Interviews with Mahmoud Afifi

Before the revolution there was not any direct cooperation with any [international] organization. However, we were interested in coordinating with human rights organizations and organizations which are interested in political action in Egypt. There wasn’t any kind of formal cooperation between the [April 6th] movement and any foreign organization [the April 6th Youth Movement is an Egyptian activist group that was founded in 2008 to support striking workers].

When a member gets arrested, some organizations used to announce a proclamation condemning the arrest and what is going on but there was not any formal coordination between the movement and between any foreign organizations.

When we started the movement, we started to search for the experiences of different countries around the world which we could learn from and which could inspire us. Revolutions all over the world are inspiring, and therefore, we were trying to know the experiences of change in almost all countries in the last 50 years.

We were so interested in this; we started to study more than one experience, as the Serbian Renewal Movement, the Solidarity Movement in Poland and the Chilean experience of change. We tried to study more than one experience, we read about them and watched their videos to know how they planned and moved, how they formed their movements, and how they applied pressure on their regime so that they carry out a revolution and overthrow it.

We focused on the Serbian Movement. The situation in Serbia at the time was similar to the situation in Egypt. It was a youth movement also formed by a small number of young people who managed to help in overthrowing the regime and making a change in Serbia. They were able to do this through a set of simple tools that they used. We were able to learn from this experience and watch their videos and documentaries, and extracted the most important lessons: some plans and moves so that we develop it, add to it, and then apply it here in Egypt. Learning from the experiences of other countries in making a change in the last 50 years was a very important thing for us and made our work based on awareness, study, and knowledge.

Mahmoud Afifi is an Egyptian democracy activist with the April 6th Youth Movement, a group formed in 2008 to support striking workers; afterwards, it transformed into a nationwide opposition network against Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Today, Afifi serves as the Director of the April 6th Youth Movement’s Information Office. He is a lawyer by profession and graduated from Banha University in 2006.

Afifi joined the April 6th Youth Movement in 2009 and founded the group’s chapter in Egypt’s Qalyubia governorate. There he rallied youth to take part in various awareness campaigns and street protests against the government. As part of this strategy, he engaged the poorest segments of the population and strengthened their voice in the political arena. Following his success in Qalyubia, Afifi worked to organize April 6th Youth Movement campaigns at the national level. As the government cracked down on these demonstrations, Afifi was arrested several times and even abandoned in the desert.

Prior to the Egyptian Revolution that unseated President Hosni Mubarak, Afifi coordinated with other organizations encouraging citizens to participate in a January 25, 2011 demonstration in Cairo. On that day, Afifi marched to Tahrir Square with thousands of others demanding Mubarak’s resignation and a free Egypt. The protests intensified and expanded nationwide. Almost three weeks later, on February 11, 2011, Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power ending his 30 year reign.