Egyptian Workarounds| The state too has its own tricks

Just as Egyptians have learned to maneuver around political authority when it issues laws or imposes measures they perceive as unjust—serving narrow interests or authoritarian impulses—the authority, in turn, has learned to maneuver around the people.

Examples of this dynamic abound throughout Egyptian history. Here, however, I focus on those of our own time: practices that are familiar and visible, recognized by Egyptians for what they are, and felt daily in the texture of ordinary life.

Distraction

The authorities often choose moments when public attention is elsewhere: during major national events, when a local club wins a continental football title, when the national team triumphs, or on the eve of Al Ahly–Zamalek matches—the kind that draw massive audiences and momentarily absorb the country.

At such moments, decisions are announced: a currency float, increases in fuel prices, or laws that strike directly at people’s lives, including the removal of subsidies on basic goods.

The pattern has repeated so often that it is now widely understood. Egyptians exchange grim jokes in cafés and markets, in workplaces and transport queues, and across social media—half-laughing, half-bracing themselves for the certainty that every football celebration will be followed by a decision that takes away from what little they have.

Some even go so far as to hope for defeat, if only to postpone the next blow.

“Look at the bird”

Another workabout is cognitive overload. A social or political incident is inflated until it eclipses everything else. It is argued back and forth until people are exhausted.

Before they have time to recover, a new distraction is thrown into the arena.

Egyptians have a name for this maneuver: “Look at the bird”—the phrase used to divert attention toward something trivial while the real action unfolds elsewhere.

As a result, many now approach public life with a state of permanent suspicion. Some assume events are manufactured, or that forgotten issues are deliberately resurrected on cue, even when public interest appears genuine.

This suspicion does not arise from nothing. Egyptians are acutely aware of the state’s grip on print, broadcast, and visual media. They also recognize the online trolls—trained and funded—who work to propel rumors and fleeting incidents to the top of the public agenda.

The stand-in

The maneuvering goes further. The state establishes civil, charitable, and rights organizations that are effectively its own, granting them space to crowd out independent civil society. These bodies are then presented abroad as legitimate partners—worthy of funding and consultation on human rights and other sensitive files.

A similar logic operates in the media sphere. As traditional outlets—newspapers, websites, and television channels—lost credibility and audiences drifted away, a swarm of small websites appeared, devoted to publishing manufactured stories.

These narratives are then amplified by loyal online networks. They circulate widely, detached from the connective tissue that links the platforms to those who create, finance, and supervise them.

When one site is exposed, another quickly takes its place, And the cycle continues.

Giving Hell another name

The state also works around the law in its handling of political and opinion detainees, through a practice known as the “rotation” of pretrial detention.

An individual is charged in multiple cases. As the date of release approaches in one, a new case materializes, and detention continues. The state then denies holding “political detainees,” insisting instead that these individuals are imprisoned by judicial order.

The burden is compounded by systems of exceptional justice: military courts and the Supreme State Security Prosecution operating under emergency provisions.

Even the language of incarceration is revised. Through state-controlled media, a sanitized image is projected. “Prisons” are rebranded as “reform and rehabilitation centers,” and the prison sector itself is renamed “community protection.”

When pressure over political detainees intensifies—domestically or internationally—a limited number of prisoners are released, whether from prosecutorial custody or by presidential pardon. Often, those freed on criminal charges outnumber political detainees.

Release, in other words, comes drop by drop, while detention arrives in bucket loads.

All of this rests on expansive legislation that stretches the definitions of violence and terrorism—laws passed amid the upheaval following the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood from power, then rapidly codified and enforced through formally “legal” channels.

Sitting down together

Under pressure, and in moments of crisis, the state launches “national” dialogues, inviting everyone to the table—even its harshest critics. Dialogue is presented as unavoidable, its outcomes as binding.

People participate with energy, only to discover that the exercise is largely window dressing. Whatever is agreed upon is quickly drained of substance, and the old order soon reasserts itself.

In the economic sphere, the same logic prevails. Projects are announced, but civilian figures are placed at the forefront as facades—managers of other people’s money who absorb criticism and appear on camera when required.

The practice is not new. What is new is its spread over the past decade, and the extent to which its mechanics have become part of public knowledge.

Manufactured crowds

In the security sphere, the state has long relied on criminals or repeat offenders to confront protesters, creating the impression that “ordinary people” are rising to defend authority against unruly opponents.

What was once an occasional tactic has since been institutionalized, notably through the expansion of private security companies.

There have also been rented demonstrators: workers mobilized to chant against democracy during the Nasser era, and later impoverished residents of popular and informal neighborhoods, dispatched into the streets for meager pay.

Elections of every kind form another arena for such practices. As many citizens abstain, the state compensates by mobilizing small clusters of supporters at polling stations. Television cameras linger on them, concealing low turnout and projecting an image of broad participation.

More importantly, the process itself is engineered from the start. Inputs are carefully controlled to ensure outcomes that preserve the state’s dominance over representative institutions.

To the outside world, this arrangement is wrapped in the language of competition and democratic procedure, endlessly repeated by officials and loyal media.

In practice, opposition figures are permitted entry only when the state is confident they can be domesticated—or otherwise controlled—by one means or another.