On Thursday, Feb. 17, I sat down with Victor Khalil, professor of Arabic at Biola University, to discuss the Egyptian uprising. Khalil not only explained the reason behind the protests but also described what the public should be looking for in the future.

1. What was the background of the Egyptian uprising? What were the protesters fighting for?

“They were mainly fighting for the standard of living and shortage of food. Unemployment is very high, large numbers of Egyptians were under the poverty line.”
“From the spiritual point of view, Christians were praying because of the heavy persecution that came upon them especially in the past 10 years, the church was praying for deliverance.
The third would be the media, the television and the Internet that has exposed the system and showed life in the West and in Western countries especially freedom and human rights.”

2. The issues the protesters were fighting for appealed to multiple classes of people. Do you think that’s why the protesters were so diverse?

“Correct. Muslims, Christians, liberal Muslims were working together. The first couple of days, they were not organized; they did not know what they wanted. But they realized in order to win the revolution they needed to be united with purpose and in numbers.”

3. The Muslim Brotherhood kept appearing in the media; what was their role in the protests?

“The Muslim Brotherhood, the militant group founded in Egypt, at the start of the demonstrations were not even present. A few days later they appeared on the scene because they lost in the last election. They held 88 seats but in the last election they only kept one or two. With the knowledge they were not desired by the average Egyptian, the liberal Muslim, they came out into the public but in a more civilized way; they assured the crowds they were not after seats in the government or the presidency. After Mubarak stepped down, actually just yesterday, they came out with requests, well some would call them demands, that they want to have a party in parliament, which is not what they had presented the first day of the demonstrations.”

4. Will the other groups be wary of them now because they waited to demand a party?

“It’s been within the past few days that things are starting to appear on the surface. Different groups are coming on the scene and demanding to have a voice in parliament; they want a voice and a party. That is why the young people took to the streets again, especially yesterday, and their demand is they want no military or religious president or leader of parliament. They are saying they want an intellectual country. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood said, ‘Egypt is not an intellectual country; it is a Muslim country.’ So that changed the atmosphere.”

5. Now that Mubarak has stepped down and the army is in control, what are the people expecting from them?

“Egypt has been under marshal law since 1953, so for 60 years now. The army has promised to let the people elect a new government in six months. People have heard many promises for the past 60 years and they have a problem trusting anything a public official says; even if it is the truth. So they [the protesters] said, ‘We will be here every Friday to enforce our demands and make sure we are not lied to.’”

6. What sort of election can the people expect to see in six months?

“The public does not want a conventional election. The Muslim Brotherhood and other groups would show up; the revolutionists don’t want that. They [the revolutionists] continue to hold fast to the demand for no military and no religious leader. They are also demanding that we live under the constitution, the Sharia, some articles in the constitution have been dismantled, like giving permission to religious institutions to have buildings, which means churches, until now churches were not allowed to be built, of course Muslims had mosques but Christians were not allowed to have churches.”

“The ultimate goal of the revolution is to dismantle the Sharia, the Islamic law that is different in each country. They want to get rid of the Redda, which means apostasy. The young revolutionists want to get rid of the line on IDs that state a person’s religion… Muslim, Christian. But now that the Muslim Brotherhood has come on the scene it will be difficult to do, to get rid of the Redda.”

7. Media was a huge aspect of the demonstrations. How did the media help the protesters?

“In the past 10 years my colleagues and I launched satellites that cover the Middle East and Europe, and those are Christian satellites. Some have exposed the system; many have just stuck with preaching the gospel. When the government turned off the Internet that was a big mistake because the people turned to Christian media. All of us realized that we needed to put out the proper news. We started broadcasting proper news in the Middle East and Europe. There are 10 Christian stations we use and they broadcast to 300 million Arabic speaking homes.”

“We saw very interesting pictures of the protesters coming from the media. An important part of Middle Eastern culture is that men and women don’t mix. We saw on the TV set, young men and women holding hands, working together. For the first time we saw the young men protecting the women. That encouraged more women to come out into the street. There was no abuse or attack on the women within the protesters. When the women came to the streets and found that they were not attacked or told to go home, more came.”

“We minister to women. We believe that if you free the women, you free the country. Women were watching the Christian media and they got the message that if they send their son to be a jihadist it would not help them because they would have a dead son. In understanding the Middle Eastern countries, the young men who took to the streets go with their mother’s blessing. We are seeing that the mothers had a big role in what happened in Egypt. The mothers are saying, ‘Instead of sending you to be a jihadist, I want to send you to the streets for a peaceful demonstration.’”

8. During the protests the government used the media to try to discredit the demonstrations by saying foreigners started the uprisings. Did this affect the demonstrators?

“It took one day for the protesters to figure out what to do. There were some non-Egyptians in the crowd but the group did not kick them out or hurt them; they wanted a peaceful demonstration. They had already told Iran to stay away; they said, ‘We want to speak for Egypt only.’ The many banners said, ‘We are united.’”

“Then we started to see Christians working with the Muslims. The media was showing pictures of Muslims praying Friday prayers and the Christians were protecting them and shielding them. Last Sunday, there were a few pastors and worship teams that came out and started to sing. One preacher in the group was held up by the crowd and he started to tell them that Isa, which means Jesus in Islam, said, ‘I will bless Egypt’ and he began to read scripture from Isaiah 19, and the crowd started to say, ‘Amen.’ The crowd was cheering him on and he led them into prayer, gentle prayer not Christian prayer, and we saw for the first time, Christians and Muslims working together saying, ‘we are united.’ We have noticed that no church was burned down, no Christians died, and they did not burn the American flag.”

9. Do you think social media was able to be utilized effectively because a majority of the protesters were college-aged?

“Yes, most of the protesters were college-aged because the cost of education is almost free in the country. Men and women have college education but no jobs. Absolutely, technology played a big role in the organization of the group, in being united, and in receiving news. When the government shut down the Internet, the young people were still able to get on to Facebook; there are ways. The government is not into technology.”

10. Why do you think Mubarak first stated he would not resign until his term had finished but then the next day he stepped down?

“Mubarak is a military man, stubborn, but actually he distanced himself from the people. The last 10 years he lived in almost a shell; he did not know much about the people. So he stood and said he would not listen to America; he is proud but not in tune with reality.”

“Everyone, even the army leaders thought that when he said he had an important speech to make he would step down. He [Mubarak] actually humiliated many leaders and that’s when the army had a coup. This was a coup from the army. They [the army] saw this would lead to more violence, because the protesters were marching to the palace and the leaders of the army did not see themselves killing the demonstrators coming to the palace. So they [the army] wanted to avoid more humiliation for Mubarak, which he did not see.”

11. How does the situation in Egypt relate to us here in the U.S.?

“From listening to leaders I know, a comment was made that maybe we should follow Egypt’s example to tumble down the corrupt leaders we have here. So this was a comment made by many people. It is interesting that Obama made a statement that we should learn from the people in Egypt. So to be careful…What does this mean? To bring down corrupt leaders in America?”

12. How would you say Biola students especially should react to the situation in Egypt?

“My vision is to see Biola students going on mission trips. Most I’ve met and have interacted with, especially in my class, have the heart and love to be missionaries. I can see in the near future Egypt will be one of the most open countries for mission work and will be able to touch other countries, especially Sudan. I would like see to Biola encourage students to step out into the mission field. I would be more than happy to help in this area.”

Khalil ended the interview by saying Christians especially, need to continue to pray for the Arab world.

“We need to pray for strength for the persecuted,” Khalil said. “Muslims wills see that violence and terrorism did not work. We praise God for the millions of Muslims who became Christians. We pray that more will find the truth of Jesus Christ; we pray for protection over the church, and for wisdom for the new government that is coming.”