The tactics of Egyptian revolutionaries between spontaneity and rationality

الملخص EN

This paper seeks to trace the main tactics implemented on January25 Revolt in Egypt.

This revolt erupted due to many factors, outstanding among which are the brutality of the Egyptian police, and the rampant corruption that ate into almost all the sectors of the Egyptian society.

In this paper, I attempt to thrust into focus the nature and the peculiar essence of tactics performed by the protestors in response to the atrocities committed by the police.

In so doing, I will attempt to bring these tactics into the structural and cultural contexts of two different political trends: organized entities with an agenda and protestors who are merely individuals that have no ideology and do not belong to any political group.

The paper will be based on the hypothesis purporting that the layman is the central element of the Egyptian Revolution: he/she ignited the spark of the revolution to end the oppression and marginalization from which he/she suffered under the regime of Mubarak.

Having the layman in the forefront of the revolution suggests the absence of ‘enlightened reason’.

Therefore, it will be argued here that essential tactics performed by protestors during January 25 and February 11 were not "rational" tactics, but "spontaneous" ones.

The central question of this paper will be what are the main features of these spontaneous, and in some cases irrational, tactics? And to which extent would the resource mobilization theory be applied by the Egyptian revolutionaries in actualizing January 25 Egyptian revolution? The answer to the question will be traced through my argument describing these spontaneous tactics with two main qualities: tactical pragmatism and tactical impulsiveness.

As for the former, it is all tactics performed by Egyptian social movements and political parties while the latter is all tactics performed by individuals, who have absolutely no ideological agenda.

It will attempt to establish the fact that the tactics were spontaneous as they missed the enlightened reason, attributed as creative, tolerant, and liberal organizing all different groups under one holistic unitary consciousness.

In other words, there is synchronization between the escalation of the events during the revolution and the increase in spontaneity in managing such events.