Some political scientists and those following developments in Egypt have begun to redefine the concept of “public opinion”, or, more appropriately, to shave off part of that concept and accord it a separate status under the heading of the “political street”. The latter term has become commonplace in the media and in everyday political conversation. But it has yet to be clarified as a distinct concept, though in Egypt the expression brings to mind the late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser's famous words, “the people are the masters.” No sooner does the strength of this maxim seem to fade than it reasserts itself with overwhelming force, as occurred during the bread riots of 18-19 January 1977 and during the 25 January and 30 June revolutions. Although the idea of the “political street” made a relatively late appearance in the everyday political lexicon, the concept, or at least some aspects of it, has long existed by implication in many of the political practices that dictionaries and other reference works have variously termed “political participation”, “political formation”, “popular oversight”, “the collective mind or conscience”, “public opinion” and “the masses”. Industrialisation, modernisation and the huge progress in communications and the modern media have propelled ever growing numbers of people into the public arena. Politics, in thought and in practice, can no longer be restricted to a narrow elite or small class of individuals involved in public affairs, as broader and broader segments of the people have become more aware of the impact of politics on the life of the individual. Over the centuries, many authoritarian regimes have sought to instil ideas that would solidify a divide between politics and the affairs of day-to-day life or those related to meeting the essential needs of society. But as time has progressed such notions have no longer appealed to growing segments of the people, who have begun to realise that the culture of the ruler, the form of rule, the efficacy of government and the allegiances of those charged with administering that government have a direct impact on the lives of individuals. The Egyptian experience offers a powerful illustration of the dawn of this new awareness after long years of neglect, during which some analysts spoke of the “death of public opinion” in Egypt in view of the way the authorities seemed to be able to get away with behaving as if the people did not exist, or as if they did not have the will or ability to stand up against corruption and tyranny. As for the critics among the intellectuals and politicians, the authorities' approach to them was to regard them as an isolated minority unconnected with the people and unable to move the people to action. These critics could therefore do or say whatever they pleased while the authorities continued to do whatever they pleased. Even when some movements stirred into action to demand dignity for the population, the authorities could not imagine that these intermittent and parallel protest movements could ever converge to form masses of people calling for the downfall of the regime. Yet, during the movements that took place before the 25 January Revolution, and then during the two revolutions themselves, the Egyptian street described a full cycle in its enormous political influence, establishing itself in no uncertain terms as the prime player in the political arena. This development often proceeds as follows. First, the revolutionary vanguard, a part of the country's political, cultural and social elite, awakens the street. In the Egyptian case, this vanguard had no authority over the street as, during the rule of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak, it had lost its grassroots networks, legal legitimacy and financial ability to enable it to remain in contact with and to influence broad segments of the public. Second, such a revolutionary vanguard on its own cannot generate profound change or a strategic shift in the political situation. A clear example of this took place in Egypt when the Kifaya (Enough) Movement, which, in spite of its courage and the fact that it counted many prominent figures among its members, still remained little more than a protest group. Alone, it could not achieve its aim of forestalling the hereditary succession scheme intended to pass Mubarak's rule on to his son. Moreover, shortly before the 25 January Revolution, the movement had begun to splinter and its energies had declined to the point that some had begun to speak of its terminal illness, which seemed to be confirmed when the National Association for Change assumed the banner instead. More open to, and keen to work with, the general public, the latter inaugurated a petition campaign that succeeded in collecting a million signatures for seven demands for change. This occurred only a few months before the 25 January Revolution, and a similar drive, albeit on a much larger scale, was set in motion before the 30 June Revolution. The latter collected more than 22 million signatures to a petition calling for an end to Muslim Brotherhood rule. Third, when a grassroots base joins the revolutionary vanguard or the force it believes can bring about change or a strategic shift, the authorities are either compelled to respond to popular demands (as occurred following the uprising of 18-19 January 1977 in Egypt) or to leave power. The latter occurred twice in this country thanks to the intervention of hard power, namely the military establishment and security agencies, which compelled first Mubarak and then former president Mohamed Morsi to bow to the will of the people. Fourth, when the grassroots base recedes from vanguard, the latter once again becomes unable to achieve its demands and the authorities either revert to repression or evade responding to the demands of the people. The authorities might claim, for example, that the revolution had been nothing more than an instigated uprising that posed a threat to the state. Fifth, during this phase the vanguard once again works to awaken the masses and to appeal to them to take to the streets to demand change, thereby putting paid to the excuses or pretexts of the new authorities. In the Egyptian case, the masses have hardly been a homogeneous entity, instead consisting of a multifarious and fluid admixture of people. The majority of the protesters were not affiliated with political parties, movements or religious groups, but instead illustrated the idea of the new social movements, as distinct from the more traditional contesters of authority, or, in the Egyptian case, the Ultras, thugs and juvenile delinquents who displayed a thirst for violence on various occasions in the interval between the 25 January and 30 June revolutions. In the Egyptian experience, this amalgam of the masses also passed through three stages. In the first stage, the political street rallies around a single short-term aim that is capable of drawing public attention, stirring hearts and firing energies for a certain amount of time. The different components of the people coalesce into a single mass and put into effect the principle that strength resides in unity. In the second stage, and after this short-term goal is achieved — in the Egyptian case in the fall of the Mubarak regime in February 2011 and the fall of Muslim Brotherhood rule in July 2013 — differences then emerge over how to order the coming phase or over long-range objectives, such as the shape of the new order and how to build it. Meanwhile, the street becomes divided between a majority that longs for a return to stability — often the codeword for counter-revolution — and a minority that seeks to complete the revolution. The latter argues that a revolution is a process of radical change, and that this does not come about merely through the departure of a ruler or the end of his regime. Rather it entails building a new system and one that will fulfil all the demands of the revolution without compromise. Between these two camps resides a third one that believes that the revolutionary battle cannot be won by a conclusive blow, because the two revolutions, in Egypt's case, were grassroots revolutions that did not have a clearly identifiable or agreed upon leadership and because the revolutionaries themselves did not have a clear, comprehensive and unified strategy for imposing their vision. As a result, neither were they in a position to come to power directly, nor were they in a position to effectively impose their revolutionary agenda on those who did succeed to power. In the third stage, and as a result of these divisions over goals and means, the human mass splinters into its component parts, each of which then returns to its particular interests. From these, it defends a particular mixture of concerns, principles and convictions. However, this is not to suggest that all these components return to the point from which they began. The revolutionary action itself will have shaken many previously firmly held beliefs, altered the nature of interests, and reshaped patterns of alliance. In other words, it will have brought about a degree of progress that no wise authority would try to deny, for to do so would risk sparking a new revolutionary wave. In the Egyptian case, the most palpable change we now observe is in the relationship between the elites and the public as a whole, now that the professionals in politics, opinion-making and cultural production have experienced the shock of the political presence of the people in the form of a human flood and come to believe that the people form the strongest factor in the new political equation. Nevertheless, this new-found conviction also takes three different directions. One maintains that we have now truly entered the age of the masses and that what lurks below the surface in the relationship of ordinary people with politics is far greater than what see above it. A second outlook, shared by a broad segment of the political, intellectual and social elites, confirms the importance of the maxim that the people are the masters, and this applies equally to those elites from the younger generations who may have heard the maxim but have never seen it in action before the January and June revolutions. The third tendency is to praise the soundness of the Egyptian collective consciousness, despite the many years of political moribundity or alienation, the spread of poverty and ignorance, and the attrition of shared customs, traditions and beliefs. Some in this camp might also refer to the sound instincts that have remained alive in the Egyptian people and that have led them to choose what they believe is best and then to correct that choice when they discover it was wrong, triggering a kind of automatic solidarity mechanism. All quarters of the country's elites, the revolutionary vanguard above all, are now firm in their conviction that the success of the revolution, or their ability to attain its ends, or at least to approach these ends, is contingent on the backing and solidarity of the grassroots base. When the people joined the revolutionary vanguard on 28 January 2011, this brought about the breakthrough or qualitative shift that led to the fall of the Mubarak regime. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces enjoyed popular backing for many months, but when its actions caused its image to decline in the popular mindset, that backing began to recede, while the Muslim Brotherhood's prospects increased as the majority of voters sided with it in the parliamentary elections and the second round of the presidential elections. However, when the Brotherhood in turn revealed its bent towards tyranny and corruption, and when the gap between its word and deeds became glaring, the people withdrew their support and shifted it behind the revolutionaries, who had begun to prepare the streets for a new uprising. This indeed then occurred, bringing the downfall of Morsi and ushering the Muslim Brotherhood out of power. The grassroots base then rallied behind the army once again in a show of solidarity that expressed popular gratitude for the role the army had performed in protecting the 30 June Revolution.
