In the heated political summer of July 2013, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — then still the Minister of Defense — appeared on camera to make a direct appeal to the Egyptian people: “I am asking the Egyptian people for something. Next Friday, all honorable and loyal Egyptians must take to the streets. Why? To give me a mandate and an order to confront potential violence and terrorism.”

This wasn’t the first such appeal in Egypt’s political history; others before him had used direct speech to summon the public in moments of political transformation. But what happened at that moment wasn’t just another passing statement — it was an implicit announcement of the beginning of a new phase in the relationship between the state and society. A phase that would reshape the very notion of security and the dialectic of power and fear in the public sphere. And it is a phase that continues to this day.

The uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011 had, if only briefly, sparked hope for a possible transition to a civilian democratic system in a country long ruled by the military establishment. However, by the summer of 2013, that path had gradually reversed. The public discourse was reorganized around a central idea: preserving the state, not reforming it. At that juncture, Sisi redefined political repression as a “popular war on terrorism,” and supporters of the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi were demonized as an existential threat.

What occurred wasn’t merely a rephrasing of terms, but rather a strict return to the security mindset upon which Egypt’s governance had been built for decades. The national political discourse quickly shifted — from talk of “stability” during Mubarak’s era, to rhetorical chaos after the revolution, to rigid security firmness after the coup. In this way, security was no longer invoked as an institutional function, but as a political ideology.

This article seeks to trace the transformation of Egypt’s security narratives, before and after the 2013 coup, and to deconstruct how fear of terrorism and chaos became a central justification for an authoritarian regime that was re-established with a new face beginning in 2014.

Security under Mubarak: Stability vs. Freedom

For three decades, Hosni Mubarak’s regime succeeded in entrenching a central security narrative: stability is the highest goal — no matter the cost. Since the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Islamists in 1981, Egypt was ruled under a near-permanent state of emergency. Under this condition, a logic took hold: the country was under constant internal threat, and thus legal exceptions became the rule.

The Muslim Brotherhood — at the time the largest opposition organization — was effectively banned and persistently portrayed as a threat to national unity. Based on this alleged danger, the emergency law was justified for many years, and the fight against “terrorism” became a broad umbrella under which systematic violations of rights and freedoms were carried out. The powers of the security apparatus expanded, exceeding those of the regular judiciary. Military courts became the institutional face of repression, where the state made no distinction between peaceful and armed opposition.

Mubarak’s security discourse was marked by its almost exclusive focus on internal threats. After the peace treaty with Israel, official rhetoric ceased emphasizing external enemies and shifted its focus to internal dangers, foremost among them the Islamist movements. During the 1990s, the state did face an actual armed insurgency. Yet the regime exploited this threat to widen its repressive scope — targeting civil movements, human rights activists, and independent journalists.

Over time, the definition of “terrorism” in official and legal discourse became so vague and broad that political activism itself was conflated with security threats. In this sense, the security narrative no longer targeted Islamists alone, but also extended to democratic currents, human rights organizations, and anyone who challenged the state’s logic.

Amid this expansion, Mubarak crafted an image of himself as the “protector of the nation,” an image reinforced by state media, which propagated a message warning that any loosening of the security grip would inevitably lead to total chaos. Thus, the state became centered around a core security concept, where public freedoms were seen as latent threats that must be controlled in the name of order and stability. Even civil society — though present — was besieged by a narrative that accused it of treason or endangering national security whenever it criticized the authorities.

With the turn of the millennium, Mubarak’s security discourse solidified into a kind of unspoken contract: acceptance of a minimum level of stability in exchange for giving up demands for political freedoms. National identity was framed within a narrative under siege by “extremist forces,” requiring decisive leadership to protect it from collapse. Domestically, this narrative granted Mubarak ongoing legitimacy for his rule. Internationally, it enhanced his position as a reliable ally in the war on terror — particularly with the United States, which continued to support him politically and economically despite the authoritarian nature of his regime.

Yet the great paradox was that this “exceptional state,” which lasted for decades, was gradually generating the conditions for its own demise. In January 2011, when people chanted, “Bread, freedom, social justice,” it wasn’t merely a social protest — it was a clear rejection of the equation: security in exchange for rights. In that moment, the discourse of fear collapsed in the face of a popular promise for a new reality — one in which the political community reclaimed the initiative, even if only temporarily.

Competing Narratives under Morsi

In the aftermath of the 2011 revolution, a rare window of time opened up, allowing for divergent visions of Egypt’s identity and future trajectory. For a brief period, it seemed the public sphere had opened to competing narratives, each offering a different conception of the state, the relationship between power and society, and the limits of security. While the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which oversaw the transitional phase, initially maintained the emergency law, it was ultimately forced to lift it in 2012 under popular pressure. Thus, Egypt experienced around thirteen months without emergency law — a rare moment marked by expanded political discourse and the loosening of long-standing red lines that had constrained the media and public life.

In this context, Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, won the country’s first free presidential elections. However, his short presidency — lasting less than a year — was a tense transitional period that failed to fundamentally redefine Egypt’s security narrative. Instead, it revealed deep structural tensions within the state.

From the moment he assumed office, Morsi found himself surrounded by deep suspicion from the entrenched institutions of the state — the military, security services, and intelligence agencies — which had remained untouched for decades and showed little willingness to accept a civilian president with an Islamist background. In his rhetoric, Morsi attempted a conciliatory tone, signaling a commitment to democratic transition and refraining from immediately resorting to traditional tools of repression. He did not reinstate the emergency law nationwide and only used it briefly in specific cities during waves of unrest in early 2013.

But this restraint was not enough to stabilize the scene. The media machine, beyond his control, quickly transformed into an open space for harsh criticism — and even open mockery — in a way that would have been unthinkable under Mubarak. This media openness revealed a liberatory dimension not seen in Egypt for decades. However, it also deepened polarization, as clashing political narratives emerged, each claiming to hold the truth about who threatened the country’s future.

On the security front, Morsi’s government faced real challenges, particularly in Sinai, where jihadist activity surged after 2011. A turning point came with an attack in August 2012 that killed 16 soldiers, prompting the president to launch a military operation targeting armed groups. Simultaneously, he sought to address the developmental dimension of the crisis by allocating resources to infrastructure and improving living conditions. But these efforts ran into a wall of mutual distrust between the Brotherhood and the military establishment. Morsi, as a civilian president, found himself compelled to delegate sensitive security files to the very agencies that had long ruled without civilian oversight. As a result, there was no genuine transformation in the state’s security doctrine. The old structure remained intact, including its policies in Sinai and its relationship with Israel.

In response to this reality, Morsi and the Brotherhood tried to offer a political narrative portraying themselves as protectors of the 2011 revolution’s achievements, claiming to be cleansing the state of remnants of the old regime. This approach reached its peak in November 2012 when Morsi issued a constitutional declaration granting himself temporary exceptional powers, claiming it was to protect the parliament and constitutional assembly from interference by Mubarak-era judges. Yet rather than being seen as a defensive measure, this move was interpreted by his opponents as a sign of authoritarian intent, cloaked in religious rhetoric. This perception quickly took hold in public discourse, as his critics recast him as an Islamic autocrat seeking to “Brotherhoodize” the state and impose a religious identity that excluded others.

In this climate, Egypt fractured. The Brotherhood’s narrative clung to the idea of “legitimacy,” presenting Morsi’s presidency as a prerequisite for institutional stability and democratic transition. Opposing this was a counter-narrative shaped by diverse opposition forces and amplified by private media, which claimed that the state itself was in danger under the rule of a group with a vague ideological project that rejected the pluralism of the modern state and might drag Egypt into regional and international isolation. Amid this polarization, narratives emerged blaming Morsi for every security and economic crisis, linking him to foreign alliances — whether with Qatar, Hamas, or even the United States — portraying him as advancing agendas that were not in Egypt’s national interest.

Thus, the Mubarak-era formula of “security vs. opposition” was flipped and used this time against a democratically elected president. Rather than being a tool in the hands of political authority, the security apparatus acted as an independent actor, resisting a leadership it did not accept and repurposing the discourse of “state protection” to justify sidelining civilian governance.

In this polarized environment, military intervention became a matter of time. When Sisi, then Minister of Defense, announced a “roadmap” after the June 30 protests, he presented himself as responding to the people’s will. But what was framed as a response to popular demands was, at its core, a return to a familiar security logic: the country is on the brink of collapse, and the army is the last savior.

Following Morsi’s ouster, the new regime quickly revived the discourse of a “war on terror.” The Brotherhood, who had been at the center of power just a year earlier, were recast as an existential internal enemy. Within weeks, this narrative turned into bloody action: the Rabaa massacre in August 2013, in which hundreds were killed, was not presented as a national tragedy, but as a necessary step in “cleansing” the country of existential threats.

Egypt’s experience with political pluralism lasted no more than two years. Yet the irony is that the security doctrine — supposedly up for reconsideration — did not just return; it became more deeply entrenched in the fabric of the state after 2014. This return was not only institutional but narrative: security was once again pitted against politics, and the public sphere was redefined — not as a space for debate and negotiation, but as one subject to comprehensive security management.

Fear as a Foundation of Rule: Sisi’s Security Model

When Abdel Fattah el-Sisi officially assumed power in 2014, it became clear that his legitimacy would not be built on electoral mandate or political program, but on a tightly constructed security narrative. At the heart of this narrative was a stark binary that left no room for ambiguity: either order or chaos, either the state or collapse. There was no alternative to a strong security state under his leadership to guarantee the first option. This logic was carefully crafted from the earliest days of the coup and was later entrenched through a calculated mix of propaganda, legal frameworks, and systematic use of force. Security was no longer just a tool to control the public sphere — it became the only language the state spoke, one that demanded all citizens to position themselves in one of two camps: the “honorable Egyptians” or the “enemies of the nation.”

This logic was present from Sisi’s July 2013 speech, in which he clearly distinguished between the people and what he called the “camp of violence and terrorism.” Since then, this dividing line has only widened. By the end of 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood was officially designated a terrorist organization — despite its long history as a prominent social and political force in Egypt. By early 2014, a wave of arrests had reached its peak, with tens of thousands imprisoned, most of them Islamists, charged under vague accusations related to terrorism or incitement against the state.

But this expansion did not stop with one group. It soon extended to liberal and secular activists, even those who had once championed peaceful change and human rights. Opposition in all its forms was now framed as a “security threat,” and the state began to portray every act of political dissent or civic engagement as part of a grand conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the country. Human rights organizations documented this trend, noting the growing control of intelligence services over the media, using it as a platform to spread the idea that an intertwined network of enemies — from Islamists to journalists to civil society groups — were all working in sync with agendas hostile to the Egyptian state.

This narrative reached a peak in 2018, when the Ministry of Interior produced a propaganda film titled Spider Webs. The film lumped together ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, international human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, and even local civil society groups into one cohesive storyline portraying them all as parts of a single subversive network. This narrative — blatantly Orwellian in character — eliminated any distinction between political opposition and sabotage, transforming the public sphere into a closed arena where all independent voices were treated as direct threats to national security.

This transformation was not limited to rhetoric; it extended into the very structure of the law. At the outset of the new regime, the legal framework was reshaped to reflect the regime’s security priorities. The 2013 protest law effectively banned all forms of peaceful demonstration, while the 2015 anti-terrorism law introduced a broad and ambiguous definition of “terrorist activity,” allowing the criminalization of journalistic or political actions that fell outside the state’s control. In 2017, a new law on NGOs was passed, almost completely restricting civil society activities, based on the presumption that such organizations might serve as foreign arms seeking to destabilize the country.

In April 2017, a nationwide state of emergency was declared, ostensibly in response to terrorist attacks. What stood out, however, was that this state of emergency was repeatedly extended every three months, effectively reinstating Egypt’s emergency law regime — one that had unofficially guided governance for years. Many observers pointed out that the continued security discourse around “Islamic terrorism” served as a pretext for broad authoritarian measures and for tightening control over political and civil life in line with an old-new security doctrine.

The parallels between Sisi’s model and Mubarak’s are undeniable — but the difference lies in scope and severity. While Mubarak maintained a limited political façade — with a narrowly tolerated space for civil society and media — what occurred after 2014 was a systematic closure of even that narrow margin. Security was transformed into a comprehensive doctrine through which the state is governed, and through which the relationship between citizen, politics, and nation is entirely redefined.

Reframing the “War on Terror” Narrative

At the heart of the security narrative that took shape after 2013, terrorism was not portrayed as a temporary danger or a limited security threat — it became a sweeping framework used to redefine politics itself. The war on terror was not presented merely as a military campaign, but as an existential struggle against anything that might threaten the stability of the state — including, and perhaps foremost, the very idea of opposition. In this context, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi did not hesitate to place himself at the center of this war, not just as president, but as a field commander leading a long battle against a deeply rooted threat in Egypt’s modern history.

In his official speeches, Sisi’s image was constructed as that of the man of the moment, capable of confronting an interconnected web of dangers: terrorism, chaos, sabotage, and foreign interference. From the early days of his rule, he broadened the scope of threat perception to include historical depth — declaring that Egypt had been facing terrorism “since the 1920s,” a clear reference to the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. Through this symbolic expansion, the Brotherhood was not only blamed for what happened after the revolution, but cast as the original sin from which the nation’s historical trajectory had gone astray — as though it were the root of all subsequent violence and extremism.

This historical framing, while coherent within the logic of the security state, entrenched the Brotherhood’s position as the “absolute enemy” — beyond any prospect of reconciliation. By 2014, the group was no longer just demonized in official rhetoric but had been placed, with the help of media narratives, firmly outside the bounds of any possible political settlement.

At the same time, the field reality was not devoid of actual violence. The country — especially North Sinai — witnessed a notable escalation in armed operations after the coup. Jihadist groups that had previously focused on confronting Israel turned their weapons inward, targeting the army and police. By late 2014, the main armed group in Sinai declared allegiance to ISIS and rebranded itself as “Wilayat Sinai” (Sinai Province). With major attacks like the downing of the Russian plane in 2015 and the massacre at Al-Rawda mosque in 2017, the threat no longer seemed symbolic — it became physical, bloody, and shocking to the public.

Regardless of the context behind these attacks, the regime capitalized on them fully. Every incident became an opportunity to amplify the security message: terrorism was not just at the periphery, but everywhere. In early 2018, the government launched a large-scale military campaign named “Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018,” involving land, air, and naval forces, and geographically spanning from Sinai to the Nile Delta and the Western Desert — deliberately mapping out the boundaries of a nationwide war with no fixed geography.

The official language accompanying the operation was less military than existential. The enemy was framed as lurking within, everywhere, demanding total mobilization. Practically, the campaign involved highly aggressive security measures: curfews across large areas, forced evictions, heavy use of weaponry, and complete media blackout. This was a war not fought on open battlefields but within the internal space where the relationship between state and society was being rewritten.

Though the war on terror was framed as a national necessity, the timing of the 2018 campaign carried clear political undertones. It coincided with the run-up to presidential elections, which featured no real contenders. One retired general even described the campaign bluntly as a “preemptive strike” against terrorist groups, at a moment when the regime sought to generate a wave of national mobilization behind the leadership — wrapping the tightly controlled election in a cloak of patriotic urgency.

In this sense, the war on terror was not merely a security policy managed by state agencies — it became a political theater whose function was to justify the regime’s continuation and deflect attention from deeper structural crises: from economic decline to the absence of political competition. “Security” had become the raw material through which the public sphere was re-engineered, and the only language through which legitimacy could be understood — not in its past, nor in its future, but in its continuous present as a permanent state of emergency.

Expanding the Scope of the Security Threat Beyond Islamists

What came to define the security discourse after 2014 — compared to previous phases — was not only its severity or repressive nature, but its totalizing character and expansive scope in both time and meaning. This discourse moved beyond its traditional framework, which had focused primarily on armed Islamist groups, into a more abstract realm where all opposition was reduced to a continuous and complex threat. The list of supposed “enemies” grew dramatically — not only those who carried weapons, but anyone suspected of contributing, even symbolically or rhetorically, to undermining the state’s authority or questioning its narrative.

Within this framework, the regime began promoting the concept of “Fourth Generation Warfare” — a term that, while imprecise, proved symbolically powerful. It refers to a form of unconventional warfare waged not only through weapons but through rumors, public incitement, and the weakening of collective awareness. Sisi has repeatedly invoked these ideas, warning that “awareness” itself is the true battlefield, and that the threat is no longer external, but internal — found in ideas, in speech, and in those who listen to voices other than the state’s.

This theoretical shift quickly translated into concrete practices. The regime’s warnings evolved into a mobilizing discourse addressed to the entire society: the state is besieged from within, and the threat lies not only in explosives, but in a tweet, a livestream, or a piece of unlicensed information. School curricula, talk shows, and Friday sermons began treating rumors and “false information” as tools of strategic sabotage. Religious discourse gradually merged with the state’s rhetoric, criminalizing criticism and delegitimizing information unless it originated from official sources. Thus emerged what could be described as the “securitization of knowledge,” where freedom of expression was no longer a right, but a potential contagion.

Multiple analyses indicate that this theory — “Fourth Generation Warfare” — has been used as a comprehensive framework to delegitimize all forms of dissent and to justify surveillance, censorship, and prosecution. A journalist reporting on a security violation, or an activist calling for a peaceful protest, is portrayed in official narratives as part of a “network” conspiring against the state, or as tools of underground terrorist organizations. No longer does it depend on ideological affiliation or clear political activity — it’s about how any action is interpreted. And under this expansive security discourse, no interpretation is innocent.

By conflating political opposition with treason, the boundaries of the public sphere were redrawn in a way that made public criticism — or even satire — a criminal act. By 2018, prisons were filled with individuals with no known ties to Islamists: journalists, actresses, influencers, and even icons of the 2011 revolution. Their charges ranged from “spreading false news” to “joining a terrorist group” — elastic accusations that allowed the state to fit everyone under a single legal framework.

One prominent example illustrating the scope of this discourse is Case №441 of 2018, which involved journalists and intellectuals with no links to the Muslim Brotherhood — many of whom had actively opposed the group. Still, they were labeled as the Brotherhood’s “media wing” merely for discussing topics that displeased the state. Here, the goal was not just to silence voices, but to stain them, stripping them of any political or moral legitimacy.

This security mindset was not confined to the domestic sphere — it was embedded in an expanded regional narrative as well. Local opponents were often portrayed as extensions of foreign powers, whether Qatar, Turkey, or Western organizations. In this sense, the logic of “national siege” was revived, long used by the regime as a tool for rallying the public in moments of crisis. When Egypt joined the blockade against Qatar in 2017, it was framed as a defensive step against a threat to the nation. Even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s criticisms of Sisi’s coup were not treated as diplomatic disagreements, but as further proof of a regional network conspiring to bring down the Egyptian state from within.

Western human rights and media organizations were not spared from this narrative either. Groups like Human Rights Watch and the BBC were accused of spreading disinformation as part of a “conspiracy” to destabilize the country. The infamous video Spider Webs, produced by the Ministry of Interior, embodied this security fantasy: ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Western human rights organizations were all woven together into a single network, carefully illustrated to deliver a simple and direct message — Egypt is under siege.

Under this vision, the very definition of citizenship was reshaped. To be a “good citizen” now meant embracing the official narrative, fearing the “other,” avoiding criticism, and rallying around “the leadership,” the military, and the flag. Any deviation from this formula was automatically classified as treason. Thus, political disagreement was no longer treated as a difference of opinion or perspective, but as an existential threat requiring exclusion — and possibly imprisonment.

The Media and Elite Complicity

The formation of the new security discourse after 2013 was not a random process or a spontaneous reflection of political unrest — it was a deliberate project led from the top by the state, expanded and entrenched with the participation of various state institutions and segments of influential social elites. The media — both state-run and private — was one of the main pillars of this structure, not merely as a messenger, but as an engine for generating and reproducing political meaning.

In the months following the coup, media channels and platforms that opposed military intervention or dared to offer an alternative narrative were swiftly shut down. By September 2013, all Brotherhood-affiliated channels had been closed, as well as the Cairo office of Al Jazeera, which the authorities viewed as the media arm of a regional adversary. From that point onward, the state’s influence over the media expanded systematically, eventually reaching near-total control.

Between 2015 and 2017, companies linked to sovereign entities acquired stakes in major media outlets, effectively placing the entire media sector under security administration. The goal was not merely to suppress criticism, but to produce a unified discourse that reinforced the state’s narrative. In newsrooms, it became implicitly understood what topics were acceptable and what were off-limits. There was little need for direct censorship — self-censorship had become internalized among journalists, as criticism of the military or the president was now professionally inconceivable.

In exchange for this suppression, daily doses of glorification and scripted rhetoric were permitted: praising military operations, vilifying the opposition, and portraying mega-projects as national salvation epics. Talk show hosts turned into unofficial state spokespeople, regurgitating the language of the “war on terror” and the fight against “traitors and agents” — a vague label that encompassed anyone expressing dissent, from Islamists to liberals.

Whenever armed attacks occurred, media coverage would shift into full mobilization mode, recycling the same imagery and phrases: dramatic music, flag-waving scenes, battlefield reports, and commentary portraying the state as engaged in a decisive battle. Conversely, when it came to civilian casualties or documented reports of security violations, coverage was either entirely suppressed or filtered through the official narrative. In this context, media control was not just a tool of political support — it became part of the architecture of the security state itself.

The production of this discourse was not limited to the media. The military establishment — now the most dominant institution in the state — played a key role in shaping it from within. Sisi, as a former general, brought the military’s logic into the political sphere, surrounding himself with fellow officers across the ranks of power. The Interior Ministry and General Intelligence — longstanding internal power centers — participated in managing media campaigns, each promoting narratives that painted the country as under constant threat, requiring perpetual vigilance. Public occasions — from soldier funerals to national celebrations — were transformed into political spectacles highlighting “ongoing sacrifice” and reinforcing the legitimacy of force.

In parallel, the military institution’s political and economic privileges were restored and openly celebrated as a mark of the “superiority of the national model.” There was no longer any hesitation in appointing former officers as governors, ministers, or heads of public companies. They were presented as the ideal citizens: competent, loyal, and capable administrators in times of uncertainty. This gradual blending of the military and civilian spheres helped reshape political consciousness, making military values — discipline, hierarchy, decisiveness — seem like the natural model for good governance.

Other elite segments of society were also involved in this project to varying degrees. The Coptic Orthodox Church, for instance, explicitly expressed support for Sisi from the moment the roadmap was announced. Pope Tawadros II appeared alongside him in a scene meant to send a clear message: the new regime was a more secure guarantee for minorities than any Islamist alternative. This message was directed not only inward, but also to the international community, within a narrative positioning Sisi as the “guardian statesman” in contrast to “ideological chaos.”

Al-Azhar, for its part, did not oppose the crackdown on Islamists, despite expectations of institutional concern. Instead, it adopted a cautious stance, participating in awareness campaigns against “intellectual extremism,” thereby affirming its position as a religious institution aligned with the broader conception of national security — even if some of its figures occasionally expressed mild criticisms of performance.

Business elites who had lost influence under Morsi’s presidency also found in the new regime an opportunity to reclaim their positions. They helped finance pro-government media, supported endorsement campaigns, and in return received contracts for state-led projects. Some went further, helping to build a symbolic image of Sisi through products that embodied the idea of the “indispensable leader”: chocolates with his face, posters filling the streets, and newspaper features depicting him as a mythical hero — his armor forged of steel, his feathers made of reassurance, his eyes ever-watchful.

This personal glorification, reminiscent of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s symbolism in the 1950s, was not merely sentimental — it was an organic extension of the security narrative. Within this discourse, the homeland could not be defended without the leader — not as a civil servant, but as an existential symbol of survival and stability.

Power, Identity, and Consequences

By the end of Sisi’s first term in 2018, Egypt’s political landscape had been radically reshaped according to security narratives that were not merely rhetorical covers, but had become the underlying infrastructure governing the relationship between the state and society. This experience offers a clear application of the theory of “securitization” — the use of a perceived existential threat to justify permanent exceptionalism in governance and to expand executive power without accountability. In Egypt’s case, securitization was not limited to terrorism in Sinai but extended to encompass all forms of public action that should be normal in any pluralistic system: from protests to civil society organizations, from press freedom to party participation. All were absorbed into a web of “compound threats,” enabling the regime to enact measures that would be difficult to pass under ordinary political conditions.

The result was a deepening of authoritarianism — but this time, without needing to borrow from the past. Unlike Mubarak, who controlled the public sphere with a degree of pragmatism, allowing for limited criticism as long as it didn’t challenge the rules of the game, the dominant discourse under Sisi acknowledged no nuance within the opposition. The logic of power became preemptive: any space not already closed could be exploited by “the enemy,” and thus it was better to shut it down in advance.

This was reflected in the real structure of politics in Egypt. From 2014 onward, the country entered a phase that could be described as the gradual disappearance of serious opposition. Parties that identified as liberal or leftist and had supported the ousting of the Brotherhood later found themselves facing an authority that didn’t even allow symbolic representation of dissenting views. Youth movements that had been at the heart of the January 25 revolution — like April 6 — were later classified as terrorist groups, with their leaders either imprisoned or forced into exile. Streets that once echoed with cries of defiance were forcibly silenced: protests were no longer possible without prosecution, nor even public gatherings, as laws now equated unauthorized assembly with assaulting the state.

The media landscape, once relatively flexible, was systematically tightened. Hundreds of news and human rights websites were blocked under the pretext of national security. The digital space was brought under surveillance, with users operating under constant threat of legal action. Censorship no longer targeted institutions alone — it extended to individuals, who were now expected to self-monitor at all times, within a public discourse that equated dissent with betrayal and criticism with siding with “the other side.”

As the official narrative built a wall of suspicion around anyone who dissented, the relationship between the civilian and the military was restructured in a way that left no room for ambiguity. The military was no longer just a sovereign institution — it had become the core of governance, even above it. In 2019, constitutional amendments were passed through a token referendum, formally declaring the armed forces as the “protector of the constitution and democracy” — a vague formula that granted the military the right to intervene politically whenever it deemed the national balance threatened.

These amendments also extended Sisi’s term, allowing him to remain in power until 2030, effectively entrenching personalized rule within a fabricated constitutional framework. The amendments, accompanied by a heavy-handed media campaign, were not just a technical update of the system’s rules — they were a clear demonstration of how the security narrative was leveraged to reshape legitimacy around a singular authority.

Notably, the “stability versus chaos” narrative was not only aimed at the domestic public but also served as a powerful tool in foreign relations. The regime, to varying degrees of success, convinced a significant portion of Egyptians — exhausted by the post-revolution years — that the alternative to the current state was state collapse. Repeated references to Syria, Libya, and Yemen were invoked in every speech — not just as warnings, but as justifications for the continuation of the status quo, presenting the current leadership as the only alternative to the abyss.

However, this totalizing security logic is not without cost and is rife with structural contradictions. Treating all opposition as an existential threat produces, over time, political and moral stagnation. In Sinai, for example, years of opaque military operations have undermined relations with local communities and created a more fragile context than before. Instead of building trust, a purely security-based approach was implemented — repressive without meaningful developmental accompaniment. Analysts — and even some voices within the establishment — have acknowledged that this policy has failed to win hearts and minds, despite occasional tactical successes.

The same problem is replicated in the regime’s handling of Islamists. Excluding the entire Islamic spectrum, including moderates, has effectively eliminated all non-violent political outlets for expression. This vacuum leaves only two options: extremism or silence — neither of which promises long-term stability. A national identity rebuilt on exclusionary foundations, which labels large segments of the population as potential enemies, remains inherently fragile. No society can remain mobilized against itself indefinitely.

To this day, the state has not succeeded in fully eliminating the terrorist threat. Attacks still occur, albeit less frequently, but the real victory the regime has achieved is internal: silencing nearly all public opposition and asserting control over the public sphere through a form of constant pressure on a potential explosion valve.

Internationally, the “war on terror” narrative has given the regime considerable room to maneuver. Despite repeated human rights criticisms, security alliances and economic deals have continued — and even strengthened. The United States under Trump offered clear support, going so far as to directly praise Sisi. European countries such as France and Germany adopted a “stability first” approach, signing massive arms deals and justifying them by Egypt’s role in controlling migration and combating extremism in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The regime also leveraged its diplomatic tools to present itself as an indispensable mediator in complex regional issues — from intra-Palestinian reconciliation to managing ceasefires in Gaza. In international forums, Egypt’s rhetoric has been dual: a declared commitment to fighting terrorism on one hand, and a theoretical affirmation of respect for human rights on the other — even as everyday practices contradict that claim.

Thus, Egypt has come to be portrayed abroad as a necessary actor in the regional stability equation — even if the domestic cost is high. While human rights observers highlight glaring contradictions between rhetoric and reality, several Western capitals view the Egyptian regime as an indispensable partner. As one commentator put it: “Yes, Egypt is fighting terrorism — but its definition of terrorism includes peaceful opponents, journalists, and human rights defenders — all folded into a security map that leaves no room for revision.”

The Price of Security

In just a single decade, Egypt has completed a near-full cycle in its security narratives — but it hasn’t returned to its starting point. Instead, it has slid into what might be described as a more extreme and tightly controlled version. Before 2011, Mubarak’s regime built its authority on a narrative of silent fear: that his fall would inevitably lead to state collapse or the rise of a totalitarian religious project. Egyptians at the time lived under an emergency law, adapting to restrictions in the name of stability, while a courageous few managed to shake this logic and briefly open a window onto another horizon.

But that window — widened momentarily between 2011 and 2013 — was violently shut after the coup, not merely by a return of the old security discourse, but through a new narrative that expanded and reproduced itself as a comprehensive system — one that closes the political imagination to the vocabulary of security alone.

Since then, the concept of an “existential threat” has become the central theme in every speech, decision, and dialogue — seeping into classrooms, news broadcasts, religious sermons, and legal statements. The state no longer presents itself as an administrator of public affairs, but as a besieged entity in constant need of full mobilization. Within this framework, the shooting of protesters or mass death sentences are not viewed as legal exceptions, but as national necessities to prevent collapse. In this way, questions of proportionality and justice have been replaced by the myth of security, which redefines politics entirely.

Within this fantasy, media institutions have become megaphones repeating that those killed or imprisoned were “enemies of the people,” while many citizens have withdrawn into a stance of cautious endorsement or fatigued acceptance — preferring this “new normal” over a chaos no one wants to relive. But behind this solid façade, cracks have begun to appear — quietly.

The truth is, no matter how tightly constructed, a fear-based narrative cannot on its own address the structural challenges that grow more acute year after year. Youth unemployment, rapid inflation, an economy reeling from the pandemic, and unresolved regional unrest — these are crises that can’t be contained by mobilizing rhetoric or repressive measures. When a blogger or a doctor is imprisoned merely for pointing to a living crisis or health system failure, the state may silence the voice — but it cannot erase the cause.

Here, the internal contradiction of the security approach becomes clear: the wider its scope, the less effective it becomes. To imprison tens of thousands, ban protests, and drain the public sphere of any plurality is to rule over a suffocating void, not a vibrant society. Modern history offers countless examples of how fragile this mode of governance is. Surface cohesion may conceal an invisible boil — but it continues to build pressure.

As for the national identity currently being shaped — hyper-nationalistic, militarized in its structure, intolerant of diversity and allergic to debate — it is not just narrow-minded but dangerous in its capacity to perpetuate exclusion and tension. A society like Egypt’s — diverse in composition, youthful in demographics, and rich in traditions and history — cannot be ruled by a fortress mentality. Even fortresses fall when they lock their gates against their own people.

As I write these words, the paradox at the heart of this narrative remains: security, as it is portrayed, becomes a source of threat itself when used to suppress plurality, silence dissent, and disable expression. The regime has succeeded in containing the public sphere, calming the tremors that once roared from the squares of Cairo and Alexandria — but it did so by turning all difference into treason, all opposition into danger, and every citizen into a suspect. That may delay an explosion — but it won’t prevent it.

What has happened since 2014 is not mere security enforcement — it is a re-engineering of politics itself: a restructuring of legitimacy, a redefinition of nationalism, and a reshaping of citizenship. But this engineering does not produce real cohesion — because it allows for no plurality, acknowledges no compromise, and builds on no mutual recognition between state and society. What it produces is obedience, not belonging; submission, not loyalty; silence, not consensus.

This fantasy has also shaped Egypt’s international positioning. Traditional allies, who long spoke of democracy and human rights, have reverted to so-called “political realism.” Open U.S. support under Trump, hesitant European positions, and continued arms deals all signaled a redefinition of security in the international discourse: security as stability — not justice; as the prevention of chaos — not as empowerment of society.

The regime was quick to integrate itself into this framework. From mediation in Gaza, to migration control, to counterterrorism speeches at international forums, Egypt rebranded itself as an indispensable regional pillar — even if the domestic cost was steep. While reports of abuses pile up and human rights condemnations continue, the decisive metric in global decision-making circles remains Egypt’s ability to control its region — not represent its people.

Thus, the security narrative has successfully redefined politics — not as a space for debate and accountability, but as a permanent battle against a lurking threat. Over time, the state has begun to convince itself — and perhaps part of its population — that whoever controls the narrative controls the state.

But the question remains: Can this mode of governance last forever? Security politicization, by its very nature, exhausts its tools over time. Fear does not build a project. Surveillance does not create belonging. Repression does not prevent crises — it compounds them. Egypt may appear stable on the surface today, but it lives beneath a charged silence, under which everything unresolved continues to simmer.

The security narrative, forcefully resurrected after 2013, succeeded in suppressing aspirations that were once legitimate — but it did not eliminate them. The real challenge now is not in summoning the past, but in reconstructing the present — in other words, in rewriting the narrative. When Egyptians are able to tell their future story in the language of freedom and accountability, not fear — then a new cycle can begin. One that doesn’t return to square one, but moves beyond it.