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The Rich Generals

Alan Fisher News

Published 18 February 2011 · Updated 27 February 2026 · 3 min read

The Rich Generals - Scottish Review article by Scottish Review

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When the supreme military council of Egypt issued ‘Communiqué Number 1’, an Egyptian I work with turned to me and said: ‘That’s it, he’s finished’.
To many across the country it was a sign that the military was now in charge. It was only the third time in history that the council had met in public. The previous two occasions were in 1967 and 1973, when the country was at war with Israel. They said they would be in constant session, monitoring events and taking appropriate action.
     The army was never going to turn its guns on the people. The military in Egypt is half a million strong. Many are conscripts. They would surely never open fire. The aid to the operation from the US runs into billions of dollars. To attack the protests would almost certainly close that channel down. It would harm the historical prestige the military enjoyed, and make it vulnerable in future. The army said that its prime function was to protect the people. It had made its decision. It was with those on the streets, not with the government.
     The military was reluctant to embarrass President Mubarak. He was, after all, a national hero. Many of those young faces in the crowd in Liberation Square would have only read in the history books the role that Mubarak played in Egypt regaining the Sinai Peninsula in the Yom Kippur or October War of 1973.  Few would realise how important and significant that was to a nation which had humiliatingly lost such a huge swathe of land six years previously.
     He told them that he would hand his powers to the vice-president but stay in office. He would urge people to return home and the military would guarantee the reforms. It was his final throw of the dice.

The military runs many businesses across the country, from chicken farms to water plants and munitions factories. They provide the military with a wealth which makes it very comfortable indeed.

     Communiqué Number 2 urged people to return home with a promise that the changes announced would happen. But instead of clearing the streets, they came out in larger numbers than before. All major towns and cities reported massive demonstrations: hundreds of thousands in Cairo; tens of thousands in Alexandria; hundreds even in small towns in other parts of the country. They had wrung concession after concession from the beleaguered regime. Now they felt their moment was at hand and victory could be theirs.
     It would be at this point that the military approached the president. The hand on the shoulder, the shake of the head. You can almost hear the words: ‘It hasn’t worked. You have to go. It’s over’. State TV – the mouthpiece of the regime – warned people to expect a statement ‘from the presidency’ very shortly. Again the words were significant. The announcement would not be coming from Mubarak himself.
     After the disappointment of Thursday, when senior military figures were briefing that the protesters would get ‘all they wanted’, people were reluctant to believe again. The short 15 second statement from vice-president Omar Suleiman gave them what they wanted. Thirty years of the Mubarak regime was over.
     The difficulties for Egypt, however, are not over. The military runs many businesses across the country, from chicken farms to water plants and munitions factories. They provide the military with a wealth which makes it very comfortable indeed. There are many vested interests which could be challenged by a true, open, democratic government. The people on the streets of Cairo and across Egypt brought the beginnings of a new political order to the country. The military has made a start in bringing it alive and will remain the most important element in how it ends.

Alan Fisher is an Al Jazeera correspondent

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