Liberal Egyptians fear a step back

Walking down a corridor at Cairo airport, it felt incongruous to hear the piped music playing an old Beatles song. I wondered whether the authorities were intending to demonstrate that normal service had resumed, one year on from the Egyptian revolution.

I flew in a year ago after the "Day of Rage" by tens of thousands of protesters on January 28 prompted the beleaguered Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak, to withdraw the police from the city streets and jails.

Taking the last taxi from the airport under the curfew, we drove past tanks, army checkpoints and gangs of Egyptians brandishing sticks and stones as they tried to protect their homes in the darkness. Gunshots crackled outside my hotel where the curfew had trapped the staff.

In the days that followed, desperate to stay in power, Mubarak shut down the internet and cut off phone lines. The repressive reaction only reinforced the protesters' determination and Mubarak was forced from power on February 11, 2011.

Egyptians today are yearning for stability to return after a year of turmoil. They want a government to tackle the huge challenges of poverty, corruption and economic crisis. But in recent days, following the victory of the Islamists in a free election, the protesters have returned to Tahrir Square and clashes have again broken out.

Whereas a year ago the chants were "the people want the removal of the regime", today you hear "the people want the removal of the military regime" that has ruled since the dictator's departure.

There are tensions between the liberal "revolutionaries" who spearheaded the movement that toppled Mubarak, and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party came first in the poll, amid suspicions that the Brotherhood is working behind the scenes with the military.

There is rivalry between the fundamentalist Brotherhood and the extremist Salafists whose Al-Nour Party scored an unexpected 25 per cent. The Salafists themselves are divided, between the hardline radicals whose supporters have reportedly been chasing women from hairdressers' salons with the aid of Tasers, and the jeans-wearing "Costa Salafists" whose interpretation of the Koran is more relaxed.

And following an outbreak of apparently officially encouraged violence against the Christian minority that left 25 dead, the Copts are increasingly paranoid about their place in Egyptian society.

I first met Heba Mahmoud, a vivacious young teaching assistant, in Tahrir Square, only a day or so after she and her parents had been gassed by security forces. For Heba, her 18 days in Tahrir Square - the time it took to get rid of Mubarak - "broke down class barriers" and transformed her into a political animal.

Since last year she has changed her job - she now runs a nursery - and although still living at home, and studying for an MA, she has become a political activist. Since the elections she has been raising political awareness by helping to organise street screenings of officially orchestrated violent incidents which have not been shown on state TV.

Yet she didn't join the demonstrators in Tahrir Square last Thursday, now a national holiday whose date is still marked in Arabic on the windows of the Foreign Ministry. "I didn't want to join the MB [Muslim Brotherhood] in their victory celebration," she said. Instead, she joined a five-hour march from a Cairo suburb in a repeat of the demonstrations that had converged on the square from all over the city last year.

We talked about the liberals' poor showing in the poll: Where did they go wrong?

"They didn't connect with the street. Egyptians are conservative, the people said the liberals weren't Islamic, they would cast off the veil." As for the surprise Salafist surge in rural areas where illiteracy is rife, "the people voted in line with what they were told in the mosque".

She, and Egyptian academics, human rights activists and diplomats who I spoke to over the past few days voiced some concerns about the possibility of an Islamic dictatorship.

"It took us 30 years to get rid of Mubarak, it might take us 300 years to get rid of the MB," said one. But others pointed out that the Brotherhood have demonstrated a responsible and pragmatic attitude since the elections.

For the liberals, respect for human rights and freedom of expression are core demands, something which has been undermined in recent days by the military's clumsy targeting of American NGOs in a funding row.

However there has been no such scrutiny of other foreign funds said to be pouring in from the conservative Gulf states. "Saudi Arabia has no interest in a successful Egyptian revolution, they would fear contamination," as one human rights activist put it.

Pressure is currently building from the liberal camp for the generals to hand over power before the adoption of a constitution, and presidential elections scheduled for June 15.