18. Grassroots Globalization: Underneath the Rhetoric of “Democracy Promotion” Edmund Berger
It was a December morning in Cairo when the soldiers came. Armed for combat, they descended upon the offices of foreign NGOs, sequestering staffers inside their offices and shutting off communication to the outside. “We’re literally locked in. I really have no idea why they are holding us inside and confiscating our personal laptops,” tweeted one worker who was shocked to suddenly find herself a prisoner.1 The security forces had been ordered to raid the NGOs - ten in all2 by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the highest governing body of the Egyptian military. Since the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak in the face of the ‘Arab Spring’ protests, it was also the highest governing body in the nation. Upon the transfer of power between the dictator and his military confidants, the SCAF had closed Parliament, suspended the Constitution, dangled the promise of elections in front of the people - and now the assault on the NGOs had, in the eyes of the West, revealed that even though Mubarak was gone, his autocratic style of governance still lurked in post-revolutionary Egypt. American politicians quickly moved to reach a diplomatic solution as a handful of NGOs staffers were put on trial. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Egypt’s foreign minister that “failure to resolve the dispute may lead to the loss of American aid.”3 The warning sent a clear message about just how much had changed between the two countries: Egypt, like Israel, had long been the US’s key strategic ally in the Middle East and North Africa region. During Mubarak’s rule over the nation, a