Protestors have been in Cairo's Tahrir Square for 16 days, but "nothing has really changed" except the numbers seem to be growing, said David Patel, assistant professor of government, at a panel discussion on Egypt's revolution, Feb. 9 in 231 Warren Hall.

The protesters' demands, including their insistence that President Hosni Mubarak resign and a transitional government be formed, have largely been ignored, he said. But "this is existential" for the protesters since "the regime knows exactly who they are." He added that if they go home now, they face governmental reprisal: "Even if you don't disappear in a black hole somewhere, you're blacklisted."

Panelist Valerie Bunce, the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies, described Egypt as a "textbook case for these kinds of protests." With Tunisia's recent uprisings, a history of contentious politics, an authoritarian government with upcoming elections and a strong sense of national identity, Egypt has "all the ingredients you need for wide-scale, prolonged mobilization," she added.

Although Bunce cautioned that "it's far too early to tell" if Egypt is heading toward democracy, she noted that "many successful transitions to democracy began with large-scale popular protests." She added that none of the facts "trotted out to doubt Egypt's case for democracy are, in fact, very good arguments," and cited Indonesia and the Philippines as examples in the past 35 years of successful transitions to democracy from dictatorships.

Patel noted that Omar Suleiman, vice president of Egypt and its "de facto president," is really "calling the shots." "Right now, there are people whispering into Obama's ear that Omar Suleiman is the single most important person in the Arab world" in the global war on terror due to his connections to Egyptian intelligence agencies and his dislike for radical Islamists. Bunce added that the United States is "in the awkward position of being allied with an authoritarian leader who has significant portions of his population demanding his departure."

According to panelist Ziad Fahmy, assistant professor of modern Middle East history, three main events led up to the recent protests in Egypt. One was an April 6, 2008, "fairly brutal" police crackdown that promptly ended a strike by underpaid factory workers in the small industrial town of El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Fahmy said. Noting that there are millions of cell phones in Egypt, most with cameras or video recorders, "tech-savvy, middle-class" young activists used blogs and Facebook to try to make the event into a national movement, he said.

The second contributing event was the failed police coverup of the beating death of a young, upper-middle-class Egyptian man last summer, said Fahmy. This led to a Facebook page, allowing people to witness "the brutality," which mobilized "more and more everyday Egyptians," added Fahmy, whose book, "Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation Through Popular Culture," will be published in June.

Lastly, Fahmy said, the recent Tunisian revolts inspired thousands of Egyptian bloggers to call for change and a new day of mourning. They picked Jan. 25, and "the rest is history."

The discussion was presented by the Cornell International Affairs Review and co-sponsored by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

Joseph Mansky '12 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.