona El-Ghobashy and Joshua Stacher as they debated the degree to which the revolution succeeded in bringing about change in a country whose liberties had long been stymied by the government.
“We are still in the middle of revolution. It is not yet time to say it is over,” El Mahdi, who works at the American University in Cairo, said. The greatest threat to Egyptian progress, she argued, is religion overshadowing important questions that “affect the livelihood of most Egyptians.”
El Mahdi pointed out that Egypt must be wary of the erosion of the economy, politics and educational institutions as the country struggles to regain its footing.
“It would be the height of folly to think that this is the end of the revolution,” El-Ghobashy, a professor at Barnard College, said, agreeing that Egypt has much untapped potential.
“Under Mubarak, the Egyptian police existed to keep down the proliferation of special interest groups,” El-Ghobashy said.
Now, however, local citizens are finally beginning to form political parties and associations to express their concerns.
Stacher offered a much more pessimistic prediction for the future. The Kent State University political science professor posited that Mubarak’s successor and the current executive authority in Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has had an oppressive influence on the freedoms protesters fought for in Tahrir Square.
“SCAF is nearly indistinguishable when we compare it to President Mubarak,” Stacher said.
Concerned that SCAF will be reluctant to relinquish power come election time, the professor warned, “we cannot give them the benefit of the doubt. They are not letting go.”
