I recently attended a comedy show in Cairo. In the opening act, a stand-up comic asked a mostly young and affluent crowd how excited they were that the second anniversary of Egypt’s January revolution was just in a manner of days. A deafening silence ensued for a few seconds, then limited, low-key and somewhat embarrassed laughs followed. The comedian then suggested (with gestures) that people will celebrate with self-flagellation this year, and the room erupted with laughter, defusing the tension. But there was a sombre tint in a few faces that the laughs could not fully mask. 

While around this time last year many people were also quite angry and exasperated about how things stood in the country, the situation generally feels much bleaker this time around, and everyone is even more exhausted. To begin, the economy is genuinely suffering, the central bank has recently warned of Egypt’s reserves reaching critical levels (the governor and the deputy governor have also resigned) amid an influx of Qatari money in debate-stirring support, the pound has been losing value to the dollar, foreign investment and tourism continue to struggle and many locally are now abstaining from what they see as risky long-term investments. Egypt has been negotiating economic assistance with the IMF and international partners over roughly the same amount of time it takes to actually repay some loans.

Moreover, the current government has been widely accused of being non-transparent and non-consultative (a few observers have, not entirely falsely, suggested that the military was relatively more transparent while running the country), shaky and often going back on its often sudden decisions, lacking in vision and failing to manage the country or inspire confidence. The previous governments since the revolution have also either lacked vision or guts, or simply held onto the somewhat understandable restraining belief that they were nothing more than caretaker governments. The result has been that in nearly two years, no government has tried enough to do what was structurally necessary, or tried to do so in a proper, transparent and consensus-building way.

Furthermore, the country’s political forces have, over those two years, lost virtually every opportunity for consensus throughout Egypt’s transition to democracy. In fact, they could not even agree on a road map to such a transition from the start. The result has been an increasingly polarized and hostile political environment, with successive and increasing political sparring that recently culminated in fatal street clashes between supporters of the Islamists and the opposition. Their leaderships, and even some lower ranks on both sides (particularly the Islamists) are now locked significantly in a worldview that sees the other side as actively trying to destroy and even (re-)imprison them, if possible. The result is a destructive and ultra-confrontational political environment that can only bring the country down.