Despite the evident popular basis and positive outcomes of Egypt’s 30 June Revolution in 2013, misconceptions about it persist, especially in Western political circles and the Western media.
From the day former Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi was toppled, many outside observers rushed to label the events in Egypt a simple “military coup,” suggesting that a democratically elected leader had been unjustly overthrown. Prominent newspapers and officials in North America and Europe lamented the supposed end of Egypt’s democracy and in some cases portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as the victims of undemocratic forces.
A US Foreign Policy magazine headline even absurdly dubbed Morsi “the Arab World’s Mandela,” drawing outrage and ridicule from Egyptians. Likewise, when Western commentators ask “was it a coup?” or “does Egypt even matter?” Egyptians who lived through those harrowing months feel a mix of frustration and betrayal. The Western media “doesn’t seem to get it, and Egyptians feel snubbed and slighted,” as one observer wrote in August 2013.
What these outside narratives often overlook is the sheer scale and genuine grassroots nature of the 30 June uprising. This was not a case of a clique of generals seizing power for the sake of it – it was “a popular uprising that was supported by a wide range of Egyptians. By the time the army intervened on 3 July 2013, the largest mass demonstrations in Egypt’s modern history had been ongoing for days, with an estimated 30 million or more Egyptians demanding Morsi’s resignation.
The military’s move came only after Morsi stubbornly rebuffed all calls to compromise and after protesters explicitly called on the army to step in to prevent civil collapse. As the Britannica account of these events notes, then minister of defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and the Armed Forces argued that they were carrying out the will of the Egyptian people, given that Morsi’s Islamist-dominated government “had put the Muslim Brotherhood’s interests before those of the country as a whole.”
In other words, far from snuffing out democracy, the 30 June movement aimed to save the principles of pluralism and national unity that were being trampled on by an elected president with authoritarian ambitions. It was a difficult and delicate step. How does a country correct a democratically-made mistake without undermining democracy itself? Millions of Egyptians answered that question by rising up to legally withdraw their consent from Morsi’s failing government, even if doing so meant inviting the military to briefly assume a caretaker role.
To them, this was a lesser evil compared to the Brotherhood’s hijacking of the 25 January Revolution’s ideals.
Western critics also frequently cite the harsh crackdown that followed against the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition activists as evidence that 30 June was a step backward for human rights. It is true that the aftermath of the revolution was messy and, at times, tragic. The dispersal of Brotherhood sit-ins in August 2013 led to violent clashes and the loss of life.
In the ensuing years, the Egyptian authorities detained thousands of individuals – by one estimate, some 40,000 people were detained in the crackdown after Morsi’s ouster – and prosecuted many Brotherhood leaders and members. New laws restricted protests and the media, as the state tried to restore order and prevent the kind of chaos that had engulfed countries like Syria and Libya also coming to Egypt.
These measures have drawn sharp condemnation from human rights organisations and some Western governments, which argue that Egypt’s government has become more authoritarian than it was before the Arab Spring. Such concerns are understandable from a liberal-democratic viewpoint. However, what is often missing in such Western commentary is the Egyptian government’s own context for these actions – namely, that the nation was facing an existential fight against well-armed extremist elements and teetering institutions, a fight that required extraordinary security measures.
Egyptian officials emphatically reject the label of “political prisoners” being given to those who were detained, insisting that the vast majority are either Islamists implicated in violent subversion or others who endangered national security. In their view, stability and the rule of law had to be restored before true democratic life could resume. As President Al-Sisi and his supporters argue, “the country has no political prisoners, and stability and security are paramount” in a time of national emergency.
This is not to say that all Egyptians unanimously cheer every repressive action – far from it. But many Egyptians, even those who cherish democracy, acknowledge a difficult truth: the Brotherhood’s year in power opened the gates to potential state failure, and drastic steps were needed to prevent Egypt from meeting the fate of its war-torn neighbours.
Western observers sometimes fail to appreciate the trauma Egyptians experienced in 2012-2013 – the assassination of a top general, the torching of churches, roaming gangs enforcing their moral codes, an economy on the brink, and the spectre of civil war. Having “had enough of chaos,” Egyptians were (and still are) unwilling to trade stability for the promise of rapid democratisation.
The West’s oft-repeated binary – stability versus democracy – rings hollow in Egypt’s case, where the public felt that without stability any democracy would quickly fall to extremists. This perspective is crucial to understanding why 30 June retains broad popular legitimacy inside Egypt despite international criticism.
Finally, there is a misconception in some Western narratives that the Muslim Brotherhood was simply a moderate political force unfairly persecuted for its beliefs. In reality, as the Grand Mufti’s analysis and other evidence has shown, the Brotherhood has deep ideological linkages with more militant Islamist currents.
When in power, the Brotherhood’s leaders did little to allay fears that they sought to impose an exclusionary, religion-based autocracy. Their actions – from trying to ram through an Islamist-tinged Constitution in 2012 to appointing hardliners as provincial governors – betrayed a majoritarian disregard for Egypt’s pluralistic fabric. The Brotherhood’s top officials, including Morsi, often used incendiary language against critics, at times whipping their supporters up into a frenzy that resulted in violence on the streets. Thus, when Western pundits cast Brotherhood members as hapless victims, Egyptians recall how the group’s own maximalism largely brought about its downfall.
The post-2013 government’s designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and its mass trials of Brotherhood members have been condemned abroad – but inside Egypt many see these moves as belated justice or at least as preventative measures against a group viewed as posing a continuing menace to the state’s security.
The truth, as always, is complex: Egypt has tightened its political sphere and imprisoned many, some possibly innocent, in the drive to snuff out the Brotherhood and other threats. Reasonable people can debate such methods. But Western critics should recognise the fundamental point that 30 June was a popular demand to remove a regime steering Egypt towards ruin, not a junta’s greed for power.
Egyptians refused to let their fledgling democracy be commandeered by an illiberal force – a nuance lost in simplistic coup narratives.
In the end, the difference in perspectives can be summed up as follows: Western observers tend to fixate on procedural legitimacy (Morsi’s election and the military’s intervention), whereas Egyptians emphasise substantive legitimacy instead (Morsi’s governance failures and public rejection and the popular will behind the intervention).
Bridging this perception gap is important. Friends of Egypt in the West should understand that the 30 June Revolution, despite its imperfections, was a nation’s act of self-preservation. It was the moment when tens of millions stood up and said their identity and stability mattered more than the tenure of one divisive president.
That is why to this day Egyptians celebrate 30 June as a second independence day – independence from a sinister theocratic project and from impending chaos.
The writer is a senior adviser to the Grand Mufti of Egypt.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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